Riley vetoes measure to pay law firm that sued Paragon Source
By Bob Lowry, The Huntsville Times
May 03, 2010, 5:30PM
MONTGOMERY — Gov. Bob Riley has vetoed a resolution that directed the state to pay a law firm for work it did for the Legislature to block the controversial $13 million no-bid Paragon Source Computer contract.
Riley waited until after the Legislature had adjourned to refuse to sign the resolution, thus killing it via what is known as a “pocket veto,” Jeff Emerson, his chief spokesman said Monday.
The House and Senate adopted joint resolutions ordering the state Comptrollers Office to reimburse the law firm of Thomas, Means, Gillis & Seay $73,000 for work it did on a lawsuit filed by the joint Legislative Contract Review Committee against Riley, state Finance Director Bill Newton and Virginia-based Paragon Source.
“This is mean-spirited, vindictive and lowdown,” Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, chairman of the committee, said of Riley. “He didn’t even have the courage to send it (resolution) back for us to vote (on a veto).”
State Comptroller Thomas White told House Clerk Greg Pappas in February that the Contract Review Committee lacked the authority to hire the law firm. White said the state couldn’t pay the bill submitted by the law firm, but the Legislature said otherwise.
The Legislature’s Contract Review Committee hired the firm to represent it in a lawsuit seeking to stop the no-bid contract signed by Riley with Paragon Source. The lawsuit was dismissed by a Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tom King, who ruled committee members lacked standing to file it.
Emerson said the governor “is not going to waste taxpayer money paying for a lawsuit the Democrats didn’t even have the authority to file in the first place.”
“Their lawsuit was an enormous waste of time and money,” he said. “This dispute has nothing to do with the law firm.”
Holmes has accused the Riley administration of racial discrimination since the Montgomery law firm is composed primarily of black attorneys.
But Emerson said, “This same firm has been paid $8.3 million in legal fees by the state since Gov. Riley took office. That just shows the allegations that Alvin Holmes has about race are absolutely untrue, and Mr. Holmes knows that.”
Meanwhile, Holmes said the Contract Review Committee, which meets Thursday, will block Riley’s request for a contract for an additional $600,000 for the Birmingham law firm of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings for the governor’s gambling task force.
That request came up at an April meeting of the committee, but it was shelved by Holmes because no one from the governor’s office was there to defend it.
Holmes said his position is that since Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert Vance Jr. ruled in March that Attorney General Troy King has authority over the task force’s legal actions, the $600,000 contract should not be approved.
“The gambling task force is not under his (Riley’s) jurisdiction until that (Vance’s ruling) is reversed by an appellate court,” said Holmes.
King has moved to take control of the gambling issue, but the governor’s office has appealed.