Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2007 > January
January 2007
Sonny Perdue and the race to become vice president
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sonny Perdue, who makes an appearance before a U.S. Senate committee today, is running for vice president.
No, wait. That’s ridiculous. No one runs for vice president. Rather, the Georgia governor is displaying himself for vice president.
Perdue’s conversations with journalists have been spotty since his re-election three months ago, so the evidence is mostly circumstantial. But people around him privately tell us we’re on target.
First, look at the Republican side of the ‘08 presidential race. The three leaders — John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani — have two things in common. All are from outside the South. And none of them are likely to whip the GOP’s conservative Christian core into a frenzy of delight.
If the Republican party is to lurch toward the center next year, someone from the South, or with Southern appeal, will be needed to stoke the base. If the GOP nominee is to be McCain or Giuliani, both well-developed voices on international security, that would also argue for someone whose strength is in domestic policy.
Enter a Republican governor. Bob Riley in Alabama, Haley Barbour in Mississippi, Mark Sanford in South Carolina. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, now in the presidential hunt, might qualify. Jeb Bush, who just exited the office in Florida, is a scratch solely because of his last name.
And then there’s Perdue.
As we said, no one runs for vice president. The best one can do is strut down the runway, display the assets, and pray that the electoral vote strategy clicks with the geography and the resume.
Perdue “certainly has to be on anybody’s short list. He’d be on anybody’s list of 10, and he might make some people’s list of five,” said Alec Poitevint, friend of the governor and head of the state GOP.
Perdue has shown national instincts. Remember that he was one of the first Republican figures in the South to separate himself from President Bush after the Hurricane Katrina debacle.
The governor’s winning margin last November, particularly his performance among African-American voters, impressed many out-of-state Republicans.
In December, Perdue inherited the chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association, the largest GOP fund-raising operation outside the Republican National Committee. Two loyal strategists from Georgia now occupy the organization’s top posts.
The outcome of three governor’s races in 2007 — in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi — could say much about Perdue’s future as a running mate.
Skeptics might point to Perdue’s lightweight legislative priorities this year — the emphasis on bass fishing, for instance. And the way he entangled himself in the topic of Sunday sales of alcohol. Then there are the governor’s real estate dealings.
But the GOP nominee for vice president won’t be selected for another 17 months. That’s plenty of time for Perdue to resolve his Oaky Woods problem, or perhaps mitigate it, and still establish himself as a policy wonk.
Thursday’s appearance before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, on the all-important topic of children’s health insurance, is a chance for Perdue to earn national credentials on the topic.
(That sound you just heard was the sputtering of a former lieutenant governor. Mark Taylor based much of his Democratic campaign to oust Perdue on the trims the Republican governor made to PeachCare, Georgia’s health insurance program for kids.)
Last week, a wild rumor broke. The Georgia governor had been spotted in Iowa. It wasn’t true, but we had to pose the natural question.
Was Perdue running for president? The rational answer would have been as follows: “No. The governor’s wife would shoot him dead if he dragged her to Washington.”
Instead, Perdue’s communicator gave a well-rehearsed non-answer. “The governor is currently focused on governing in the state of Georgia,” says spokesman Dan McLagan.
That’s the language of courtship. By the subtle rules of the game, a fellow can’t be a vice-presidential contender if he rules out an interest in the presidency.
Talk about this amongst yourselves. We’ll pick out the best of the responses and highlight them in a separate posting Thursday afternoon.
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The contracts keep on coming
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the fun things about Newt-watching is that he sounds most presidential at just those times when he’s working hardest to deny any interest in a Pennsylvania Avenue address. That was the mode the former speaker was in Wednesday when he spoke to the Buckhead Coalition.
Gingrich told the annual gathering that he and former Zoo Atlanta director Terry Maple have a book coming out this fall titled “Contract With the Earth,” which will outline “an entrepreneurial, science and technology-based environmentalism.” Al Gore, call the office.
He was bubbling with ideas springing out of the Center for Health Transformation and a new project, American Solutions, which he described as an attempt to put a fresh new set of policy ideas into the hands of the nation’s 511,000 elected officials.
“I think that’s far more obscure and far more abstract than running for president, but I think it’s a lot more important,” Gingrich said.
Invigorating, as always. And delivered with just a little bit of wiggle room.
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On Ralph Reed: Remember that he’s still got an IOU with Rudy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This tidbit is in today’s Hotline:
When we asked Team Romney about whether Ralph Reed was joining as an adviser, we received a denial. The Politico’s Jonathan Martin coaxed a more equivocal answer out of Kevin Madden (Romney’s mouthpiece): “He doesn’t have a formal role in our campaign organization.”
Most likely, what Reed does will depend on what Rudy Giuliani does. Remember that Reed, the former GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, enlisted the ex-mayor of New York in last year’s unsuccessful bid for office.
Then there’s that Giuliani memo showing Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot founder, as one of Rudy’s main guys.
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Lobbyist alert: Nurses get ready to draw down on docs, again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last year, we thought we had a settlement between doctors and nurses with advanced degrees — with the result that nurses were given authority to write prescriptions.
But the legislation gave the State Medical Board, dominated by physicians, the responsibility of writing the rules to say under what circumstances nurses should be able to write script.
In essence, doctors said in rules posted last year, those circumstances will be very, very narrow.
Nurses — and some legislators — declared the legislation had been gutted by Georgia’s medical bureaucracy.
Doctors say high standards are the issues. Nurses say this is an occupational fight. Physicians are afraid stand-alone clinics, heavily staffed with script-writing nurses, will steal away the easy business, they say.
Late Tuesday, state Rep. Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City) introduced a resolution pointing the finger of shame at the State Medical Board, for violating the spirit of the legislation.
She has Republican co-sponsors, including Mickey Channell of Greensboro, who gave Community Health Commissioner Rhonda Medows what-for over the issue during budget hearings this month.
The medical board meets Thursday and Friday of this week. If no settlement results, Georgia’s medical community goes to the mattresses. Again.
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Eloquence, when lubricated, finds its way to many tongues
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We got a lot of calls about last week’s item in which we quoted Mississippi legislator Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat’s 1952 speech on liquor. One that caught our interest came from Alec Poitevint, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.
He’s not claiming right of authorship, Poitevint said, but his grandfather C.T. Lynn, who was born in 1878 and served as a justice of the peace near Bainbridge in the early years of the last century, had a very similar speech, decades before Sweat’s oration.
We suspect Poitevint is right when he says a lot of politicians used similar words in that era, although Sweat copyrighted his speech. Poitevint recalls U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson using a similar speech years ago. His grandfather’s version, which supposedly was an answer to the local Temperance Union, wasn’t as rhetorically sophisticated as Sweat’s, he said, but it got to the same point.
Poitevint recalls that while his grandfather had more liberal views about liquor, his grandmother was a teetotler. But in common with many Southern ladies, she made an exception during the holidays and allowed others in the family to buy whiskey for her eggnog.
As Poitevint remembers it, that eggnog had a heck of a kick.
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The dog that hasn’t barked: Tweaks to U.S. House districts held by Barrow and Marshall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here we are two weeks into the winter session of the General Assembly, and the hot sauce is missing.
For the first time in several years, we are knee-deep in legislative politics, and not a single rumor has surfaced yet about congressional redistricting. Given that U.S. Reps. John Barrow and Jim Marshall escaped by two whiskers last November and remain vulnerable Democrats, that’s unusual.
Or perhaps not so. First of all, there’s no Tom DeLay in Washington pushing GOP congressional delegations to exact every advantage out of the reapportionment process.
And there’s the fact that Georgia is a Republican state that’s now asking for $130 million or so from a Democratically controlled Congress, to help salvage PeachCare, its health insurance program for the children of the working poll.
It could be that many Republicans have noticed the bump that Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle received when he declared himself above politics on the Voter ID issue. Or they thought it would be too ironic to fiddle with congressional lines just after Gov. Sonny Perdue’s task force recommended the involvement of a neutral body.
But one reason stands above all. Fiddle with Marshall’s lines, and he might just up and run against U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss next year.
Any thoughts?
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It depends on whether we’re talking blades or broken beer bottles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember the GSU students who did the 55-mile-an-hour video last year? They’re working for us.
In their first video, they’ve raised this pertinent question: If the House and the Senate were in a bar fight, who would win? Best quote is from state Sen. Cecil Staton of Macon: “At least we don’t spit on the floor.”
See it here. Next: If Sparticus had a Piper Cub.
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Blogwatch: Unions say they’ll bring the potato salad to ‘Family Day’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is what happens when Republicans try to throw a block party. Everybody thinks the invitation applies to him.
As they did two years ago, GOP lawmakers said they had reserved Saturday, Feb. 10, for ‘Family Day’ at the state Capitol — a day to draw back the curtain of legislative mystery for the glowing faces of young children, to allow them to discover for themselves that the world of politics is very much like the world of Spongebob Squarepants, right down to the squirrel with the fishbowl on his head.
And as they did two years ago, union leaders have declared they’ll use ‘Family Day’ to rally their troops. This time for a hike in the minimum wage.
Blog for Democracy has this message today from Tasso Knight, a lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1996:
“Remember the fun we had two years ago on Family Day with a march from the stadium to the Capitol? With this just being announced (and I am sure the short notice was intentional) we have less that two weeks to put this together. We look to have at least 200 family, friends, union and coalition members standing with us on this day.”
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The good news: No argument over Sunday sales of alcohol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some of you around the state Capitol know Tom Mishou, who served as the sole staff member for the state boxing commission — making sure fighters pass their hepatitis tests and such — under Secretary of State Cathy Cox.
With Cox’s departure, Mishou has sought out a more peaceful clime than can be often found in the halls of state government. He went to Iraq.
“In the general area of Mosul,” is what he reports. “Other than that I really can’t say much.”
He describes himself as a “combat bureaucrat.”
“War creates a lot of paper work and I’m currently working in ‘document control.’ I expect to move through a few bases while I stay in-country, so I don’t want to get too settled in,” Mishou writes.
“We take in-coming mortar fire virtually every night. The nearest bunker is 12 paces away. I can make it in three.”
See? Not every Democrat is part of a draw-down.
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The first of many to pick: Gingrey lines up behind Romney
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So far as we know, U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) has become the first member of the Georgia congressional delegation to make a pick in the 2008 presidential sweepstakes.
He lined up this afternoon behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, citing the Republican candidate’s commitment to health care and “conservative values.”
So who’s next? Anybody hear where any of the Democrats are headed?
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Let’s you and him fight: Phil Kent and Ed Lindsey on publicly funded judicial races
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We don’t have TIVO, and don’t have Phil Kent’s remarks from Sunday morning’s “Georgia Gang” on WAGA-TV on record.
But the topic was the proposal by state Rep. Edward Lindsey, a Republican from north Atlanta and Sandy Springs, to fund judicial campaigns with public money. Things apparently didn’t go well for Lindsay, who sent out a response Sunday afternoon.
Here’s a portion of Lindsey’s missive:
“We’ve seen tens of thousands and even millions of dollars (sometimes anonymously) from one interest group or the other flood money into judicial campaigns. Both major political parties have also weighed into these nonpartisan races. These actions have circumvented our existing campaign contribution limitations and threaten the appearance if not the reality of an unbiased judiciary.”
You can read the entire piece on the jump. Perhaps Mr. Kent, if he’s out there, can blog us a summary of his remarks, as best he can recall.
Incidently, House Speaker Glenn Richardson said something interesting on this at last week’s session with reporters. Richardson wasn’t wholly keen about Lindsey’s bill. But the speaker did say that if judicial races are to be truly non-partisan, he’d entertain legislation to bar state parties from becoming involved in them.
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The final hurdle for Milton is a doozy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, we filed a post about the back-door tactic available for creating a Milton County.
Briefly, a constitutional amendment would be required if a 160th county were created, which requires two-thirds passage by the Legislature and a statewide referendum.
But if two counties in south Georgia could be persuaded (through financial incentives or otherwise) to merge, then Milton County could be created (or recreated) by a majority legislative vote.
We received two near-identical responses. One from a Republican, the other from a Democrat. Both with lawyerly connections, and both pointed out the same passage in the state constitution: Article IX, Section I, Paragraph II.
It reads: “But no such consolidation, division, or merger shall become effective unless approved by a majority of the qualified voters voting thereon in each of the counties proposed to be consolidated, divided, or merged.”
In other words, regardless of whether two-thirds of the Legislature is necessary, or whether it’s done by majority vote, Fulton County can’t be split unless a majority of Fulton County residents decide it should be split.
Does anybody need to be reminded of the pretty substantial vote that Democrat John Eaves got in the November race for the chairmanship of the Fulton County Commission?
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Mitt Romney coming to town
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and current GOP presidential candidate, has scheduled a major fund-raiser in Atlanta for Feb. 21. Price tag is $1,000 a head.
The list of sponsors can be found here at the Georgians for Romney web site, but we see no startlingly new names. Let us know if we’re wrong.
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Oaky Woods update: Perdue in a darned if he does, darned if he doesn’t position
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Macon Telegraph on Friday had this article on Oaky Woods, the tract of land near Sonny Perdue’s farm that became such an issue in the governor’s re-election campaign. Here’s the relevant snippet:
The new owners of Oaky Woods say they are still willing to sell, if the state is willing to pay their asking price.
Charles Ayer is one of four men who bought the property for about $1,600 an acre. In an interview with The Associated Press at his sporting goods store in nearby Perry, Ayer said he would put the asking price now at $14,000 an acre. That translates into a whopping $280 million for the full 20,000 acres.
Ayer said he and his partners have already poured millions of dollars into the land for road and sewer plans.
“People say they want to save Oaky Woods. Well, that’s not a problem,” Ayer said. “But they should be raising money.”
Perdue’s amended budget for the current fiscal year calls for $50 million in grants for land conservation, which has given residents here some hope that the state may still have a hand to play.
But Perdue’s own connection to the property - and the property owners - could complicate things.
In many ways, the governor is in a no-win situation. Criticized for not pursuing Oaky Woods, Perdue is likely to be under attack again if he moves to buy the land. It stands to affect his own property value and line the pockets of local businessmen, with whom he has ties.
Perdue spokesman Dan McLagan said the governor was trying to do what’s best for Georgia regardless of what the critics say.
“He was attacked when we were unable to purchase it, he will be attacked if we eventually can,” McLagan said.
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Blogwatch: Yikes. One heckuva sunburn in Valdosta.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the new blog packages set up by the New York Times features a look at a new non-lethal ray gun that “underwent its first public demonstration at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia on Wednesday.”
No joke.
It’s reported as a tool for crowd control. The machine “projects a focused beam of millimeter waves to induce an intolerable heating sensation on an adversary’s skin, repelling the individual without causing injury. This capability will add to the ability to stop, deter and turn back an advancing adversary providing an option to lethal force.”
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How to create a Milton County with a majority vote of the Legislature
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Speaker Glenn Richardson met with a hand-picked group of reporters on Friday to talk about a range of issues.
