Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2007 > February
February 2007
The Legislature takes a breather, to see if Sonny can pin Uncle Sam
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After today, the slowest-moving Legislature in years. Will. Get. Much. Slower.
The State Capitol will stand nearly empty for two weeks. Some committees will soldier on, but for the most part lawmakers will flee for home, to re-introduce themselves to the spouse and kids.
Already, this session has earned a reputation for lethargy — not necessarily a bad thing if you don’t like strangers peering into your bedroom or your wallet.
As of Wednesday, the 26th day of a 40-day gathering, the House had experienced only two full-fledged debates — one over gun legislation, and a second over a retirement fund investment bill.
The action in the Senate has been only slightly more exciting.
The main reason for the torpidity — as well as the recess until mid-March — can be laid at the feet of PeachCare, and Gov. Sonny Perdue’s wrestling match with the U.S. government.
Georgia’s health insurance program for 273,000 children of the working poor, in large part funded by the federal government, has a $131 million hole in it. Several other states are in the same situation.
Washington has vowed to fix it, but hasn’t said exactly how or when.
Both are important questions to a state that demands the Legislature approve a balanced budget each year. Without immediate cash from Congress, Georgia has a choice of filling the gap itself — which would have profound implications elsewhere in the budget — or subjecting a popular social program to severe cutbacks.
“I certainly can understand why the Legislature would want to wait until we have some certainty in our budget picture,” said Perdue spokesman Dan McLagan. “And hopefully that certainty will be forthcoming from Washington very soon.”
But it wasn’t really the Legislature’s decision. Coach Perdue is calling the plays on this one. He’s been to D.C. twice to urge feds — from President Bush on down — to come up with the cash.
Perdue thinks it bad policy to allow Washington to walk away from its obligations. He laid out his position to members of the state’s congressional delegation at a meeting at the Governor’s Mansion last week.
There are Republicans who question, rather quietly, the chances that a stare-down with Congress is likely to bear fruit.
Last week, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss visited the Capitol, and in a speech to the state Senate, gently suggested the Legislature begin to consider some stop-gap funding.
The senior senator’s next stop was with the governor, who had seen the remarks on closed-circuit TV. Chambliss was informed the meeting had been canceled — to allow Perdue time to cool off, we’re told.
“The governor has been very specific, that he wants to work closely with Congress, to try and leverage those funds to come in. And he’s asked for that time to do it. As a result we’re still holding,” Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said Wednesday.
Asked if he agreed with the tactic, Cagle replied, “That’s not my strategy. That’s the governor’s strategy.” But the lieutenant governor is willing to let Perdue play the hand out.
Word is that Congress has selected an emergency defense spending bill as the vehicle to also carry extra cash for the children’s health insurance program. Debate isn’t scheduled to start until mid-March.
That’s about when the Legislature is scheduled to reassemble.
So when 236 lawmakers come back, the PeachCare problem in all likelihood will be unchanged, and tough decisions will have to be made.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson has said he’s in favor of shrinking the number of kids that PeachCare covers by 30,000.
On Wednesday, Cagle strongly implied that he doesn’t want to see any children dropped from PeachCare rolls.
“If Washington does not act, we do have to act. I think we can reduce the deficits significantly. The House is in the posture of reducing eligibility. That issue is still out there and there is not a clear concensus,” he said.
In other words, a dull session could still have stirring finish.
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A fight over intellectual property in the Legislature. Not at all like a brace of vegetarians arguing over a piece of steak
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s a new front in the war over whether the University of Georgia Research Foundation, which controls that insitution’s intellectual property, can sell licenses for brands of turf its created.
H.B. 606 would rip away from Georgia’s universities the power to grant licenses from discoveries made in their laboratories, and give it to a new State Intellectual Properties Board.
This measure is said to have legs. With millions, perhaps billions, of dollars at stake, look for a big, big fight.
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A developing resistance to the cervical cancer vaccine
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville) is picking up heat from the right for S.B. 155, a bill to require girls in Georgia who are entering the sixth grade to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV.
The vaccine is intended to prevent cervical cancer and genital warts.
U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey has come out against mandates for the vaccine. WSB radio talk show host Neal Boortz dwelt on the topic this morning, condemning the bill as unnecessary government intrusion.
Balfour said he had few doubts that the bill would get a floor vote — seeing that, as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, he controls the flow of bills. But he acknowledge ideological resistance within his party.
“If I get half of Republicans I’ll be doing a good job,” Balfour said. With Democratic support, S.B. 155 could pass.
Conservative objections might cause the bill some trouble in the House, but again, Balfour will hold the future of much House legislation in his hands. No one thought the fireworks bill had a chance last year, either.
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An SV poll on ‘08, Bush, Sunday booze, and Genarlow Wilson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Another Strategic Vision poll is out, and again Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are the leaders in the ’08 race for president in Georgia — but Barack Obama has made great gains on the Democratic side.
In the same survey, President Bush has a 46 percent overall disapproval rating in Georgia — which rises to 50 percent when it comes to Iraq. That is stunning.
On the alcohol front, 53 percent favor the sale of beer and wine on Sunday.
And 42 percent favored a bill to permit a judge to adjust the 10-year sentence given to Genarlow Wilson, a Douglas County teenager, for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old. A third of voters said no, and 23 percent were undecided.
The poll parameters: Conducted Feb. 23-25, of likely voters, with a 3 percent margin of error. And keep in mind that SV is a Republican-leaning public affairs firm. Georgia Digest has the entire Strategic Vision release here.
The numbers among Republicans: Giuliani at 28 percent; John McCain at 21 percent; Newt Gingrich at 14 percent; Mitt Romney at 8 percent; Tom Tancredo at 4 percent; Mike Huckabee at 3 percent; Sam Brownback, 2 percent; Chuck Hagel, Jim Gilmore, Duncan Hunter, all at 1 percent.
That leaves 16 percent undecided — one year out.
Among Democrats: Clinton, 28 percent; Barack Obama; 25 percent; John Edwards, 18 percent; Wesley Clark, 5 percent; Joe Biden, 3 percent; Bill Richardson, 2 percent; Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich, 1 percent.
And 17 percent undecided.
On Iraq: While Georgia voters disapproved of Bush’s handling of Iraq, they’re not ready to side with Democrats. A firm 58 percent said Democrats in Congress had no better plan to resolve the occupation.
And 53 percent said they would oppose cutting off funding to send additional troops into the Middle East.
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Blogwatch: Andre and Georgia Politics Unfiltered is back
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For a time, Andre the Blogger was one of the more prolific commentators to pop up on Atlanta’s political blog scene. He disappeared in mid-January, for still-unexplained reasons.
Regardless, he’s now back with Georgia Politics Unfiltered.
Current topics include the need for Democrats to rally around Terry Holley in the 10th District congressional race, and the establishment of one his new web sites, Georgians for Hillary.
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Pass the smelling salts: O’Neal gives Capitol press corps the vapors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Larry O’Neal of Warner Robins took to the well late Tuesday. It was the first address by the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee since a particular situation erupted last summer.
“I’ll tell you right up front, it is a retroactive tax bill,” O’Neal said — loudly, for the deaf and sleeping members in the back. “In case you didn’t hear me, it is a ret-ro-ac-tive tax bill.”
Interesting word, retroactive. O’Neal used it perhaps a dozen times in a few short minutes, to describe his omnibus tax bill — an annual attempt to incorporate changes in the federal tax code into Georgia’s tax law.
“What effect does this bill have? Is it retroactive?” asked House Speaker Glenn Richardson of Hiram.
“It is a retroactive tax bill, Mr. Speaker.”
“We can actually do that?”
“We’re gonna see,” O’Neal said.
Two years ago, there was another omnibus tax bill. It passed the House with no problem. The measure contained a change to allow residents who sell property in Georgia, then use the proceeds to buy land out-of-state, to defer paying a capital gains tax. Good news for taxpayers.
While on the Senate side, the bill was made even better. Reportedly at O’Neal’s behest, lawmakers approved a last-minute modification. The bill was made ret-ro-ac-tive to 2004.
This small adjustment allowed one of O’Neal’s friends and business associates, Gov. Sonny Perdue, to claim a $100,000 tax deferral on $2 million land purchase in Florida, made in 2004.
The transaction was much talked about during last year’s campaign for governor. An ethics complaint was lodged against O’Neal, but was dismissed recently by a panel of three GOP colleagues — because the incident was older than the ethics legislation that might have covered it.
The attention, and the suggestion that he might have helped a client/friend in a position of power, has made O’Neal angry. In ret-ro-spect, other people are probably angry, too.
In the well on Tuesday, O’Neal asked fellow House members to search for the package of papers before them.
“You have on your desk a fiscal analysis prepared by Georgia State….I caution you to read it carefully before you vote on this legislation,” he said.
“I can tell you from past and current experience that if a close friend, family member, even your momma might benefit from these provisions, you’re likely to be criticized in your next campaign,” O’Neal said. “And written about in the Salem Constitution and Journal, in the witch-hunt section, where the truth never gets in the way of a good story.”
It was a disappointing comment. We are, as most of you know, the Journal-Constitution.
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No virtual hat in this ring
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was intriguing to see Mindspring founder Charles Brewer’s name on a list of potential Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in ‘08.
But we’ve since been assured, both by his office and Democratic fund-raising sources, that — at least in Brewer’s case — the list is only a wish.
We’re told the dot.com millionaire has three young children, a new business and no interest in politics. At this time, of course.
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About those other Oscars: Hunstein ad gets a Pollie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Back in October, during the snooze of a contest for governor, Georgia voters were awakened by a nuclear blast from the race for state Supreme Court.
Incumbent Justice Carol Hunstein drove challenger Mike Wiggins into the ground with a 30-second TV spot that highlighted a custody fight he’d had with his sister, over their ailing mother.
For those of you who’ve forgotten the details, click here.
The ad was the work of Allan B. Crow & Associates, a Democratic media firm based in Atlanta. And while you were obsessed with the Oscars on the Left Coast this weekend, Crow’s firm picked up two Golden Pollies in Miami from the American Association of Political Consultants.
These are the Oscars of politics, and one was for the Hunstein ad.
The challenge to Hunstein by a candidate backed by an extensive, national Chamber of Commerce network had its predecessors including a supreme court race in West Virginia, in which the incumbent was raked over coals. He lost.
“”The campaign made the determination early on that the second [her opponent] started doing that, they would fight back,” Crow said. “In a down-ballot race, you have to worry about getting noticed. When you put an ad up for a down-ballot race, it needs to be memorable.”
It was.
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Bloggers’ deep fear: Political campaigns will infiltrate their sites
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bloggers thrive on their sense of authenticity. Unlike the MSM, so the theory goes, they present the truth unvarnished and untouched by corporate hands.
That is, unless some savvy campaign publicist figures out that blogs, like every other medium, can be manipulated for his — or his candidate’s — ends.
In a Boston Globe article published last week, our own Erick Erickson of Macon — star of peachpundit.com and redstate.com — served as the lead example on the topic:
Erick Erickson has been running the popular blog Redstate.com long enough to know what his readers’ postings sound like: red-meat conservative rhetoric served up with a little dash of populist anger.
So when postings from an unknown writer on the site showed up praising Senator John McCain — one of the site’s least-popular Republicans for his deviations from hard-core conservative orthodoxy — Erickson thought he smelled a rat.
Or maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll — Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents.
The author of the pro-McCain articles on Redstate.com, Erickson determined after a Google search, was a Michigan political operative whose firm worked for McCain’s political action committee.
With big corporations now hiring public relations firms to pay fake bloggers to plant favorable opinions of the businesses online, many political bloggers are concerned that candidates, too, will hire people to pretend to be grass-roots citizens expressing views.
“This is going to happen more and more, and blogs are going to have to be vigilant,” Erickson said in an interview. “I expect there will be commenters jumping in and trying to build negative campaigns to cause scandal for the other side. That’s my fear.”
Read the rest of the article here
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Kemp throws hat in ring, again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As expected, former state Sen. Brian Kemp has formed a campaign committee to run for the seat being vacated by state Sen. Ralph Hudgens, who’s running for the late Rep. Charlie Norwood’s congressional seat.
The Athens Republican also released a revised list of endorsers that includes what looks like every Republican in the Senate, including Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, as well as PSC member Bobby Baker, four House members and a slew of sheriffs, county officials and mayors.
As you’ll recall, Kemp left the Senate to make an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for agriculture commissioner last year. But you can’t keep ‘em down on the farm, once they’ve been to the Golden Dome.
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Perhaps a new name in the ‘08 race for U.S. Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the weekend, a group of Atlanta fans of the DailyKos put up a notice that they would be forming a local chapter, with the mission of chasing after U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican.
That’s not news.
The juicy item was the survey included in the solicitation, naming seven potential Democrats who might make decent candidates in the ‘08 Senate race.
Most of the names you’ve heard before: Attorney General Thurbert Baker, Columbus attorney Jim Butler, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, Atlanta attorney Jim Martin; and state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond.
Maybe we’ve been under a rock, but the seventh name was new to us: Charles Brewer, the “former Mindspring.com founder and CEO, now an eco-friendly Atlanta real estate developer.”
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A college presidency for Cathy Cox?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dick Pettys and InsiderAdvantage are reporting that former secretary of state Cathy Cox is on a short list of finalists to become the next president of Young Harris College up in north Georgia.
At least through the evening, we’ll have to let Matt Towery’s organization carry the load on this one. We’ve no info to add.
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A taste of Ralph Reed speaking about Rudy G.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Down below, we mentioned this weekend’s New York Times Magazine piece on Sam Nunn. Here’s another telling paragraph — but this one comes from New York Magazine, a different publication. The article is a profile of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. The context is the work he did in 2006 for Republican candidates across the country:
Everywhere [Giuliani] went, he played the 9/11 card, dismissing the Democrats as squishy on terror. More often than not, it worked. “Ask anyone, and they will tell you that their Giuliani event raised the most money,” says Ralph Reed. (Last year, Giuliani campaigned for the former director of the Christian Coalition during his unsuccessful, scandal-marred run for Georgia lieutenant governor.) “People don’t forget that.”
