This is an opinion column.

The eighth floor ceremonial courtroom in the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse has had a makeover, I see. The lights are brighter. The floor is cleaner. The benches don't have too many scratch marks from pants buttons and keychains.

It looks new. Or as I say whenever I get another car, new to me. They could have renovated this place 10 years ago, and I wouldn't know.

It has been a long time since we've had a significant federal public corruption trial in Birmingham.

The last one I remember covering here was Jack Swann, the Jefferson County sewer director, who was convicted of bribery in 2006. The last major corruption case in the Northern District of Alabama was Larry Langford, convicted in Tuscaloosa after he got a change of venue in 2009. After that, the Obama Justice Department deprioritized public corruption and white-collar crime.

Welcome back, G-men and G-women. You've been missed.

However, I can't help but think we're in the wrong courthouse.

Regardless of the federal crimes they're accused of, at least two of the defendants I'm here to watch have significant exposure to state ethics laws -- laws that have been applied once to convict former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard.

But it seems the Alabama Attorney General's office is suddenly the arm of the law with its hand tied, even though it could have an easier case to make.

Under Alabama ethics laws, it is illegal for a lobbyist or principal (someone who employs a lobbyist) to give a public official a thing of value, like a job. Period.

Balch & Bingham lawyer Joel Gilbert, one of the three defendants in this case, was a registered lobbyist when he hired former state Rep. Oliver Robinson, through Robinson's non-profit, to persuade north Birmingham residents not to let the EPA test the soil around their homes, according to federal prosecutors.

Drummond Co. vice president David Roberson was also a registered lobbyist when, according to federal prosecutors, he helped arrange those payments to Robinson.

In this federal case, it matters what Robinson did after that, and it matters whether the three men understood what they were doing. Intent is the key word. To prove the counts of bribery against Roberson and Gilbert, prosecutors have to prove what was going on inside their heads.

And that's difficult. When federal corruption charges fail to stick, it's usually because of this very reason.

But Alabama's ethics laws don't require state prosecutors to go that far, and the burden of proof for prosecutors is much lower.

When the Alabama Legislature passed its supposedly "toughest-in-the-nation" ethics reforms in 2010, the state wanted to send a clear message to special interest groups throughout the state.

The law they passed doesn't require prosecutors or jurors to get into defendants' mind space. Instead, it requires that the state prove a lobbyist or principal gave a thing of value to a public official -- the end.

The trouble is, that state law doesn't mean anything if the state doesn't enforce it.

In the trial of Mike Hubbard, prosecutors had a calculation to make -- whether to put the principals who did business with Hubbard behind the defense table or on the witness stand. Ultimately, they decided it would be much easier to return a conviction against Hubbard if they had those voices to speak against the Alabama House speaker.

At some point, though, if we are going to clean up this state, we have to move beyond the public officials and take a look at the folks on the other side of these deals.

That's happening in federal court this week, but it would be much better for our state if we learned to clean up our own messes.

Especially when Alabama has the better broom.

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

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