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Exclusive: Tracking gambling money - Were Poarch Creek funds used to battle electronic bingo bill?

The same day that the Poarch Band of Creek Indians gave a $100,000 check to a national Republican organization, that organization made a $100,000 donation to a group working with former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley to fight gambling in the state, according to documents obtained by the Montgomery Advertiser.

The Republican State Leadership Committee shared the news of the contribution to Citizens for a Better Alabama with a letter addressed to Riley?s son, Rob, an adviser to his father who helped manage Gov. Riley?s two runs for that office. The Advertiser obtained a copy of the letter, which is dated the same day as the contribution from the Poarch Creek Indians to the RSLC.

A check log from the Republican State Leadership Committee shows the group received a $100,000 check from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians on June 10, 2010. That same day, the RSLC made a $100,000 contribution to Citizens for a Better Alabama, according to state campaign finance documents filed by the RSLC.

The donation was not reported on the RSLC?s filings with the Internal Revenue Service until August 2010, when it was reported as a donation made July 15, 2010, over a month after RSLC records show the check arrived.

Rob Riley said Thursday that he did not recall the contribution, but said he was helping Citizens for Better Alabama raise money. He said he never directed anyone to send money to the RSLC.

?I have never had any contact with anyone in the Poarch Creek Indians about giving money to anyone at any time. And I certainly didn?t on this occasion,? Rob Riley said.

Rob Riley and the director of Citizens for a Better Alabama said all they knew about the money was that it originated with the RSLC.

Citizens for a Better Alabama lobbied against legislation that would have allowed state voters to decide whether to allow electronic bingo in certain areas of the state. The group is a descendent of Citizens Against Legalized Lottery (CALL), which a 2006 U.S. Senate report found had accepted money given by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians to fight lottery legislation in Alabama, after it was routed through a conservative organization.

Riley, as governor, formed a task force in December 2008 aimed at stopping electronic bingo, which he said was played on slot machines, which are illegal in the state.

The task force succeeded in shutting down several non-Indian casinos in the state through raids or the threat of raids. At the time of the 2010 contributions, his task force was in the midst of its fight against the non-Indian casinos in the state.

The Poarch Band of Creek Indians are the only federally recognized tribe in the state and games on their lands in Atmore, Montgomery and Wetumpka are under federal jurisdiction. Poarch Creek leaders have confirmed that their business increased after the other casinos shut down.

Chris Jankowski, president of the RSLC, said Monday he would not comment on the transactions, saying the individuals who had been involved in the transaction no longer worked with the organization.

The organization, he said, has conducted an internal review of the process.

?It was very thorough, and there were elements that the RSLC leadership was not comfortable with,? he said. ?All corrective procedures and protocols have been adopted.?

The director of Citizens for a Better Alabama on Monday acknowledged receiving the money from the RSLC, but insisted he had received assurances from Republican leadership that the money did not come from the Poarch Creeks.

?We were assured, and we were told at the time by Governor Riley that this money did not come from the Indians,? said Eric Johnston, the director of the group.

Bob Riley could not be reached for comment on this story, but messages were left for him Thursday and Friday at a number that has been used by the Advertiser to reach him since his term ended in January 2011.

Rob Riley said he was not aware that the RSLC received money from gambling interests, including the Poarch Creeks. When asked if that would have affected accepting the contribution, he said the decision about that money would have been made by Johnston.

?From everything I know from the person that ran Citizens for a Better Alabama, they took great efforts to make sure they were not getting money from gambling interests,? Rob Riley said.

Rob Riley said Citizens for a Better Alabama was fighting gambling and was raising money from a variety of sources to do it. He also said ?I have nothing to do with how the Republican State Leadership Committee raises its money.?

Rob Riley said, as he talked to the Advertiser about the situation, that the RSLC is a national organization out of Washington, D.C., that raises money from a variety of sources including some of the nation?s most prominent corporations.

?I do not know if they (RSLC) were getting money from the Poarch Creek Indians and then trying to give that to us,? Rob Riley said. ?It sounds like they are funded by many major organizations and corporations in America. I did not go and look to see who all gave them money.?

Robert McGhee, a member of the Poarch Creek Tribal Council who heads governmental relations for the tribe, wrote in a Thursday email to the Advertiser that they do not typically discuss political donations.