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Clinton and Giuliani lead South, says poll — but take it with a grain of salt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A new poll of five Southeastern states, including Georgia, gives an early edge to Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 race for the White House.
The poll was conducted Feb. 18-22 by Elon University of North Carolina. Note that it has one of the loosest screens imaginable.
The 719 residents surveyed were drawn from the general population of Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, and Virginia. This survey wasn’t about more decerning, likely voters.
When results were divided by party, the Democratic portion of the poll had a margin of error of 5.75 percent, and the Republican sub-sample had a 6.65 margin of error.
The Democratic line-up was as follows: Clinton, 30 percent; Barack Obama, 14 percent; and John Edwards, 8 percent. The rest were undecided or didn’t know.
Among Republicans: Giuliani, 21 percent; John McCain 16 percent; and Mitt Romney, 3 percent. The rest were undecided or didn’t know.
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For some reason, Bridges decides to give evolution bill a rest this session
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For the first time in 11 years, state Rep. Ben Bridges (R-Cleveland) won’t introduce a bill to hinder the teaching of evolution in Georgia, according to last week’s White County News.
You’ll remember the memo that jumped up in state legislatures across the country, the one that declared evolution to have religious roots in Jewish mysticism.
It also sent readers to a web site that says, contrary to Copernicus, Galileo and NASA, the earth doesn’t revolve around the sun.
Bridges’ name was at the top of that memo, though the north Georgia lawmaker says he never saw it, or read it. An acquaintance apparently was the author.
Friends like that are quite common. They tell your girlfriend she’s fat, or declare the theory of relativity to be a kabbalistic fraud, then leave it to an embarrassed you to explain what they really meant.
Anyway, Bridges has blamed people like us for the hoopla. “This thing got blowed out of proportion,” he told the newspaper. “I ain’t guilty of anything. I regret the media made what they made out of it.”
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This is no election. It’s a coronation.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Long-time GOP activist Sue Everhart of Cobb County has picked up yet another endorsement for chairmanship of the state Republican party — this one from Jim Beck, president of the Georgia Christian Coalition.
Beck, who once worked for Pierre Howard, the Democratic lieutenant governor, wanted to be sure no one thought him partisan. I would have considering to an endorsement in the Democratic chair race — but I was not asked,” he said late last week.
Everhart has already received a personal endorsement from Sadie Fields, chairman of the Georgia Christian Alliance. State Sen. David Shafer of Gwinnett County, who lost a GOP chairmanship race to Ralph Reed in 2001, also endorsed Everhart last week.
The only other announced candidate in the race is Anthony-Scott Hobbs, the current chairman of the Cobb County GOP. The next Georgia chairman will be selected by delegates to the statewide convention in mid-May. The delegate selection process began over the weekend.
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Dear Calvin Smyre: Wish you were here
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) checked out of his hospital bed and is now recuperating at home after back surgery. The 32-year veteran of the General Assembly is the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
Mail complaints about his absence to 1103 Glenwood Road, Columbus, Ga. 31906. Smyre’s e-mail address is calvinsmyre@synovus.com.
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What keeps Sam Nunn awake at night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For those of you not into the Oscars tonight, the New York Times Magazine published an excellent piece this weekend on Sam Nunn and his worries about the spread of nuclear weapons.
For local historians, one of the best tidbits concerned the negotiations between Nunn and Ted Turner, the media mogul whose donation of $250 million in stock allowed the Nuclear Threat Initiative to open. A small taste:
Turner considered establishing an organization to revive the dormant nuclear-disarmament movement. But foreign-policy specialists he met with persuaded him to focus on more realistic, incremental change.
A mutual friend connected Turner with Nunn, who was then practicing law at an Atlanta firm.
According to one person familiar with N.T.I.’s founding, who does not want to be named because he works with N.T.I. and does not have permission to speak on its behalf, “There was this very prolonged dance where people were trying to come up with ideas that were exciting enough for Turner but sensible enough for Nunn,” who was uncomfortable with Turner’s passion for disarmament, a movement Nunn had long considered irresponsible.
Nunn and Turner found common ground, however, in a narrower mission: responding to the threat of “loose nukes,” or the possibility that nuclear weapons and materials might be smuggled out of the former Soviet Union and find their way into malevolent hands.
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Eminent domain and the high cost of gasoline
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For two years, Republicans at the state Capitol have tortured themselves over eminent domain, the seizure of private property for the greater good.
GOP lawmakers and a GOP governor have dared the world and its courts to chisel away at individual rights in Georgia.
They’re about to tackle the topic again. But this time, the outcome is likely to be different. Senate Bill 173 pits the sacrament of land against your right to cheap gasoline for your cars, diesel for your tractors, and fuel for your jets.
In the past, outrage over eminent domain has been driven by government seizure of real estate for purposes of economic development. But in a sense, this has been something of a straw man.
Utilities, not the evil gummint, are the most common employers of eminent domain, in this state and elsewhere. And in Georgia, utilities generally get what they want - unless they screw up in horrible, horrible fashion.
Which reminds us of the story of Colonial Pipeline Co. It operates a dual set of underground pipes that stretch from Louisiana through Georgia and clear up to the New York City harbor, providing this side of the United States with all sorts of liquid petroleum products.
Back in the mid-1990s, the company hit an astounding stretch of bad luck. The federal government declared Colonial’s leaky pipes a hazard. Colonial pipes flooded the well water of a Bibb County pecan farmer with fuel. He turned out to be an influential state lawmaker.
And the company tried to muscle a new pipeline through the pristine plantations of some very, very wealthy landowners in south Georgia. These were the kind of people who could motivate then-Gov. Zell Miller to sign legislation in 1995 that subjected petroleum pipelines to a permitting system.
Before using eminent domain to expand, pipeline companies now are required to get approval from the state Department of Transportation and the state Environmental Protection Division.
But times change. Things happen, like Hurricane Katrina, the occupation of Iraq, and a near-nuclear Iran.
Five new refineries in Louisiana are set for completion in 2010. Colonial says it needs to construct a third, 500-mile pipeline stretching from Baton Rouge to holding tanks in Cobb County, to keep up with the demand. At an estimated cost of $1 billion.
S.B. 173, sponsored by Ross Tolleson (R-Perry), passed out of a Senate committee last week. Delta Air Lines, whose name is magic around the Capitol these days, spoke in favor of it. The added pipeline is specifically named in Gov. Sonny Perdue’s energy program.
The bill would strip away the requirements for DOT and EPD permits - for Colonial and one other petroleum pipeline company in Georgia. No other utility is subject to them, argued Colonial spokesman Sam Whitehead. (Sarcastic tree-huggers no doubt would point out that electricity and natural gas rarely leave oil slicks in groundwater.)
The permits cost time and money. “Our best estimate is that if everything went well, it would take eight to 12 months,” Whitehead said. But that’s only a guess. Though the legislation has been on the books for a dozen years, no company has actually gone through the process. Ever.
The bill would also let Colonial to relocate portions of its third line within a two-mile swath - one mile on each side of its current route - to avoid environmentally sensitive land, historic sites, and crowds.
“Oh, my God, that just might include anything,” said Robert Ray. He was the state House member with the pecan farm. A conservative Democrat, he retired from the Legislature last year. “I just can’t believe the new Republican Legislature is opening up these situations that were partially resolved,” he said.
Whitehead, the Colonial spokesman, said his company has changed with the times, and is more sensitive about deploying surveyors onto property it does not own. “Certainly, in these ensuing 11 years, we do these purchase of easements completely differently than was done at the time,” he said.
Republicans are handling S.B. 173 very carefully. So carefully that they’ve included two Democrats among the four top signatures, the better to spread the blame if things go wrong. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle issued a statement on Friday acknowledging the balancing act that must be struck.
Cheap gas is a must. As is fuel for crop harvests. “However, he recognizes that private property rights are paramount,” said Cagle spokeswoman Jaillene Hunter.
Colonial recognizes GOP discomfort with the issue. “We understand it’s a sensitive issue, and we would prefer not to be doing this,” Whitehead said. “But it’s a matter of needing to expand the capacity for petroleum products into not just Atlanta, but the entire state of Georgia.”
If you still have any doubt about the ultimate fortunes of S.B. 173, remember one thing: You live in a state that, 18 months ago, shut down nearly every school in the state to make sure farmers had enough diesel to gather up their peanuts.
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And you thought talk of an early Georgia primary would have no impact
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Any doubt that Iowa would be in play was removed this afternoon, as that state’s former governor, Tom Vilsack, withdrew from the Democratic race for president. This according to the Washington Post.
Vilsack’s problem was financial. “This process has become to a great extent about money — a lot of money,” he said. “And it is clear to me that we would not be able to continue to raise money in the amounts necessary to sustain not just a campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire, but a campaign across this country.”
In other words, this move by all the other states, now including Georgia, to move their primaries into early February 2008 has put incredible pressure on shoestring presidential campaigns.
The era established by Jimmy Carter in Iowa in 1976 — in which a handful of fervent supporters, a bit of cash, and early luck could put a nobody governor into the White House — may indeed be over.
Marshall on his Iraq vote: He splits the difference
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon) was one of the few Democrats to vote against the House resolution that was critical of President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.
He told the Moultrie Observer this week that he’d gotten mixed responses on his vote:
“Yeah, people will send me e-mail saying that’s it, they’re cutting me off, they’re not going to vote for me. Then I get contrary e-mails thanking me very much for my vote, saying it must have taken a lot of courage to do it.
“My response to both is that I’m just trying to do what’s right as I see it,” Marshall said.
“We’re going to continue to have debates with regard to the way forward in Iraq. My guess is there will continue to be substantial controversy, so this story is not going away.”
An explanation of how Genarlow Wilson landed a 10-year sentence
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Early this week, in the midst of the debate over Genarlow Wilson, former state lawmaker and current pundit Matt Towery said that the law that put the teenager behind bars for 10 years for oral sex with a 15-year-old had a “phenomenally disastrous” flaw.
This was news, because Towery was the sponsor of the bill. The publisher of InsiderAdvantage.com posted a long explanation of how and why his Child Protection Act of 1995 failed to include a safety valve for teenagers of like age with raging hormones. We offer it below, with permission, in its entirety:
(2/21/07) Yesterday I arose and, half awake, read the first few paragraphs of a story related to a longstanding nightmare which I inadvertently helped create.
Because I have been in negotiations on a television project and have been polling several critical issues in several states, I had not read Sen. Eric Johnson’s comments on Senate Bill 37 nor had I realized that the issue was once again a source of trouble.
I certainly didn’t realize that it had been a subject this week of Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor or CNN.
For the first time in 10 years, instead of sitting in a studio providing analysis and reporting the news, I was instead making it.
I did so only after years of writing columns, talking to influential legislators, and continually asking to find a way to help correct a phenomenally disastrous result coming from a bill which I sponsored in the Georgia legislature in 1995.
From the start let me say that my comments were not directed at Sen. Johnson. Eric is one of the finest public servants I have ever known and has been my personal friend since 1980.
He has every right to hold his own view on this issue and some of his arguments are meritorious. But as I told the reporters present, the real story of “aggravated child molestation” and the punishment for statutory rape in Georgia had to be told.
I did not call Eric before my press conference because I intended to, and did, make it clear that the issue was not Eric Johnson. I did call him immediately afterwards, as his comments were raised by the reporters. Eric was, as usual, the gracious and mature leader he has always been.
So let’s move this story off of my friend Eric Johnson to where it should be—what Paul Harvey called “The Rest of the Story”
It was December of 1994. As chairman of Newt Gingrich’s campaign I was basking in the afterglow of his election as U.S. House Speaker and preparing for the next Georgia legislative session.
I really had it made in the sense that although I was a Republican, I had known Democratic Gov. Zell Miller since I was 10 years old, had a close personal friendship with Democratic Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy and his family, and had a great relationship with the man who beat me for lieutenant governor (and would later be my business partner), Democrat Pierre Howard.
I say this to explain how a Republican could possibly have passed such a sweeping bill in the days of Democratic domination of the Gold Dome.
That December I saw a news report in which a child had been terribly abused but the laws in Georgia were too weak to properly punish the person responsible.
That led to my introduction of The Child Protection Act of 1995. As introduced, it did create mandatory ten year sentences for those who did certain unimaginable things to children—but it did not raise Georgia’ age of consent laws.
The bill sailed out of the House in a matter of days and landed in the Senate. At that time there existed a bill in [the] Senate Judiciary [Committee] which raised the age of consent from 14 to 16 years of age. The problem was that the House would never accept the bill without using my bill as what we call a “vehicle” to get the age of consent bill to the House.
The chairperson of Senate Judiciary basically made it clear that if I wanted my bill to move, I would allow the committee to add the age of consent to the bill. I agreed. That’s where the disaster started.
No one would budge on the seemingly dangerous fact that kids or young adults - prone to break the age of consent laws from time to time - could easily face the mandatory 10-year sentence and be classified as having committed “aggravated child molestation,” although this clearly was not my intent.
Here’s a good example: A young man aged 17 having sex with a girl, say, two days before her 15th birthday would have been in deep trouble under this bill.
But ironically, since sodomy in Georgia includes oral sex, had the boy engaged in “sodomy” he would have qualified for the status of “aggravated child molestation” and faced 10 years—whereas had he engaged in intercourse, and intercourse alone, the penalty could have been less.
Now, anyone who has been through the legislative process with a major bill knows that we often fool ourselves into believing that the arguments against the bill are covered in the language. Does anyone really think that Pierre Howard or I, or most sane people would have wanted such draconian measures?
In the redrafting, our concerns were allegedly met, but we were unable to get the proponents of the age of consent law to allow for a true “Romeo and Juliet” clause which would have said that if the two consenting partners were within, say, four years of age, then the charge would be a misdemeanor.
Fortunately, several years ago wise minds did insert that provision into this code section.
On the day of the final vote on the bill, Tom Murphy talked to me along with Larry Walker (then the Majority leader). Tom expressed his severe concerns that young people would end up in prison for long periods of time.