One of topics was the establishment of a Milton County. Richardson says he’s neither for it nor against it, but is leaving that issue in the hands of his No. 2, Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter of Alpharetta — as he did with the creation of the city of Sandy Springs.
There’s no meaning to be drawn from House postponement of action on the secession from Fulton County this year, Richardson said — because it would likely require a constitutional amendment. That would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers, followed by a statewide referendum that can only be placed on general election ballots.
But the speaker acknowledged the existence of a back door on the issue, should pro-Miltonists fail to get their way with the Legislature. It’s a tough door, but a door nonetheless.
A constitutional amendment would be required to increase the number of Georgia counties from 159 to 160. But suppose two small counties in rural Georgia decided to consolidate, or could be persuaded to do so. Would the creation of Milton County then require a two-thirds vote in the Legislature?
“No,” the speaker replied.
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Blogwatch: ‘Dear Diary, Today I made front page news on my own site…’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You don’t expect much from blogs written by legislators, but in a matter of days, state Sen. David Shafer of Duluth has generated a reputation for material that’s often newsy.
In today’s posting, he notes his role in the passage of the first Senate bill of the year. “I have finally been mentioned in the AJC outside the context of Sunday alcohol sales,” Shafer writes. The Republican chairman has put a hold S.B. 26, which would allow grocery stores to sell beer and wine on the Christian Sabbath. (Sorry, David. Readers demand that context.)
On Thursday, Shafer wrote of the visit to the Senate chamber by U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican often mentioned as a candidate for governor. “He spoke briefly and concluded his remarks by expressing an interest in working with us in state government ‘once again,’” the state legislator wrote. “He was not any more specific but I am pretty sure he does not have plans to run again for his old seat in the Georgia House of Representatives.”
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As Soggy Sweat once said, it’s just the liquor talking
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s nothing like alcohol to set the tongue wagging. First this way, then that way.
Last week, in his now-famous interview on Q100, Gov. Sonny Perdue was asked about S.B. 26, a bill to permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sunday.
“I don’t support that, and I don’t know whether it will pass the Legislature or not, but it’ll have a pretty tough time getting the last vote,” the governor said.
But today, Perdue again tried to soften those comments. He was just “having fun,” he told an Associated Press reporter.
The governor didn’t contradict himself. But he admitted it is “not respectful for a chief executive to talk about vetoes.” Perdue might have also said that the venue he chose for his first comments on the issue - an FM radio station geared toward young adults - also raised eyebrows among lawmakers.
We rarely assign homework to chief executives, or legislators, for that matter. But tonight we must make an exception.
Liquor and the South have a strange and wonderful relationship. Opposition is permitted. So is advocacy. Even waffling serves a purpose.
But let all be done with eloquence. Weak, half-hearted language — even in pursuit of fence-straddling — shows no respect to the lobbyists who have poured so much coin into the fight, on both sides. For it is the liquor store owners who have allied themselves with church-goers to keep Sabbath Day check-out counters free of beer and wine.
Thus we point to the example set in 1952 by Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat, Jr., the Mississippi legislator whose famous speech on distilled spirits could serve as an inspiration to many in our state Capitol.
Memorize and be prepared to recite tomorrow. Said Soggy:
“You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.
“If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
“But;
“If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.
“This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.”
Do keep in mind that Soggy Sweat served only one term.
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Nothing puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional like a family reunion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two years ago, to celebrate the GOP consolidation of power at the state Capitol, Republican leaders ordered up “Family Day,” when legislators could bring their spouses and kids to the state Capitol on a Saturday morning, to watch how government really works.
It wasn’t a complete disaster, but it came close.
Brian Nichols had gone on his courthouse rampage only a day earlier, a few blocks away. He hadn’t been caught.
Moreover, Republicans had just rammed through their new Voter ID bill past incensed black and Democratic lawmakers. Bewildered families saw state Rep. Alisha Thomas launch into a civil rights anthem from the well, as newly elected House Speaker Glenn Richardson hammered her down.
Then there was the Republican discovery that their promise of free food and a picnic on the Capitol lawn had consequences.
The nearby Shrine of the Immaculate Conception let it be known that the Catholic church’s shelter would be closed for the day, and that its homeless regulars would likely stop by for a chat with lawmakers to discuss the issues, and to sample the menu.
The House Republican Caucus persuaded the church to keep its shelter open. In exchange, the politicians supplied a Saturday of free food later that spring.
All of this to say that Republicans enjoyed the first “Family Day” so much that they’re going to try it again. Circle Saturday, Feb. 10 on your calendar. We’ll bring the baloney-and-butter sandwiches.
Do you prefer them with the crusts? Or without?
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According to the strategy memo, Rudy wanted Bernie Marcus to head his Southern campaign
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As of last fall, GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani was leaning upon a particular Home Depot founder in Atlanta to spearhead his all-important Southern strategy.
The campaign dossier belonging to the former mayor of New York City disappeared last fall, but resurfaced this month in the New York Daily News. On Wednesday, politico.com put up the entire 137-page document for all to see.
The battle plan includes several references to Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, whom Giuliani apparently wanted to serve as the chairman of his Georgia and his operations in the Southeast — which has become the base of the national GOP vote. References elsewhere indicate Giuliani also eyed him for his campaign’s executive committee.
If the above has indeed come to pass, the leadership of the state GOP is in a three-way split. State Republican chairman Alec Poitevint has declared for U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Eric Tanenblatt, former chief of staff to Gov. Sonny Perdue, has lined up many other Georgians in the Bush circle behind Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.
In the Giuliani strategy document, Marcus’ name appears on a list of priority calls for the presumed candidate — “RWG” in much of the text. Beside Marcus’ name is a short note: “Hold for confirmation from Ken Langone.”
Langone is also a co-founder of Home Depot, whom Giuliani apparently had settled on for the co-chairmanship of his New York City operation.
So far as we know, Marcus has not publicly declared himself for any of the 17 presidential candidates in both parties. But an association with Giuliani would make sense.
Marcus and other Home Depot executives are major financiers of Republican causes. Last May 18, at the height of the tumultuous GOP primary for lieutenant governor, Giuliani came to Atlanta to host a fund-raiser for Ralph Reed.
Marcus was a major backer of the Reed campaign.
On the same day Giuliani whipped through town for Reed, he also had a small event for himself.
It was a “cigar night,” according to the campaign document. The co-hosts were pro football hall-of-famer Fran Tarkenton and Jim Stephenson, who sits on the board of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority — and was a big donor to the Reed campaign.
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If it still twitches and doesn’t reek, it ain’t dead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A dead bill has a certain smell to it, so pungent that it empties the largest room.
Lawmakers who shouldered it deny their burden ever existed. Lobbyists who suckled the creature until it could toddle to committee submit DNA samples to prove they were neither mother nor father. Party hacks call to swear it was nothing but a 30-page typo.
By all those measurements, S.B. 26, which would allow grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sunday, is not a dead bill.
The legislation has been shuffled to a Senate committee headed by David Shafer of Duluth, a leader of the state GOP’s libertarian wing, who wants to study the measure. He’s blogged an explanation here, based on Gov. Sonny Perdue’s talk radio comments on the bill earlier this month.
“Although ‘doomed’ is not the word that I would used, I will say there is virtually no interest among legislators in pursuing this issue after the governor’s comments last week. There are simply not the votes - or the will - to override a gubernatorial veto,” the senator wrote.
Others with a knowledge of Senate operations have likewise told us the bill isn’t moving this year.
And yet.
Earlier this week, Perdue seemed to backtrack — at least a bit — on his blanket opposition. Compare this Q100 sound bite with this video clip that Denis O’Hayer of 11Alive snared this week.
And this morning, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce endorsed S.B. 26. This is a group of conservative men and women who — with the occasional exception — don’t buy term life, and don’t publicly aggravate governors who have already put their foot down.
The fact that restaurants already serve alcohol on Sunday, that neighboring states allow grocery stores to sell six-packs of beer and bottles of wine, and that the legislation mandates local referendums all made the decision easy, a chamber spokesman said.
The ultimate decision rests within the Republican leadership of the Legislature.
Democrats at the state Capitol must have their fingers crossed. Many will vote for S.B. 26 if it comes up, but they may hope it doesn’t. The issue could come in very handy later on.
A very smart fellow — meaning neither of us — pointed out the familiar dynamics of the Sunday sales issue.
A significant slice of Christian conservatives object, strenuously. But an overwhelming majority of voters favor the measure, particularly north of I-20. Supporters aren’t necessarily irreligious, but neither do they like government telling them what they can’t do.
It sounds a bit like 1990, when Zell Miller pitched the lottery.
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Full text of ethics complaint against state Rep. Larry O’Neal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The documents associated with today’s complaint against state Rep. Larry O’Neal of Warner Robins can be found here and here.
A link to the full story can be found in the item below.
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Fire up the committee again, Eric: Dems to file another ethics complaint
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Only a week after the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee dismissed a complaint against House Speaker Glenn Richardson, Democrats are back with another.
This time, it’s a complaint against state Rep. Larry O’Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The topic is the legislation giving a tax break to Gov. Sonny Perdue. A first thought: The issue could make it even more awkward to bring up “private cities” legislation that would allow developers to levy their own taxes in carved out districts.
The filer is Edward Chapman of Atlanta, who says he’s bringing the matter up as a private citizen — but acknowledges that he’s a former research specialist for the state Democratic party.
Chapman alleges that O’Neal “used his position as a member of the House to bestow a financial benefit upon a client of his private law practice” — i.e., the governor.
The complaint against Richardson was dismissed for lack of evidence. In this one, Democrats have been more thorough. The nine-page submission includes a list of potential witnesses. The governor is among them.
The full story can be read here.
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Blogwatch: Lawmakers won’t be able to resist playing with a $19 million tackle box
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We don’t always agree with Bill Simon, author of the Politicalvine.com blog. But on this matter he may be truly prescient.
Look for Gov. Sonny Perdue’s $19 million bass fishing proposal to drop by at least $1 million, Simon recently wrote. Then watch that cash drift over to the State Ethics Commission like an orphaned floating dock, to replace the $1 million that Perdue trimmed from it.
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Because Washington isn’t the friendly place it used to be
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After last night’s State of the Union speech, Gov. Sonny Perdue said he liked President Bush’s thoughts on health insurance, but that Georgia needs $131 million in immediate help to keep the state’s insurance program for children afloat.
The governor said he talked Tuesday with Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt about the matter.
“I reminded him that we are continuing to look for the federal government to fulfill its financial commitments so that Georgia’s children can continue to have the health insurance coverage they need,” Perdue said, according to the Associated Press.
This will please state legislators of both parties. A Republican governor lobbying a Republican administration in Washington is good and proper and diplomatic.
Contrast that with the fact that even Republican state lawmakers were a bit chagrined when they learned that — last week — Perdue sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, calling for a solution.
“We are at a point now that requires the leadership of Congress to make funding…a priority,” Perdue wrote last Friday. “The clock is ticking. Simply put, Georgia’s program will be bankrupt in March.”
A bipartisan team of state lawmakers from Georgia had visited Pelosi’s office only the day before. They ran into a wall of resentment that the governor’s letter may have only aggravated.
Fixing the insurance problem, which extends to a total of 18 states, will cost about $1 billion. Democratic leaders in Washington were quite forceful in declaring they viewed the dilemma as one of several problems that a Republican Congress had left at the doorstep of the new management.
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What a thrill to make national headlines
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s the headline on the AP report the Drudge Report highlighted this evening: “White Atlanta suburbs push for secession.”
There’s gotta be a Chamber of Commerce brochure in that.
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Tonight’s State of the Union address: A 21st Century cardigan sweater
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember Jimmy Carter in his cardigan sweater, preaching to us about keeping the thermostat down?
Don’t expect the tone to be quite the same tonight when President Bush gives his State of the Union message. But if David G. Hawkins is right, there will be a sense of deja vu in some of the things Bush proposes.
Hawkins, a former EPA official who is now director of the Natural Resources Defense Council Climate Center, predicted at the conference on the Carter presidency over the weekend that Bush will show a renewed interest in alternate fuel sources and reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
Bush has made some nod toward energy independence in all his annual messages to Congress, but with a stripped-down list of domestic priorities, the subject will move a long way up the list tonight.
The political reason for this is pretty obvious. Energy independence topped the chart in the issue polling Democrats conducted last year, blowing away anything else Congress might take up this year, according to Democratic strategist James Carville. Presumably Republicans have read similar polls.
It was noted several times at the University of Georgia conference that Ronald Reagan took down the solar panels Carter had put on the White House. Carter was the last president to reduce foreign oil consumption, which has spiraled in this decade.
It may be that some of the things he talked about more than a quarter-century ago have become more politically palatable, with the increasing unpopularity of the war in Iraq. But Carter’s example also serves as a warning about the pitfalls involved in getting this energy-guzzling country to change its ways.
Already, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the distant echo of a competition for research dollars between Midwestern corn and Southern pine trees - both potential replacements for oil. And remember the photograph of Jimmy and Rosslyn Carter in the control room at Three Mile Island in those strange-looking plastic shoes?
Nuclear power is a political can of worms that has been left shut ever since that incident, but it’s likely to be opened again.
Climate change, which was just beginning to be talked about when Carter was president, will be a complicating factor in the formation of any future energy policy. And none of these issues will be made any easier by having been put off for more than a quarter century.
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Social notes: Bishop’s wife scores a first
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Congressional Club, founded by the members of Congress nearly a century ago as a social outlet for their spouses, is an inside-the-beltway insitution. Last week Vivian Creighton Bishop, wife of U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, became the club’s first African-American president.
As a Columbus Ledger-Enquirer story details, the club, which also includes former first ladies, spouses of cabinet members and Supreme Court justices as well as female lawmakers, is founded on the now quaint idea of setting aside partisan differences. So no matter who’s in the majority in Congress, the presidency of the club alternates between the parties every two years.
Bishop was also the first African-American woman to be elected citywide in Columbus, to clerk of the Muscogee County Municipal Court, a post she still holds. Sounds like a lot of frequent-flyer miles.
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On the ‘08 race for president: Gingrich’s game of chance, and a bit of history
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today’s editions of the Washington Post say that Newt Gingrich pump-primed his ideas-for-president organization with a $1 million check from a casino executive.
The “donation marks a new frontier in political fund-raising — a seven-figure check to a group associated with a single politician whose aspirations may include the White House. Gingrich has said that he will decide by the fall whether to enter the crowded race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination,” writes the Post.
On top of his three marriages, news that the house has put its money behind Gingrich is unlikely to thrill the GOP’s Christian conservative base.
On another front, if you think the ‘08 presidential contest is already more wild and woolly than anything you’ve seen before, there’s a good reason.
Duke University political scientist John Aldrich has checked the stats for us all. The last time the U.S. had both an open presidency and a sitting vice president not interested in running was 1920.
