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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2007 > January > 09
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Slow down, Perdue tells Ga. drivers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Spink/AJC
Gov. Sonny Perdue speaks at the annual Eggs and Issues breakfast Tuesday.
Gov. Sonny Perdue wants Georgia drivers to do something he has trouble doing himself: slowing down behind the wheel.
And he’s planning to make slowing down drivers part of his legislative agenda this session.
Staffers say Perdue will ask his floor leaders to push legislation raising fines and other penalties against drivers stopped for going over 85 mph on any Georgia road and over 75 mph on two-lane highways. They said the legislation would also increase fines and penalties for habitual traffic offenders, such as those convicted of multiple drunk driving or reckless driving offenses.
Perdue officials wouldn’t provide details on the proposed new level of fines and penalties. That will be released later, when the legislation is filed. However, the aim is to raise money for a new trauma system to treat emergency cases, such as people hurt in car wrecks.
Perdue told about 2,000 business and political leaders attending Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s annual Eggs & Issues Breakfast Tuesday that Atlanta drivers are among the fastest in the country. And he said that’s causing problems.
The governor said 20 percent of the state’s 1,744 traffic fatalities in 2005 were due to excessive speed. Trauma care costs $7.85 billion per year. And accidents further clog Atlanta’s overburdened highways.
“Accidents caused by excessive speed and aggressive driving are not just affecting congestion and causing traffic jams - they are killing people.
“We’ve got to stop the excessive speeding,” Perdue added.
A legislative study committee has been searching for a way to fund trauma centers capable of handling the most severe injuries, such as those sustained in car wrecks and gun battles.
With only 15 such centers spread across the state, it can sometimes take hours for a trauma victim to reach one, according to the committee’s report.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of Georgia’s 152 hospitals are operating in the red, the report says. They are suffering financial losses from uninsured or under-insured patients and decreasing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates. Georgia absorbs an estimated $170 million in “uncompensated” trauma care annually, the report says.
Larry Schnall, senior trooper and spokesman for the Georgia State Patrol, said his agency supports the governor’s initiative.
“We support anything that helps us reduce serious crashes,” Schnall said. “We think it’s a good attention-getter to go along with our enforcement efforts.”
Share your thoughts: Would you like to be included in a story on this topic? Send your comments to reporter James Salzer at jsalzer@ajc.com. Please include a phone number so he can call you to clarify your statement.
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Richardson goes on offensive
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Facing a salacious ethics complaint, House Speaker Glenn Richardson publicly went on the offensive today, saying he is hunting for the people who have attempted to “poison” him.
“The last few weeks, I have been fed a little poison and I’ve taken it,” Richardson (R-Hiram) said in a brief speech to an audience of politicians and business leaders at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s annual Eggs & Issues Breakfast.
“But the bad news — for those that manufactured, dispensed and stirred unreasonably the poison — is that I survived. I’m looking for the folks that manufactured that poison.”
In an interview after the speech, Richardson confirmed that he was referring to ethics complaints filed by Bobby Kahn, the state’s Democratic Party chairman. Kahn is alleging Richardson had an “inappropriate personal” relationship with a female lobbyist for Atlanta Gas Light last year while co-sponsoring a bill to finance a $300 million pipeline for the utility.
Kahn has so far presented no evidence of the relationship. He has also declined to characterize the alleged relationship beyond saying it was “inappropriate” and “personal.”
Asked whether he denies having such a relationship with an AGL lobbyist, Richardson said he would not address the allegation.
“We are not going to start responding to specious rumors, allegations, innuendos that they swear under oath is ‘common knowledge,’ Richardson said. “They don’t even tell where they got it from.”
Richardson said Kahn’s allegations are without merit and he predicted they would be dismissed.
“He made up a story … used the news media to try to sensationalize something that was ludicrous,” Richardson said of Kahn. “I want to know who all else was behind it with him. It was clear all it was was a hatchet job.”
Asked about Richardson’s comments, Kahn said, “If he wants to look for the source of the poison, he should look in the mirror.”
Kahn said the Democratic Party mailed the complaint to the State Ethics Commission and the Joint Committee on Ethics Friday. The complaint was also hand-delivered to the ethics panels Monday, Kahn said.
A spokesman for AGL Resources, the parent company of Atlanta Gas Light, has said the utility never tried to inappropriately influence legislation.
“Whatever is being alleged about the speaker’s conduct does not involve our company,” Keith Poston, a spokesman for AGL Resources, said in an interview Sunday.
House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin) predicted Kahn’s allegations will “dominate much of the session until it is resolved.”