(Now understand that by this time my friendship with Murphy had become much closer than anyone at the Capitol knew. We ate together, I had come to spend a great deal of time with his family, and we often got together on holidays or during the summer. )
Tom did not want to rob me of having my chance to pass the bill. But he made it clear that he would fight me from the well.
We had a friendly but very vigorous floor fight. Larry Walker told me last night that he recalled Murphy’s concerns and that he and other leaders were worried as well, but as Larry put it “it was hard to vote against a bill called the Child Protection Act of 1995 and the bill had a lot of merit in many other ways.”
My bill passed by a fairly wide margin. Afterwards Murphy and I were headed out together to get something to eat, as I recall with Bill Lee (the longtime and very bright Rules Chairman) and Butch Benefield along with others.
As we left, Murphy put his arm around me and said something like, “Well, you beat me, but I sure hope little Matthew (my son who he loved and was then 7 years old) doesn’t ever get into trouble with this piece of (insert his favorite expletive)!”
It was then that Murphy and I agreed that if we found judges applying the bill harshly in such cases we would immediately go in together and change the law.
I write this mistake off to several things: the arrogance of a younger Matt Towery who knew he could pass legislation in a Democratic House where Republicans were of little consequence; the insistence by the House Judiciary Chair and the age of consent sponsor that the two pieces of legislation be “married up” with no changes allowed (they feared the House would strip the bill out so it came to the House floor as an up or down vote); and finally our naïve trust that somehow judges and prosecutors could read our minds as to legislative intent.
Do I blame the DA’s who followed this law? No way—we created it. Do I blame the judges who imposed 10-year sentences—no, if the circumstances met the threshold, they had to impose the mandatory 10 years.
I know that my press conference was presented as an attack on Eric Johnson. I regret that not because of any recriminations (he’s not that way) but because it hurt his feelings and put him on the defensive over a bill who’s history even Eric, one of the most senior and savvy legislators in the state, could not have known. No one knew this entire story. Not one soul.
So what do we do?
Well first let me say that I did not do what I did to impact any particular case. I have no idea if the young man in Douglas County was found guilty of any other crimes other than “aggravated child molestation” as a result of the bill I passed.
I know the tapes of their “sex party” are said to be disturbing and I hardly want to endorse that behavior. But ten years in jail?
I do know the jury was horrified when the sentence (which the Judge had no alternative to hand down) was announced. Even David McDade, a great DA who prosecuted the case said he offered far less to the young man because he knew 10 years was too long.
But had we not set the bar so high, might not the offer have been a year, or probation? Who knows?
What I do know is that well-to-do public and private schools have kids having sex outside of the current two-year window far more often than anyone might imagine.
Just this week I learned of a prominent school where a certain STD had broken out from sexual relations between ninth graders (some who could be fourteen) and 11th graders (some who could be 17). Could these youngsters be charged with “aggravated child molestation” and spend ten years in jail? You bet.
But instead the brunt of these cases have fallen to the disadvantaged and often African-American males. Whether that’s a demographic fluke or a difference in prosecutorial “interest,” or simply the result that many of these kids come from homes where there may be no father figure or the privileges and inability to be monitored by the family unit due to financial burdens, I don’t know.
As for the fix, compromise should be in the air. Whether or not it is wise to extend the “Romeo and Juliet” provisions of the bill out to four years is questionable.
But providing review by the courts of only those cases in which the 10-year sentence resulted from age of consent matters prior to the law being changed in the last few years—well that seem a no-brainer.
The arguments against it are that it would cost too much and clog up the court system. Well, that’s just absurd. We already have sentencing review boards that look at every case in Georgia—why couldn’t they isolate the relatively few cases where the earlier version of the law applied and turn them over to the courts for review of sentencing?
That sounds to me like a sound and reasonable compromise given the fact that even one young person in jail serving ten years or a negotiated plea with ten years as the threat to enter such a plea only for violation the age of consent conversion to “aggravated child molestation” is one person too many.
Georgia’s state motto includes “wisdom and moderation.” We may have lacked wisdom in trying to do something good in 1995. But we certainly can find both wisdom and moderation in 2007.
If nothing else, I owed it to Tom Murphy to speak out on this matter, as he is not in the position to be able to speak out on his own. As he went through the immediate aftermath of his second stroke, I sat with his son Mike and held Tom’s hand.
I knew that his life would be incredibly frustrating—such a brilliant mind trapped by the limits the stroke had placed upon him. I vowed to Mike Murphy, a Superior Court Judge of whom Speaker Murphy was so proud, that I would be his voice if ever one was needed.
So I write this not just as my explanation and plea that some reasonable solution be passed, but for Tom Murphy. After all, he was smart enough to know this day would come.
When learning stick shift, finding first gear is always the hardest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The good news, said state Democratic chairman Jane Kidd, is that May 17 has been picked as the day for the party’s annual fund-raiser, the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner.
Presidential candidate John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, has confirmed his appearance. Other invitations are pending, Kidd said.
More good news: “We made the payroll this week,” she said.
The bad news: “But we can’t do it again.”
Kidd made her remarks this morning at a meeting of Georgia’s WIN List, a political action committee for Democratic women.
Afterwards, Kidd said much of her first month in the leadership position has been spent going to donors throughout the state, trying to patch up the once-mighty party’s finances. “I’m think I can almost get us a couple weeks more on what we came up with in Macon yesterday,” she said.
“Jefferson-Jackson has always been the event that brings in the budget,” Kidd said. Usually it’s held in February or March.
The party requires between $700,000 and $750,000 to keep its staff of 10 in rent money. That includes an executive director, who hasn’t been hired yet.
On another front, Kidd said the party intended to field a candidate for the 10th District congressional race in north Georgia. But that it would only be one candidate.
“It’s an opportunity to show who we are. It’s a different seat,” she said. “We’re going to have to behave like adults. It’s important for Democrats to have one qualified candidate. For the first time, we’re going to have to say no,” she said.
Republicans have already fielded two white, male conservative candidates. “We know what they look like,” Kidd said. “We’re looking for something different.”
What will the Democratic party be able to offer that candidate? “We’re not going to be able to provide money for the candidate. What we are going to provide is grass roots organization,” Kidd said.
Now that we’ve decided, let’s buckle up for Feb. 5
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The ink is not yet dry on the legislation - no, take that back. We don’t even know if the ink is on the legislation that would move Georgia’s presidential primary date back from March 4 to Feb. 5.
But when House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter presented former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to the press before his big fundraiser Wednesday evening at 103 West, he spoke of the move as a done deal.
“We have decided here in Georgia that we are going to move our primary up,” Burkhalter said, moving lightly beyond the formalities of getting the date change approved by the House and Senate and signed by the governor. “Suddenly, Georgia has gotten a whole lot more important in the political world.”
Some might argue with the last point. Georgia has the option of staying where it is and voting with New York and Massachusetts, or moving up and voting with - in all likelihood - California, Florida, Texas, New Jersey and a bunch of other states on Feb. 5. Either way, it’s going to be hard to attract much attention from the candidates.
Romney said he was “delighted” the state would be moving up the calendar, “because I’m planning on doing very, very well here in Georgia.”
“I feel a particular kinship to the people here in Atlanta, and Georgia, because of your Olympic heritage,” said Romney, who was the Billy Payne of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
But wouldn’t there be some jeopardy for the bouyant former governor, we asked, in a huge early primary where name ID would count for so much?
As the crowd of influential Republicans standing behind him showed, Romney has been the standout in the inside game of Republican politics so far in this race. But former Mayor Rudy Giuliani still leads both Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain in polls in Georgia, and the nation as a whole. Feb. 5 - from this considerable distance - would seem to be made for him.
By next February, Romney replied, he’d be better known than he is today. And in the meantime he intends to continue a campaign of “getting to know people on a person to person basis.”
“We didn’t who Bill Clinton was - I wish we could have kept it that way - until pretty late in the process,” said Romney.
There were lots of people for him to get to know at the do Wednesday night — not only announced supporters like Reps. John Linder and Tom Price, and Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens, but uncommitted Republicans like U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and state Sen. Chip Rogers, coming to take a look.
Romney’s very good at this style of retail politics. We’ll see how he does on Wholesale Day next February.
Eric Johnson and Genarlow Wilson: The prequel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson and radio talk show host Neal Boortz went at it over Genarlow Wilson this morning, there was the CNN piece.
It aired last Saturday. Johnson wrote a long defense of himself the next day, which became the heart of an AJC story written on Tuesday.
On today’s ajc.com, former lawmaker and current commentator Matt Towery said the law that put Wilson in prison was broken.
But back to Saturday. A Typical Joe has gone to the trouble of posting a partial transcript of the CNN piece. Here it is:
EDDIE BARKER, DOUGLASVILLE PROSECUTOR: From what we’ve seen on the videotape and heard from the victim ourself, we do not believe there was any physical force used.
[CNN CORRESPONDENT RICK] SANCHEZ: No physical force? Doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that it was consensual sex between two teens. Ten years, mandatory, no way around it.
The law that ensnared Genarlow is so illogical that if he’d had intercourse with the 15-year-old instead of oral sex, his punishment would only have been a misdemeanor.
Back to the Georgia legislature, which recently changed the law but didn’t change Genarlow Wilson’s punishment. Why not?
State Senator Eric Johnson took the floor.
ERIC JOHNSON, GEORGIA STATE SENATOR: Mr. Wilson participated in multiple sexual acts with a minor while she was unconscious.
SANCHEZ: Wrong. The girl was not unconscious. The senator also said she was raped. That’s not even what the prosecutor thought.
So we called the senator and asked for an interview.
(on camera) Do you feel bad about the fact that you characterized this as a rape when you were talking yesterday in the Senate?
JOHNSON: No.
SANCHEZ: You don’t have any problem with that?
JOHNSON: No.
SANCHEZ: Because it wasn’t a rape.
JOHNSON: It’s a rape in my mind.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): Here’s what it was in the minds of the jurors. We know; we talked to them.
MARIE MANIGAULT, JURY FOREPERSON: When we viewed the tape, there was absolutely nothing in there that showed us that he in any way encouraged this person, even invited the person to come.
SANCHEZ: So for now, the Georgia legislature has done nothing, leaving Genarlow Wilson behind these walls, hoping some day for justice.
Wonk alert: Study says the heavier the voter ID requirements, the lower the turnout
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Rutgers University study, in cooperation with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, has turned up evidence that tighter voter identification rules indeed result in lower voter turnout, particularly among minorities.
Look for this to be brought into the Georgia debate, where the argument has focused on photo ID. Suits are pending in both federal and state courts, though the issue is dead in the Legislature this year.
The study also looked at the effects of other ID requirements. Download the entire (very thick) academic paper by clicking here.
But this is the nut of the report:
These effects translated into reduced probabilities of voting of about 3 to 4 percent for the entire sample, with large differences for specific subgroups.
For example, the predicted probability that Hispanics would vote in states that required non-photo identification was about 10 percentage points lower than in states where Hispanic voters gave their names.
The difference was about 6 percent for African-Americans and Asian-Americans, and about 2 percent for white voters (the gap widened to 3.7 percent for white voters when comparing photo identification to simply stating one’s name.
Georgia Senate condemns Iran, Syria: Surrender expected within days
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At the instigation of state Sen. Judson Hill (R-Marietta), the state Senate today unanimously passed a resolution condemning Iran for its nuclear ambitions, as well as Syria for its disreputable acts in the Middle East.
So far as is known, no troops were committed in the process. Before its passage, state Sen. George Hooks (D-Americus) asked the most salient question of Hill: “Do you expect the ayatollah to fly directly to New York and surrender to the United Nations?”
Check out the audio here.
Boortz vs. Johnson on the imprisonment of Genarlow Wilson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s the rough audio on the confrontation between Neal Boortz and Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson on WSB radio this morning. Johnson handled himself well, and in fact had pushed Boortz into neutral by the end of the conversation.
See the beginnings and details of this in the post below.
Johnson agreed to go on — Boortz had taunted him as a “vile pig” and “candy ass” — but made it clear his cooperation came with a price. Boortz committed to some air time discussion next week of S.B. 10, Johnson’s bill that would permit school vouchers for disabled students.
Dear Eric Johnson: If your phones are ringing today….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) is getting slammed this moment on the Neal Boortz show on WSB radio.
“Vile pig” and “candy ass” are some of the kinder phrases Boortz is using.
Johnson has come out in opposition of S.B. 37, a bill to adjust the state’s sexual offender law to address the sentence of Genarlow Wilson, the star football player from a Douglas County high school, who at age 17, had consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl.
A jury convicted him of aggravated child molestation, and a judge sentenced him to the maximum 10 years in prison. Wilson was one of six arrested after a night of partying.
“This was not two star-crossed lovers on a date,” wrote Johnson in an article this week. He noted that Wilson and other male partygoers videotaped their acts, and that the girl was “semi-conscious.”
This time next year, Georgia’s presidential primary could be over
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Republican leaders have introduced a bill to let Georgia join the stampede of states toward an early presidential primary in February next year.
The same bill would — just in time for a special congressional election in June — change election rules so that a candidate would only have to receive 45 percent of the vote to be declared the winner
H.B. 487 was introduced Tuesday by state Reps. Austin Scott (R-Tifton), Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) and Berry Fleming (R-Harlem). Earlier this week, Fleming bowed out of the race to replace the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta in Congress.
The bill would let Georgia move next year’s primary from March 4 to Feb. 5.
Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arizona and Utah are already planning primaries for Feb. 5. And California, New Jersey, Illinois are among other states looking at moving up to early February.
The Associated Press was the first to report on the bill. “We do not want Georgia left out of the process,” said Keen, the House majority leader. “We want Georgia to be in play.”
The portion of the legislation dealing with run-offs could have immediate impact. Gov. Sonny Perdue is to order a June 19 election to replace Norwood. The rare open seat is likely to attract several candidates — Republican state senators Ralph Hudgens of Comer and Jim Whitehead Evans of have already formally announced.