Warren Harding was the GOP victor that year, with Calvin Coolidge as his vice president. Democrats offered up James Cox, an Ohio newspaper man whose descendants own this fine publication.
Cox’s running mate was 38-year-old Franklin D. Roosevelt, who at 38 was just a year away from contracting the polio that would put him in a wheelchair the rest of his life.
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Tom Price on the student loan bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell) made the first paragraph of Robert Novak’s Monday column in the Washington Post.
Writes Novak:
“House Democrats were extolling their student loan bill for opening college to Americans with moderate incomes on Wednesday when Rep. Tom Price, a second-term Republican from Georgia, took the floor. “If only this bill did what they say,” Price declared. His admonition constituted more than the usual hyperbole of congressional debate.”
Read the rest here.
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Of Delta, politicians, and the inkling of a poisoned pill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Monday morning, the cream of the state Legislature and an assemblage of Delta executives crowded into a small room near the Capitol to declare their unity in the closed-door fight to save the hometown airline from a hostile takeover.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle was there, as was House Speaker Glenn Richardson, and too many other lawmakers — of both parties — to count.
All put their signatures to a letter requesting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales conduct a review of US Airways takeover bid.
As far as substance goes, the petition means little. This was a display of Delta’s political reach, both local and preliminary. In Washington, U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss have scheduled a congressional hearing on the impact of airline mergers for Wednesday.
It’s important to be seen doing something. Should all go wrong, no politician wants to be the answer when this question is asked: “Who lost Delta?”
All have their eyes on Feb. 1, when Delta’s secretive board of creditors is to decide whether to accept the offer to purchase the bankrupt airline.
The Delta tableau at the state Capitol left many smiling and satisfied, but not state Sen. Kasim Reed of Atlanta. The Democrat wants something that can be weighed and measured by the people who will decide Delta’s future.
He’s looking for a Republican to partner with on a four-year, $400 million package of tax breaks that need to pass, or show great promise, by the Feb. 1 deadline.
We won’t trouble you with many of the details, which we’d probably get wrong anyway.
But here’s the meat of the matter: Reed would tie the package to an airline that maintains 15,000 employees or more within the borders of Georgia. A corporate headquarters, in other words.
Which means that should the merger go through, US Airways would suffer an immediate loss of $400 million in tax credits.
Reed wants that figure to become one of the numbers crunched by Delta’s board of creditors. “It’s better than a piece of paper,” Reed said.
The Atlanta senator has been told that the amount of his tax package is a piddling amount that won’t sway those who hold Delta’s paper. Reed disagrees.
For Delta to clear $400 million in profit — presuming the company is in the black — it would have to generate $2.7 billion in business, the senator figured. That’s not chicken feed.
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Gingrich, sent home to study math, tries to pull a Lincoln
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fortune magazine has what may be the best, short strategic profile of Newt Gingrich we’ve seen in a while.
It covers the thinking behind Gingrich’s if-I-have-ideas-they-will-draft-me approach, which has its roots in Lincoln’s 1860 run for the White House. The article also says that after his fall from the House speakership in the late ’90s, the ex-Georgia congressman became an autodidactic.
He tried to educate himself, too.
“He plunged into studying everything he had missed during his 20 years in the House. He immersed himself in math and science, trying at first to home-school himself. ‘I spent one afternoon studying fractals, which is a very complex mathematics,’ he recalls. ‘It was hopeless.’
“He exploited his contacts at MIT, Stanford, NASA, and the National Science Foundation to get personal tutorials on everything from physics to nanotechnology.”
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The race for Democratic chairman on camera
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blog for Democracy has done everyone a favor and posted video presentations today by each of the five candidates for chairman of the state Democratic party.
The three-minute, youtube.com videos were recorded at a Saturday forum in Atlanta. A longer video of the question-and-answer portion is promised for later this afternoon.
The vote to replace the current chairman, Bobby Kahn, occurs this Saturday, Jan. 27, in Atlanta. Nearly 240 state committee members are eligible to cast ballots.
Four of the five candidates in the race participated in the weekend panel discussion: Michael Berlon, Carol Jackson, Jane Kidd, and the Rev. Jim Nelson.
Hattie Dorsey of Fulton County was not there. Contrary to an earlier communication from state Democratic party headquarters, former state senator Donzella James is not a candidate for that office.
Given the number of candidates, the race for chairman is likely to require several ballots. It’s hard to say who’s winning, but Democrats who hold elected positions appear to be lining up behind Kidd, a former state representative from Athens.
This is in part because Berlon, chairman of the Gwinnett Democratic party, has called for restrictions on elected officials holding high party positions, as some states have done. “There’s a potential conflict of interest if you’re holding a position with the state party,” Berlon said. The state’s top labor leaders are supporting him.
Many have been puzzled by the late entry of state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond into the contest for first vice chairman, which now includes state Sen. Doug Stoner of Smyrna, and Darryl Hicks, the former candidate for secretary of state.
Allow us to offer a theory. The key is that party rules require that if the chairman of the party is male, the first vice chair must be female, and vice versa. There’s no similar regulation regarding the races of the office-holders, but you’ll see that this could be an unspoken requirement.
Assume that Kidd, daughter of the late governor Ernest Vandiver, is the front-runner — not just because of Berlon’s position on elected officials, but because of her lineage, the fact that she’s not from Atlanta, and her relatively centrist positions.
The entry of Thurmond, also from Athens, into the race for the No. 2 slot serves as a signal to African-American voters that it’s all right to vote for Kidd.
Thurmond and Hicks are then the two black candidates in the race for first vice chairman. Stoner is white.
But Hicks just took a job as chief of staff to Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves. That could give pause to some state committee members, while Thurmond, as we said, has a non-Atlanta address.
We invite all other conspiracy theorists to submit their alternate ideas below.
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Jordan’s moment, and a presidential scorecard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The conference on the Jimmy Carter presidency held on over the weekend in Athens was in large part the brainchild of former Hamilton Jordan, who is working out of the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute to write a book on the same subject. But the former White House chief of staff has had “some health challenges recently,” as Carter put it at the conference banquet Saturday night. He underwent surgery last year for a rare viral infection which caused a buildup of fluid around his heart, and wasn’t around for Friday’s sessions.
Jordan was on the scene bright and early Saturday, however, and seemed not to be slowed down at all by a portable oxygen unit. The Carters presented him with an engraved clock at the banquet, held on the 30th anniversary of Carter’s inauguration.
That was one of several emotional motions during the weekend which brought veterans of the administration back together again. Carter told the audience he’d cried three times during the conference: after hearing an eloquent appreciation of his achievements by former National Security Affairs advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, after a luncheon speech by his wife, Rosalynn, and while telling the story at a Saturday town hall meeting of his personal struggle with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to convince him to stay at Camp David and work out a peace agreement with Israel.
Carter’s already much-recognized post-presidential career wasn’t the subject of this conference, but the former president spoke about it at the banquet, with a Carteresque assessment of his relationship with the other presidents. Ronald Reagan didn’;t treat him as cordially as he had Gerald Ford, he said, but one of the nice things about his administration was that it didn’t take much interest in the Middle East, and gave Carter the opportunity to travel there.
He had a “superb” relationship with George Bush 41, but a “very difficult time” with Bill Clinton. And while he disagrees with Bush 43 on almost every issue, Carter said, they have a “fairly friendly working relationship.” We can’t wait to hear what he thinks of the next one.
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But if you trust voters to set the tax rate, it might be hard to deny them a say on beer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some things rise to the level of a popular vote, says Gov. Sonny Perdue. Like the state flag. And some things don’t. Like when it’s permissible to buy a six-pack.
Perdue’s sense of history is somewhat skewed. Until he took office, we never had a referendum on a state flag. And until he was re-elected, local option referendums — allowing each community to decide for itself — were the way that Georgia lawmakers traditionally escaped the rock and hard place created by votes on distilled and fermented beverages.
But the governor is dead right about one thing. People do like to choose for themselves.
“When you ask people generally if they want the right to vote on anything — what kind of toilet tissue the state ought to use, or anything like that — they’ll typically say yes,” the governor told his radio listeners last week.
Georgia Republicans understand this, and have used the knowledge every other November to boost their numbers. In 2004, we had the referendum to place a ban on gay marriage in the state Constitution. In 2006, it was the constitutional amendment to hunt and fish.
Now, for Republicans, comes the real test on whether to trust voters. It has nothing to do with alcohol, homosexuality, or bass. Or toilet paper.
Last week, a group called Americans for Prosperity held a small press conference to call for a lid on taxation. Its members want increases in state spending to be limited to that caused by the pressures of inflation and population growth.
Any further increase in taxes would have to be approved by popular vote.
Do this, and the state income tax can be eliminated by 2021, said Jared Thomas, director of the anti-tax group’s Georgia chapter. Thomas acknowledges significant opposition within Republican ranks, even as the GOP has taken on the massive topic of tax reform.
“We’re not in the room deciding how this will be put down yet,” he said.
One of the disinclined is House Speaker Glenn Richardson. A mathematical formula, he has said in the past, is no substitute for human judgment, especially in times of crisis.
When one says that politicians can’t be trusted with the power to tax and spend, Richardson has reason to take it personally. The Republican’s power arises from the constitutional control the House of Representatives has over state finances — the power to tax and spend.
The speaker took no cheap shot at the anti-tax group last week. Some of its leaders are close friends.
But if they want to cut spending, Richardson said, they need to offer up specific items for the knife, rather than rely on distant theories. Fourteen years is a long time to wait. “I can’t think of a more opportune time than now,” Richardson said.
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They’re out of power in Atlanta, but have a hotline to D.C.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yet another reason why Democrats in the state Capitol shed few tears at last week’s dismissal of the ethics complaint, brought by the chairman of their own party, against House Speaker Glenn Richardson: It muddied a rare opportunity to exercise some real clout.
Early this month, the Republican-controlled state Legislature passed a resolution calling on the newly empowered Democratic Congress to fix a looming disaster — a $131 million hole in PeachCare, Georgia’s insurance program for 270,000 children of poor but working families, caused by a federal funding glitch.
Money could run out by March.
In a private gathering of Democrats, which has grown more intimate by the year, state Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) pointed to the weakness of the plea. The measure suffered from a dearth of Democratic sponsors.
At the nation’s Capitol, no door that mattered would be opened by it.
Smyre knew of what he spoke. When it comes to Washington, the Columbus banker is one of the best-wired figures in Georgia. He’d just returned from the swearing-in of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Word of Smyre’s comments made its way to the House GOP leadership. Smyre was invited to lead a bipartisan delegation of state lawmakers to Washington. Last Thursday, on the same day the dismissal of Richardson’s ethics complaint became public, the PeachCare delegation sat down with Pelosi’s chief of staff.
Several things were made clear in the meeting. First, 17 other states are in the same boat with Georgia, and the total cost of the repair is close to $1 billion. Resentful Democrats in Congress think their Republican predecessors had the opportunity to solve the difficult problem, but instead chose to punt.
And that will make it hard for Georgia, a thoroughly red state, to be heard.
Secondly, if more money for PeachCare does come Georgia’s way, the message from Congress is clear — Democrats in Georgia are to have a say in the future shape of the program, and how the money is spent.
For a minority party, that’s clout.
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‘The Ox’ goes after a case of Katrina-itis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s a campaign TV ad in the making.
State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, a presumed ‘10 candidate for governor, is making a case against an insurance company that apparently wants to reduce its exposure on the Georgia coast, the Savannah Morning News reports today.
Oxendine says St. Paul Travelers Cos. plans to pay agents a third less in commissions on coastal homeowner policies. He says the company has also issued policies with windstorm deductions not approved by his agency.
“Don’t lump us in with Florida and the Carolinas. We’re different because we haven’t had the storms that Florida, North and South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi have. We haven’t had the great hurricane,” the Republican said.
The insurance commissioner has ordered the company to appear at a Feb. 9 hearing.
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Quick, Mr. Mondale, duck!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In Athens to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Jimmy Carter administration, former veep Walter Mondale had some harsh words today for current Vice President Dick Cheney.
“If I had done as vice president what this vice president has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there,” Mondale said.
Little did Mondale know that Cheney was nearby. Not exactly within shotgun range, but within a short ‘copter hop.
Cheney staffers confirmed that their boss was hunting in Georgia today. They didn’t narrow it down, but we’re told the vice president was at a spread near Albany owned by Atlanta businessman Virgil Williams.
The race for Democratic chairman breaks into the open
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Columbus attorney Jim Butler has churned out another letter on the race to replace Bobby Kahn as chairman of the state Democratic party.
Butler doesn’t name names, but it sounds like he’s dissing one of the candidates — Michael Berlon, the current chairman of the Gwinnett Democratic organization, who has the support of some of the state’s top labor leaders.
Go to the jump for the entire letter.
Subject: The main thing Georgia Democrats have to fear is … Georgia Democrats
Demographic and political trends strongly suggest that Democrats should be able to return to power by the 2010 elections, if not before.
Certainly it appears that Bushism may relegate the Republicans to Hoover days, and Americans’ revulsion about the Bushist mismanagement of foreign policy, domestic policy, fiscal policy, and trade policy will eventually percolate in to Georgians’ views.
Perdue’s legacy of inaction and negative actions won’t be much better, if any.
I can’t see much standing in the way of a brighter future for Democrats and all Georgia citizens other than Democrats’ own failure to seize the opportunities to broaden the appeal of the Georgia Democratic Party and its candidates.
One of the candidates for Party Chair has advocated separating the Party from elected Democratic officials. That’s very unwise and counter-productive, in my view.
It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of past Democratic history in Georgia (when the relationship between the Party and elected officials was based upon the fact Democrats controlled the state and the fact there was no really organized Democratic party, nor much need for one).
It also reflects a failure to understand fundamental truths about fundraising. Such a Party organization will simply not be able to raise money effectively. Money isn’t everything in politics, as we all know and have been reminded in recent years, but it is nonetheless important.
In the first place, who knows more about how to get Democrats elected to office than someone who has managed to get elected to office in Georgia as a Democrat? Not many of the rest of us, that’s for sure.
More importantly, it is clear beyond doubt that most county party organizations need to be reconstituted, and the obvious most logical place to start is with elected Democratic officials in each county.
State Party officials should go to them and enlist their help in reconstituting the County party. The goal should be to make being a Democrat in that county socially acceptable to a broad cross section of the community.
What are we missing in most counties? Everyone knows the answer to that. Elected Sheriffs, County Commissioners, Tax Commissioners, and Clerks can, if they will, encourage and enlist local business folk and others widely respected in the community to become the local ‘face of the party’.
The experience of Democrats in western states should show us the way. Pick the target groups who have not been willing to consider voting for Democrats. Become acceptable to them, and you cobble together a majority of the votes.
In much of Georgia, many voters today will simply not even contemplate voting for someone with “Democrat” beside their name. THAT is the main issue. That is what Georgia Democrats must overcome. I hope the State Committee will elect as State Officers folks with whom a broader cross section of Georgians can readily identify.
