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Monday, July 24, 2006
The Newslady endorses Hecht
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Late-breaking news this afternoon that Sen. Steen “Newslady” Miles has endorsed Greg Hecht in the Democratic lieutenant governor’s race, answering Mayor Shirley Franklin’s endorsement of Jim Martin earlier in the day.
Not only a race with passion, but also developments.
A race that has stirred surprising passions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There were plenty of robocalls flying before last Tuesday’s primary, but seldom will you hear a politician with his own race to worry about jump with this kind of passion into another as this call, by U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall for Jim Martin in the Democratic lieutenant governor’s race. It went out to about 40,000 Central Georgia households.
As loyal Insiders know, this is all about another robocall, purportedly from a gay Martin supporter, which Greg Hecht’s campaign has denied any connection with, and two mail pieces which have drawn criticism even from some of Hecht’s supporters, but which he continues to defend as fair game in a race that is likely to get even tougher in the fall.
“Jim Marshall never called me. He never went through it with me. He just jumped,� Hecht said Friday of Marshall’s call.
Hecht has defended the two mail pieces in a letter which appears to have circulated a good bit on the internet (see below). Much of that letter focuses on Hecht’s disagreement with the way he and Martin have been compared on women’s issues.
The former South Metro legislator was particularly insistent last week that it was fair game to bring up a bill sponsored by Martin which would have created four categories of rape. Contrary to what has been reported, most prosecutors didn’t support the bill, which failed to win passage, he said.
Hecht said use of a portion of a Martin quote in a 1994 AJC story, which seems to imply Martin was saying some rape victims “should have known better� was justified to underscore that the bill would have allowed previously inadmissible factors to be considered in rape cases.
“I can’t understand for the life of me why that position is reasonable for someone running for lieutenant governor,� Hecht said.
Martin said Friday the only person he’s aware of who think’s Hecht’s attacks were justified is Hecht himself.
“You can argue whether the idea was a good idea or not,� Martin said of the rape bill, which he argued at the time would make it easier to get convictions in rape cases. “But it certainly wasn’t designed to protect rapists.�
Martin believes that for all the sympathetic reaction to the anonymously-launched robocall, it hurt his vote total. Hecht has been criticized for taking the low road, but a strong subtext of this story has been the doubts his campaign has tried to raise about whether Martin could withstand an even more brutal Republican attack, Martin’s determination not to be viewed, as he put it, as “a pushover.�
“If people thought Jim Martin didn’t have the stomach to run a tough statewide campaign, I hope I’ve proven myself,� he said.
For those who want to read the Hecht letter in its entirety, it’s reprinted below.
Response From Greg Hecht - Regarding Context of Campaign
I appreciate your note which you sent to me. I can assure you it bothered me, and I know that was what was desired. I want to explain the context of this race to you.
Like you, I had a positive experience with Jim Martin during my time in the legislature. I did not always agree with all of his positions and stands, but I had a positive experience with him, which is why I was surprised to find a different Jim Martin on the campaign trail.
At the very beginning of the race, I called Jim to ask him to meet with me about the election. I wanted to establish some ground rules about campaigning in a positive manner and to try to determine which one of us should run against Ralph Reed. Jim refused to meet with me. He said I did not have to worry about his campaign tactics, and that he would remain positive. However, he would not meet with me.
One month later, some of my female supporters told me that thousands of e-mails were being generated from across the state to women’s groups members which were being prompted by the Martin Campaign. The e-mails were stating that I was against women’s rights, and that Martin was a strong supporter of women’s rights.
I was very upset. Contrary to Jim’s representations, Mr. Martin’s Campaign hit me behind my back, and they forgot to mention that as a State Senator and State Rep, I authored the Domestic Violence Prevention Act and passed it. I authored and passed the Protective Order Registry to protect women from victimization. I had authored the Gender and Race Equal Pay Resolution in the Senate. I helped pass prescriptive equity and breast cancer care initiatives. I authored the law to eliminate court fees for stalking and rape victims seeking protective orders, and I worked on many other legislative efforts to champion women’s rights.