Blogwatch: Except for some paternity matters, a knock-out blow for U.S. Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a relatively dismal wrap-up of Democratic candidates in the ‘08 race for U.S. Senate in Georgia, Daily Kos plants this gem: Former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield. Sayeth the blog:
Holyfield has given money to the Democrats before (and, according to newsmeat, only to the Democrats), would probably have the ability to self-fund (in addition to his boxing career he owns a record company, a piece of The Black Family Channel, and I’ve heard that he is co-owner of the Atlanta cable system).
But there might be one problem, the blog says.
Having said that, I believe Holyfield has been found to have had a large number of illegitimate children which would probably hurt him.
Possibly, but not if they’re registered to vote.
McCain and Chambliss: Talking about Iraq, separately but together
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saxby Chambliss and John McCain are both U.S. senators. Both are Republican, both intend to be on the ‘08 ballot, and both crossed paths at the state Capitol on Tuesday.
Each is tied closely to President Bush and the conduct of the war in Iraq. And when asked why things aren’t going well in Baghdad, each brought out his own whipping boy.
Put the two senators together — one running for president, and the other for re-election — and they exemplify the problem that Iraq presents for Republicans, even in a solidly, pro-military state like Georgia.
It’s difficult to defend oneself without striking a sitting, Republican president.
McCain began the public part of his day shortly after sunrise, with a brief address to the House GOP caucus. Among Republican candidates for president, the Arizona senator has been the strongest supporter of Bush policy in the Middle East, and the loudest voice for sending more troops to contain Shi’ite and Sunni bloodshed.
State lawmakers found themselves part of a conversation that began the day before in South Carolina, where McCain had called former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfield “one of the worst secretaries of defense in history.”
McCain repeated himself in Georgia. Rumsfield was responsible for doing too little, too late in the war zone, he said. According to those who heard the remarks, McCain said the fruits of Rumsfield’s policy were on display at Walter Reed military hospital in Washington.
“It’s well chronicled that the war was mismanaged,” McCain said afterwards in the hallway. “The president has stated that. We made many mistakes. You make mistakes in war.”
McCain toned down his remarks even more when he met his next group of reporters, outside Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office. “I am being critical of everybody including all of us who are responsible for mistakes that we’ve made in the war,” McCain said. “Including myself.”
At nearly the same time, Chambliss was in the middle of an address to the state Senate — usually an occasion for friendly banter and stale jokes. But not when the topic is Iraq.
“I don’t like what’s happening over there,” said Chambliss, who as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has often served as a defender of Bush policy in a post-9/11 world. “We’ve not been doing well in the last 12 to 18 months, particularly.”
Chambliss and McCain say Bush’s infusion of 21,500 troops into Iraq needs to be given an opportunity to work. And that could pose career risks for both in ’08.
After his remarks to the Senate, Chambliss spoke to reporters. “John McCain as a presidential candidate is ‘way out on a limb,” he said. But Chambliss acknowledged he was on the same branch.
Georgia’s senior senator declined to echo McCain’s criticism of Rumsfield. “I don’t know what was wrong with our strategy or who was responsible for it,” he said.
Instead, Chambliss took aim at Gen. George Casey, confirmed by the U.S. Senate this month as Army chief of staff. Chambliss cast a protest vote against Casey, who for more than two years served as U.S. commander in Iraq.
Time after time, Chambliss said, he’d asked the general whether he needed more troops. Each time, the general said no — until this year.
“If he needed more troops, by gosh he should have asked for them. And to come to the party late like he did, I think, was not the kind of leadership we need on the ground in Iraq today,” Chambliss said.
Fall guys aside, perhaps the biggest difference between McCain and Chambliss on Tuesday was their attitude about Iraq’s future, and ours.
Chambliss was torn between optimism and the prospect of a long slog in the Middle East. “I’m very hopeful that we’ll never have to send another one of our Guardsmen or Guardswomen to Iraq. But chances are pretty good we will,” he said.
McCain offered little but the long slog. “I think we’re there for a long, long time,” he told reporters. “We’ve been in South Korea for a long, long time also.”
A little backseat driving on the 10th District race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The thoughts below aren’t wholly original, but we’re happy to serve as a vehicle.
We know that state Rep. Barry Fleming, 41, has bowed out of the 10th District congressional race in favor of an older legislator, also with Augusta connections — 64-year-old state Sen. Jim Whitehead.
Ralph Hudgens, another older Republican on the Athens side of the district, is also in the hunt. Nice guys, both of them, and nothing against them.
But investing in Congress is a 20-year venture. It takes years and years and years to develop serious clout in the U.S. House. Wouldn’t it make more sense to settle on the fellow who’s most likely to be around in 2027?
Look at Phil Gingrey, Tom Price, David Scott, Jim Marshall, even Sanford Bishop. All are in their late 50s or early 60s. Regardless of party, it’s a long shot whether any of them will see a committee chairmanship.
Doesn’t this safe seat scream for a post-boomer? Are we wrong on this?
If not Vince Dooley, then maybe this guy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the heels of the Vince Dooley rumor comes a more substantive report from the Athens Banner-Herald, which reports that former NFL player Willie Green is considering a run for the 10th District congressional seat as a Republican.
Says the Banner-Herald:
Green, who attended Clarke Central High School, joined the Detroit Lions in 1990 as an eighth-round draft pick.
He played for Tampa Bay, Carolina and Denver, but left professional football in the late 1990s and opened up a chain of payday lending stores.
Today, the political newcomer works for Community Financial Services of America, a lobby that supports regulated but legal payday loans - a lending practice that’s banned in Georgia.
Gosh. Where could he possibly find the money to run that campaign?
You can’t say he’s out, because he was never in
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First, let’s dispense of the rumor.
Word out of Washington this morning was that former University of Georgia athletic director Vince Dooley was interested in joining the race to replace the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta, as a Democrat.
Not so.
We first got hold of his wife Barbara, a Republican. “If he is, please tell him to call me and let me know,” she said.
A quick call to her husband, who thought about running for U.S. Senate in ’86 and governor in ‘90, dispelled any doubt. No, he’s not thinking about it. And no one’s talked to him about it. Consider the rumor killed.
As you know, the field of candidates for the 10th congressional district has already shrunk by one.
On Monday, state Sen. Jim Whitehead (R-Evans) announced for the 10th District congressional seat. With him was state Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) who — until that day — was in the race.
Fleming was at the House caucus meeting on Tuesday morning. Fleming said it was apparent that Whitehead, a good friend, would not back out of the race.
“That left the decision to me,” said Fleming, who had spent months quietly making plans. Much of Fleming’s decision could be traced to the ages of the two men.
Whitehead is 64. Fleming is 41, and has plenty of time. But Fleming said the Columbia County and Augusta establishment also weighed in. They were fearful that the two legislators would split the vote in the Augusta region, giving an edge to state Sen. Ralph Hudgens of Comer, whose strength lies in the Athens area.
Also Monday, Brian Kemp of Athens, who resigned his seat to run for state agriculture commission, declared his intention to return to the Senate — by going after Hudgens’ seat.
Both Hudgens and Whitehead must resign to run for Congress, but the timing is still being worked out.
McCain visits Capitol, again tears into Rumsfield
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As promised, GOP presidential candidate John McCain showed up at a House Republican caucus meeting at the state Capitol. Afterwards, he took a meeting with Gov. Sonny Perdue.
To several dozen GOP House members, McCain renewed his criticism of Donald Rumsfield, who resigned as secretary of defense last year, for his handling of the Iraq war.
“It’s well chronicled that the war was mismanaged,” McCain said afterwards. “The president has stated that. We made many mistakes. You make mistakes in war. This new secretary [Robert] Gates is a dramatic improvement. We’ve got a new general, and I think we can succeed.”
Among Republican candidates for president, the Arizona senator has been the strongest supporter of Bush policy in the Middle East. But in South Carolina on Monday, McCain said, “I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history.”
McCain repeated that assertion to Georgia lawmakers, and said that Rumsfield was responsible for doing too little, too late in the war zone. According to those in the room, McCain said that — early in the conflict , which started nearly four years ago — he went to Iraq, where U.S. military leaders told him they needed more troops.
Afterwards, McCain said he passed the assessment on to Rumsfield at a breakfast meeting, but that the defense secretary rejected the suggestion of more troops. McCain told lawmakers that they could see the fruits of the policy in the wounded men and women at Walter Reed military hospital in Washington, according to those who heard the remarks.
Speaking about U.S. energy policy, McCain also emphasized the need to include nuclear power in any discussion of alternative energy sources.
The senator was accompanied by Alec Poitevint, the chairman of the state GOP, who is heading up his Georgia campaign, and long-time ally Phil Gramm, the former Texas senator. Gramm is a native of Columbus, Ga.
After meeting with House members, McCain crossed the street for a conversation with the Georgia governor. No details of the meeting with Perdue were available. The senator also had a noon meeting with supporters scheduled for downtown Atlanta.
The McCain campaign in Georgia has gotten off to a slow start, when compared with activities of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
But McCain — who appeared with state GOP chairman Alec Poitevint — said he’s not worried.
“With Alec Poitevint on your side — it’s a tremendous asset,” he said. “I think we’re doing fine.
Minutes after McCain’s visit, House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter announced that he would be a co-chair of Romney’s steering committee in Georgia. A press release issued by the Romney campaign also added Sam Olens, chairman of the Cobb County Commission, to the list of the candidate’s known Georgia supporters.
Romney has a fund-raiser in Atlanta on Wednesday.
No other House leader, including Speaker Glenn Richardson, has publicly picked a side yet.
“It’s real early. Very early,” said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen. “I’d like to know who’s in the race before I make a decision.”
The Legislature is there to keep our science on the straight-and-narrow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier this month, University of Georgia researcher Steve Stice came to the state Capitol to give lawmakers a lecture on embryonic stem cell research.
This is the guy who’s been working with U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson to work past the objections of conservatives, some of whom equate the research to abortions — because the days-old embryos are killed in the process.
On Monday, Cecil Staton (R-Macon), chairman of the Senate science and technology committee and a stalwart right-to-lifer, issued an invitation to an alternative view at a Tuesday committee hearing.
Staton first advised colleagues to review Stice’s presentation on the Internet. Then he added a gentle needle: “It is my intention that we hear from more experts for a complete and accurate picture of the state of stem cell research.”
Eat my headlines, says McCain to Romney
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve already told you that Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and current GOP presidential candidate, will hold a massive fund-raiser in Atlanta on Wednesday.
What you haven’t heard is that his chief primary rival (sorry, Rudy), U.S. Sen. John McCain, will steal a march on Romney with a surprise Tuesday morning appearance before the House Republican Caucus at the state Capitol.
Granted, now that we’ve told you, it’s not much of a surprise.
Afterward, McCain has a meet-and-greet at the down Capital City Club. It’s been described to us as more of a “friend-raiser” than a fund-raiser.
A Don Quixote takes on AT&T
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s state Capitol produces Don Quixotes like Jerusalem churns out prophets.
They tip their lances and spur their chargers. Sometimes the giant is a windmill, sometimes the giant is a true behemoth. Regardless, the result is a crash of hooves and an oil slick.
Most DQs — this is the accepted short-hand for champions of hopeless crusades — are mad as hatters. A large percentage are also salaried, elected officials, as well you know. Tip-offs include glazed eyes and an inability to sense humiliation.
But occasionally a clear-eyed Quixote crops up. One whose armor is in order, and whose brainpan is unscrambled — though his hair may be a bit of a Brillo pad. Think of a younger Ted Koppel.
This was the case one day last week, when a House committee took up a bill to permit what we once called the phone company to pipe TV programs and movies into your living room.
The measure would create a statewide video franchising system. Right now, when a cable TV company moves into new territory, it must negotiate with each local government, which gets a slice of the receipts, plus public access channels. This is in exchange for the use of public rights of way.
This bill would offer one-stop shopping to AT&T, as well as cable TV companies. A single deal would give them access to the entire state. It’s worth $500 million to them. What would you get? More competition among TV programmers.
On this particular day, 40 or so scimitar-wielding Saracens hired by AT&T — lobbyists, you might call them — protected the franchise bill, along with a dozen more hired by cable TV and other interests.
Even so, up jumps the DQ. He is Joe Bankoff of La Mancha, with a half-time lobbyist by his side, his Sancho Panza. Bankoff is president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center. He advised lawmakers that they were selling the state short, by several million a year.
“I’m not trying to be a fly in anybody’s ointment,” Bankhoff said. He doesn’t oppose the franchise legislation. He doubts it will lower your monthly bill, but thinks it might improve service.
The point, he said, is that Georgia will charge cable and phone businesses 5 percent for the franchise. Other states, including Texas, where AT&T is headquartered, have charged 6 percent.
“This is not a question about taxes, it’s a question of what’s the price for something you’re creating,” the DQ said. “In Texas, the price was six percent. My question to you is why are the video rights in Georgia worth any less than they are in Texas?”
Bankoff would have that extra 1 percent — perhaps $10 million to $12 million a year — spent on promoting the arts in public schools. Two of the three public high schools with the highest college board scores are arts-centered charter schools. The top one operates out of a warehouse in Augusta.
“I think you need to focus on this as an opportunity, because it will not come again,” Bankoff said. “You’re setting the price on something that is going to be very important and, frankly, a very valuable cash-flow franchise.”
AT&T opposes the extra 1 percent charge. “We support the arts and education in this state, and others, extensively,” said spokesman Ken Willis. As a matter of fact, two days before the hearing, AT&T dropped a cool $2.35 million on local cultural charities. It was an astounding coincidence.
Any additional charge to the company will cost average citizens, according to the company. “This is a pass-through to the consumer,” Willis said.
Bankoff politely scoffs at that. “Does anybody seriously think that the cable companies are going to charge a penny less?” he asked after the hearing. “The rates for cable have gone up in the last five years without any change in the franchise rate.”
The only thing that limits the price charged by companies who use wires to bring moving pictures into your home is the price that satellite TV companies charge to do the same, he said.
Earlier, we mentioned the state of this DQ’s armor. Before Bankoff headed up the Woodruff Arts Center, he was a senior partner for King & Spalding, Atlanta’s largest law firm.