Jim Butler
Columbus GA
How to create demand for a constitutional amendment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let’s talk about what could be the underlying, cold-blooded politics behind state Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson’s bill to permit disabled students to obtain state vouchers for use in other public schools, or private ones.
The Savannah lawmaker calls them scholarships, but let’s try to operate without the varnish. From what we hear, S.B. 10 has a good chance to pass first the Senate, then the House.
Cast your mind back to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s several efforts to pass his “faith-based initiative.” He says his proposed amendment to the state Constitution is necessary to protect the state’s current contracts with religious institutions that provide social services. Orphanages, half-way houses and such.
Time after time, Perdue’s attempts have failed to receive the mandatory two-thirds vote in both chambers.
Failure has come partly because the education lobby has persuaded enough lawmakers that the proposed amendment is really an effort to put state vouchers for religious schools on the table. As of now, the state Constitution won’t permit that.
But the measure has also failed because the governor hasn’t been able to demonstrate a pressing need for his faith-based initiative. Protecting an unthreatened status quo doesn’t stir the blood.
Now comes S.B. 10.
Suppose, as is likely, the bill passes and Perdue signs it. Very quickly, we’d have the test case of a disabled student who wants to attend a Catholic high school or a conservative Christian academy. State money would be going to a religious institution — with proselytizing a legitimate, perhaps unavoidable part of the curriculum.
Perhaps there’s a lawsuit, perhaps not. Either way, suddenly we’d have a law that’s at odds with the state Constitution.
And just as suddenly, there’s a real demand for Perdue’s faith-based initiative.
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A last word, and a last needle in the Bobby Kahn doll
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After the dismissal of the ethics complaint against House Speaker Richardson, Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) unleashed his vocabulary on state Democratic chairman Bobby Kahn, who filed the complaint.
Said Johnson: “The Joint Legislative Ethics Committee must not allow itself to be used for partisan political purposes. The fact that the Chairman of a political party makes vague accusations against a leader of the other party on the weekend before the inauguration and the opening day of the session clearly indicates the motivation behind the charge. It should insult the people of Georgia and embarrass those who take the political process seriously.”
But legislators shouldn’t take the process so seriously that they’re prohibited from making one last, nearly hidden jab at the Democratic provocateur.
The letter announcing the dismissal was addressed to Kahn, as “chairman, Democrat Party of Georgia.”
Not the Democratic Party of Georgia. It’s a slight that Republicans love to use.
Or maybe it was just a typo.
Potholes on the road to paradise: Two years to get permission, two weeks to build
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Frustration over Georgia’s progress on fixing metro Atlanta traffic congestion runs deep among Republican ranks, a piece by the Marietta Daily Journal hints today.
The article tells of a diplomatic but compelling letter from Sam Olens, chairman of both the Cobb County Commission and the Atlanta Regional Commission, to Gov. Sonny Perdue. The topic is road construction, and the need for speed by the Georgia Department of Transportation.
“When it takes two years for permission to let right-turn improvements on a state road and the construction takes two weeks, there is simply something wrong with the process,” the MDJ says Olens wrote.
Another line: “We have the fourth worst congestion in the country; we’re the fourth fastest-growing region in the country and we have the fourth lowest transportation investment,” Olens said. “Add that to program delivery, and we’re further behind each year.”
The letter was dated Jan. 5, just before the governor’s inauguration. Perdue did address the need to streamline road construction in a speech to Georgia Chamber of Commerce a few days later.
But the letter does help explain the heavy sighs from the business community after the governor’s prestigious State of the State address, also last week, which emphasized bass fishing at the expense of any mention of transportation at all.
Georgia: The higher education state
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Who has the most hard-core Republican congressional delegation in the country?
One measure might be the House vote Wednesday on the bill reducing the interest on federal student loans, part of the Democrats’“100 hours” push. The popular measure was a rout, with 124 Republicans joining the Democrats and only 71 opposing it.
But the Georgia Republicans solidly opposed the measure. Six of the seven Republicans voted against it, with Rep. Charlie Norwood, who is battling cancer, not voting.
All six Georgia Democrats voted for the measure.
Strike up the ‘Lone Ranger’ theme: Democrats to the rescue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrats in the state Capitol can’t order a box of toothpicks in the state Capitol without GOP permission. On the other hand, when it comes to Washington, suddenly they may have more clout than Gov. Sonny Perdue.
A delegation of state legislators, led by state Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) has quietly slipped away to the District of Columbia to meet with newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — or someone in her office. We haven’t heard how high they were able to reach.
The bipartisan group’s purpose is to get Pelosi’s backing for making a federal funding fix that would fill a $130 million-plus hole in PeachCare, the state’s insurance program for the children of working families. Accompanying Smyre are state Sens. Greg Goggans (R-Douglas) and Horacena Tate (D-Atlanta); and state Reps. Pat Gardner (D-Atlanta), Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) and Mickey Channell (R-Greensboro).
On Wednesday, Community Health Commissioner Rhonda Medows — who accompanied the legislative group to Washington — said Perdue had spoken to the White House about the pending crisis “two or three times.” But it’s Pelosi who holds the purse strings now.
Isakson on immigration: Wed status to enforcement
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Below is a tidbit of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s speech on illegal immigration this morning, in which he re-introduced his compromise approach. The full text can be found on the jump.
To wit:
“The hope and opportunity of reforming legal immigration in this country can become a reality.
“And I am not an obstructionist to doing it. In fact if anything needs to be done, it’s that we need to reform the legal system because we almost promote, through the rigidity and difficulty of legal immigration, coming here illegally because we’re looking the other way on the border.
“And we have a historical precedent. In 1986, we reformed immigration with the Simpson Act. We granted three million people amnesty, said we were going to secure the border and didn’t. Today we have 12 million because we did not secure that border.
“That can never happen again.”
Mr. President, I’m pleased to join on the floor of the Senate and visit an issue that this Senate visited nine months ago in the month of May.
The United States Senate tackled what I would submit is the most important domestic issue in the United States of America and every state, and that’s the issue of legal immigration and illegal immigration.
In that debate of what became known as a comprehensive immigration reform bill, I submitted an amendment; it ended up being Amendment 1, the first one debated.
The amendment simply said, ‘before any provision of this act that grants legal status to someone who is in America illegally takes effect, the Secretary of Homeland Security will certify to the Congress that all of the provisions of border security contained in the bill were funded, in place, and operational.’
It was, if you will, and became known as a ‘trigger,’ and it was a trigger because the immigration issue is not like some where you can never figure out what’s the chicken and what’s the egg and what came first.
There is no way you can reform legal immigration unless you first stop the porous borders that we have, and the flow of illegal immigrants. But to do only one without other is a terrible mistake.
The result of last year’s debate was the Senate passed a bill without the trigger that granted new legal status, that although it provided for the authorization of border security, it did not provide for the guarantee of border security in its funding.
The House reaction was, ‘we want border security only.’ And the debate to this day since, between the House and the Senate, has been, the Senate’s for comprehensive reform and the House is for border security only, and never the twain will meet.
But the twain must meet. It is the number one domestic issue.
And I come to the floor of the Senate to introduce a major immigration reform bill that I think is the bridge from where we are to where we must go, and for a moment, I want to discuss the provisions of that proposal.
First of all, it contains the trigger. It predicates any reform of immigration that grants legal status to someone who’s here illegally to be non-effective until we first close the doors to the south and to the north.
It provides for all the security measures the Senate passed last year, and they are 2,500 new port-of-entry inspectors, 14,000 border inspectors, trained and ready to deploy, $454 million for unmanned aerial vehicles to give us the 24/7 eyes in the sky that are essential to enforcement on our border, authorization and ultimate appropriation for those barriers and fences and roads that are necessary for our agents to patrol, and 20,000 beds for detention to end the practice of catch-and-release.
When I came to the Senate two years ago as a Georgian and one that loves the outdoors, I thought catch-and-release was a fishing term. I found out it became a border term where we would catch people, tell them to go home and release them. They’d wait for us to leave and come back again.
You know we must remember the reason we have this problem is we have the greatest nation on the face of this earth. You don’t find anybody trying to break out of the United States of America - they’re all trying to break in - and they are for a very special reason: the promise of hope and opportunity and jobs.
But we must make the right way to come to America be the legal way to come to America, not the ease of crossing our border in the dark of night under some other cover.
And then lastly, an integral part of border security is a verifiable program where America’s employers can be given a verifiable ID by someone who is here legally, that verifies they are who they say they are.
The biggest growth industry in the United States of America on our southwestern border is forged documents. It is; we have a proliferation today of forged documents where illegal aliens have legal-looking documents and we have a customs and immigration system that cannot tell an American farmer or American employer that in fact the document they were shown was in fact right or wrong. That’s got to be fixed as well.
Once those provisions are in, we have a secure border. And interestingly enough, it takes about the same amount of time to put in the barriers, get unmanned airline vehicles in the air, get the detention facilities built, train the border security and port of entry people as to takes to get the verifiable identification system in place. We know both will take us about 24 months.
So when you have the trigger, it does not protract reform. But it precedes the implementation of what’s going to take you 24 months to do anyway. And all a sudden we have a new paradigm in America. Those who want to come here realize the way to come is the legal way, not the illegal way.
They learn there are consequences to coming illegally and employers know that when they get an ID, they can either swipe it on a computer or they can go up on the internet and go to customs and immigration and find out if that person is legal. The paradigm changes.
The hope and opportunity of reforming legal immigration in this country can become a reality. And I am not an obstructionist to doing it. In fact if anything needs to be done, it’s that we need to reform the legal system because we almost promote, through the rigidity and difficulty of legal immigration, coming here illegally because we’re looking the other way on the border.
And we have a historical precedent. In 1986, we reformed immigration with the Simpson Act. We granted three million people amnesty, said we were going to secure the border and didn’t. Today we have 12 million because we did not secure that border. That can never happen again.
Secondly, if the border is secure and you give people a chance who are here illegally but are obeying the laws and working a chance to come forward, you can then identify who is here that is not a problem.
And you also leave open by those who don’t come forward who you must concentrate on to see to it that they are not here for the wrong reasons and they go home. But you can never enforce the system internally until you first close the external opportunity to come through illegal immigration.
Mr. President, in 1903, in May, Anders Isakson came through Ellis Island because of the potato famine in Scandinavia. In 1916, my father was born to him and his wife, Josephine. My father became a citizen of this country because he was born on our soil.
In 1926, my grandfather became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. And in my home today, framed and hung on the wall, are his naturalization certificates from 1926 when he raised his right arm and pledged his allegiance to the United States of America.
There is no one who has a greater respect and greater joy in the promise of this country and the opportunity of immigration, but we must begin restoring the respect for legal immigration and shutting the door on illegal immigration. Otherwise, those lines become blurred and the stress we have on our social service systems, civil justice system, public health system, and the public education system that is stretched to the limit because of illegal aliens today, ends.
We owe it to the history of our country which makes us great to secure our borders, to honor legal immigration, and to move forward with a reform of immigration that matches the economic needs of the United States of America.
I stand on the Senate floor today committed to work with any member of this Senate for comprehensive reform, just as long as its cornerstone and its foundation is that we fix the problem on our borders, have it certified, and have that fix be the foundation for the modernization and reform of our immigration laws.
Mr. President, I thank you for the time and I yield back.
Text of letter dismissing Richardson complaint
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah did the smart thing and included a Senate Democrat, George Hooks of Americus, in the three-person review panel that dismissed the ethics complaint against House Speaker Glenn Richardson of Hiram. State Rep. Lynn Smith (R-Newnan) was the third member.
Here’s the full text of the letter from the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee:
Mr. Bobby Kahn
Chairman
Democrat Party of Georgia
1100 Spring Street, NW
Suite 408
Atlanta, Ga. 30309
Dear Mr. Kahn:
Pursuant to Rule 3 of the Rules of the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee, a Review Committee has been appointed, and it has reviewed the complaint filed against Representative Glenn Richardson on January 5, 2007.
Rule 2.2 of the Rules of the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee states that any complaint shall be in writing and shall contain a specific description of the nature of the alleged conflict of interest, the party or parties involved, and a statement of the specific facts upon which all allegations are based. Without specific information or specific facts, neither the Review Committee nor the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee has anything to investigate. Pursuant to Rule 3.4 of the Rules of the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee, the Review Committee cannot find probable cause to warrant further review and investigation based on any evidence that would be inadmissible in a court of record. The allegation that certain matters are “common knowledge” clearly fails to meet this requirement.
Consequently, the Review Committee does not find that sufficient information exists to find probable cause to warrant further investigation by the Review Committee or the full Joint Legislative Ethics Committee and the complaint is hereby dismissed.
Sincerely yours,
Senator Eric Johnson
Representative Lynn Smith
Senator George Hooks
cc: Rep. Glenn Richardson
Bad paycheck news for state employees
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Budget hearings at the state Capitol on Wednesday included some sobering news for 200,00 state employees. Community Health Commissioner Rhonda Medows said plans for the ‘08 budget include a 10 percent increase in health insurance premiums for state employees.
By her calculation, a 3 percent raise to a teacher earning $30,000 a year means an extra $700. A 10 percent premium increase would eat up $130 of that gain, turning a 3 percent increase into a 2 percent pay hike.
Under the governor’s budget proposal, the increase would begin Jan. 1, 2008. No changes for state retirees are anticipated.
Isakson pitches on immigration this morning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Johnny Isakson is scheduled to speak on immigration on the Senate floor at 10:10 a.m., we’re told. You can catch it on C-Span 2 or see it by clicking here.
He’ll be trying to sell his holistic approach to immigration reform, which didn’t catch fire last spring, but may have a better chance now that the November elections have been digested.
The key to Isakson’s bill is a trigger that would require the U.S. border to be declared secure before any legal status could be given to illegal immigrants.
Sonny on Sunday sales: ‘I don’t support that’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue broke weeks of silence on Wednesday, telling a radio audience that he doesn’t support the effort to permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sundays.
Perdue made his comments on “The Bert Show” on Q100, a talk-and-Top 40 station aimed at young adults.
“Think of it this way…It really helps you plan ahead for the rest of your life — buying on Saturday, rather than Sunday,” the governor said. “Time management.”
Said state Sen. Seth Harp of Midland, who introduced the bill last week: “I’m surprised, because it’s been tremendously well-received. People came up to me in church and told me it was a good idea,” said Harp, a Methodist. “I hope [Perdue] doesn’t have his mind made up.”
Here’s the sound. And here’s a rough transcript of what Perdue said about S.B. 26:
“I think it’s going to have a tough time, actually. When you ask people generally if they want the right to vote on anything — what kind of toilet tissue the state ought to use, or anything like that — they’ll typically say yes.
“Although they like representative government, they like to have their voices heard. And that’s why we have representative government, where people elect their own legislators to come and make these kinds of decisions.
