Or take for instance his backdoor tax increase. Alabamians are known for their absolute hatred of property taxes, yet he ordered his revenue commissioner to begin reappraising annually rather than every four years as had been done previously.

Once again, the people of Alabama did not approve this measure. Riley did it by simply signing the tax increase into effect, even though the four governors preceding him under the same law had operated with appraisals taking place every four years.

Now, the governor is promising that he'll change the appraisals back to every four years if he is re-elected.

Where have we heard that before? It was stolen directly from Baxley's campaign platform. She has long advocated returning appraisals to their previous status.

Baxley knows that working families are struggling under Riley's new interpretation of the law, and has promised that her first official act as governor would be to revoke Riley's tax increase.

You may ask whom should we believe. The answer is easy.

Riley campaigned on a promise of no new taxes in 2002 and broke that promise almost before his hand was off the Bible he placed it on to be sworn in as Alabama's chief executive.

Since Baxley began her career in a statewide elected office in 1994, she has never lied to the people of Alabama.

There are numerous other reasons Alabamians can no longer trust Riley. He lacks judgment and as previously illustrated, doesn't tell the truth.

The latest example of Riley's lack of judgment comes from revelations about the current State Team Leader to his campaign re-election, Bill Johnson. For those of you who haven't yet heard anything about Johnson, let me enlighten you.

In 1994, he ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Missouri as a Libertarian. As a candidate, he advocated the legalization of marijuana and prostitution. He also went through a 14-year period in which he refused to pay taxes.

The Libertarian Party News stated that, "on crime Johnson says he thinks enough tax dollars are already allocated for fighting crime."

It has also been exposed that Johnson has ties with the Mujahadeen, an Afghani militant group, and that he aided Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

These certainly don't seem to be even close to the values of Alabamians. So again I must ask, who is Bob Riley to accuse someone else of being out of touch with Alabama voters?

Riley has trusted Johnson and placed him in many powerful positions. He served as Riley's campaign manager in 1996 when Riley was running for Congress. After Riley won the election, Johnson served as his chief of staff.

Johnson helped out again with Riley's grassroots campaign for governor in 2002. Riley also appointed Johnson to head the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, a department responsible for dolling out hundreds of millions of dollars in grants.

I do not understand why Riley would give someone with Johnson's known background such responsibility and power. It seems completely crazy to me.

There is even more shocking evidence on Bob Riley and Bill Johnson that can be found at www.askbobriley.com, and I encourage you all to check it out.

The only way to rid our government of these types of people is to vote for Lucy Baxley in November. Her public service record is impeccable, and she can be trusted to only appoint people of the utmost integrity to positions of high power in Alabama government.

Jordan Pittman is opinions editor of The Crimson White daily student newspaper at the University of Alabama, where this column originally ran under the headline: Gov. Riley can no longer be trusted