He acted as an unpaid advisor during last year’s negotiations over the broadband regulation bill. He negotiated television rights for the 1996 Olympic Games.
The video franchise bill has a ways to go, but it’s clear the odds are stacked against Bankoff, no matter his expertise. “I’m prepared to win, I’m prepared to lose. I’m not prepared to give up,” he said Friday.
Like we said — another Don Quixote, but with Ted Koppel’s hair.
You had to expect it: Video franchise bill hits TV
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first campaign ad of the ‘08 session of the state Legislature has hit the small screen. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?
The sponsoring group is called TV4US. They want passage of H.B.227, the statewide video franchise bill that would permit AT&T to use its phone lines to send TV programs and movies into your house. They’d be in direct competition with cable TV and satellite TV companies.
The TV ad draws a parallel with long-distance phone use, arguing that de-regulation resulted in lower prices.
The web site is www.wewanttvchoicega.com. A list of sponsors is provided, and it includes AT&T. The site has a quick tool for sending canned letters of support to members of the General Assembly. Here’s the text:
Dear Honorable Assemblyperson,
This session, you and your colleagues have the opportunity to take action on something that impacts millions of Georgians — choice in television service.
I am writing you today to encourage you to take action and give Georgians better television service at cheaper prices.
So far, eleven states, including North and South Carolina, have passed consumer-friendly reforms. In fact, over 93% of state lawmakers who have debated the issue in their states have voted in favor of video franchise reform legislation.
The benefits of video franchise reform are real: dramatically increased investment in our states’ infrastructure, better service for customers and an estimated $104 savings per household in the first year.
Please stand up and support House Bill 227.
Blogwatch: Join the fixed earth society
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many thanks to peachpundit.com for providing links to the anti-evolution memo written under the name of state Rep. Ben Bridges (R-Cleveland), as well as the cover letter that went with it in Texas, courtesy of that state’s House appropriations chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state Capitol is empty, and will remain so through Monday.
Some people think this is Presidents Day weekend, and in some places it might be.
Here, it’s the start of the NASCAR season. If history is any guide, an elite delegation of state legislators has been dispatched to the Florida shores to see why Daytona 500 drivers prefer left-handed turns over right-handed ones.
Political observers will be watching to see if Republicans have brightened up any, and have included any Democrats on the junket — to give it a bipartisan look that might tone down any criticism. That’s how Democrats did it when they were in power.
Is it cold in here, or has hell frozen over?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall do not like each other. The first is Republican and the second a Democrat. Marshall once ran against Chambliss for Congress.
More important, Marshall has been mentioned as a Democratic challenger to Chambliss in ‘08.
And so it was strange to see the two issue a joint, bipartisan press release late Friday, to reassure the home folks that the two members of Congress from middle Georgia were indeed working together to bring home the bacon.
Chambliss was quoted first in the press release, Marshall second. Not that we place any importance on such things.
At issue is a $21 million software support center at Robins Air Force Base. It’s been sliced out of one budget bill, and the pair are now trying to get slipped into the next one.
This sounds a bit like what’s happening with PeachCare — and one wonders whether a new requirement has been placed on all Southern Republicans in Washington. That is, in a Democratically controlled Congress, if a GOP senator or House member has not openly liked himself with a Democratic go-between, he might as well stay home.
Sadie Fields says Sue Everhart is okay by her
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Perhaps the most important political news on Thursday came from Sadie Fields, leader of the Georgia Christian Alliance.
It was an endorsement of the candidacy of Sue Everhart for the chairmanship of the state Republican party. We told you last week that Gov. Sonny Perdue had given his blessing to Everhart. The only other announced candidate in the race is Anthony-Scott Hobbs, the chairman of the Cobb County GOP
Fields remains the most influential member of the state GOP’s Christian conservative base. Her endorsement is an important imprimatur from the right side of the Republican party.
We’re reluctant to say that it’s a guarantee that the leaders of Georgia’s two major parties will be women, but it comes close. The GOP selection process begins late this month, and ends with a mid-May state convention in Gwinnett County.
Says the release issued by Fields: “Sue is the most qualified candidate in the race for Party Chairman. She is the current First Vice-Chair of the Georgia Republican Party and a long-time Republican Party leader and grassroots activist. “
She wants to put backless gowns on hospital salaries
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just when you thought things were too dull in the Legislature, the war on hospitals goes boom.
One of the most hotly lobbied issues this session centers on where a body can and can’t put a hospital. For years, the state has controlled the location of hospitals, along with the number of beds, with “certificates of need.” Licensing, in other words.
The system stems from days when hospitals were charitable operations run by public authorities or charities. Hospitals too close together were considered a waste of money.
But now a 50-bed cancer hospital that wants to establish itself in metro Atlanta, over the objections of Emory University and Piedmont hospitals.
The hospital’s lobbying effort has persuaded lawmakers to take a new look at the entire hospital-authorizing system. It’s not an exaggeration to say that billions of dollars are at stake.
State Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta) is one of many who have dropped legislation on the topic. She wants certificates of need abandoned entirely. Let the free market reign, says she.
Established hospitals have pushed back.
And in the Capitol, push quickly comes to shove. Chamber has now dropped a companion measure, H.B. 427, to require non-profit hospitals to disclose all compensation received by hospital executives.
(It would also require hospitals to disclose “hospital-acquired infection rates.” Chambers’ mother had a bad experience on her last trip to a certain medical center.)
At the root of the legislation is a suspicion held by many state lawmakers that non-profit companies that run many of today’s hospitals aren’t as poor as they say. In fact, Chambers said, some have cash stashed in off-shore accounts.
Which is why she wants them to open their books.
By the way, Jeannette Jamieson of Toccoa, a Democrat, is the third signature on the bill, which means it can be described as bipartisan. And Earl Ehrhart, the House Rules chairman, provided the fourth signature. Which means the bill has legs, at least on that side of the Capitol.
Apparently, he stirred himself up with his own sermon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Rev. Timothy McDonald became the star of Wednesday’s House committee hearing on payday loan legislation. Not necessarily in the most desirable way.
When he and other opponents of the measure found they would not be allowed to speak, McDonald began shouting.
“Do you think I’m scared of security?” he yelled. “Shame, shame, shame.” Our story here says so.
Committee chairman James Mills (R-Gainvesville) ordered McDonald out.
McDonald is senior pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church and former president of the Concerned Black Clergy.
But Mills thought the preacher looked more familiar than that. And he was right. McDonald was the “preacher for the day” for the House only a few days before.
Addressing the entire chamber, McDonald demanded that lawmakers to be open-minded, but “fixed in your convictions.”
We do not know when he’ll be invited back.
Watch funeral for U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood live
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You can watch the funeral for U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta by clicking here.
It starts in a few minutes at 2 p.m.
Permalink | |
The Iraq debate: Something about sheep, and a football-game revolt by the cheerleaders
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Debate over the Iraq resolution in the U.S. House enters its third and final debate today.
So far, two Georgia congressmen have made a bit of news in the process. Said U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, one of the few Democrats to oppose it:
“The anti-surge resolution is akin to sitting on the sidelines, and booing in the middle of our own team’s play because we don’t like the coach’s call. I cannot join mid-play nay-saying that discourages even one of those engaged in this current military effort in Baghdad.”
And U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican from Sharpsburg, has ticked off the animal husbandry lobby with this gem:
“Some people from the other side seem to believe that if we pull out of Iraq, that the Iraqi people are going to go back to tending sheep and herding goats. That’s not what’s going to happen. If we pull out of Iraq, what’s going to happen is you are going to see more bloodshed than we have seen in a long time in this world.”
Because Washington is such a warm and fuzzy place
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood is barely 24 hours gone, hasn’t been buried yet, and the Republican National Campaign Committee already has a flyer advertising the vacancy.
It’s a colorful thing, graphically very complicated, which means some advance work was necessary. And that’s a bit creepy.
But it might also be an indication of how anxious Republicans in Washington are to deliver a victory after their losses last November.
A last word from Charlie Norwood
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Talk show host Tim Bryant with WGAU in Athens sends us this sound from his last interview with the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood. It’s about five minutes long. Says Bryant: “I was struck by how much he talked about the future.”
Business gets uptight about new gun legislation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For the first time, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce has called out its troops to oppose the NRA-backed legislation to permit employees to keep firearms in the vehicles they park on company property.
The legislation looks to be headed for a Senate floor vote. In an “urgent employer alert” e-mailed to 4,000 or so members, the chamber urged a flood of calls to lawmakers.
Here’s a snippet:
S.B.43 takes away the right of employers and property owners to adopt preventive policies for their own business and property to prevent the introduction of weapons in the workplace but at the same time, holds employers subject to massive and costly litigation if an attorney can prove the company “should have known” weapons in the workplace might be used in the commission of a crime. “It just defies common-sense,” George M. Israel III, president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, says.
Many gun enthusiasts disagree, of course.
A funeral, then an election
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We had lunch with Jane Kidd, the new chairman of the state Democratic party today, none of us knowing that U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta had just died hours before.
Because of the sensitive nature of the situation, Kidd didn’t have much to say about potential candidates for the 10th District seat, except that Democrats would try to line up behind a single figure. This will be a bipartisan race, to be held in the next 40 days.
One of her new staffers, Martin Matheny, pointed out that — in several counties in the very northern part of the state, women give President Bush his worse ratings.
Morning gleanings: Kingston on McCain, and pressure on Marshall to stay put
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Los Angeles Times has a piece today on the inside-the-Beltway campaign for president.
It contains this explanation from U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Savannah) on why members of Congress aren’t flocking to the side of U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.):
“He’s hurt himself with the Republican rank and file,” said [Kingston], who is leaning toward supporting [Mitt] Romney and who invited the former governor to speak to a group of House Republicans in January. Many times, “McCain is the spoiler on legislation. House members have gotten tired of it over the last six years.”
And in Monday’s The Politico, there’s this telling paragraph about the Democratic side of the ’08 race for the U.S. Senate in Georgia:
The House Democratic leadership is hoping that [U.S. Rep. Jim] Marshall won’t challenge [Republican incumbent Saxby] Chambliss next year. “I think if Jim left the seat to run for Senate,” the Democrats “would probably lose it,” said Doug Moore, Marshall’s spokesman.
Perhaps a last request: In the end, Charlie Norwood goes back to the beginning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This has the look of a last will and testament.
On Monday, U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood’s office announced that the congressman had reintroduced the original, bipartisan Patient’s Bill of Rights that he’d fought so hard for in the 1990s.
Norwood, currently undergoing hospice treatment in Augusta, ordered the 1999 legislation reintroduced without change, as it was approved by the House that year, “knowing his original co-author, U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) is now House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, and can be relied on to safely update the bill as necessary without sacrificing patient protections,” according to the press release.
The Augusta congressman “acknowledged he will not be able to further impact debate on the legislation,” the release said.
Norwood made his mark in Congress shortly after he came in 1994, when he broke ranks with fellow Republicans and launched a decade-long fight to protect patients from health insurance providers.
Having dealt with insurance companies for years as a dentist, he’d concluded their interests and patients’ interests weren’t always the same.
Norwood pestered Speaker Gingrich on flights to and from Atlanta to take up the issue, and in Washington, he built a coalition of 230 Democrats and Republicans to eventually force Gingrich to bring the bill to a vote.
Among other things, the bill would have allowed patients to sue HMOs that overruled doctors and refused to pay for recommended treatments.
The House approved it twice, and President Bill Clinton once took up the cause.
Norwood’s fellow conservatives and President Bush objected to key provisions, and in 2001 Norwood cut a last-minute deal with Bush - eliminating the right for patients to sue for malpractice - to avoid a presidential veto.
Giving in to Bush cost Norwood all of his Democratic support and his fight never again regain its prominence on Congress’ agenda.
In December, Norwood wrote that his bill might be something for Democrats, soon to be in control of Congress, to consider. “If the Democrats can use their new majority to pull that off, they will and should score big with the public,” he wrote.
In which we speculate about the many reasons a company might give away $2.3 million
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first rule of charity is never look a $2.35 million gift horse in the mouth.
The second rule is that there’s no such thing as a $2.35 million gift horse.
AT&T today announced it would give that amount to three programs in Atlanta. The biggest hunk, $1 million each, would go to Piedmont Park and the Atlanta History Center. Millions more would come from an AT&T Foundation.
All well and good, so far. Nothing but green reassurances from a big corporation to the people of a big city, saying, “We care.”
Then again, according to the State Ethics Commission, AT&T has a small army of 45 lobbyists at the state Capitol. Who knew charity extended that far? Last week, they packed the pews at a House committee meeting to support the debut of H.B.227. The lead sponsor is state Rep. Jeff Lewis (R-White).
This bill, dubbed the Consumer Choice for Television Act, would allow AT&T to pipe video through its phone lines and into your home, providing much-needed competition to cable and dish companies - not to mention the manufacturers of rabbit ears.
But here’s the real money-saving part of the measure, at least for AT&T. 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.
How much will this save the company? As much as $500 million, we’ve heard.
As it turns out, the only sand in this deal is coming from Atlanta’s arts community.
Early this year, Joe Bankoff, president of the Woodruff Arts Center, wrote a long memo to state Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth) about the legislation. It’s been in circulation around the state Capitol for a month now.
“We know how supportive BellSouth has been of Georgia — it remains to be seen about the ‘new’ AT&T,” he wrote.
This legislation, Bankoff said, offers an opportunity. Federal regulations, he argued, permit the addition of a $1 per subscriber that would go toward the support of arts education in Georgia. That’s the way they do it in Texas — where AT&T is headquartered, he wrote.
It’d be worth $12 million, Bankoff said.
AT&T is against this. And as the legislation is being considered, it freely donates $2.35 million to Atlanta causes, to prove that cultural leaders need not worry about a prime donor disappearing. Curiously, so far as we can tell, no money went to the Woodruff Arts Center.
So do we call this artful politics? Or the politics of art?
Blogwatch: About an e-mail from Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Through the weekend, the blogs talked of the Job-like speech in the House on Friday by freshman state Rep. Mike Glanton (D-Jonesboro), whose daughter Latisha is an Army sergeant in Iraq.