?However the funds that were contributed to the Republican Leadership in 2010 was for support in various political races,? McGhee wrote in the email. ?Of course we can?t mandate where the funds go, but the funds were provided to the leadership for the purpose of assisting in various elections.?

The Poarch Band, at $350,000, was among the 10 largest contributors to the Republican State Leadership Committee during the 2010 cycle, according to forms the RSLC filed with the IRS in 2010 and to opensecrets.org. But they still did not contribute nearly as much as the top donors such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which contributed almost $4 million.

The Republican State Leadership Committee received funding in 2010 from a number of corporate giants including Exxon, Monsanto Company, Office Depot Inc., several beer and liquor companies, and AOL Inc., Google and Facebook.

?If that money came from Indians, we never knew it, and we were hoodwinked like anyone else on that,? Johnston said.

GOV PAC, which then-Gov. Riley chaired, contributed $292,000 to Citizens for a Better Alabama in 2010, according to forms GOV PAC filed with the Alabama secretary of state?s office.

Bob Riley also appeared in anti-gambling ads funded by Citizens for a Better Alabama in 2010.

Rob Riley acknowledged that people have alleged that Indian gambling interests have influenced the fight against gambling in Alabama, but said ?I am telling you I have never spoken with anybody who was ever involved with any Indian gaming organization and asked them to give any money to any group at any time.?

Johnston said the $100,000 received from the RSLC went to support advertising and lobbying activities against the Sweet Home Alabama bill, which would have allowed voters to decide whether or not to allow electronic bingo at certain sites around the state.

His organization?s political action committee did not report receiving the contribution and has not filed a campaign finance report since 2010.

Johnston said the $100,000 from the RSLC went directly to Citizens for a Better Alabama and not the PAC.

RSLC was heavily involved in the state?s 2010 legislative campaign, routing money from entities from Citigroup to the Greater Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce into Alabama?s campaigns. The RSLC accepted $350,000 from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in 2010, according to 2010 forms the Republican State Leadership Committee filed with the IRS. The RSLC contributed $850,000 to the Alabama Republican Party in 2010, according to those forms filed with the IRS.

?From the beginning, I told the RSLC in no uncertain terms that we weren?t interested in accepting any money (from gambling interests), and though gaming interests were among their hundreds of contributors, the RSLC staff assured us none of the money that came to Alabama was gambling-related,? said House Speaker Mike Hubbard, who was chairman of the Alabama Republican Party in 2010.

?We used the money to help elect a Republican legislative supermajority that has clearly indicated it does not support gambling anywhere in Alabama, on tribal lands or otherwise.?

Hubbard said it was his ?understanding that the RSLC raised millions of dollars from across the country in 2010. It spent millions of dollars in dozens of races in various states across the country, as well.?

Bill Armistead, current chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, said he talked to those operating the Republican State Leadership Committee soon after becoming chairman to inform them that he did not want the money from the organization because it received a substantial amount of its funding from gambling money and Republicans in Alabama have a different view on that issue.

?I have been very cautious since becoming chairman about where the money comes from,? Armistead said.

The chairman said he knows the party has taken money from that source in the past, but he knows that the party, its members and he personally disagree with the expansion of gambling in the state.

Armistead said they consider those at the RSLC friends and believe they are good people, ?but I?m being overly cautious on the way we handle money.?

?They?re an outstanding organization. They do a lot of good work,? he said.

Armistead said he was not aware of talking with any other group about not accepting money because it came from gambling interests.

Johnston also served as treasurer of CALL, a group that fought Gov. Don Siegelman?s 1999 lottery campaign. Campaign finance records for the group show it received $300,000 from Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), headed by Grover Norquist, in October of 1999.

About $300,000 was routed through ATR by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians ?because the Tribe wanted to block gambling competition in Alabama,? according to a 2006 Senate report concerning kickbacks lobbyist Jack Abramoff?s received from Indian lobbying money.

Johnston called Norquist a ?deceptive person? and insisted CALL and Citizens for a Better Alabama were separate entities.

CALL, he said, was a political action committee, while Citizens for a Better Alabama was a lobbying organization.

Jim Cooper, who helped found CALL, told the Associated Press in 2000 that he had reorganized the group as Citizens for a Better Alabama in order to fight a move at the time to introduce video poker at racetracks around the state.

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