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A.J. Cooper is no stranger to ethics controversies. In 1980, while serving as mayor of Prichard, Ala., Cooper came under attack for serving as a full-time consultant for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Cooper supplemented his $18,000 annual mayoral income by working at a $160-a-day rate for then-HUD Secretary Moon Landrieu in the agency’s small and disadvantaged business utilization office. The state’s ethics commission says Cooper didn’t violate any laws by receiving two paychecks. Still, he resigned as Prichard’s mayor less than a month after the controversy erupted, and, as was his intent all along, went to work for HUD, according to the Mobile Press Register.