PRESENTED BY the Stop The HIT Coalition

Good morning! Here’s your Daily News for Tuesday, November 20.

1. Matt Hart out at AG’s office.

• Matt Hart is out at the Attorney General’s office.
• He was lead prosecutor in the Special Prosecutions Division, where he oversaw most public corruption cases for the last seven years.
• Officially, Attorney General Steve Marshall accepted his resignation Monday and their office and Hart had no more to say about it.
• Unofficially, Hart most likely resigned the same way Jeff Sessions did: he was asked to.
• There’s one key difference, though: this isn’t even close to as big of a deal as Sessions, despite what many in the media want us to think.
• Hart built an impressive record of public corruption convictions during stints as a state and federal prosecutor. Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford, two-year college Chancellor Roy Johnson, and House Speaker Mike Hubbard were among the most high-profile.
• But Hart also built a reputation for cutting ethical corners himself, and his office became a leaky cauldron of information to selected media for stories that repeatedly undermined his boss. That’ll get you asked to leave.
• That same selected media, who lionized Hart as the end-all and be-all of truth and justice, now bemoan his departure saying corruption will now run rampant with him gone.
• I think that’s unfair to the career investigators and prosecutors in the AG’s office.
• I’m told Clark Morris, the current #2 at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montgomery, will be replacing Hart. YellowHammer reports the same.
• Sources describe her as a “no drama” “smart career prosecutor.”
• A little less celebrity might be just what that office needs. We’ll see.

 

2. Jones hears some negative, some positive feedback on tariffs.

• Auto manufacturers, farmers and the head of Alabama’s Port Authority told Sen. Doug Jones Monday that trade tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration are harming their industries, while steel manufacturers told him the tariffs were leveling the playing field.
• Jones organized a roundtable discussion in Mobile with stakeholders including auto manufacturers, farmers, steel producers, and the Alabama Port Authority to discuss how recently-implemented tariffs are impacting different businesses in Alabama.
• Some soybean farmers told him China was their biggest customer and that the trade war has exports down big time.
• Auto manufacturers aren’t too keen on being called a national security threat just because they are trying to bring down costs and save jobs.
• At the same time, steel manufacturers are pleased as punch that the president is standing up for their industry.
• ADN’s Caroline Beck has the full story on what Jones heard from industry leaders during his visit to Mobile. Read her story HERE.

 

A Message from the Stop The HIT Coalition

• Sen. Doug Jones: Don’t let Alabama small businesses and middle-class families get sacked by the 2020 Health Insurance Tax.
• Absent immediate action, the 2020 Health Insurance Tax will begin penalizing hardworking Alabamians on January 1, 2020 by driving up their cost of care as much as $450.
• Sen. Jones can help score lower premiums for Alabama’s 765,000 small business employees by supporting bipartisan legislation (S. 3063) to block the HIT in 2020.
• Ask Sen. Jones to help take S. 3063 to the end zone and support legislation to stop the 2020 Health Insurance Tax.

 

3. Top priority: revenue for infrastructure.

• We are more than three months away from the start of the legislative session.
• But, already Alabama’s top leaders are singing off the same sheet of music about their top priority for the session: infrastructure funding.
• AL.com’s Mike Cason interviewed Gov. Kay Ivey, Senate Pro-Tem Del Marsh and House Speaker Mac McCutcheon. Each said raising the gas tax for the first time in 26 years would have to be done in order to pay for critical road and bridge improvements.
• The specific number or formula isn’t nailed down – and we all know the devil is in the details. That’s something we’ll get into more going forward.
• But, it’s pretty significant that the ones you need to move legislation and the one you need to sign it are all on the same page.
• Give Mike’s story a read HERE.

 

4. The Bridges of Baldwin County.

• Yesterday we reported the story about all the feedback Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and state officials are getting about the proposed bridge projects across the canal.
• Today Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon offers his perspective in a Op-Ed to Alabama Daily News.
• Kennon says their island “is like having the Iron Bowl every day” in terms of traffic.
• New ways to get on and off the island are a must, he says.
• Here’s an excerpt:

• Read Mayor Kennon’s full column HERE.

 

5. News Briefs.

• A gunman opened fire Monday at a Chicago hospital, killing a police officer and two hospital employees in an attack that began with a domestic dispute and exploded into a firefight with law enforcement inside the medical center. The shooter is also dead.
• It was not clear if the attacker took his own life or was killed by police at Mercy Hospital on the city’s South Side, the police chief said.
• The chain of events that led to the shooting began with an argument in the hospital parking lot involving the gunman and a woman with whom he was in relationship, police said.
• When a friend of the woman’s tried to intervene, “the offender lifted up his shirt and displayed a handgun,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said.
• Read more HERE.

• The Trump administration’s top environmental official for the Southeast resigned after being indicted on state ethics charges, Environmental Protection Agency employees were told Monday.
• Environmental Protection Agency Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson told agency employees that Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler accepted Trey Glenn’s resignation on Sunday. Glenn had served as the regional administrator for the Region 4 EPA office that oversees eight Southeastern states.
• Read more HERE.

• The Trump administration on Monday abruptly dropped its effort to bar CNN reporter Jim Acosta from the White House, but warned he could have his credentials pulled again if he doesn’t follow guidelines governing journalists’ behavior.
• The White House said reporters would be permitted one question each if called upon at news conferences and allowed follow-ups only at the discretion of the president.
• Read more HERE.

• It’s the thorny first question confronting newly elected House Democrats: Will you vote for Nancy Pelosi?
• Even before they’ve taken office, the freshmen swept in by the midterm elections are caught at the center of an escalating power struggle over Pelosi’s future.
• The clash intensified Monday as Pelosi’s critics unveiled a letter signed by 16 Democrats, including five freshmen, vowing to oppose her.
• If that holds, it could be enough to derail her bid. If not, she could reclaim the gavel she once held.
• Read more HERE.

• Four Gulf states are getting an additional $280 million in restoration grants from the BP oil spill of 2010.
• Louisiana is getting $161.4 million to restore two barrier islands and a headland in the Terrebonne Basin.
• Nearly $49 million will go to eight Alabama projects, including $22.5 million to create and restore artificial reefs.
• Read more HERE.

Headlines.

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