CATALYST CANDIDATE ELLIOTT - PANIC MODE

The plot thickens as runoffs approach - Lagniappe Mobile

The plot thickens as runoffs approach - Lagniappe Mobile

BaCo senate

One race where the mudslinging is firmly out in the open is in Baldwin County’s State Senate District 32, where Baldwin Commissioner Chris Elliott is in a runoff with dentist David Northcutt.

Elliott has run ads accusing Northcutt of dispensing narcotics without a license and getting into trouble for fraudulent advertising. Pretty rough stuff. Northcutt has fired back, accusing Elliott of supporting tax increases and lying about trying to weasel out of his punishment in a 2016 DUI arrest.

Northcutt says he simply had his license expire and didn’t realize it when he wrote narcotics prescriptions, and that it was a simple oversight. He also says the “fraudulent advertising” consisted of replacing the words “results may vary” with “state of the art” in an ad. I will admit the dispensing narcotics issue is a bit troubling, although the fines involved weren’t particularly heavy.

On the flip side, Elliott has continued trying to brush off allegations he used his position to get out of his DUI punishment. His political handler Jon Gray told Lagniappe a few weeks ago, “If he wanted to get out of it, no one would know about it. We did all our polling months ago. I’m very comfortable with it. Chris has atoned for it.”

The wisdom of publicly suggesting that Elliott knows secret and untraceable ways of getting out of DUIs could be debated I suppose, but it’s hardly arguable that he didn’t use his position to get a lesser punishment. As for atonement, the problem has never been the DUI as much as the dishonest way Elliott handled it.

After Elliott declared he would suffer the “consequences” of running a red light and refusing a Breathalyzer, effectively getting the media off his back, his attorney quietly filed suit to keep Chris from losing his license for 90 days. He wrote that Elliott would suffer “irreparable harm and damage by the suspension of his driving privileges. He will be unable to work and serve in his elected capacity as a Baldwin County commissioner.” In other words, “I’m an elected official and my job is important.” Here are the cold, hard facts: Elliott was handed a 45-day suspension when the law for Breathalyzer refusal is 90 days, and no one has ever explained why. ALEA also started the clock running on his suspension at the same time his attorney filed an emergency stay, which meant Elliott was still driving even as ALEA was ticking off the days of his suspension. By the time the legal dust settled, Elliott only had to surrender his license for 29 days — a third of what everyone else would get.

“Elliott continues to be dogged by his efforts to get special treatment, and that makes him a pretty sketchy choice, in my book.”

Source: lagniappemobile.com/the-plot-thickens-as-runoffs-approach/