We have the audio for you here. Blog for Democracy was kind enough to provide a link to the video. The Glanton speech begins at about the 43rd minute.
Glanton begins as a lonely figure at the rostrum. By the time he’s finished, half the chamber is gathered at his side.
Here’s a transcript:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Distinguished colleagues of the House of Representatives. I rise this morning to ask for this body’s prayers for my family. This has been a challenging week for my family.
On Monday, my grandmother passed away. On Tuesday, my aunt in Ohio had a massive stroke, and is in her last hours — not expected to live another 48 hours. On Wednesday, my aunt from Rome was rushed to Floyd Medical Center with complications from diabetes. And if that wasn’t enough, on yesterday, my uncle in Summerville, Ga., passed away from a massive heart attack.
And still challenging my week, on yesterday, my daughter’s camp in Baghdad was hit by a mortar attack. Many of you have asked about my daughter’s status daily, and I appreciate that. In the midst of our storm, we stand on our faith in almighty God and dare not lean…to our own understanding.
And so this morning, if I might, Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with this body the e-mail I received from my daughter this morning:
“Dear Dad,
I hate to tell you things like this, but I don’t know how to feel. Last night, I was out with my friends at the air field, talking, waiting for their chopper to come and to pick them up to finally go back home, when we got hit by a mortar.
One of my friends pushed me out of the way” — Praise God, Glanton said, interrupting himself — “and into safety. But two of my friends were hit. I cannot stop crying, Daddy.
When I close my eyes, I hear my friend McCall screaming he can’t feel his leg. And seeing all the blood on his uniform. I hear Milton screaming, “Don’t leave me.”
When I close my eyes, I see the flash of the mortar landing in front of my eyes. I’ve been put on bed rest for today. And I’m supposed to go to the medics tomorrow to take some kind of medications. I am being monitored because they are thinking of sending me to our main base.
I don’t want to come off like some wimp, Dad. I can’t leave my troops out here, but I am scared to leave my room. Maybe I just need some time. I don’t know. I just want to tell you that I love you, and to keep you informed of my health.”
To this body, I ask for your continued prayers for my daughter, for my family, and for all our service men and women who so bravely serve in our armed forces, guarding our way of life and this country, serving in harm’s way.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Sucking it up in suburbia: The Republican side of PeachCare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Republican governor jetted up to Washington. He’s written letters and made phone calls willy-nilly, reaching as high as the White House.
The Republican lieutenant governor ordered up a task force. Republican lawmakers talk not only of saving the expensive program, but expanding it. They have embraced Democrats as brothers and sisters in the effort.
And when a Georgia Republican congressman broke ranks and said that overspending was the issue, he was taken to the woodshed, privately and publicly.
The topic, of course, is PeachCare, the imperiled state-federal health insurance program for 273,000 children of the working poor in Georgia. A federal $131 million shortfall has already sent bureaucrats into lockdown mode. No new kids will be added after March 11.
All their efforts have been for the children - red and yellow, black and white, Republicans say. And it would be wrong to doubt that all are precious in their sight.
But it would be just as wrong to ignore a case of man-bites-dog. And the sight of Republicans fighting tooth-and-nail for a federal social program fits that description.
The reason is simple, though it’s usually left unspoken. PeachCare is a program that serves a Republican audience trapped on the unforgiving side of suburban life - the convenience store worker, the discount store clerk, the preacher, whose employers can’t or won’t offer family health insurance.
Think NASCAR moms and NASCAR dads. People too rich for Medicaid, but too poor for Aetna.
By far, Gwinnett is home to more PeachCare kids - 32,000 - than any other county in the state. Cobb County, another Republican bastion, comes in a distant second.
“These are working families in Georgia. Working, paying taxes, obeying the law,” House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) told reporters last week. “Candidly, most of the members of PeachCare live in Republican congressional districts. These are my voters.”
Specifically, more than one quarter of all PeachCare kids live in the largely suburban districts of U.S. Rep. John Linder, to the northeast, and U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, to the northwest.
PeachCare officials declined to offer any explanation for their program’s suburban concentration. Educated theories at the state Capitol focused on the squeeze created by high cost of housing and transportation in metro Atlanta.
Right now, PeachCare families can earn up to 235 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s $48,000 for a family of four. But take out rent or mortage, a monthly car payment plus food - and health insurance can quickly be reduced to an asprin and a pair of crossed fingers.
The PeachCare crisis has set off an already heated debate between Republicans who put a priority on fiscal restraint, and those who say that the GOP ignores at its peril an issue that’s reaching ever deeper into middle-class ranks.
“Georgia knew three years ago how much money they were going to get, knew the funding formula, and they overspent,” said U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg.
Said U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal of Hall County: “Sometimes you get into situations where you start looking at the federal government for everything.”
Keen, the House majority leader conservative enough that he once served as leader of the Georgia Christian Coalition, called the comments “disappointing.”
On Friday, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle spoke of a day, after the current situation is resolved, when Georgia’s program might be expanded to cover more children. The Illinois version, through higher premiums, covers kids in families with a combined income of $80,000, he said.
But in the meantime, cuts are in store for PeachCare. A bill introduced in the House would limit benefits to families hovering at 200 percent over the poverty line. More than 30,000 kids would be stripped of their coverage.
Speaker Glenn Richardson introduced the measure himself, an indication that he knows that the move - regardless of the necessity - could prove risky to his Republican team come the next Election Day.
Richardson lives in Paulding County, which ranks 9th of 159 Georgia counties in terms of PeachCare kids served.
Sounds like a bill that could get studied nigh on to death
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle expressed ambivalence on Friday about a bill backed by the National Rifle Association that would allow employees to keep guns in their cars on company parking lots.
Many companies prohibit firearms on their property.
“I’ve always been a strong Second Amendment defender, but I’m also a strong supporter of property rights,” Cagle said. “And the two issues are competing.”
Cagle said S.B. 43, which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, would undergo close scrutiny before moving any further.
When there’s nothing to talk about, don’t
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The announcement that Rep. Charlie Norwood has returned home to receive hospice care and give up cancer treatments has created a delicate situation for those who might be interested in the seat. There won’t be much time to gear up a campaign in the event of Norwood’s death, but no one wants to appear to be rushing things.
In an interview with the Gainesville Times, Sen. Ralph Hudgens is obviously making the attempt to be sensitive to the transitional situation. But in this case, less might have have been better.
“My prayer for Charlie has been that he would get well and continue to serve and thereby keep me from having to make a decision (about running),” said Hudgens, R-Comer.
“When there is a vacancy, my intention is to run. But right now there is not a vacancy and there’s nothing to talk about.”
Perdue ready to pick a side in GOP chairmanship race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two well-connected, generally sober people at the state Capitol tell us that Gov. Sonny Perdue has given a quiet blessing to Sue Everhart as the next chairman of the state Republican party.
The governor was out of town at a funeral and couldn’t be reached to confirm. But Perdue and Everhart met in his offices on Wednesday, we’re told.
We’re also hearing that House Speaker Richardson and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson have lined up behind the long-time Cobb County party activist. Neither have done so publicly.
Isakson’s support wouldn’t surprise us — Everhart is a life-long ally.
With that kind of backing, and if the grassroots approve at a state GOP convention in May, Georgia could have women leading both state party organizations. Democrats elected Jane Kidd of Athens as chairman last month, the better to reach out to suburban women — the swing voters who often determine Georgia elections.
The state GOP has never had a female chairman.
The only other announced candidate in the Republican race is Anthony-Scott Hobbs, the chairman of the Cobb County GOP.
The new chairman of the state Republican party could be immediately faced with a fight to keep the 10th District congressional district, should the ailing U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta vacate the seat.
Even though Everhart is a banker, members of the party’s hierarchy had privately questioned her ability to maintain the high cash flow that the party has enjoyed since it came to power in 2002.
Names of other potential candidates have surfaced from time to time, including that of John Watson, the governor’s former chief of staff. But none have come to fruition.
Should the governor indeed get behind Everhart, who launched her candidacy last spring, it may be a recognition of the real politics at the GOP baseline.
For decades, the state Democratic chairman was named by the sitting governor — a system the party has been forced to move away from.
But because it was out of power for so long, the state GOP developed a polished democratic system based on convention delegate selection — a process that begins in the next few weeks.
They can be expensive affairs. The 2001 campaign for GOP chairman between David Shafer and Ralph Reed, both of Gwinnett County, reportedly cost each candidate $100,000. Reed won.
While Perdue has great influence — Alec Poitevint, the current chairman, was his choice immediately following his 2002 election — the governor doesn’t always have total control.
And Perdue might have been faced with the possibility that a candidate he threw into the mix at this late date could be defeated.
An Iraq resolution without the wiggle room
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coming as it does from a freshman, the Iraq resolution dropped by Rep. Hank Johnson Thursday may not get as much attention as the measures being proposed by Congressional leaders of both parties.
But Johnson’s resolution nevertheless is interesting in that it goes beyond broad directives and proposes something very specific. Johnson wants U.S. military forces to be taken off street patrol duty. The patrols have led to “an increasingly high rate of casualties” among U.S. personnel, the resolution says, and should be conducted by Iraqi personnel.
Under Johnson’s resolution, U.S. troops would be used to “fortify sensitive areas in Iraq, protect Iraqi government officials, entities and functions, and respond to destabilizing emergencies throughout Iraq.”
Johnson’s resolution, we’re told, was inspired by his frustration at the “pettiness” of the Senate’s maneuverings. He’s sure to be accused of attempting to micromanage, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the next round of resolution don’t move in a similar direction.
Not just a fish bowl, but a fishbowl with a soundtrack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Other arms reach out to me, other eyes smile tenderly…”
The most crowded fish tank in downtown Atlanta wasn’t at the aquarium on Thursday. The third floor of the state Capitol teemed with different species - thick schools of do-gooders, floating down the hall amid shark-like lobbyists and darting bureaucrats.
Delegates for PTA Day were dressed in bright red. Then there were the Pink Ladies, and a host of guppie-like high school students.
The only one on dry ground was Chuck Leavell, keyboardist for the Rolling Stones and environmentalist, who made a musical appearance in the House chamber to receive an award for hugging trees.
He got us thinking in soundtrack terms. Click here to listen. It’s about eight minutes long, and worth it.
“Georgia, oh, Georgia, no peace I find …”
Leavell’s a great performer, had his audience in his hands as soon as he sat down at a keyboard and launched into “Georgia On My Mind.” When he followed this with “Statesboro Blues,” he even got a few of the women legislators - all Democrats, we note - up on their feet and boogeying.
“Going up to the country, baby, don’t you want to go?”
But the Legislature is a rock concert for workaholics. Even as the sideman found his groove, we spotted a couple of lawmakers in the back of the room using their laptops to check on bills.
Out in the hall, the tunes that blasted from the monitor made great background music for the public advocates, nervous as catfish about PeachCare, and the private interests, sharp as piranhas in a bathtub. But most of them were too busy to stop and listen.
The wake of a lifetime. But, then again, aren’t they all?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bartender apologized for the limited range of his Scotch. He had only three, unassuming brands: Chivas Rigal, Johnny Walker Black, and 12-year-old Glenlivet. Guests were invited to drown their disappointment in the fare by drinking as much as they liked.
A sea of smoked salmon swamped huge silver trays, and shanks of lamb begged for the mint jelly nearby. Fried green tomatoes provided the necessary Southern flavor.
This, plus a few hundred friends at the Capital City Club on Wednesday evening, was Tom Watson Brown’s idea of an Irish wake, perhaps the largest Atlanta has ever seen. He’d promised friends $10,000 for the party. His will delivered $35,000.
Item 2 in his last testament called for an event to be fueled with victuals of “adequate quantity and quality.” His son said Brown wanted details of the wake covered in Item 1, but legal protocol apparently dictates that a proper first deal with disposal of the remains.
Brown died three weeks ago, of complications from diabetes. His family tree included Tom Watson, the Reconstruction-era firebrand whose statue stands at the front door of the state Capitol. His fortune came from a string of TV stations.
The Cobb County resident was a raconteur of the first order, and the quiet money behind many of Georgia’s political figures and causes, Republican and Democrat.
Those who attended the toasting session included a former U.S. senator, the chairman of the MARTA board, two historians, judges of all ranks and orders, one newspaper publisher, several ex-editors and columnists, and many more lawyers than was healthy.
Many stories were told, and very funny ones, too, but they didn’t get down to the nut. In all his advance planning, Brown — who was not Irish and thus may have lacked experience — may have made one miscalculation.
People of rank are reluctant to misbehave in public, especially in large groups. And Brown was all about boisterous misbehavior, or tales of the same.
The millionaire showed up at a smoky VFW hall in Marietta at 4 p.m. every weekday, usually in galluses and a plaid shirt, where he and his drinking companions — a phrase that’s dying quickly — did their best to keep Georgia’s political legends alive. Even the ones that were true.
A favorite was that distant time when state legislators, assembling from all of Georgia’s dusty, misshapen corners, stayed in the same hotel, entertained by a small circle of female advisors. Doxies, Brown called them.
Several hours after adjournment one session, after the lawmakers had headed home, it was discovered that one of the young ladies had been indiscreet with her social contacts. The governor — always unspecified in Brown’s telling — put the entire state patrol on the road, rural telephones of that day being riddled with party lines — and thus eavesdroppers.
Troopers were ordered to knock on the door of every member of the Legislature, and advise him — for all were hims in that day — to tell his wife he had a headache until the necessary penicillin arrived.
As it turned out, according to Brown, the young lady was the victim of a false positive. And troopers were dispatched again throughout the state to inform lawmakers that their headaches had been cured.
Smyre to have back surgery
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Calvin Smyre will undergo surgery for back problems in Columbus Friday.
The influential Democrat will spend a couple of days at St. Francis Hospital and expects to be recuperating at home for about a week.
Smyre has had knee and back problems for some time, and recently began to experience numbness in his hands and feet. He sought several medical opinions, and decided to have the surgery done by Dr. Thomas Walsh, a spinal specialist at the Hughston Center.