Also, the Martin Campaign failed to mention that I have served over a decade as a Civil Rights Attorney representing women against sexual harassment and gender, race, and disability discrimination.
Also, the Martin Campaign failed to convey to voters that I left a lucrative law practice to become an Assistant D.A. and specialized in my four years in protecting women against rapists and sexual predators. In the legislature, I also worked with several women’s organizations on sexual predator registry laws and equal opportunity legislation. I let those e-mails go without a response. I did not want to start a negative back and forth.
Mr. Martin and I both spoke at Pro-Choice Georgia’s dinner as headline speakers. However, one month later, Mr. Martin told one of the largest women’s rights groups behind my back that he was the only pro-choice candidate. Also, I found out that e-mails had been prompted by Martin’s Campaign to women’s organizations regarding a vote on the Partial Birth Abortion Bill back in my time as a freshman legislator. I was able to catch up with Mr. Martin at a Macon Forum in which we both appeared. I asked him to sit down with me to talk. He agreed.
I told Mr. Martin that I found his comments about women’s rights and that I was anti-choice were offensive and wrong. I explained to him that we had both appeared at a dinner expressing our pro-choice viewpoints, that I had supported the Choice Movement, and that I did vote the same manner in which Roy Barnes voted on the Partial Birth Abortion Bill. I explained that the Democrat leadership, just as he knew it and had been there, had told all legislators from conservative districts, my district was a 56% Republican rated district, to vote for the bill. Roy Barnes told me this as well. A large majority of Democrats voted for the bill. Mr. Martin knew this and never told the conservative district representatives to do otherwise.
Many times, Mr. Martin had told me that he needed us, i.e. freshman legislators from conservative districts, to come back and vote according to our district’s desires. In some ways, he was a mentor in these types of comments and advice.
I confronted Mr. Martin and told him that his comments were untrue, and that I had voted just as Roy Barnes had, who was supported by Pro-Choice Georgia after that vote in his run for Governor. The Choice Community supported me after that vote in my State Senate Campaign.
Mr. Martin’s comment was, “I do not have to run against Roy Barnes. I have to run against you. I am going to continue saying what I am saying.”
At that point, I looked at Jim Martin as a different person than I knew in the legislature. I told him what he was saying was untrue. He left the table, and our experience was tense from that point on basically.
It should be noted that Mr. Martin was making incredibly incorrect statements about my record to the majority of the primary base from the beginning of the campaign.
- Next, I received calls from religious leaders that said, “Jim Martin told me that you found your faith for political purposes.”
I was disgusted. This allegation was the most disgusting to me. Left out of the communication was that I had been baptized 20 years ago, had been a Sunday School teacher for 4 years at my church before I ever ran for office, spent 3 years as an administrative board member at my church before I ever ran for office, and had gone through a lot of prayer and contemplation about my faith from the age of 14 to 19. I had to go into these details with these religious leaders, and I was appalled to have to go through this personal conversation.
I confronted Mr. Martin at a breakfast in Atlanta that the City of Atlanta put together. I asked to speak with him. I told him what these religious leaders told me. Mr. Martin told me that he was reaching out to a certain religious community, but he was sure that he had been misunderstood.
I told him I was very upset, but that I would take him at his word. I had some misgivings about it, but I let it go. I did not talk with any religious leaders about Mr. Martin’s faith.
- Next, at a forum in Columbus, Georgia, my hometown, I was not able to attend due to personal illness. At this Chamber of Commerce forum covered by the news in Columbus, Mr. Martin told the crowd that I was against clean water initiatives. Obviously, not being there, I had no chance to respond.
Mr. Martin failed to tell the crowd that I had won the 2001 and 2002 Georgia Conservation Leadership Environmental Leadership Awards for my legislative work to protect the waters of Georgia.
