This is an opinion column.

I don't know why we have an Alabama Ethics Commission.

That's not quite right. I mean, I know why we should have an Ethics Commission.

But that thing that meets a few times a year in Montgomery -- it's not doing what it's supposed to. It's called an Ethics Commission, but really it's a security blanket.

It's a counterfeit.

Take, for example, the complaint Troy King filed before the Republican primary.

Here's where I'll disclose that I think turning the Alabama Attorney General's office over to Troy King would be as good as giving it to the mafia. The man's campaign was financed by gambling interests and he lied repeatedly about his ties to gambling interests when he ran for office. I'm no fan. I'm glad he lost.

All that aside, he was right about one thing. Attorney General Steve Marshall has financed much of his campaign with donations from an out-of-state political action committee called the Republican Attorneys General Association.

And RAGA, as it's usually called, takes money from other political action committees.

Further, RAGA isn't registered in Alabama as a PAC.

Why do all these things matter?

Because they fly in the face of a 2010 Alabama law that was meant to ban PAC-to-PAC contributions -- a political money laundering scheme that prevents folks like you and me from figuring out who's paying for our politicians.

That law defines a PAC as "Any committee, club, association, political party, or other group of one or more persons, whether in-state or out-of-state, which receives or anticipates receiving contributions and makes or anticipates making expenditures to or on behalf of any Alabama state or local elected official, proposition, candidate, principal campaign committee or other political action committee."

Those italics are mine because that's the important part. Under Alabama law, if a PAC intends to influence Alabama politics, it has to register with the Alabama Secretary of State, no matter if it's in the state or somewhere else.

Elsewhere, the law says PACs cannot accept donations from or give donations to other PACs. That's an illegal transfer. The law also says that, if a candidate takes tainted money, they have to give it back.

When I asked Alabama Ethics Commission Director Tom Albritton about this earlier this year, he said he had been asked by other candidates whether similar arrangements would be legal and he had told them "no."

So there King sat, up against an opponent who was taking more than $700,000 in potentially illegal campaign donations. What was he -- and for our purposes, what was any -- candidate in King's position supposed to do?

He did two things simultaneously. He sued Marshall in state court and he filed a complaint with the Alabama Ethics Commission.

The circuit court where King sued declined to hear the case because it said it didn't have jurisdiction. That left the Ethics Commission.

Which did nothing.

It did nothing then.

And it's still doing nothing now.

This week, the Alabama Ethics Commission ignored King's complaint. The Commission took no action, and it doesn't have another meeting scheduled until after the November election.

Which now puts Marshall's opponent, Democratic nominee Joe Siegelman, in a bad position. He can fight fire with fire, take out-of-state PAC money and potentially break the law, or he can abide by the law, and get crushed by the RAGA machine.

Siegelman has called on the Ethics Commission to come back and make a ruling now in a special meeting.

Don't hold your breath.

This isn't a partisan issue. It's about fairness. It's about the law. And it's about whether the incumbent attorney general understands the law.

The Line of Legality I've written about many times can be an elusive thing. Sometimes it's blurry.

It's the Ethics Commission's job to show everyone where that line is -- clear and bright.

This week, it didn't do that, and it isn't showing any interest in doing that, because this Commission clearly doesn't want to get involved.

Instead, the Commission packed up its stuff and went home.

Alabama might be a better place if those commissioners never came back.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

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