For those who might want to drop him a line, Smyre’s email is calvinsmyre@synovus.com.
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Casey Cagle’s bipartisan adventures continue….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If this happened under Democratic rule, but we can’t remember it. On Wednesday, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a Republican, invited the two leaders of House Democrats to a sit-down session.
PeachCare was one topic, but Cagle’s charter school system initiative was the primary object of discussion, we’re told.
Uneasy thoughts on Charlie Norwood and the 10th District
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Politics is full of crass moments, and this may be one of them.
No one wants to see U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta leave the stage. This is a fellow who, back in 2000, we put money on as the first GOP governor of Georgia. But already several figures are said to be making contingency plans for the quick, a one-month, non-partisan campaign that would result if the seat becomes vacant.
We’re hearing that the House would line up very strongly behind state Rep. Barry Fleming of Harlem, who represents Norwood in the Legislature. Other names we’ve heard include state senators Ralph Hudgens and Jim Whitehead. Democrats tell us they’re certain to participate.
One thought dominates: A race for the very conservative 10th District in northeast Georgia could be one of the first federal elections in the post-’06 climate, a test of what the GOP base now thinks of Iraq and the remaining months of the Bush administration.
And it might become a guidepost for any Republican facing election in ’08.
We’ll leave it at that.
The ‘08 race may need a sedative and some restraints
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia has come up with a dandy description of the way the ’08 primary season is shaping up. “If the job of scheduling the presidential nominating contests were assigned to an insane asylum,” he said, “This is pretty much what the patients would come up with.”
The ’08 election could be the most front-loaded in American history, with nearly half the states likely to have had their presidential primary votes by Feb. 5, less than a year away.
That, of course, would lead to the longest general election contest in history.
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A slice of life from north and south DeKalb County
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Resentment over the looming incorporation of Dunwoody spilled into Wednesday’s meeting of the DeKalb County delegation.
Our colleague Ty Tagami watched as senators and representatives from the county munched sandwiches and discussed legislation, including that pesky bill that calls for a referendum creating a city of Dunwoody.
Should the city of Dunwoody come to pass, the county would lose a healthy chunk of its tax base
That led led state Rep. Michele Henson (D-Stone Mountain) to urge more study about the effect on the county budget.
“Where are we going with this?” asked Henson, whose east DeKalb district would be left behind.
Earnest “Coach” Williams (D-Avondale Estates) represents south DeKalb residents, who also would be left behind.
He had a quiet but frank answer. “Segregating the county,” Coach mumbled.
Williams, who is black, was seated next to Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody), who is not.
Millar, a leading proponent of incorporation, heard Williams’ comment, and obviously objected.
“That’s bull [stuff],” Millar said. “Don’t play the race card.”
Norwood declines further treatment, heads home
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta has declined further treatment at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, and will return home for hospice care, the congressman’s office just announced.
Norwood has been battling non-small cell lung cancer since mid-November. He was initially treated with chemotherapy at Inova Fairfax and Inova Mount Vernon Hospitals, both in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington, the press release states.
Norwood will depart the nation’s Capitol as soon as an air ambulance flight can be arranged, and will receive 24-hour nursing care at home, his office said.
The press release ends with the following statement:
“The Norwood family thanks all who have helped through Congressman Norwood’s extensive health battles since 1998 stemming from Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. They request continued prayers for Charlie and his family.”
Wild horses couldn’t keep us away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a big week for trees.
Following on the announcement of the state’s first wood-based ethonal plant earlier today, Rolling Stones keyboardist and tree hugger extraordinaire Chuck Leavell will receive a commendation in the House Thursday. Leavell, who has been called “the Bono of trees” has received several awards for his conservation work.
Here’s the good part - Leavell’s bringing a keyboard, and we hear that he’ll be doing a few numbers after the official part of the proceedings are over. Can anybody think of a Stones song about a tree?
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Second and third and fourth careers for Herman Cain and a speechwriter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It looks like Herman Cain has given up on a political career, but can’t let go of politics. The former U.S. Senate candidate has declared himself home free in the medical department, after treatments last year for colon cancer.
And he’s got a permanent gig as a mike-jockey for WSB radio, starting Saturday, Feb. 17. He’s on from noon to 2 p.m.
Which means he’ll have to wrestle Larry Munson on game days.
Then there’s the case of Charles Walston, the former Journal-Constitution staffer who turned speechwriter for Gov. Roy Barnes back in the halcyon days of Democratic rule.
In Washington, Walston continued to put words into the mouths of Harry Reid, now the Senate majority leader, and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. He’s now working for the National Education Association, where he helps to indoctrinate our nation’s youth in the ways of Satan.
But some of you also may remember him as lead singer for an Atlanta honky-tonk group known as The Vidalias.
That group went bust, and Walston has re-emerged in D.C. as the head of Bourbon Dynasty. He just got a decent review in the Washington Post, Or you can listen to a sound clip here.
And he’ll be in Atlanta at the Earl on the afternoon of Sunday, Feb. 18, where he’ll join some of the old Vidalias.
Blogwatch: Al Jazeera comes to Macon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amy Morton, who maintains the Georgia Women Vote blog, reported last night that an Al Jazeera news team is in Macon to interview Mayor Jack Ellis, who has become a Sunni Muslim and is in the process of changing his name to Hakim Mansour Ellis.
She’s got no details, but those may come later today.
Nathan Deal’s hanging back — and making Gingrich-like sounds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning’s editions of the Gainesville Times has an interview with U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal that makes it clear that he’s not joining the stampede to Mitt Romney as a GOP candidate for the White House.
Three of Deal’s Georgia colleagues — Phil Gingrey, Tom Price and John Linder — have sided with the former Massachusetts governor. Which adds meaning to Deal’s comments.
“We don’t have any front-runners who fit a conservative-type mold. That’s where Newt Gingrich’s strategy is working to his advantage,” Deal said.
Deal, who represents north Georgia, also had kind words for a more obscure presidential candidate, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a Vietnam combat veteran who headed the House Armed Services committee in the last Congress.
“He is right on issues that fit our area, such as immigration reform. He’s a solid conservative, and if he can get enough traction, he’ll stand out from the presumed pack,” Deal told the Times.
A sign of ‘08: Chambliss casts vote against Army chief of staff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican who faces his first re-election test in 21 months, exhibited frustration with the Iraq war Tuesday by casting one of three committee votes against General George Casey, President Bush’s nomination as Army chief of staff.
He joined two other Republicans, John McCain of Arizona and John Ensign of Nevada.
Casey, formerly the top general in Iraq, still won the approval of the Senate Armed Services Committee. His nomination now proceeds to the full Senate.
Many in Georgia will be watching to see if the state’s junior senator, U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, will give Chambliss company with his vote on the floor.
“Gen. Casey has been the top commander on the ground in Iraq, and frankly under his leadership we haven’t done so well in the last two and a half years,” Chambliss told the Associated Press after the vote. “I just don’t think the operation has gone very well under his leadership.”
Georgia is widely viewed as pro-military, and one of the most friendly to the president. But last month, Strategic Vision, the GOP polling firm, reported that only 38 percent of the state’s voters approved of Bush’s Iraq policy.
Also, remember that one day after his State of the Union speech last month, Bush flew down to Fort Benning to talk to the troops. Two Georgia congressmen accompanied the president. Chambliss was not among them.
Linder goes with Mitt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Add another Georgia congressman to the Mitt Romney column. Rep. John Linder is on a list of House members who’ll be announcing their support for the former Massachusetts governor at a Washington press conference this afternoon.
With Reps. Phil Gingrey and Tom Price already on board, and Rep. Jack Kingston leaning in his direction, Romney appears on his way to locking up the Georgia delegation.
Obama gets grassroots
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia for Obama, the grassroots organization for the Illinois senator, is up and running. Sen. Barack Obama’s local supporters have a website, www.georgiaforobama.com, and a get-together planned for 6 p.m. Saturday at JCT Kitchen and Bar on Howell Mill Road, timed to coincide with Obama’s announcement that he’s in for real.
Supporters will watch a video of Obama’s announcement and brainstorm ways to build some red-state love for their candidate, according to a release.
Meanwhile, Atlantan Caroline Adelman, a veteran of several Democratic campaign press operations and the wife of Sen. David Adelman, will be handling press for the Iowa leg of Obama’s announcement jaunt, at events in Waterloo and Cedar Rapids Saturday. Brrrr.
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Traffic tunnels: Someone explain this to us
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First, we hear that commuter rail is dead in Georgia. Rail is no good, we’re told, because you can’t move iron tracks with every shift in traffic patterns. Perhaps this is true, perhaps not.
But now we have this idea of moving metro Atlanta traffic via giant, underground tunnels. Much like we do sewage, which is an interesting metaphor.
Lord knows that tunnels are easier to pick up and move when commuter patterns change. If you think about it, a huge tunnel doesn’t weigh much more than a donut hole.
Political Lesson No. 389: No one wins a DOT board race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bill Kinney of the Marietta Daily Journal has this nice tidbit in today’s editions, telling of dissatisfaction fallout within Cobb County Republican ranks over a fight for a transportation board seat:
SOME COBB GOP-ERS are miffed that a few Cobb lawmakers voted against state DOT Board member and former legislator Johnny Gresham of east Cobb in the recent contest against fellow board member Garland Pinholster of Canton.
Congressional redistricting forced the two to run against each other for the district that includes Cherokee and portions of Cobb and Fulton Counties. Gresham has been on the board since 1989 and those same Republicans say he helped direct a lot of the DOT’s $2 billion annual budget to Cobb projects.
Gresham, who lives near Lower Roswell Road, is being encouraged by those GOP-ers to run against state Sen. Judson Hill in east Cobb. They say Hill has rubbed wrong other Cobb elected officials by voting against their cost-of-living increases, which are paid for with budgeted county funds, not state funds.
The glimmer of a kinder, gentler Democratic party
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Associated Press story making the rounds in Georgia’s newspapers has a telling quote from Jane Kidd, the new chairman of the state Democratic party. The report says Kidd was careful not to criticize her predecessor, Bobby Kahn, who was very much about confronting the GOP at every turn.
“I don’t see that as my mission, to criticize the Republicans,” Kidd said.
Republicans lead in the search for the perfect marriage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Our colleague Scott Shepard up in Washington has taken an exhaustive look at the impact of Rudy Giuliani’s entrance into the ‘08 race for the White House.
The former New York mayor gives the GOP field a clear edge over Democrats in the number of marriages that have hit the rocks. Republican presidential potentials cumulatively post four divorces and an annulment.
Democrats can only boast three divorces. Referees have determined that the Clintons still qualify as a couple.
In addition to Giuliani, who has had one marriage annulled and another end in divorce, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is twice divorced and Sen. John McCain of Arizona has one divorce.
Among the Democrats, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio has had two divorces and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut has one.
The longest married 2008 presidential candidate is a Republican, former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who has been married 38 years to the former Anne Davies.
Romney is followed in the Republican field by:
— Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, married 34 years to his wife, Lynn;
— former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, married 33 years to his wife Janet;
— Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, married 30 years to his wife Lynn;
— Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, married 24 years to his wife, Mary;
— and Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, married 22 to his wife Lilibet.
Retired NATO Commander Wes Clark of Arkansas and his wife Gert have been married 36 years, the longest among Democrats.
They are followed closely by:
— Gov Bill Richardson of New Mexico and his wife, Barbara, 33 years;
— former Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and his wife, Christie, also 33 years;
— Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, 31 years;
— former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and his wife, Elizabeth, married 29 years;
— Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and his wife, Jill, also married 29 years;
— and Sen. Barrack Obama of Illinois and his wife, Michelle, married 14 years.
Biden’s first wife, Neillia Hunter, died in an auto accident in 1972, six years after the couple was married.
No text-messaging between students during the lecture, please
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State lawmakers who skipped Biology 101, or worse, flunked it, will have an opportunity to redeem themselves on Thursday. The University of Georgia is bringing in its top stem cell researcher, Steve Stice, to the state Capitol for a lecture at a joint meeting of House and Senate health committees.
This is the guy who’s worked with U.S. Johnny Isakson on his stem cell legislation in Washington, the one who will likely make the UGA Research Foundation a boatload of money. Last month, Stice announced he had developed a process to create billions of stem cells that become brain and nerve tissue.
Post and riposte: More about that PeachCare letter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know the one — written by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Details are a couple items down.
They demanded that President Bush come up with the roughly $1 billion needed to fill in Georgia’s PeachCare program, and the shortfalls in more than a dozen other states.
We ran into a Republican who knows Washington a bit. He says this is bad news. If Pelosi and Reid thought the money was there, there’s no way they’d demand that Bush come up with the funds — and thus win all the credit.
That letter was an assignation of blame, our friend said.
Suddenly, PeachCare gets wrapped up in the Iraq debate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The $131 million hole in Georgia’s insurance program for kids may have just been tied to funding for the war in Iraq. How tightly, we don’t know yet.
You’ll recall that Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, last Thursday showed up before a U.S. Senate committee hearing to plead for continuation for the program — and said that the deficiency is on the federal side of the program. It’s a hole big enough to stop the Legislature in its tracks today, so that budget writers can sort out contingencies.
The same shortage exists in 17 other states, with a total cost approaching $1 billion.
We’ve already told you that Democrats who now control Congress are kind of miffed at Republicans, who they think dropped the whole thing into their lap.
On Friday, one day after Perdue’s visit to Washington, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw the hot potato to President Bush. They fired off a letter to the White House, alluding to the $100 billion emergency appropriation bill for Iraq that Bush is to send Congress’ way this month.
“As you consider the emergency needs of our nation, we respectfully request that you not forget the millions of low-income Americans who are insured under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program … We ask that you submit a separate spending proposal to cover shortfalls …which have been estimated to be $745 million,” the letter states.
Here’s the knife: “The governor of Georgia has written to us stating that ‘It is vitally important to our most needy citizens that Congress act expeditiously.’
