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If prosecutors could use Alabama's ethics laws to snare Mike Hubbard, who else could they get?

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When I spoke with state Rep. Jimmy Martin this week, he didn't hide his displeasure with Alabama's ethics laws.

"Somebody's conscience got to bothering them and they thought everybody down here was a bunch of crooks like they are," he said. "Whoever was the mastermind of this ethics bill totally screwed up the camaraderie and fun in the Alabama Legislature."

I want to make it clear that Martin wasn't trying to be cute. He wasn't saying any of this tongue-in-cheek. He was mad. He was mad because Alabama law doesn't let lawmakers eat, drink and party with lobbyists picking up the tabs the way they used to.

Martin, a Republican from Clanton, lost reelection in 2010, but in 2014 he won his old seat back. While he was gone, the Alabama Legislature passed what it boasted as being the toughest-in-the-nation ethics laws.

A steak dinner, Martin said, can't buy his vote.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy the steak, and he misses those dinners.

"We don't draw a big salary and we spend a lot of time away from work and our families," he said. "It helps to have some perks now and then."

It takes a lot to shock me. I write about politics in a state that places near the top of public corruption rankings more often than the Crimson Tide wins national championships. I've written about a county commissioner who built a vacation home with the help of government contractors. I've covered a mayor who went shopping for Rolexes and $2,000 suits with investment bankers wooing him like they were on a date. I've seen more double-dipping than a fondue pot.

But I don't think I've ever heard a public official speak openly and candidly about his contempt for the law and ethics as Martin did this week.

Martin might be the only one saying it, but don't think for a second he's the only one thinking it.

Remember, these are the ethics laws that worked so well that prosecutors used them to convict Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, who pushed those laws through the Legislature in the first place. If Hubbard -- the most powerful politician in Alabama -- could down, who else might?

Now moves underway to go back to those ethics laws passed in 2010 and tweak them.

Rep. Mike Ball says he wants a commission to reform Alabama's ethics laws, but his support of Mike Hubbard makes him the wrong person to lead that charge.

Last week, Rep. Mike Ball held a press conference in Montgomery where he announced his plan to put together a commission to reform the state's ethics laws. In the press conference, Ball was short on specifics. Mostly he said he wanted the process to be open and public.

"One of the big mistakes we made was Gov. [Bob] Riley, before he went out, wanted to get it done in a special session," Ball said about the 2010 ethics reforms when I talked to him this week. "None of it was well thought-out."

Ball says some of the right things. Yes, if there are going to be changes to Alabama's ethics laws, then the process needs to be open and easy to follow.

"I don't care if I'm the point man or if I'm on the committee," Ball said. "I just want it out in the open."

Openness. Yes, more of that, please.

This is the same Legislature, after all, that has conference committees -- where the state House and Senate negotiate compromises between conflicting bills -- that start hours after they were scheduled to begin and where lawmakers suddenly agree on everything the minute they walk in the room. This is the Legislature that allows its majority caucus to meet behind closed doors whenever it wants, while if a county commission or city council tried the same thing, they'd quickly find themselves in court. This is the same Legislature that passed the Alabama Accountability Act, which came out of a conference committee as a completely different piece of legislation than what went in.

So hip-hip-hooray for transparency.

But Ball is not the guy to be walking point here. It was Ball, after all, who stood on the stage with former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard after his indictment. It was Ball who went on the radio and called the case against Hubbard a political prosecution. And it was Ball who told prosecutors that the Legislature needed to change the laws so those sorts of cases couldn't happen in the future.

Which is why Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange came out forcefully in opposition to Ball's proposal.

"I am strongly opposed to Rep. Mike Ball's idea of a commission to review Alabama's ethics law," Strange said in a statement. "The whole point of such a commission would be to undermine the law. Alabamians want our ethics laws enforced, not gutted."

Just don't tell Jimmy Martin that, Big Luther. You might ruin what's left of his fun.