Two months ago, in front of over 500 witnesses, Mr. Martin attacked me at the Georgia Municipal Association on a vote regarding water and sewer sales tax matters. He was basically booed when he brought the attack up at the forum; however, I explained he misrepresented my position that I had told the proponents of the water and sewer tax that they needed to exempt food and medicine, because we were in the middle of a recession, and that seniors were incredibly burdened with having to choose between drugs, natural gas, and groceries. The proponents of the tax refused to make that exemption, which I believed was wrong.
Next, though I did not find out about it for a couple of weeks, in early June, 2006, Mr. Martin sent out a letter to thousands of women in Georgia a little over a month and a half ago, upon which he raised over $170,000, stating that, “Greg Hecht has failed to support women,” in that letter.
Considering I have spent over a decade fighting for women against gender discrimination, Equal Pay Act violations, and sexual harassment, I was upset. It was amazing since I had taken a multi-thousand dollar pay cut to represent victims of rape, child molestation, and sexual assault as an Assistant District Attorney. It was amazing, because as a State Senator, I had authored and passed the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, the Gender and Race Disparity Resolution demanding equal pay, authored and passed the State Database of Protective Orders to prevent repeat victimization of domestic violence, co-authored the law to eliminate court fees for stalking and rape victims seeking protective orders, helped pass the Prescriptive Equity Law, helped pass the breast cancer initiative, and many other pieces of legislation which I helped pass on behalf of the women of Georgia.
For over a year, I have known of many terrible votes and sponsorships of legislation which Mr. Martin had taken which were against the interest of women. I had never put out any of this information, and I have still held back 98 percent of this information, but my Campaign Manager was going ballistic for all this time, telling me to hit Mr. Martin, which I had refused.
- Candidates Debate on PBS 10 days ago and the First Mailer - At the Candidates Debate about 10 days ago, State Senator Steen Miles asked Mr. Martin why he left the Department of Human Resources. Mr. Martin refused to answer that portion of the question. Steen Miles again asked him the same question, and again Mr. Martin dodged the question.
For the past year and a half, Jim has been traveling the state, talking to voters about his heroic efforts as DHR Commissioner, and what an incredibly effective DHR Commissioner he has been. In other words, he has told the Democratic voters of Georgia that he should be Lt. Governor because he did a great job as DHR Commissioner. Any one of you who have heard Jim speak know he has said that many times.
At the beginning of his speeches last year, Mr. Martin would say, “I called my friend, Roy Barnes, and I asked him to appoint me as Commissioner of DHR. I wanted to make things better.”
I believe Mr. Martin did want to make things better. Unfortunately, Mr. Martin left out critical information to Democratic voters to know that he cannot win a general election because of his time at DHR, and that Ralph Reed will win if he is the nominee.
Democratic voters will be furious to find out after a year and a half of Mr. Martin telling Democratic voters what an effective DHR Commissioner he was, that he had to resign for serious reasons which make him unable to win a statewide election.
We believe there are two very important issues which the voters need to know, and if Mr. Martin had ever answered these questions on the campaign trail, which he dodged on the campaign trail, there would be no need to communicate those issues.
First, the buck stops at the DHR Commissioner’s desk. Don Keenan, head of the Kid’s Foundaton, said in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “The fatal flaw in all this is the leadership. The head of DFCS has been there about four years, and the DHR Commissioner is going on two years, and they have done absolutely nothing” (to fix the problems causing the children’s deaths). (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Welfare Officials Under Fire Over Jobs,” August 28, 2003) Don Keenan, Head of Keenan’s Kid Foundation.
Child advocates were furious at Mr. Martin for his lack of responsiveness, which in the end is a large part of the reason he resigned. Yes, the mail piece is graphic. However, the real number of the children that died during the time that Mr. Martin was DHR Commissioner was over 120 children. Seventy-two children died after multiple warnings of abuse and neglect in the home.
While this is not fun to bring up, Ralph Reed and Casey Cagle will advertise this on television, radio spots, and mailers over and over again. Jim Martin should have discussed this with voters long before the last week of the election. He refused to do so, after continually representing himself as the most electable due to his effective time as DHR Commissioner.