“Some things rise to the level of referendums — such as, I felt, the symbol, the flag that represented Georgia, which I felt rose to that level. But you can’t do government really by referendum. And so, I don’t support that, and I don’t know whether it will pass the Legislature or not, but it’ll have a pretty tough time getting the last vote….
“You have to always be attuned to where public opinion is, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to follow that. A good leader always leads in a way they think is the right direction for Georgia on significant issues. …
“Think of it this way…It really helps you plan ahead for the rest of your life — buying on Saturday, rather than Sunday. Time management.”
The race to replace Bobby Kahn is on
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state Democratic party on Wednesday released its formal list of candidates for chairman and other positions up for a vote on Saturday, Jan. 27.
The race to replace Bobby Kahn as chairman contains no surprises: Michael R. Berlon (Gwinnett), Hattie B. Dorsey (Fulton), Carol Jackson (Habersham), Donzella J. James (Fulton), Jane V. Kidd (Clarke), and Jim Nelson (Chatham).
The surprise is in the race for first vice-chairman. Candidates include state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond of Athens, and state Sen. Doug Stoner of Cobb County.
See the entire list below
List Of Candidates for State Committee Elections
(Atlanta) The list of candidates who have filed to run in the State Committee Elections is as follows (listed in alphabetical order):
Chairman
Michael R. Berlon (Gwinnett)
Hattie B. Dorsey (Fulton)
Carol Jackson (Habersham)
Donzella J. James (Fulton)
Jane V. Kidd (Clarke)
Jim Nelson (Chatham)
First Vice-Chair
Gloria S. Butler (DeKalb)
Darryl A. Hicks (Fayette)
Angela Moore (DeKalb)
Michael Thurmond (Clarke)
Doug Stoner (Cobb)
Congressional District/County Liaison Vice-Chair
Randal Mangham (DeKalb)
Sally Rosser (Fulton)
Cheryl Williams (Gwinnett)
Constituency Group Vice-Chair
Virgilio Perez Pascoe (Forsyth)
James Quarterman (Douglas)
Terrence Samuel (Thomas)
Candidate Recruitment Vice-Chair
Winfred Dukes (Dougherty)
Danita P. Knowles (Coffee)
Secretary
Patricia Barlow-Ivry (Habersham)
Stephen R. Leeds (Fulton)
Treasurer
Rex Templeton, Jr. (Chatham)
1st Congressional District Chair
Dennis W. Marks (Lowndes)
2nd Congressional District Chair
Margaret Tyson (Grady)
3rd Congressional District Chair
Ernest C. Broadwell (Fayette)
4th Congressional District Chair
Linda Edmonds (DeKalb)
5th Congressional District Chair
William Curry (Fulton)
Sheila Jones (Fulton)
6th Congressional District Chair
Ben E. Myers (Fulton)
7th Congressional District Chair
Tasso Knight (Gwinnett)
8th Congressional District Chair
Keith Moffett (Bibb)
9th Congressional District Chair
Bob Barton (Lumpkin)
10th Congressional District Chair
R. Terry Holley (Columbia)
Patty Payne (Franklin)
11th Congressional District Chair
David McLaughlin (Floyd)
12th Congressional District Chair
Tony Center (Chatham)
13th Congressional District Chair
Donzella J. James (Fulton)
Sukari Scott (Clayton)
Nikema Williams (Fulton)
Bush/Iraq approval down to 38 percent in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re President Bush, some truly disturbing numbers can be found in the poll of 800 Georgia voters released this morning by Strategic Vision, a GOP-leaning public affairs firm.
Bush’s overall approval has dropped to 42 percent — and Iraq is to blame. On the economy, 46 percent said they approved of what he’s doing. On the war on terror, 49 percent expressed approval.
But when it came to Bush’s Iraq policy, only 38 percent approved. This in a state widely viewed as pro-military, and one of the most friendly to the president.
Only 33 percent approved of sending more troops to Iraq, and 43 percent said they would support Congress if it chose to cut off funding to block the sending of more troops. Forty-nine percent said they would oppose the maneuver.
The poll was conducted Jan. 12 through 14, and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus three percentage points.
On local matters, 52 percent of those polled said they favored legislation to allow grocery stores to sell alcohol on Sunday.
The fight to keep a red state blue intensifies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sadie Fields is turning out her conservative Christian troops against S.B. 26, the bill to permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine — in communities that elect to permit it.
In an e-mail sent out early this week, the chairman of the Georgia Christian Alliance asked followers to contact members of the Senate Committee on Regulated Industries, which now has the bill.
Fields also lists the sponsors of the measure, introduced last week by Seth Harp of Midland. Among those who have signed onto the bill, Fields pays particular attention to co-sponsor Don Thomas of Dalton, a Republican physician who last year, she notes, “led the legislation to add additional bans on smoking in public places.”
In the preamble of the ban introduced by Thomas, Fields notes, the intensified smoking ban was justified by the “offenses against public health and morals” that cigarettes and such present.
She also includes this link to a Christianity Today article, which says church-goers are more likely to drink heavily, and less likely to sit in pews, when blue laws are erased.
Edwards raises money, and a new star rises
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
About the same time Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was announcing the formation of his exploratory committee Tuesday, former Sen. John Edwards was greeting Atlanta supporters at a fundraiser at the Capitol City Club.
According to one of the hosts, Steve Leeds, the event went well and raised a nice chunk of change for the ’04 vice-presidential candidate.
With Obama in the race, he’ll need it. Edwards - who has taken a more outspoken position on getting out of Iraq than most of his potential rivals, and who made a big hit with his King holiday speech at the Riverside Church in New York - has as much to lose from an Obama candidacy as any Democrat.
Incidentally, expect a Georgia Obama group to be up and running by the end of the week. We spoke Tuesday afternoon with Parag Mehta, a 26-year-old IT consultant from Decatur who’s been involved in the group’s formation. Several hundred Georgians have expressed an interest in the campaign, and a core group is moving toward some kind of official launch, he said.
The last presidential campaign only offered a taste of how quickly a campaign can get up and running in the internet age. The Iowa caucuses may still be a year away, but trust us, it won’t seem like a long time.
Shades of Sinclair Lewis: Not a city, not a county, but a ‘town’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle named David Adelman of Decatur, a Democrat, as head of the newly created Senate Urban Affairs Committee.
Such bipartisan gestures need to be vetted before they’re declared more than window-dressing, though Cagle’s seem real enough. Democratic senators tell us that already they find that their Republican colleagues aren’t as nervous about being seen with them.
The first real test may be the bill Adelman has in hand, nearly ready to drop, aimed at putting a lid on this mad dash toward the creation of city after city — the one that began with Sandy Springs.
Adelman wants to create towns. Not generic, dictionary-definition towns. But statute-specific towns, a half-way stop between cities and counties.
Georgians now have only two choices for residency: Unincorporated portions of counties, or cities. Both forms of government have extreme powers of taxation, and the responsibility to provide for law enforcement and to regulate land use.
Adelman would create a third choice: Towns, with a tight cap on taxing powers — no more than half a mill. Elected but unpaid mayor and board of supervisors. No law enforcement powers.
But under Adelman’s statute, towns would have the power to regulate land use. Zoning powers, in other words. At bottom, most initiatives to create cities are about land use, he reasons. County taxes wouldn’t be affected — and county governments would still be responsible for major services.
Adelman said his approach is strictly bipartisan, and likes to remind people that he supported the creation of Sandy Springs. He said his idea has already gotten the attention of communities such as Vinings in metro Atlanta, and St. Simons Island on the coast.
Both are chock-full of Republicans trapped between the dream of self-government — and the high tax cost of citification.
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More on Sunday sales, for those with a finger to the wind
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, it was noted that many lawmakers are waiting for a high sign from Gov. Sonny Perdue before they commit to a bill that would permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sunday.
Here’s one possible hint: Advocates for the measure, which would allow localities to hold referendums on the issue, have hired Derrick Dickey, of Dickey Strategic Relations, to help them communicate. Until November, Dickey was the spokesman for Gov. Sonny Perdue’s re-election campaign. Before that, he was part of the governor’s state-paid press staff.
And here’s another: We’re told that, as a state senator in the 1990s, just before the Olympics came to Georgia, Perdue cast a vote in favor of allowing local communities to decide whether restaurants should be allowed to serve alcohol on Sunday. The measure passed.
Opposition stirred, not shaken, on Sunday alcohol bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Peachpundit.com has reported that a pair of studies is circulating through the state Capitol, showing the impact of New Mexico’s 1995 decision to repeal its Sunday ban on the sales of beer and wine.
The direct link is to a page hosted by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program, which noted a “29 percent increase in alcohol-related crashes and a 42 percent increase in alcohol-related crash fatalities on Sundays since New Mexico lifted its ban on Sunday sales of packaged alcohol.”
From what we’re told, even if the bill to repeal of Georgia’s blue laws passes the Senate, the House won’t move on it until Gov. Sonny Perdue gives some indication of where he stands.
House leaders say they don’t want to have their membership out on a limb if the governor intends to saw it off with a veto.
And don’t count your money if you’re still at the table
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s probably better for U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson that Washington D.C. isn’t a haven for country music fans.
Last week, a front-page piece in the Washington Post described the confrontational hearing between Secretary of State Condi Rice and members of the Senate Foreign Relations staff.
Isakson, just appointed to the 21-member panel, was Bush’s sole defender. The Georgia senator said Iraqis must pay heed to that ultimate gamble, Kenny Rogers: “You got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. It’s time for them to deliver on the hand that they’ve dealt.”
Over the weekend, only one national blog picked up on the next line in the song: “Know when to walk away, and know when to run.”
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The Republican vice presidential drawl
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s no surprise that Sen. John McCain’s attendance at Monday’s inauguration of second-term Republican Gov. Bob Riley in Alabama has sparked talk that Riley might be a potential running mate if McCain wins the Republican nomination.
Nobody threw Urban Meyer’s hat in the ring when McCain showed up for the coin toss at the BCS championship game. But more so than for a Gator coach, there’s an argument for why the Republican vice presidential nomination next year might gravitate toward a Southern governor.
With former Sen. George Allen by the wayside, no Southerner now looms as a top contender for the presidential nomination of the party which depends most heavily on the South in national elections. The chemistry could change if former Rep. Newt Gingrich or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee jump in, but if this becomes a race between McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the question of regional balance will loom large.
But, which Southern governor? South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is a longtime supporter of McCain from a crucial state, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national chairman, got on board with him early in this cycle.
Romney would likely be looking for a Southerner also. We were about to speculate, but why don’t you have the fun?
(Notice also, in the story from Montgomery, that Gen. Wesley Clark swore in Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks.)
Newt ‘n’ Rudy want a CCC for Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday’s Wall Street Journal featured a joint op-ed by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, both potential GOP candidates in ‘08.
They recommended pulling a page out of FDR’s playbook, creating a jobs program that would take young men off the street.
Here’s the most interesting line, toward the bottom:
“The program should be overseen by the U.S. military, not private contractors, to avoid unnecessary delays in deployment or accusations of cronyism in the bidding process.”
Remember that Newt is no fan of the U.S. State Department. Read the rest here.
In the midst of Richardson’s troubles, a bipartisan play
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republicans may not believe it, but many House and Senate Democrats frowned at the decision by Bobby Kahn, the state Democratic party chairman, to file a salacious ethics complaint against House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
Kahn’s entrance into the fray, with a formal accusation that the GOP speaker had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a natural gas lobbyist, spoiled a perfectly good frenzy of back-stabbing among Republican ranks, several Democratic lawmakers have told us.
For that’s where the tales about Richardson originated.
That said, the ethics complaint forced House Democrats into some quick maneuvering. They had not planned to challenge Richardson’s re-election as speaker when the session opened last week, but with the charges out in the open, many Democratic lawmakers - especially female members - felt they had no choice.
House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin was nominated as the sacrificial lamb, and was predictably trounced. Then things got interesting.
It was the turn of House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter of Alpharetta, the No. 2 Republican in the House, to be re-elected to his office. State Rep. Calvin Smyre of Columbus, who preceded Kahn as chairman of the Democratic party, jumped to his feet and asked that the suburban Republican be re-elected by acclamation.
And so Burkhalter was.
What was that highly unusual Democratic behavior all about? It was a very public message any Republican could decode: Should Richardson’s tenure as leader of the House be cut short, Democrats stand ready to cut a deal that would make Burkhalter the next speaker.
Georgia’s new state motto: ‘Go Fish’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Anyone who had witnessed the pride that Gov. Sonny Perdue took in landing the $130 million Bass Pro Shops and distribution center for Macon last year might have predicted his $19 million budget item to make Georgia a fishing paradise.
But to place a program for new boat ramps and such at the top of his State of the State speech, as the Perdue did last week, struck legislators as more than slightly odd.
In the state Capitol, where humor is quick and cruel, “Go Fish Georgia” - the name the governor put on his bid to increase angler tourism - has quickly become a giggle trigger.
All manner of items, including business cards, have shown up decorated with lures. The phrase “fish or cut bait” has become a plague.
On Friday, Casey Cagle held his first session with reporters. It had to be judged a success, given that the lieutenant governor generated a fair number of headlines the next day.
His only gaffe may have come when he casually mentioned what he called the governor’s “Go Fish” project. Both of Cagle’s pupils gravitated to the top of his skull. The lieutenant governor quickly caught himself.
“I did not roll my eyes,” Cagle said, after rolling his eyes.
His press secretary chimed in. “He was searching his memory for details,” she said.
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Plugged in: New lobbyists with tight connections
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This year’s lobbying squad at the state Capitol features a pair of newly configured, and younger, teams worth the noting.
Former House and Senate staffer Tony Simon has joined Clint Austin to form ConnectSouth. Simon and Austin were the duo coordinating millions of dollars for this year’s aggressive campaigns on behalf of House Republicans.
They represent AT&T, which will put them at the table in negotiations with the bill to ease that company’s entry into the cable TV and Internet market.
Then there’s Katie Poitevint, daughter of state Republican chairman Alec Poitevint. She’s joined the lobbying team of Raymon White and Brian Hudson, Southern Public Strategies.
Clients include the National Rifle Association, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the city of Atlanta, Philip Morris, and the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals.
They’ll be in the thick of the biggest health-related fight of the session, over the right of doctors to construct stand-alone clinics that compete with hospitals.
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‘Vapid’ this, ‘vapid’ that: Fields responds to Barr on Sunday alcohol sales
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last month, on the editorial pages of the Journal-Constitution, Republican-turned-Libertarian Bob Barr endorsed a repeal of Georgia’s blue laws, and admonished religious conservative leader Sadie Fields for her defense of state laws barring the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
Barr referred to her arguments as “vapid.”
On Friday, Fields circulated an article written by her son, Marty Fields, a Mississippi pastor — aimed at Georgia’s op-ed pages. Darned if that same, descriptive word doesn’t turn up:
“[The Libertarian] view is that personal freedom is paramount, and that the state should be neutral in matters of personal morality — a position that is as irrational as it is intellectually vapid,” the son writes in defense of his momma.
