Casino-operating Poarch Creek Indians gave money to Republican group

MONTGOMERY, Al.
The casino-operating Poarch Band of Creek Indians gave heavily to a national Republican group that in turn contributed to Alabama campaigns in 2010.
Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard, who was then chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, said he was assured that none of the gambling money came into Alabama races. But the current GOP chairman said he will shun the group's money in the future because of its ties to gambling.
The Poarch Creeks, based near Atmore, gave the Alexandria, Va.-based Republican State Leadership Committee $350,000 before the November 2010 election and another $200,000 in January of this year.
The RSLC pumped more than $1 million to Alabama campaigns in 2010, largely to the Alabama Republican Party and a political action committee aimed at helping Republicans take over the Alabama Legislature. It also gave to a group that opposed legislation aimed at allowing electronic bingo machines at non-Indian casinos.
Hubbard, who was spearheading GOP efforts to win a majority in the Alabama Legislature, said he asked for assurances that the money the RSLC gave Alabama Republicans hadn't come from gambling interests.
"We were assured that none of our contributions came from gambling sources," Hubbard said.
Hubbard said an official with the RSLC disclosed to him that the group accepted gambling money as an organization.
"I told him we weren't interested in it," Hubbard said.
Hubbard said he has no control of where the RSLC got its money.
"But at the end of the day, we don't know exactly where all of their money comes from. All we know is that it came from sources that are supportive of Republican efforts to defeat the Democrats," Hubbard said.
The Republican State Leadership Committee, according to its website, is solely focused on state races.
The group was formed in 2002 to help elect Republicans at the state level other than governor, including secretaries of state, attorneys general, lieutenant governors and legislators. It is a political organization governed by the rules in section 527 of the code of the Internal Revenue Service.
In the 2010 cycle, the RSLC raised and spent more than $29 million, according to an analysis of its financial records by the Center for Responsive Politics. In that cycle, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians was the 10th largest donor to the RSLC, at $350,000. The single largest contributor was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, at almost $4 million.
The Poarch Creeks gave the RSLC $250,000 on Oct. 8, 2010 and $100,000 on July 15, 2010.
Adam Temple, a spokesman for the RSLC, said the Poarch Creek money did not go to any campaigns in Alabama.
"The Poarch Creek Indians as a donor, their contributions went into our administrative account which helps pay for things like overhead and salaries," Temple said.
Temple said donors are not allowed to earmark where their donations are used or sent. "We make all those decisions," he said.
Asked about the tribe's intentions when it donates to the RSLC, a spokesman said the tribe supports both parties.
"The tribe is nonpartisan and we support both Republicans and Democrats alike. Our issues cross party lines," said Robert McGhee, government relations adviser for the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
However, House Minority Leader Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, said it's not realistic to think the Poarch money to the RSLC wasn't given to impact Alabama races.
"The RSLC is nothing more than a washing machine for the Alabama Republican Party to hide millions of dollars in contributions to state candidates," Ford said.
"The Poarch Creek Indians did not give the RSLC money for campaigns in other states. The RSLC simply took the Poarch Creek money, pretended it went to another state, sent the money back to Alabama Republican campaigns and then concealed the true source of the money," Ford said.
The Poarch operate casinos in Atmore, Wetumpka and Montgomery.

No gambling funds accepted, former GOP chairman says

Todd Stacy, a spokesman for Hubbard, said Democrats have "zero credibility to make accusations like that."
"House Republicans are opposed to gambling and won't accept gambling money, be it from Indians or anyone else," Stacy said.
The RSLC's Alabama PAC spent a little more than $1 million in 2010 and listed donors as being national companies such as Facebook, Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart. Temple said the Alabama PAC's funds are a portion of the most recent corporate contributions to the RSLC.
The state PAC gave $850,000 to the Alabama Republican Party in 2010, according to campaign finance records with the Alabama Secretary of State. The donations came in five large checks in March, July, September and October 2010.
The RSLC state PAC also gave $373,00 to the 136 years PAC, a PAC aimed at ending Demo­crats' control of the Legislature, and $50,000 to Hubbard's Network PAC.
Bill Armistead, who became chairman of the Alabama Republican Party in February, said the party will no longer accept money from the RSLC because of the donations it gets from the Poarch. "I have observed some of the monies at the RSLC comes from the Poarch Indians, so we have not accepted money from the RSLC since I became chairman. If there is any, it is an oversight," Armistead said Friday. "I would be very cautious of any money coming from them."
The state's recent PAC-to-PAC transfer ban will largely prohibit such donations, anyway, Armistead said, but he also doesn't want the state GOP to be used in a competition between rival gambling interests.
"I don't want to go there," Armistead said. "They need to compete head-on with one another and not through the Alabama Republican Party. I will not allow the party to be used as a tool by one gambling group to fight another gambling group."
Armistead said he would have the same objections about money from organizations that support abortion rights. He said he cannot control whether individual Republican candidates in the state accept money from the RSLC.
"There are too many candidates to try to police what they're doing," Armistead said. "But we can police those organizations with an agenda that is contrary to the Alabama Republican Party."
So far in the 2012 cycle, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians has given $200,000 to the RSLC, records show. The RSLC has raised $6 million so far this year.
The RSLC in March gave $50,000 to the Alabama House Republican Caucus, which is not registered as a PAC and therefore the contribution was not a violation of the PAC-to-PAC transfer ban.
House Majority Leader Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, said he was not concerned that the RSLC accepted money from a pro-gambling group in Alabama.
"We would not want to take gambling money from a known gambling source," Hammon said when asked about the Poarch contributions to the RSLC. "But Republicans in Washington probably take money from a lot of different sources."
Hammon said he hadn't looked at the RSLC's entire list of contributors.
"There are probably others we don't want," he said. "But it's also probably a small amount of what they take in."
He said the money does not influence the caucus members on policy, and the caucus does not make contributions to candidates.
"It is strictly to operate our caucus," he said.
"When we start raising funds in the next cycle, we're probably going to spend more time making sure we do not have money from sources that would be embarrassing to our constituents. But for these purposes, I don't consider it to be a problem," Hammon said.
The RSLC also gave money to the Senate Republican Caucus PAC and former Gov. Bob Riley's Alabama 2014 PAC, but the monies were returned because the contributions violated the new ban on PAC-to-PAC transfers.