Marsh, who won re-election in November, was smeared by ads with nasty racial overtones during the fall campaign. The ads pictured the senator with a sombrero and claimed he would “invite illegal immigrants to burst through the border.”
The source of these ads playing to racial hatred was difficult to trace. They were paid for by the Committee to Protect Alabama Jobs, a shadowy group that was largely untraceable and unaccountable. It was a hit-and-run smear job.
Turns out that the Committee to Protect Alabama Jobs committee chairman is Eric Williams, who works at Billy’s Bar and Grill in Birmingham.
The money to buy the ads came from a PAC closely tied to the Alabama Education Association. Joe Cottle, director of governmental relations for the AEA, told BamaFactCheck.com he didn’t recall details of the attack ad. “I’m sorry, but I write a lot of checks, and I don’t remember this one,” he said.
Really? We found a disgusting caricature of a senator darn near unforgettable. Oh, and it was legal under Alabama law that allows a perfect cover for big-money donors who don’t like their dealings widely known.
We hope that Sen. Marsh will remember it, as well.
When the interest groups that favor shade to democracy’s sunlight do their best to work around new campaign-finance laws — and you can bet that they will — that will be the time for Marsh to remind Montgomery what political operatives can do when the law favors secrecy.