Read the entire Fields piece below.
BARR LOWERS THE BAR
If someone is threatening to take away your Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, or you need someone to clearly articulate the meaning and application of the Tenth Amendment guaranteeing states’ rights, there is no one better to have in your court than former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr.
The political and religious left couldn’t stand Barr when he was in Congress because of his keen ability as a Constitutional scholar.
Due to liberals gerrymandering his congressional district Barr was forced to run against another popular conservative and he lost in the primary.
Since leaving Congress Barr has tirelessly devoted himself to defending personal liberty by fighting the encroachment of the federal government in our private lives. He has even - somewhat controversially - worked with the ultra-left ACLU on keeping government snooping in check.
Barr, a longtime Libertarian, has made it his mission to keep the government out of our personal lives, and has sanctioned this philosophy by accepting a leadership position with the Libertarian National Committee.
But in a recent editorial Barr misfired in his reasoning against what are known as the “Blue Laws.”
Many of us grew up when many states had blue laws. On Sunday businesses were not allowed to open, and tobacco and alcohol were not for sale. Sunday was a day of rest.
Georgia, Barr’s home state, is one of the few states that still has blue laws prohibiting alcohol sales on Sunday, and it is considering repealing the law.
Barr has written in favor of repeal arguing that blue laws are an encroachment on personal liberty. He says those who want to maintain such laws as trying to “force nonbelievers into conformity.” In other words, those who want to keep blue laws are seeking to impose their religious viewpoints on others.
On many issues I agree with Barr and his libertarian ideals. The Bible itself teaches limited government, a decentralized free-market system, and protects many personal liberties.
But Libertarianism derails in its inability to develop and justify a cogent ethical philosophy. At its root Libertarianism and its advocates suffer from an incurable case of inconsistency and arbitrariness when it comes to state regulation on personal behavior.
Their view is that personal freedom is paramount, and that the state should be neutral in matters of personal morality - a position that is as irrational as it is intellectually vapid.
What Barr and other Libertarians fail to acknowledge is that such moral neutrality is impossible. By seeking to influence legislation with their viewpoint they are trying to force others to live by their ideals - the very thing they claim to oppose.
Saying that it is “wrong” for the state to interfere with and individual’s personal liberties is itself a moral and religious belief. Ultimately the question is not if we will have moral laws governing personal behavior; the question is which viewpoint’s moral laws will be enforced?
Saying people should be given a choice about what they do on Sunday is to take a moral stance. Barr can’t have it both ways. The question is what perspective will influence such regulation.
Regardless of one’s opinion about the blue laws there was something lost when they went away. The loss of Sunday as a day of rest and reflection has not produced a more content and prosperous culture.
Whatever productivity and prosperity is gained by working on Sunday is eclipsed by the increase in recent years of stress-related illnesses, substance abuse, and the negative impact on the family. Christians believe God ordained a day of rest so that we might be better rested and suited to labor for Him the other six days.
A day of rest was built into the creation and it is built into who we are as the image of God. By wanting that optional Barr lowers the bar Christians believe God has established. In the final analysis rolling up the sidewalks on Saturday night may not have been such a bad idea.
Iraq and the ‘08 GOP race for the White House
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today’s edition of the Washington Times puts U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a potential ‘08 presidential candidate, among seven GOP senators “openly opposed to sending more troops” to Iraq.
This certainly has the potential to muddy the water for the Republican base in the South.
Among many evangelical conservatives, Brownback is the most appealing candidate in the GOP pack. But in Georgia and elsewhere in the region, religious conviction and confidence in military solutions walk hand in hand.
It may be that no current candidate in the Republican presidental ranks has a resume pristine enough to lay natural claim to support from the Religious Right. John McCain, one of the first to advocate more troops for Iraq, is distasteful to many evangelical voters, despite the Arizona senator’s newfound friendship with Jerry Falwell.
Former Gov. Mitt Romney may be the beneficiary of the unsettled situation. Romney’s positions on social issues fit the agenda of the Christian right. And he’s put out a statement placing himself four-square behind President Bush’s shift in strategy.
But again, there are Romney’s past positions, the matter of his religion, and the mere fact that he hails from Massachusetts.
Not pork, but spending “not of federal concern”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston of Savannah sits on the House Appropriations Committee. No doubt one of the most common questions he no doubt gets — especially from Republicans who put him in office — is about federal spending.
Out-of-control spending disenchanted much of the Republican base last November.
PoliticsTV.com has posted an extended video clip in which Kingston gives a complicated, but refreshingly candid explanation of why grandstanding attempts from the House floor to cut this program or that one don’t usually work.
Kingston admits that federal spending bills often contain items that “probably are not of federal concern — local politics are involved.” None dare call it pork.
But what goes to the House floor, he said, has already been pared down. Kingston makes mention of 95 programs eliminated in one instance, saving $4 billion.
“To get that passed, and not just do it on the Republican side, not just do it on the House floor and make it look good for my good friend Pat Toomey and the Club for Growth folks, but to really make it stick, you have to work with the Democrats.
“You and I would probably not just find 95 programs that we’d eliminate. We’d probably find 200 programs that we’d eliminate. However, the reality is you have to get it past the House floor, then past the Senate floor, then past the president.
“So you find yourself letting projects go that you really don’t like, but in order to get the peace agreement worked out with — not just Democrats, but also with Northeastern Republicans and Western Republicans, who often don’t agree and see things the way you and I do — so you get them packaged together, you hold hands, you get it on the House floor.”
That makes it hard to support attempts to delete this million dollar item or that million dollar item from the floor.
“Most of them would disrupt what we have already done,” Kingston said. “Do you want the 95 programs and $4 billion savings, or do you want, say, 30 to 40 programs and maybe $10 million savings. It’s an easy question.”
A few plums drop the way of two Georgia Democrats
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’re about to see a lot more of certain Democrats from Georgia, now that Congress is under new management.
U.S. Rep. David Scott of Atlanta has been told that he’s won a much-coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We’re getting word that he may be headed for an anti-terrorism subcommittee, which would raise his profile tremendously.
And this morning, U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon will preside over the chamber during the two-hour debate on a measure to require Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors.
Contrast that with the fortunes of two Republicans from Georgia, House members Tom Price of Roswell and Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg.
Both were featured in The Hill newspaper, which covers Congress, in a story on how certain Republicans had adapted to their minority status.
“A lot of us came from the minority in the state legislature and are comfortable being in the opposition,” Westmoreland is quoted as saying.
Westmoreland was House minority leader here. Price served as the Senate minority leader in Georgia, as well as majority leader.
The fight for Delta hits the Capitols — here and in D.C.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The fight for Delta Air Lines gets more and more interesting, as US Airways ups its bid, and rumors swirl of another merger possibility in the form of Northwest Airlines.
The action has spread, very quietly, to the Capitols — both the one in Atlanta, and the one in Washington.
Associates for McKenna, Long & Aldridge, one of the most powerful lobbying firms in Atlanta, which represents such hometown heroes as Home Depot, Coke, and Lockheed, has been using its clout to help US Airways CEO Doug Parker touch base with top Georgia political figures.
McKenna also represents Air Tran, so US Airways’ choice of a go-between makes a certain amount of sense.
McKenna associate Alex Albert, who served former chief of staff to U.S. senator Zell Miller, escorted Parker to a meeting with U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss.
Aides to House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle have confirmed that their bosses received phone calls from Parker, arranged by the lobbying firm.
All said the conversations occurred last month.
The word we get from politicians who have had conversations with US Airways is that they’ve emphasized their commitment to Delta as a stand-alone airline. “He told them he was very, very cool to the idea,” a staffer for Richardson said.
An advisor to Cagle told us that no politician can forget the lesson of Newt Gingrich and Eastern Airline employees — who nearly booted the future House speaker from Congress for failing to intervene to save the airline in the late 1980s.
The only politician who hasn’t confirmed a contact with US Airways is Gov. Sonny Perdue. But that the airline would neglect the governor hardly makes any diplomatic or business sense.
What does US Airways want? We’re told that Parker simply wanted to establish some relationships that could be tapped should his effort be successful.
But the suspicious types at the state Capitol say it’s more likely that the airline is seeking allies who can help influence Delta’s board of creditors, who have final say over the hometown airline’s future.
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The rules and players in the complaint against the Speaker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got out of state Sen. Eric Johnson’s news conference on the procedure for handling the ethics complaint against House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
You know the background: State Democratic party chairman Bobby Kahn, who exits his job later this month, filed a complaint with the House-Senate ethics committee, accusing Richardson of an “inappropriate” relationship with an Atlanta Gas Light lobbyist while a sponsor of a bill to ease the way for the company to construct a $300 million pipeline.
By statute, Johnson is chairman of the committee this year. He announced that Richardson had reappointed the same House members who sat on the committee last year, when the panel was first formed: House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta), and Reps. Lynn Smith (R-Newnan), Gerald Greene (D-Cuthbert) and Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus).
Johnson named his four appointments as well: Sens. Seth Harp (R-Midland), Jack Hill (r-Reidsville), George Hooks (D-Americus) and Michael Meyer von Bremen (D-Albany). Johnson said the above senators “have demonstrated the courage to deal with awkward situations.”
Two bits of news came out as well:
— First, this complaint may have to run a three-Republican gauntlet before any one can say whether it will go anywhere. By statute, each complaint is subject to a review committee, made up of three committee members: Johnson, a House Republican named by Johnson, and a senator named by Johnson (no party specified).
The review panel can dismiss the complaint if it finds it specious, without it ever reaching the full committee.
— Secondly, Johnson said they can only examine the narrow question of whether Richardson engaged in a conflict of interest. It wouldn’t get into questions of moral turpitude, etc.
Here is the sound from the news conference.
He quits the party, perhaps to become one of us
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Andre the Blogger, the first independent denizen of the Internet to win a Senate press credential at the state Capitol, announced last night that he’s resigned from the state committee of the Democratic party.
“I’ve had fun, but ladies and gentlemen, I’m done and I have no regrets,” he writes. Andre doesn’t say why, but we assume he’s doing so to enhance his journalistic creds. Read the entire thing here.
Not asking for much
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mayor Shirley Franklin has been beating the drum of late for the state to lend more financial support to Georgia’s municipalities - including the ATL, of course. But when asked at her appearance at the Atlanta Press Club Wednesday what her wish list was for this year’s legislative session, the mayor was very modest in her expectations.
Getting the green light for the sales tax referendum for water and sewer improvements was No. 1 through 20 on her list of top 25 priorities, Franklin said, and there’s “hardly anything else out there of that magnitude” that the city wants at the Capitol this year.
Though the mayor didn’t mention it, this might not have been a good year to come calling at the big house down the street for any big favors, anyway. Republicans were outraged by Franklin’s participation in the ad for John Eaves in the Fulton County Commission race which suggested that a vote for Lee Morris amounted to a reversion to the bad old days of police dogs and hoses.
Go fish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s the direct link to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s state of the state speech. Double check us. Do a word search, and see if you can come up with any mention of “transportation” or “roads.”
Lobbyist alert: House committee assignments
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Click here to see them. But beware: It’s a 53-page document.
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The man who won’t be in the picture
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Years ago, those who kept track of communist regimes put great stock in group photographs. To spot who stood closest to Stalin or Mao was to get a glimpse of who was in, and who was out.
Use that as a bit of background on Thursday morning, when you watch those pictures of President Bush and troops at Fort Benning.
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican up for re-election in ‘08, won’t be there, we’re told.
Here’s what Chambliss’ office put out on Wednesday night, concurrent with Bush’s speech:
“In my conversations with the White House over the holidays as well as with the President at the White House on Monday, I made it clear that my support of any increase in troops is conditional upon those troops having a specific mission, and upon the completion of that mission those troops should be redeployed.
“I firmly believe that a large increase in troops without having a specific mission will only increase insurgent opposition, and that a withdrawal of U.S. forces at this time would be detrimental to Iraqi security.
“Both of these approaches should be rejected. Failure in Iraq will result in expanded, intensified conflict in the Middle East, and I will continue to be committed to the success of our mission there. ”
The big question at the Capitol: What does Isakson do?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While they wait for the calm to subside, and the storm of legislation in the state Capitol to begin, people talk.
And it’s only natural that, with the inauguration of one governor complete, attention begins to focus on the next one.
If there’s a single person who holds the key to the 2010 race for governor, it’s Johnny Isakson. The end of his first term as U.S. senator coincides with the contest to replace Sonny Perdue.
The ambitions of several occupants of the state Capitol will hinge on what the one-term Republican decides: To stay put in Washington and gut out his new minority status, or try to cap his career with a stint on West Paces Ferry Road.
Right now, Democrats control the U.S. Senate on the strength of a single senator from South Dakota whose state of consciousness remains a closely guarded secret.
But Isakson also must be looking at 2008. Two-thirds of the U.S. senators up for re-election will be Republican, including Saxby Chambliss, and Iraq looms like an angry dog. Right now, odds are that Democrats will increase their margin in two years.
Isakson has become such a major force in state Republican circles that his entry could clear the GOP field, others contemplating the race tell us. Or rather, it would set off yet another contest, to replace him in Washington.
Who’s watching Isakson’s movements? Well, there’s Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle for one. But he’ll turn 41 this week, and has plenty of time.
Then there’s House Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simons Island. He admits he’s looking at the ’10 race for governor, too.
You didn’t know about Keen? That’s your surprise for the day. Because if Keen is in, House Speaker Glenn Richardson is not.
A first meeting between once and future leaders of the Christian Coalition
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At Tuesday’s anti-abortion hearing run by state Rep. Bobby Franklin, most eyes were on the tearful women who testified of their remorse at having the procedure.
A quieter drama was playing out in the audience. Sadie Fields, for years the preeminent voice of the Christian right in Georgia, was among the men and women in the center rows.
To one side, in the wings, was Jim Beck, the new head of the Christian Coalition of Georgia, the group Fields left to form her own, independent organization known as the Christian Alliance.
At noon, Fields had to leave for another appointment. As she was in the hallway, putting on her overcoat, Beck rushed up to help, then gave her a bear hug and a quick smooch on the cheek.
It was their first meeting. And they agreed to do lunch.
Neither would describe themselves as rivals, but their agendas differ — and that may be much the same thing.
If the past is any guide, at some point during this session of the Legislature, House and Senate leaders will summon Beck, Fields, and a few other leaders of the GOP base into a closed-door meeting.
They will be told that only one or two of the items on their various wish-lists will make it through the Legislature this year. Any more could jeopardize GOP standing among the party’s centrists.
Religious conservatives will then be asked to make a choice. That’s when a rivalries are most likely to erupt — not just between Beck and Fields, but with the Catholic Archdiocese, the Georgia Family Research Council and several other groups as well.
Judging from a pair of conversations, Fields seems to want priority given to a bill that would require women to undergo a sonogram before an abortion.
Beck’s list is longer. But first, a quick history: Last fall, when she split with the Christian Coalition, Fields declared that the national organization had strayed its core concerns. And had at times allied itself with liberal organizations.