“This is an issue that I think the Republican caucus has got to deal with,” Porter said. “If a charge has been filed, then it has got to be responded to in some way by the ethics committee.”
Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) serves as co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Ethics.
“We are taking this committee and this issue very seriously,” Johnson said, “And we will deal with it appropriately when the darn thing arrives on my desk.”
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Perdue issues education ‘challenge’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue challenged local communities today to do more to improve their schools.
“I want to issue today a challenge, a call to action. I ask today that each community work together to set and meet a local graduation goal,” Perdue said at the annual Eggs and Issues breakfast meeting. “I want to stretch — find something that’s ambitious but attainable.”
Georgia’s test scores and graduation rate rank among the nation’s lowest.
“The job of educating our children does not fall solely on the shoulders of our teachers,” Perdue said. “That job requires parents to be involved — and the community to be engaged. These kids need reinforcement that goes beyond the walls of their classrooms.”
He said communities should think creatively, and cited, as an example, the “perfect attendance lottery” started by Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons). Montgomery County High School students who don’t miss a day of school in a quarter are rewarded with $20, paid out of a $1,000 pool funded by Williams.
“We need creativity like this in our schools. We need your help,” Perdue said.
The governor also said his graduation coach program needs assistance from the business community. The Georgia Chamber of Commerce sponsors Eggs and Issues, held at the Georgia World Congress Center.
“We need your help to connect these coaches with the world our children will enter after graduation,” he said. “You can provide real world experience for students by adopting a high school, by giving them opportunities like job shadowing or internships.”
Casey Cagle, the new lieutenant governor, also spoke and promoted his plan to allow not just charter schools but also charter school systems. Unlike conventional public schools, charter schools operate according to contracts with the local boards of education and the state.
“Charter schools have demonstrated that they can reach the goals of education without all the burdensome mandates that tie the hands of our teachers,” said Cagle, the state’s first Repubican lieutenant governor. “Charter systems allow the truest form of local control of public education, and I intend to give that control to our educators.”
Cagle said afterwards he plans to reveal the details of his proposal next week.
He also told the audience he wants the state to fund grants to plan five more “career academies,” like Central Educational Center in Newnan. Some Coweta County high school students take classes at CEC to get job training.
“The opportunity for students to gain a technical certificate, which guarantees employment upon graduation, is what education should be all about,” Cagle said.
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Abortion forces split
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A group of anti-abortion advocates held a rally at the Capitol today to support a perennial bill to ban the procedure in Georgia.
Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta) has introduced House Bill 1, a measure to outlaw abortion in Georgia and make it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure.
Several groups opposing abortion, including the Christian Coalition of Georgia, The Justice Foundation and Operation Outcry, held a rally and prayer vigil in a committee room of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building in support of Franklin’s bill.
But several formidable anti-abortion forces either played no role, or kept an arm’s distance, from the event, indicating a split among those groups on Franklin’s bill.
Georgia Right to Life representatives were at the rally, but did not speak. The group lobbies for an end to abortion, but is trying to push a change to the state Constitution outlawing the procedure, said its lobbyist Kevin Harris.
“We believe that a constitutional amendment hat would allow the voters of Georgia the opportunity to weigh in on this important issue should be encouraged and embraced,” said Harris.
Harris said the group, which has successfully lobbied in the past to institute a 24-hour waiting period for abortions in Georgia, is working with state legislators to introduce a constitutional amendment. If such an amendment were to pass — it would require a two-thirds vote by both the House and the Senate — it would go to voters in the fall of 2008.
Sadie Fields, state chair of the Georgia Christian Alliance, was also at the rally, but did not speak. Fields, who has wielded tremendous influence in the past as chair of the Christian Coalition, also supports a constitutional amendment.
“It gives the people of Georgia a voice on issues that can tend to be divisive,” Fields said. “I think it makes the statement louder than legislation.”
Also noticeably absent from the event were leaders of the Catholic archdiocese in Atlanta, which have also played a key role in lobbying to toughen abortion laws.
This is the third straight term — spanning six years — that Franklin has introduced the bill attempting to ban abortion, the legislator said. The bill has never made it to the House floor for a vote. Franklin said today he thinks the bill has a chance to pass. “I think if it comes to the House floor, it will pass.”
Jim Beck, president of the Georgia Christian Coalition, said he doesn’t think the split among anti-abortion forces is a bad thing.
“I think the more you engender debate, the better off you are,” he said. All anti-abortion groups are ultimately working towards the broader goal of stopping the procedure, he noted.
Several women who said they had had abortions spoke about the negative impacts of that decision at the rally. The women described the depression, and regret, they felt about their abortions. Later, a guitarist and keyboardist led the group in singing Christian hymns.
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