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CENTRE — State Sen. Phil Williams (R-Rainbow City) said he and his coworkers had a good laugh last week after they saw a cartoon likeness of him in a recent issue of the Alabama Education Association's weekly publication.

“I think they could have made it look a little more like me,” Williams chuckled.

Williams ran successfully ran as a Republican against Sen. Larry Means in the Nov. 2 general election. He was singled out in the Jan. 17, 2011 edition of the AEA Journal after he supported and then penned an editorial in defense of a bill passed during the recent special session of the Alabama Legislature.

“Either Williams did not know what he voted for or was willingly misleading in his article,” the AEA charged. “Under the law, this article criticizing Williams is illegal if AEA members continue to use payroll deduction with dues.”

The bill, which passed by narrow margins in both the House and Senate before being signed into law by Republican Gov. Bob Riley, ended the practice of allowing Alabama teachers to have their AEA membership dues automatically deducted from their paychecks and then spent on political advocacy.

AEA officials claimed passage of such a bill during a special session called to deal with legislative reform was political payback by Republicans for decades of AEA support for Democratic candidates.

In response, Williams penned an editorial which ran in newspapers across the district, including this one. In it, Williams defended the bill and declared he and the new Legislature had “taken out 136 years of trash” with their efforts to end corruption in the Alabama State House.

Regarding exactly how Senate Bill 2 changed state politics, Williams said he and the AEA apparently aren't reading the same document.

“There is absolutely no prohibition against private political activity, that's nowhere in there,” Williams said. “That is a very convenient interpretation. I encourage everyone to read the law.”

Williams admitted that one early draft of the bill had some teachers concerned that specific wording on payroll deductions would jeopardize insurance and other AEA benefits not related to politics.

“I had some reservations,” he said. “That's why we met with and listened to teachers, then reworked the final bill to address those concerns.”

Williams said since the revised bill passed, the AEA has been making accusations of political heavy-handedness. In response, Williams said he has reached out to teachers across the district to make sure they get “the other side of the story.”

Among others, Williams has challenged the AEA claim that teachers are no longer allowed to contact legislators without risking “fines and jail time of up to one year.”

According to the AEA article, the “broad statues” of the new law define as a “political candidate” anyone “who holds public office, regardless of whether they are running or not, or even if an election is years away.”

As a result, the AEA claims, Alabama politicians have essentially been declared inaccessible to their constituents – especially to anyone represented by a union or other organization that uses automatic payroll deduction to fund political operations.

“I sent a letter to every principal, every school board, each with additional copies to be distributed to the teachers, explaining that this bill does not do what the AEA claims,” Williams said. “The concept that any official is off-limits because they are a so-called 'political candidate' is absolutely incorrect.”

Williams said he and his fellow legislators feel strongly that the new law can successfully resist any legal challenges, although at this time the AEA has not filed a lawsuit.

“This is a well-thought-out bill that already had precedent in other states and has withstood scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court,” Williams said. “Anytime judges interpret the law, they look to legislative intent. And there was no intent to say that public employees cannot talk to their legislators.”

Williams said what the bill does prohibit is groups such as AEA from conducting many types of political activities – including lobbying, campaigning, polling, and advertising – as long as they are using state resources to facilitate withdraw of the membership dues that fund those activities.

“There is absolutely no prohibition against any public employee being actively involved in supporting the political activity of their choice,” Williams explained, “as long as it is not conducted on taxpayer time, or funded by taxpayer dollars.”

Other articles in the Jan. 17 edition of the AEA Journal indicate that the organization is exploring alternative means of collecting membership dues that would allow it to resume its political activities without violating SB2.

Williams said that’s fine, both with him and plenty of the people who are represented by the AEA.

“I have talked with a lot of teachers who are glad to have their dues taken care of without having to support the policies of the AEA, which many of them do not agree with,” he said.

Near its conclusion, the AEA article charges that, through his support and defense of the new law, Williams effectively “told us to hush.”

The former Army Ranger who served two tours of duty in Iraq, insisted nothing could be further from the truth.