Beck’s legislative wish-list is, in fact, broader than what we’re used to seeing. It includes the standard bullet points familiar to most religious conservatives — among them a ban on embryonic stem cell research, the ultrasound bill, and support for a measure to award vouchers to disabled public school students.
But Beck has also declared his group to be an ally of AT&T, and will support a bill to ease the way for the phone company to become a major TV and Internet provider in Georgia.
“This is a decent example of the issues we’re going to get into,” Beck said.
Why? Home-schoolers, most of whom are conservative Christians, require cheap and easy access to the Internet, he said. (Cynics will also point out that many non-profit organization require contributions to thrive, even from corporations.)
In the agenda that Beck sent out last week, not a single item addressed homosexuality. Nothing about gay marriage or adoption by gay couples. That doesn’t signal a change in conviction — just tone, the new head of the Christian Coalition said.
“We’re trying to become a kinder, gentler organization,” Beck said.
Sin is sin, Beck said. There is no felony sin, no misdemeanor sin. An act of adultery, for instance, is just as sinful as an act of homosexuality, Beck said last week.
Obviously, the time stamp on that comment is important. The Richardson complaint had not surfaced.
“We’re learning as we go,” Beck said. “And we reserve the right to amend our agenda as we go.”
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A Democratic blogger lands in an anti-abortion hearing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you want to see how blogging might change journalism, check out this blow-by-blow account of state Rep. Bobby Franklin’s hearing on his bill to ban all abortions in Georgia, posted on Blog for Democracy.
Democrats will think it’s hilarious, and Republicans are guaranteed to be offended. We rate it PG-13, due to language and topic.
Cagle names two Democrats to chairmanships: Harbison and Meyer von Bremen
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As he hinted, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle on Tuesday named Democrats Ed Harbison, an African-American lawmaker from Columbus, and Michael Meyer von Bremen of Albany to committee chairmanships.
Harbison will chair the committee on interstate cooperation, with newly elected Democrat Nan Orrock as his vice-chair. Meyer von Bremen will head the special judiciary committee, with Democrat David Adelman of Decatur as his vice chair.
See below for other Senate committee assignments.
Committee on Agriculture and Consumer Affairs
Bulloch (Chair) Hudgens (Vice Chair) Hawkins (Secretary) Goggans Orrock Powell Tarver
Committee on Appropriations
Hill Jack (Chair) Goggans (Vice Chair) Golden (Secretary) Balfour Bulloch Cowsert Fort Grant Hamrick Harp Heath Henson Hooks Johnson Moody Mullis Murphy Meyer von Bremen Pearson Schaefer Seabaugh Seay Smith Staton (ex-officio) Tate Thomas Don Thomas Regina Thomspon Steve Tolleson Unterman Williams Wiles (ex-officio)
Committee on Banking and Financial Institutions
Hamrick (Chair) Hudgens (Vice Chair) Tarver (Secretary) Bulloch Harbison Murphy Rogers Schaefer Shafer Thomspon Steve
Committee on Economic Development
Pearson (Chair) Rogers (Vice Chair) Carter (Secretary) Brown Chance Hooks Mullis Murphy Schaefer Tarver Thompson Curt Whitehead
Committee on Education and Youth
Weber (Chair) Carter (Vice Chair) Thomas Don (Secretary) Balfour Douglas Fort Moody Ramsey Tate Thomas Regina
Committee on Ethics
Unterman (Chair) Hooks (Vice Chair) Schaefer (Secretary) Butler Hamrick Hill Jack Johnson Murphy Meyer von Bremen Reed Stoner Thomas Don
Committee on Finance
Rogers (Chair) Williams (Vice) Chance (Secretary) Goggans Golden Heath Johnson Jones (ex officio) Seabaugh Shafer Thomspon Steve
Committee on Higher Education
Harp (Chair) Cowsert (Vice Chair) Staton (Secretary) Chance Davenport Golden Orrock Thompson Curt Wiles
Committee on Health and Human Services
Thomas Don (Chair) Unterman (Vice Chair) Goggans (Secretary) Adelman Balfour Butler Grant Hawkins Henson Hill Judson Smith Tate Wiles
Committee on Interstate Cooperation
Harbison (Chair) Orrock (Vice Chair) Jones (Secretary) Davenport Powell
Committee on Insurance and Labor
Hudgens (Chair) Shafer (Vice Chair) Moody (Secretary) Brown Chapman Golden Harbison Ramsey Rogers
Committee on Judiciary
Smith (Chair) Harp (Vice Chair) Hamrick (Secretary) Adelman Brown Carter Cowsert Fort Hill Judson Meyer von Bremen Reed (ex-officio) Wiles
Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment
Tolleson (Chair) Bulloch (Vice Chair) Hudgens (Secretary) Chapman Hawkins Henson Hill Jack Hooks Meyer von Bremen Weber Whitehead
Committee on Government Oversight
Chance (Chair) Carter (Vice Chair) Henson (Secretary) Goggans Golden Grant Harp Heath Mullis Tarver
Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security
Whitehead (Chair) Mullis (Vice Chair) Chapman (Secretary) Butler Carter Davenport Jones Seay
Committee on Reapportionment and Redistricting
Hill Judson (Chair) Hawkins (Vice Chair) Seabaugh (Secretary) Brown Chance Cowsert Fort Harbison Hudgens Moody Rogers Shafer Smith Thomas Regina Williams
Committee on Regulated Industries and Utilities
Shafer (Chair) Johnson (Vice Chair) Harbison (Secretary) Butler Henson Hill Jack Seabaugh Stoner Thomas Regina Tolleson (ex officio) Williams
Committee on Retirement
Heath (Chair) Schaefer (Vice Chair) Smith (Secretary) Davenport Murphy Stoner Tate
Committee on Rules
Balfour (Chair) Hamrick (Vice Chair) Seabaugh (Secretary) Adelman Butler Hill Jack Hooks Johnson Moody Pearson Thomas Don Tolleson Unterman Williams
Special Judiciary Committee
Meyer von Bremen (Chair) Adelman (Vice Chair) Hill Judson (Secretary) Cowsert Harp Ramsey Reed Tarver Weber
Committee on Science and Technology
Staton (Chair) Heath (Vice Chair) Douglas (Secretary) Orrock Powell
Committee on State and Local Government Operations
Wiles (Chair) Grant (Vice Chair) Weber (Secretary) Hawkins Jones Ramsey Reed
Committee on State Institutions and Property
Grant (Chair) Thomas Regina (Vice Chair) Seay (Secretary) Fort Powell Stoner Thompson Curt
Committee on Transportation
Mullis (Chair) Whitehead (Vice Chair) Pearson (Secretary) Chapman Douglas Goggans Reed Seay Staton Stoner Thomspon Steve
Committee on Urban Affairs
To be announced.
Veterans and Military Affairs Committee
Douglas (Chair) Staton (Vice Chair) Tolleson (Secretary) Brown Jones Thompson Curt
Committee on Assignments
Williams (Chair) Johnson Mullis Rogers Shafer Hill (ex officio) Moody (ex officio) Pearson (ex officio)
Committee on Administrative Affairs
Johnson (Chair) Brown Moody Pearson Wiles Williams
What you didn’t know about Casey Cagle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lost in this week’s inauguration hoopla is a great piece by Harris Blackwood of the Gainesville Times on Nita Cagle, wife of the new Republican lieutenant governor. Read it here, or let us spoil it for you now.
The article contains two bits of information that would have made any campaign manager wince — had they come out before the election.
First, it seems as if the No. 2 man at the state Capitol, who once owned two bridal and tux shops, has an eye for fashion. Nita Cagle said her husband picked out the suit she wore to Monday’s inauguration ceremony.
“He can dress me better than I can,” she told Blackwood.
Secondly, her husband has a unique way to deal with pressure. Not drugs, not exercise. He goes to Wal-Mart. “He loves to go there and just get lost,” his wife said.
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They also serve who bill by the hour
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yesterday we noted the presence of former governors Carl Sanders, Joe Frank Harris and Zell Miller at Gov. Sonny Perdue’s inauguration, and wondered where Jimmy Carter and Roy Barnes might be.
We don’t know about Carter, but turns out (thanks for the tip, Marie) that Barnes and his old Republican adversary, former state Attorney General Mike Bowers, were in court trying a case together.
An ‘08 development: Poitevint hops on McCain bus
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. John McCain’s pre-campaign organization announced today that Alec Poitevint, currently the chairman of the state Republican party, will serve as Southern “co-chair.” No word on how many other co-chairs there might be.
The news isn’t much of a surprise, given that Poitevint has long made his sympathies known. But it is significant, because other important members of the Bush wing in the Georgia have already signed on with Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.
For instance, Eric Tanenblatt, former chief of staff to Gov. Sonny Perdue, is heading up the finance team for Romney in Georgia.
We also hear Romney made a favorable impression last weekend at the Awakening Conference at Sea Island. The Awakening Conference is a conservative Republican version of the Renaissance Weekend, made famous by the Clintons. The list of 400 attendees at last week’s sessions is hush-hush, but it included some serious Georgia money.
Romney is also said to be picking up the support this week of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
But the fact that Poitevint is chairman of the Georgia party, and will remain so until his term expires in five months, is certainly worth some cachet for McCain. Here’s another thought: If Poitevint is for McCain, does that say anything about Sonny Perdue, the new head of the Republican Governors Association?
How an ethics complaint could tip a balance of power
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Read today’s AJC piece on the ethics complaint against House Speaker Glenn Richardson very carefully.
The executive director of the State Ethics Commission says his agency has no jurisdiction into looking at whether Richardson engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with an AGL lobbyist, as state Democratic chairman Bobby Kahn has alleged.
But Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) is this year’s chairman of the bipartisan joint House-Senate committee on ethics. He says his panel could very well have jurisdiction.
“We are going to take it very seriously, Johnson told AJC reporter Jeremy Redmon. “The charge on its surface is within the jurisdiction of the committee. Whether it meets the evidentiary requirements, I don’t know yet.”
From what we’ve been told, the Senate is in charge of investigating complaints against House members, and vice versa.
Think about that for a minute. These annual legislative sessions are often driven, especially in the last days, not by partisan divisions, but by institutional rivalries between the House and the Senate.
Legislative ambitions and political resumes can be dashed in a heartbeat.
Throughout this session, a high-ranking member of the Senate leadership could be dangling a sword of Damocles over the House.
No doubt, that such a tool would ever be used in the crass, manipulative fashion that we’re suggesting is completely out of the question. Ridiculous. Beyond the pale.
But it could make those closed-door negotiations awfully interesting.
Call him Mr. Bow-Tie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A surreal scene here at Gov. Sonny Perdue’s inaugural ball. So far, the highlight has been several hundred white Republicans dancing to a black singing group featuring a fellow named George Wallace.
The group plays Alabama next.
It’s a lavish party spread across several acres in the basement of the Georgia World Congress Center. The governor is set to make an appearance at 8:30 p.m.
Ah, here he comes. No, it’s the Frederick Douglas High School marching band, complete with sousaphones and a dance troup — half-time, if you will.
And then Perdue, with a black tux and a spotted red bow-tie.
“We love you, we love our state,” the governor said. “Bless god, and thank you all.”
And that, friends, was that.
Republicans weren’t the only ones here. There were the non-partisans — such as state Supreme Court Justice Robert Benham.
And the occasional Democrat. Vernon Jones, the DeKalb County CEO, for instance. He said he doesn’t expect to make a decision on whether to run for the U.S. Senate until late this year.
If he should run against incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss in ‘08, Jones said it’s inevitable that Iraq will be the driving issue.
“Saxby was with the president every step of the way,” he said.
Turtle on a fence post
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue is now giving his inaugural speech. He began it by calling three former Democratic governors to the podium: Carl Sanders, Joe Frank Harris, and Zell Miller.
Perdue told Miller’s story of the turtle on the fence post. “You can be assured that the turtle didn’t get there by himself,” the Republican said.
Then he turned to his predecessors: “On behalf of a grateful state, I want to ask our audience to stand with me and acknowledge that you all helped put Georgia on a high, high fence post.”
The unanswered question, of course, is where Georgia’s other two former governors were — Roy Barnes and Jimmy Carter.
Cagle: He emphasizes education, and his mother
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In his inauguration speech, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle gave a big thanks to his predecessor, Mark Taylor, who vacated his office space in the state Capitol in December to make way for Cagle’s staff.
And he choked up when he came to mention his wife Nita and his three sons.
Cagle was much more specific on issues than Perdue. First mention went to education and his legislation for charter school systems: “Our educational system should be a partnership, not a dictatorship. “
As on the campaign trail, Cagle made several references to his mother, who raised him alone.
Contrast the following Cagle line with the similar phrasing from Gov. Sonny Perdue a couple entries below:
“And when our day is ended, we can look back like a proud mother, knowing that we have preserved Georgia for generations to come.”
Good grief: Cannons?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republicans have brought out artillery, parked outside the Georgia Dome, to mark the swearing-in of Gov. Sonny Perdue.
No word of whether any Democrats were hit by shrapnel.
These inaugurations used to be such simple affairs.
Sonny Perdue’s second inaugural now underway.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Judging from the advance text of his speech, Gov. Sonny Perdue isn’t out to shake things up during his second term.
Take a look at these lines:
“I believe my mandate is simple: to be a good steward of the state and a faithful servant to the people. And the only legacy I seek is the same one any parent or grandparent seeks: to hand off our state, our home, to the next generation in better shape than we found it.
“This legacy won’t be achieved by executive order or sweeping legislation. [Emphasis ours] This legacy will be the sum of individual actions — it will be the result of Georgians deciding to make a difference.”
By the way, soon-to-be lieutenant governor Casey Cagle has gotten the biggest hand of all the introductions so far.
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For once, Dickens was on time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve sat through countless political speeches that borrow Charles Dickens’ famous beginning to “A Tale of Two Cities” - “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” - and wondered why no one ever quotes from the beginning of “Little Dorrit,” in which the words “nobody’s fault” float from lip to lip like smoke.
Even the hoariest of cliches can be fitting in the right circumstances, however. When Glenn Richardson began his speech with the familiar Dickens quote after being reelected speaker Monday morning, they seemed well chosen. With a scandal nipping at his heels, at the very moment when his party is consolidating its hold on power under the Golden Dome, this did indeed seem like the best and worst of times for the speaker.
Despite some rumored grumblings in the Republican ranks, Richardson’s reelection wasn’t in doubt. But as he entered the House chamber, Richardson was heard to ask what the vote count had been.
For the record, the vote was 113 to 66, which means Richardson must have gotten all his Republicans and a few Democrats. We say “must have” because with several new members, and without the benefit of a new face book, it’s a bit hard to tell who’s who. Democrats Bob Hanner, Gerald Greene and Bob Hanner voted for Richardson, and a few more we haven’t spotted yet.
