MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - After leading the Republican takeover of the Alabama Legislature in 2010, House Speaker Mike Hubbard described the achievement in his book “Storming the Statehouse.” Four years later, he finds himself in a different kind of political storm fueled by the guilty plea of a Republican colleague.
State Rep. Greg Wren of Montgomery resigned his office Tuesday and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor ethics charge involving misuse of his public office. His plea agreement with the state attorney general’s office names the speaker of the House three times.
It says Hubbard endorsed putting language into the state budget last year that would have directed state Medicaid business to a Bessemer company that had hired Hubbard’s media company in Auburn.
Hubbard disputes the plea agreement.
“The situation that happened this week has nothing to do with me,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Friday.
Hubbard said accusations are being tossed around to hurt him in this year’s election and to knock him out as a possible candidate for governor in 2018.
“Ultimately it is political. You look at the position I have and it’s pretty easy to see why I’ve become the target,” he said.
Hubbard, 52, was elected to the Alabama Legislature in 1998 when Republicans were a political minority in Montgomery. He worked his way up to House minority leader and chairman of the Alabama Republican Party in 2010. Then he recruited candidates and raised millions in campaign funds to help his party win control of the Legislature from Democrats who had held power in Montgomery for 136 years. Republican House members thanked him by electing him speaker.
Hubbard and his GOP majority rewrote state laws on lobbying, government ethics and education. Along the way, he made enemies among Montgomery political organizations and within his own party.
Some have criticized him for using his media company and printing company in Auburn to do campaign work for Republican candidates, but Hubbard and the candidates always defend the work as being faster and cheaper than the competition.
In recent days, a foundation started by former state Sen. John Rice of Opelika has been running TV ads that show Hubbard’s photo and talk about needing to end corruption in Montgomery.
Court records show that in August 2013 the state attorney general’s office, led by Republican Luther Strange, convened a special grand jury in Hubbard’s home county of Lee to investigate public corruption. Hubbard won’t say if he has been contacted, but he said, “I’ve never failed to cooperate with law enforcement and will continue.”
The case against Wren was the first to come out of the attorney general’s ongoing investigation.
Wren signed a plea agreement saying he sought legislative support in the 2013 session for putting language in the state General Fund budget that had been provided to him by American Pharmacy Cooperative Inc. of Bessemer. The language would provide for the state Medicaid program to hire a company to manage pharmacy benefits for the more than 900,000 participants.
The language didn’t mention the company by name, but it was written so only the Bessemer company could meet the requirements for getting the exclusive contract, Wren’s plea agreement says.
The plea agreement says Hubbard endorsed the language and directed his staff to add it to the budget. Wren’s plea deal says he was unaware that the speaker’s company, the Auburn Network, was doing work for the Bessemer company. After helping make sure the language had support in the House, Wren got hired by RxAlly to be a consultant and was paid $24,000. RxAlly is partially owned by the Bessemer company.
The language about hiring a company to manage pharmacy benefits eventually got taken out of the budget at the urging of State Health Officer Don Williamson, who oversees the Medicaid Agency.
Hubbard said American Pharmacy Cooperative approached him in 2012 about hiring his Auburn Network to do work with members of its pharmacy buying cooperative who are in other Southern states, but it did not involve any work in Alabama. A contract was signed in June 2012.
He said the Bessemer company never contacted him about the pharmacy benefit manager language being put in the budget or being kept in the budget.
“Saying I directed that to be done, that didn’t happen,” the speaker said.
He backed up his comments with a copy of an email he sent the Legislature’s budget committee chairmen during the 2013 session. His email included a copy of an email he received from Wal-Mart lobbyist Cindi Marsiglio asking that the pharmacy benefit manager language either be taken out of the budget or be modified.
Hubbard’s email said, “I personally have no problem with Cindi’s suggestion … if that will not be punitive toward local pharmacy owner/operators and will also open up avenues for potential savings to Medicaid.”
His email suggested that Wren be included in any talks about deleting or changing the language “since Rep. Wren developed and offered the language.”
In the interview, Hubbard said that as soon as he found out the language affected his client, he contacted the staff of the State Ethics Commission to discuss his work for the Bessemer company. He said he was told he had nothing to worry about since he wasn’t doing any work for the company in Alabama.
The executive director of the Ethics Commission, Jim Sumner, said he could not comment.
Hubbard, whose company no longer works for American Pharmacy Cooperative, said his contract didn’t provide any payment for anything in Alabama.
“The main thing to understand is I didn’t benefit one way or the other whether the language was in there or not,” he said.
He also noted that Robert Stuart, an investigator with the attorney general’s office, submitted an affidavit with Wren’s plea agreement that made no mention of the speaker.
In the session that ended Thursday night, the Legislature decided not to make an appropriation in the state General Fund budget to the state attorney general’s office for the next fiscal year.
Instead, the attorney general is supposed to operate off money generated from lawsuit settlements. The office has traditionally received about $7 million a year from the budget.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with that,” Hubbard said.
He said Gov. Robert Bentley recommended no funding when he sent a proposed budget to the Legislature in January. “I never had a conversation with the governor. I never had a conversation with any of the governor’s staff,” he said.
Hubbard said he waited until after the legislative session ended to speak out about the legal situation because he didn’t want to do anything to interfere with the session.
Now, with both primary and general election opposition ahead of him, he said he plans to say plenty.
“I’m going on the offense,” he said.
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