“At the end of the last Congress, we were successful in including a provision to avert a similar crisis, but unfortunately, we are again in need of another short-term solution. While we plan to work in Congress later this year to reauthorize [the insurance program] and address longer-term issues, it is essential that you work with us to again provide a short-term fix. The cost of filling the funding shortfall is minor in comparison to your other emergency requests. [Emphasis ours.]
Things are getting complicated, and fast.
Blogwatch: A whiff of Obamamania
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jane Kidd, the new chairman of the state Democratic party, went to her first Democratic National Committee event this weekend, in D.C., and ran into that senator from Illinois that everyone’s talking about.
She invited him to the party’s annual fund-raiser, the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner, on March 24. He said he hoped it would work into his schedule, says Blog for Democracy.
Barack Obama has been paying a great deal of attention to Georgia lately. We talked to one African-American political figure last Friday. He’d received two calls from Obama that day, trying to persuade him not to commit to Hillary Clinton.
If he should come, Obama might not be the only potential candidate to appear at th Dems biggest fund-raiser of the year. Spokesman Emil Runge said “several invitations” were in the mail.
Rumblings of boycott from the sports world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When sportswriters in Philadelphia encourage protests on the steps of the state Capitol in Atlanta, an issue has reached critical mass. Outside of Georgia, anyway.
Sunday’s editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer took note of a blog entry authored by Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks.
Cuban declared that he was boycotting Georgia - save for a March 25 meeting between his team and the Atlanta Hawks - until the state freed 20-year-old Genarlow Wilson.
Wilson is the star football player from a Douglas County high school, who at age 17, had consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. A jury convicted him of aggravated child molestation, and a judge sentenced him to the maximum 10 years in prison. Wilson was one of six arrested after a night of partying.
Over the winter, Wilson has become a national cause celebre in the sports world. ESPN in particular has given the case much attention.
Many have drawn parallels between Wilson’s case and that of Marcus Dixon, an 18-year-old from Rome who spent 15 months in prison after being convicted of aggravated child molestation and statutory rape before the Georgia Supreme Court overturned his sentence.
“Genarlow Wilson was sentenced to 10 years in jail for doing something every 17-year old I knew, including me, tried to do. He is two years into this nightmare that only makes the state of Georgia a poster child for mistrust in government,” Cuban wrote. “There is no chance I do business in the state of Georgia beyond the commitment the Mavs have to play the Hawks until Genarlow is out of jail.”
But the sportswriter in Philadelphia noted that - except for the Mavs - the team owner has few other business interests in Georgia, making his threat rather empty.
“To the point, why not have the Mavs boycott the Hawks game to show how serious he was about standing up for Wilson?” the writer wrote. “To our surprise, Cuban e-mailed back that he’d ‘look into it.’”
Not that it’s likely to happen, discipline being so strict in the NBA. However, the paper had some other suggestions: “Have the players on both teams donate their game check amounts to help Wilson’s family pay its numerous legal bills. Have them go to the Georgia State House together before the game to show public solidarity for Wilson.”
State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) has dropped S.B. 37, a measure that would allow Wilson’s sentence to be shortened or suspended by a judge.
Talk about this amongst yourselves. We’ll pick out the most thoughtful responses and wrap them into separate posting late this afternoon.
Redefining death: Conservatives and embryonic stem cell research
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A scenario is building in Washington that, sometime soon, could require conservative Christians who form the Republican base to reconsider embryonic stem cell research.
It’s even possible that President Bush, who vetoed one bill on the topic last year and may soon veto another, will be the one to ask them to adjust their attitudes.
The terms won’t go down well with America’s scientific community, or with the organizations demanding federal funding to wipe out Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or diabetes.
But it might be something all sides in the stem cell debate will have to live with, at least through the end of the Bush presidency.
The operating thought was voiced two years ago by Donald Landry, a professor of medicine at Columbia University, when he testified before Bush’s panel on bioethics.
“We’re proposing a new definition for human death,” he said.
If you’ve tracked politics, you know the history.
Human stem cells are those do-anything, be-everything bits from fertilized eggs that scientists discovered not too long ago. Because they can be coaxed into developing into virtually any kind of tissue, they’re believed to hold the key to all manners of cures - even spinal cord injuries.
The embryos in question, mere pinpricks of existence, are spares discarded by pregnancy clinics, with the permission of parental donors. But because the embryos are destroyed when the stem cells are removed, some - though not all - religious conservatives equate the process with abortion.
That has made the politics of embryonic stem cell research a simple matter. Democrats favor it, as do most Americans, polls show. Republicans are split.
Congressional elections in November did not change those dynamics significantly. Last month, the U.S. House passed a measure nearly identical to the one a Republican Congress approved in July, permitting federal funds to be spent for research using any donated embryo.
But as in July, the January margin was not veto-proof.
That said, Bush still faces the prospect a Democratic-controlled Congress pounding at his door with measure after measure on stem cell research.
The ‘08 elections already loom, and relentless progress by science has added to the pressure. A University of Georgia researcher recently announced he has developed a process to produce stem cells for brain and nerve tissue by the billions.
Three Republican-backed bills are now before Congress. Each one has been built in consultation with the White House. U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) is a lead sponsor of one. U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, also of Georgia, has introduced another.
All three measures have one feature in common: They would restrict federally funded researchers to “organismically dead” embryos. It’s a hair-splitting term to most scientists, but one that could become essential to Republicans.
Quick science lesson: When a human being is legally dead, when the brain ceases to function, that does not mean the dearly departed is thoroughly and completely dead.
Organs can still function. Cells can still absorb and divide. That’s how transplants are possible.
Embryos are multi-celled organisms that have not yet developed a nervous system. At least some scientists, among them Landry, say there is a window of time in which an expiring, discarded embryo, if not exactly brain dead, is “organismically dead.”
But like a fully grown human corpse, its body remains temporarily vital. Stem cells can be ethically removed.
The moral metaphor becomes the organ transplant, rather than abortion.
The question is now whether Republicans in Congress can put that new definition for death into words that will satisfy religious conservatives.
“It could well be a hard sell,” said Nigel Cameron, president of the Chicago-based Institute of Biotechnology and the Human Future.
The institute’s members have been involved in some of the discussions. “A lot depends on how this is framed. If this is framed as a bona fide middle way, then it could be found to be acceptable,” Cameron said. If the GOP effort is viewed as a legal sleight-of-hand, to circumvent a sticky political situation, then it’s doomed.
How does Bush fit into this? If religious conservatives buy in, and if Republican stem cell bills stall - as is highly possible in a Democratic Congress - there’s talk that Bush could implement portions of the GOP legislation administratively.
Including the new definition for human death.
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Any Georgia Rodins? Here’s your big shot
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The resolution clearing the way for the erection of a statue to Zell Bryan Miller has already sparked the creative juices. In today’s paper, one letter writer suggests a statue of the former senator and governor sitting on George Bush’s lap.
Here at the Insider, we’re all about channeling that creativity. Got an idea for how Zell should be commemorated? If you can get it down in a sketch or on a graphics program, or take a picture of what you have in mind, you can upload a photo here and we’ll consider running it.
Keep it clean: we reserve the right not to run any proposals that cross the political/artistic line. But have fun.
Kind of like Monica changed her name, only different
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jack Ellis, the irascible mayor of Macon, will soon no longer be that. Not mayor, although his term expires this year. He won’t be Jack.
After becoming a Sunni Muslim during a December ceremony in West Africa, Ellis is working to legally change his name to Hakim Mansour Ellis. This according to an Associated Press report out of Macon.
Ellis was raised Christian, but said he’d been studying the Quran for years and that his new religion was originally practiced by his ancestors before they were brought to North America as slaves.
“Why does one become a Christian?” Ellis said. “You do it because it feels right. It’s the right thing for you to do. … To me it’s no big deal. But people like to know what you believe in. And this is what I believe in.”
At the request of his two of his daughters, Ellis said he will keep his last name the same.
Second thoughts on Sonny Perdue for vice president
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As promised, here are the most thoughtful comments from yesterday’s post on Sonny Perdue’s potential as a vice presidential candidate in ‘08.
And we have to say, y’all are a pretty tough crowd. You’ve left it to us offer the most positive comment on Perdue’s possibilities. It came from a GOP stalwart, who’s met Dick Cheney, knows Sonny Perdue well, and has been hunting with both. “Sonny’s a better shot. If he wants you dead, you’re dead,” he said.
Here’s the best of what was posted, as of 5 p.m. Thursday.
From jatlanta:
One idea that lends itself to Sonny Perdue as a Vice-Presidential potential is that he is the exact opposite of Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney’s approval ratings must be around the same level as Jack Abramoff right now. Sonny, instead of being an ideological driven politician, with an impervious belief system, can really be seen as most vice-presidents are, pretty harmless.
With the international resumes of McCain and Giuliani, a vice-presidential nominee with foreign policy credentials might just get in the way. If Romney is the guy leading the charge, then Perdue might not be much help.
From Sunshines Bright
I can’t say I am really keen on Sonny being a heartbeat away from the presidency, myself. He has such an affinity for his ol’ Democrat buddies, that I would be very concerned about his influence in appointing Dems to high positions in the Courts and to other government agencies…as he does in Georgia.
From Great Unmentioner
The first virtue of a vice president is to present no problems. Sonny has answers for Florida land deals, Oaky Woods and PeachCare problems? How nice for him. But who wants the questions?
Sonny is simply not in the top 10 or even the top 25 to the sort of person who would have any influence on such a decision. He’s just not in the ballpark. (Governors are not particularly attractive vice presidential prospects to begin with).
From RJ:
Perdue’s unavailability to the media, except for carefully staged appearances, is mostly attributed to his misinterpretation of the meaning behind his impressive re-election victory, a departure from his commitment to open government, and an uncanny fear that he will be questioned about his land dealings and customized tax break. The high likeability and trust factors Perdue enjoyed during the campaign are disappearing with each new revelation and his arrogant indifference to media questions about his ethical lapses.
‘Family Day’ update: Richardson said he’s not making the calls on security
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s enough to give a blogger a swelled head.
Just before 8:30 a.m., we posted the item below in which Tasso Knight, the labor lobbyist, said his efforts to reserve space at the state Capitol on “Family Day” had been thwarted.
By 11:30 a.m., House Speaker Glenn Richardson had taken the issue to his chamber.
Family Day is Saturday, Feb. 10. It’s a Republican effort to open up the Capitol to real people. But then you get into problem of defining who those people really are.
Said Knight: “Arriving at the Capitol today, I was very disappointed to learn that the Speaker of the Georgia House had taken away our reserved time for our Working Family Day gathering and press conference. The state representative that had secured the steps for us was contacted through his office by the Georgia Building Authority and told they were revoking the reserved time at the request of the Speakers office.”
Richardson says it ain’t so. “There’s apparently some question as to whether I got involved in that — I didn’t know anything about that ‘til this morning. I’m not involved in the decisions about how many people get in the building, how many people get to stand outside — where they get to stand. We have experts, professionals in charge of that,” the speaker said from his lectern.
With that, in an unusual break in decorum, the Speaker then introduced Georgia Patrol Capt. Al Wilson, who’s in charge of Capitol security. Speaking to the chamber, Wilson took responsibility for ordering that the Capitol and its grounds are to be cleared of protestors — or those with separate agendas.
“The campus itself we’re going to reserve for the family members and the families who come to enjoy the Capitol,” Wilson said.
But the captain wasn’t specific about who’s family, and who’s not.
A stem cell turnaround: UGA looking for venture capital
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Talk about a single year making a difference. One year ago, religious conservatives at the state Capitol had put their weight behind a bill that university academics feared would criminalize certain types of embryonic stem cell research.
The measure died only after the state’s economic development strategists rang every alarm bell at hand.
This morning, the Athens Banner-Herald says the University of Georgia is scrounging for investment capital, to keep in Georgia what could be one of the most important developments in stem cell research.
Last week, the AJC reported that UGA research Steve Stice had discovered a procedure to quickly manufacture billions of embryonic stem cells that develop into nerve and brain tissue — a process that could shorten by years the search for cures to debilitating conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and spinal cord injuries.
Stice’s Athens-based company, Aruna Biomedical, has a technology licensing agreement with the UGA Research Foundation that will allow the firm to market and sell the cells, with the university getting a cut.
But the Banner-Herald says the state of Wisconsin, right now the center of embryonic stem cell research in the U.S., is trying to lure the company away.
For sale: Wooded lot, with bass pond possibilities
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Quick. Call your real estate agent.
Environmental lobbyists at the state Capitol were on cell phones and PDAs this morning, trying to get a jump on developers in one of the biggest potential land grabs that Georgia’s seen in a while.
MeadWestvaco, the packaging company, had just announced that it plans to sell 300,000 acres of forest land — nearly half of it, 145,000 acres, in Georgia.
The trouble is, no one here is exactly sure where the property is. Possibly around Columbus. Sounds like Oaky Woods, Part II.
A red-letter day for Vernon Jones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Diplomacy has never been a strong suit for DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones. State Sen. Dan Weber, a Republican, sent Jones a letter confirming publication of the necessary legal ads for legislation to incorporate Dunwoody.
Jones, of course, doesn’t like the idea.
The CEO marked up Weber’s letter like as if he were an English teacher and sent the corrections to the AJC. Read the full story here.
Blogwatch: Republicans say Saturday isn’t a day for labor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A posting on the web site maintained by the DeKalb County Young Democrats tells us that Republicans have moved to keep labor activists from crashing their Family Day party at the state Capitol on Feb. 10.
This is the note from Tasso Knight, the labor lobbyist and leader:
“Arriving at the Capitol today, I was very disappointed to learn that the Speaker of the Georgia House had taken away our reserved time for our Working Family Day gathering and press conference. The state representative that had secured the steps for us was contacted through his office by the Georgia Building Authority and told they were revoking the reserved time at the request of the Speakers office.
“I then went to a state senator and asked if they would request the same time reserved for the Capitol steps and they were told by the building authority that no request would be taken by anyone to reserve the steps on Family Day.”
We called the people at the office of House Speaker Glenn Richardson. They denied all culpability. “It’s not us,” said Richardson spokeswoman Clelia Davis.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has offered Atlanta City Hall as a substitute rallying point.
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