Speaking of vagaries, it was also striking to us how unfamiliar most members were Monday with hown the Joint Committee on Ethics, which along with the State Ethics Commission will hear state Democratic Chairman Bobby Kahn’s allegations that Richardson had an “inappropriate” relationship with an Atlanta Gas Light lobbyist. We do know that because this is an odd-numbered year, chairmanship of the committee passes from Richardson - who presumbly will recuse himself anyway - to Senate president pro tem Eric Johnson. How’d you like to be in that hot seat?
On abortion, Bobby Franklin, and Neal Boortz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Neal Boortz, the libertarian radio talk guru on WSB radio (750 AM), has spent much of this morning laying into state Rep. Bobby Franklin, the Republican from east Cobb County, for submitting legislation banning all abortions in Georgia.
Referring to Franklin as a “nut-job,” Boortz belittled the measure for linking breast cancer and smoking among women to abortion, and for failing to include any exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.
Paraphrasing here, because we didn’t have the recorder going, but Boortz said that — if that bill should pass into law, and if he were the husband or father of a woman who died as a result — he’d hunt Franklin down and “snap” his neck, consequences be damned.
And so the dawn of a friendlier, kinder era of political debate.
Don’t bother trying to respond to Boortz. The radio host said he isn’t taking any calls on the matter.
Franklin’s bill doesn’t stand much of a chance of passing, but religious conservatives are backing it as a potential test case for the U.S. Supreme Court.
How a private life was pushed into the spotlight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Not quite a week ago, veteran political columnist Bill Shipp buried a small land mine midway through his bi-weekly column, which appears in many Georgia newspapers, though not this one.
“[House Speaker Glenn] Richardson has been seen as an almost sure bet to run for governor in 2010…. In recent weeks, however, he has become the subject for derision among his peers because of his some of his after-hours activities,” Shipp wrote.
No quotes, no attribution, no documentation. And so the rest of Georgia’s mainstream media held back. One of President Bill Clinton’s gifts to journalism was the establishment of standards - admittedly not always high, and not universally observed - to justify delving into a politician’s personal life.
Bloggers, however, felt no such compunction. On Friday, the Republican-oriented blog, peachpundit.com, threw itself into the topic. Discussion came largely under the guise of what the mainstream media might soon report, and their motives.
The Internet speculation set the Republican phone tree blazing. Still, the mainstream media outlets didn’t budge. Not until Saturday night, when state Democratic party chairman Bobby Kahn gave them the minimum they required - someone willing to publicly put his name to a formal accusation. WSB-TV was the first to report it.
Richardson, said Kahn in an ethics complaint to be filed today, engaged in an “inappropriate” and “personal” relationship with an unnamed lobbyist from Atlanta Gas Light last year, while the company was seeking legislative approval for a $300 million pipeline across the state.
In fact, Kahn — who relinquishes his Democrat chairmanship at the end of this month — had done Republicans a small favor. As the author of the complaint, he allowed Republicans on Sunday to rally around the House speaker as the victim of a partisan assault.
Not to say that GOP lawmakers don’t recognize what’s at stake.
Long before the weekend, Republicans in the Legislature said they needed to be seen doing the right things for the right reason this session - or risk losing Georgia as Republicans lost much of Washington in November, under the shadow of bribery, influence-peddling, and tawdry activities with young male pages.
“Keep your mouth shut, keep your zipper up, and keep your hand in your own pocket,” advised Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah).
Richardson is unlikely to suffer any immediate political damage. He is to be re-elected to a second term as House speaker today, against token Democratic opposition.
But if Richardson has any ambition to be governor in 2010, this not how he wanted that pursuit to begin.
Democrats accuse House speaker of ‘inappropriate relationship’ with AGL lobbyist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican hopes for a smooth and triumphant opening of the 2007 session of the Legislature were dealt a blow Sunday with the announcement by state Democratic party chairman Bobby Kahn that he would file an ethics complaint against Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram), charging that the speaker, due to be re-elected to a second term on Monday, had an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with a lobbyist employed by Atlanta Gas Light.
Here and here is the paperwork Kahn says he’ll file on Monday. More to come.
Nunn: Iraq ‘worst strategic error in modern times’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In an Associated Press profile that hit the wires this weekend, former U.S. senator Sam Nunn of Georgia had some rare but extremely tough criticism for President Bush and his administration’s initial handling of the Iraq war.
“We’ve lost a lot of prestige and credibility in the world,” Nunn told the AP. “I definitely think we made a real mistake going to war without the consensus of other countries … we can’t occupy a country successfully without cooperation from neighbors and countries around the globe.
“I think we’re paying a very severe price for that right now,” the former Democratic senator added. “It was the worst strategic error I’ve seen in modern times by the United States.”
On the question of whether more troops should be sent to Iraq, Nunn said extra firepower won’t make a difference.
Bill Byrne wants his old job back
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In today’s Marietta Daily Journal, Bill Byrne has purchased a full-page ad announcing his comeback.
Byrne lost a 2002 Republican primary race for governor to some guy named Sonny Perdue, and for a while contemplated a primary challenge to the governor in 2006.
But it looks like the former Marine ‘copter pilot will settle for a return to his old job as chairman of the Cobb County Commission — with an ‘08 challenge to incumbent Sam Olens.
Byrne is emphasizing the “uncontrolled growth” that he says is killing Cobb. “If we don’t take control of the quality of life we want, the last person I want to determine that is a developer,” Byrne is quoted as saying in an MDJ piece, also in the Saturday edition.
One of his more interesting ideas is for Cobb to build its own crime lab to speed prosecution of crimes — because, he says, the state’s forensic researchers are underfunded and overwhelmed.
More about Georgia’s on-line university ambitions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Millsaps, the interim associate vice chancellor of defense for the state Board of Regents, saw this week’s blog item about his bosses’ on-line university ambitions.
Millsaps pretty much confirmed it with a note to us. Here’s the gist:
The regents are not only talking about offering degrees on-line, they are doing it and have been doing it since the first Internet delivered degree was approved by the Board in 1997.
In fact, institutions in the University System have been engaged in offering distance education programs utilizing other delivery strategies and technologies long before the Internet provided a convenient delivery platform.
One of the crucial challenges we are facing in the System is the need to build capacity. The use of technology will be critical in our ability to use the state’s resources wisely to build this capacity to serve the growing demand for higher education.
Offering courses and degrees partially or fully online can increase the University System of Georgia’s ability to accommodate more students without waiting on new buildings, something that will become increasingly important as the number of students who will be seeking college degrees grows steadily over the next decade.
Conservative estimates project an increase of 100,000 students added to the USG enrollment figures by 2020.
More importantly, through online offerings, University System institutions can serve students who may not be able to participate in a higher education degree program due to time and place constraints or for whom online education is a more convenient approach than traditional on-campus classes.
Nationally, online learning enrollments continue to grow at approximately 18 percent annually. Recent estimates indicate that online students now represent close to 17 percent of all higher education students and the number is growing.
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The Speaker throws a Laffer curve
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Macon Telegraph is out today with more of House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s thoughts on changing Georgia’s tax structure.
Richardson goes into a little bit more detail than he did last month.
Says the Telegraph: “Current school and property taxes would be replaced with a flat income tax of 5 percent to 5.5 percent and a ‘consumption tax’ or sales tax of about 5 percent, he said. The rates would apply to everyone, regardless of income.”
The news is that the House speaker said he’s hired as a consultant the economist Arthur Laffer, who introduced Ronald Reagan to the concept of cutting taxes to increase economic activity — and government revenue.
“What we’re doing is hiring Dr. Laffer to analyze every single governmental system in the state, every county, every school board, every city and say, ‘here’s how much money you generate right now, here’s how much money will be generated if you do this, and it will be more than you get right now.’ And we’ll have to guarantee that,” Richardson said.
We’ve been told Laffer will make at least one appearance in Atlanta during the coming session of the Legislature.
Don’t expect any tax reform legislation this year, though. House Republicans intend that to come in ‘08.
The link between politics, the arts and Regis Philbin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The arts and politics may be about to mix in a very big way.
An obscure and dull little piece of legislation will make its debut before the General Assembly sometime next week, intended to help remake the way TV pictures come into your home.
Right now, as it was carefully explained to us, you have three ways to watch Oprah: Rabbit ears, cable and dish.
Bleeding traditional phone customers, AT&T (once known as BellSouth) wants to create a fourth path into your living room, by piping video through its phone lines.
Cable TV companies now must negotiate with each and every city and county in which they establish a franchise. That’s how public access channels are created.
AT&T wants to skip that time-consuming and expensive process by signing a single franchise agreement with the state of Georgia. Advocates say the new competition will bring cable TV companies and their prices to heel.
The legislation is modeled in part after what’s been done in Texas. And that’s where the ears of Atlanta’s underfunded arts community have pricked up.
In return for a statewide franchise, Texas levies a federally authorized fee of 1 percent per subscriber for education.
Leaders of Atlanta’s arts community are suggesting that Georgia do the same, but channel the money toward a state-controlled “arts in education” program. The money would be smaller: $1 per subscriber instead of 1 percent.
Even so, we’re talking about $12 million annually — an important amount in a state where a shrinking corporate profile has resulted in less money for big cultural projects.
“Georgia needs to be redefined as a great place for creative businesses — not just a place of great beauty with relatively cheap land and labor,” according to one memo floating around the Capitol.
And it couldn’t hurt Georgia’s low-ranking public schools either, the memo notes: “Georgia is last among the Southern states in state spending for the arts. For every 600 elementary school children Georgia provides a choice of one: an arts teacher, a music teacher or a PE teacher.”
Isakson makes his play on embryonic stem cells
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson on Thursday dropped his bill to permit federal funding of embryonic stem cell research on cell lines drawn from days-old embryos that are malformed and thus incapable of survival.
Isakson is sticking his neck out on this issue, and on illegal immigration, trying to bring Congress and President Bush to a meeting of the minds.
Last July, Bush vetoed a bill that would have permitted federal funding of stem cell lines drawn from healthy embryos discarded by fertility clinics and the parents who produce him. The president said the bill violated the sanctity of human life.
Isakson’s bill, drawn up in cooperation with University of Georgia research Steve Stice, would limit researchers to poorly developed embryos that wouldn’t survive implantation in the womb.
Isakson on Thursday acknowledged that he’s been in contact with high White House officials, to see if Bush would buy into his approach. “I’ve had some good conversations,” Isakson said Thursday.
No one has told him yes, but no one has said no, either, the Georgia senator said. In Washington, that qualifies as good news.
Whether Isakson’s measure moves at all will depend on whether the newly elected members to Congress have given advocates of less restrictive research a veto-proof margin.
A House vote is on embryonic stem cell research is scheduled for next Thursday. Senate hearings are to begin Jan. 22.
Welcome to ‘08 and the race for the 8th
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nancy Pelosi had barely finished her maiden speech as the first woman to become speaker of the U.S. House on Thursday when the e-mail from Mac Collins rolled in.
Collins, you’ll remember, just missed knocking off incumbent U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, a Democrat, last November.
Today, Collins was back in campaign mode, attacking Marshall for casting his vote to name Pelosi as speaker.
“I am deeply concerned that Jim thinks that he will change Mrs. Pelosi into a moderate, something he has implied since the election,” Collins said.
So in one sense, this was an attack on Marshall. But this sounds more like a message aimed at Republicans. Collins is thinking about another crack at Marshall, and wants other Republicans to stay out of his way.
Another fight over who controls the glove compartment of your car
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We hear tell that the National Rifle Association plans another, but bigger, push to pass a bill this session that would allow employees to keep firearms in their automobiles on company parking lots. Many companies currently bar employees from carrying weaponry onto corporate turf.
The bill would set up the re-match of a classic fight between two conservative principles: the right of property owners to control their land without government interference, versus the right of individuals to preserve their right to bear arms in a society that’s increasingly dominated by the rules of the workplace.
This time, to avoid provoking big corporations, the bill would exempt companies that have their parking lots secured by gates and fences. Opposition from corporations did the bill in last year.
On Sunday’s menu: Wild hog, Travis Tritt, or both
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the last 50 years or so, the Wild Hog Supper has become the way that legislators from across Georgia announce their annual return to the big city of Atlanta.
Kind of like the swallows that visit Capistrano every spring. But with forks.
There are those who speculate that this porcine bacchanalia, held every Sunday night before the Monday morning start of the winter session of the Legislature, started as a public safety measure.
Stuffed and satiated lawmakers tend to be drowsy, and so pose less of a danger to the population at large.
Like evolution, this is merely a theory.
But this Sunday evening, someone else intends to hog the attention. Casey Cagle, set to become the first Republican lieutenant governor in Georgia history, has scheduled his inauguration bash in competition with the Wild Hog Supper.
Travis Tritt, the country music star, will sing for Cagle’s supper, as will Atlanta singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins. And Diana DeGarmo. And the Tams, and a gospel choir, and a college drum-line. The room at the Georgia World Congress Center holds 3,000.
“I’m surprised they are planning something in conflict with something that is an institution,” said Tommy Irvin, the state agriculture commissioner. His department coordinates the Wild Hog Supper.
No offense intended, says Cagle’s people. The lieutenant governor-elect was himself hamstrung by the fact that Gov. Sonny Perdue’s inauguration party on Monday had eclipsed any rival event.
“Certainly we want to be respectful of important events, and tried our best to work around a busy start of the legislative session,” said Jaillene Hunter, communications director for Cagle. She noted that both events are held within a few blocks of one another. “We hope legislators and guests will take full advantage of this by attending each event.”
Irvin, a 77-year-old Democrat who has held his office since 1969, took solace in his November performance. The agriculture commissioner made a point of saying that he got more votes statewide than Cagle did.
Become a Georgia Bulldog by wire
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re hearing talk that the state Board of Regents wants to get into the business of offering college diplomas over the Internet. Seems as if the regents are looking at the easy money that’s being lost — no buildings, and a slimmed-down faculty — as Georgia residents log on to bona fide degree programs offered on-line by the University of Phoenix and other institutions.
In case you missed it: Some air developing between Chambliss and President Bush?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’re forgiven if you paid more attention to football than politics on New Year’s Day, but the Washington Post had an extremely important quote from U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss on Monday.
The topic was Iraq. The question was whether the number of U.S. troops should be increased — the direction that President Bush seems to be leaning toward.
Chambliss has a reputation for sticking closely to the Bush administration. But what the south Georgia senator said about putting more troops in Baghdad reflects a growing nervousness among Republicans — especially with those, including Chambliss, who face re-election in ’08.
Here’s the snippet from the Post:
“Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a supporter of the Iraq war who serves on the Armed Services Committee, said he has been ‘cautious’ in his recommendations to the White House about the need for a troop increase.
“For instance, if Bush proposes additional troops to help train Iraqi forces or to clean out a specific part of Baghdad, Chambliss said he could support that as long as it was understood the troops would ‘get out’ after the mission was accomplished.
“’I don’t want to send more troops on a general wartime basis without them having a specific mission,’ said Chambliss.”
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