Second, Mr. Martin has gone around the state stating that he is against outsourcing jobs. However, the voters did not know that on August 8, 2002, he approved a contract with Citigroup to privatize and outsource jobs to handle 15 million calls to India. In the paper this morning, Mr. Martin said that the contract was before his administration. However, that is just incorrect. The contract was renewable each year solely at the pleasure of the DHR Commissioner. Georgia Department of Human Resources Contract No. 427-93-35404. He re-authorized the contract on August 8, 2002, one year after he took the job as DHR Commissioner. He did not tell the General Assembly or the public about this program.
It was not until a year later that Democratic colleagues found out about the contract, and Democratic, not Republican, State Representative John Noel proposed a ban to this program, calling it outsourcing, and was furious that no one from DHR told the legislature or the public about the program. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Feb. 21, 2004).
Mailing Regarding Four Categories of Rape - After Mr. Martin has continually attacked us on women’s rights issues and raised $170,000 just from one mailer and hundreds of thousands of dollars more from e-mail fundraising campaigns and phone calls based on the same tactic, we notified female voters of just one of many objectionable legislative measures authored by Mr. Martin. The legislation authored by Mr. Martin would have created four categories of rape, so that a rapist could get a lesser penalty if certain other defenses were present. However, the defenses were not defenses. They are nothing which should allow the rape of a woman to be lessened.
The head of the Fayette County Battered Women’s Shelter stated that this 1994 proposal would reverse women’s progress for years in the courtroom and would result in less convictions. She was appalled by the proposal. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Jan. 27, 1994). She said the legislation made it easier to doubt the victim. Id.
The District Attorney of the Year called it the most horrible legislation he had ever seen. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Oct. 10, 1993).
Mr. Martin could not even get the bill out of his Committee, because the Democrat controlled legislature, which was majority Democrat by far at the time, thought it was a horrible piece of legislation as well. Women’s rights group lobbied against it, as did District Attorneys and victims’ rights organizations. Not a single prosecutor testified for it as opposed to what the Martin Campaign states.
Now, people are trying to bring forward comments on a totally different bill from 1999, which had nothing to do with Martin’s 1994 legislation which did not get out of his own Committee.
Conclusion
We have counterattacked on one issue dealing with women in opposition to the multiple attacks from Mr. Martin on our position. I can assure you there are multiple pieces of legislation which Mr. Martin has sponsored and voted for which would be an affront to women, but we chose one issue only.
Similarly, with regard to the DHR Commissioner’s position, Mr. Martin went around for a year and a half explaining his tremendously effective efforts as DHR Commissioner, but the Democratic voters would be furious to find out he cannot win a statewide elected office. Ralph Reed, who has a horrible record, would be our next Lt. Governor and probably Governor, or Casey Cagle, who has a horrible environmental record would be our next Lt. Governor and Governor. Jim is just not electable in a general election and would never beat Ralph Reed.
Also, it should be noted that on several occasions we asked Jim to stop going around saying what he was saying, and doing what he was doing, explaining that at some point you cannot bite someone in the back and not expect a response.
During my time in the State Legislature, I had the opportunity as a State Senator and State Representative author and pass elder and disabled adult prevention legislation, natural gas switching rights, open government legislation, the Georgia Mentoring Act, and many other pieces of major legislation. As a Civil Rights Attorney, I worked to protect women and men in Georgia against race and gender discrimination. As an Assistant D.A., I worked to protect women from rape, child molestation, and other violent crimes. As a 16 year Alzheimer’s Center Board Member, I worked to protect the elderly and those afflicted with Alzheimer’s. As a 10 year Boy Scouts Leader and 10 year Habitat for Humanity Leader, I tried to help our youth and families in need. As a 7 year Reader to Elementary School Children, I have tried to increase the literacy of our children. As a father and husband, I care about the issues of which we are talking.
I, unfortunately, have not seen the same Jim Martin that I knew in the legislature. Obviously, right now we are at odds. I am hoping at some point our friendship is restored, but a context needed to be returned to you. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Greg Hecht
