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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Senate tells NRA to take a hike
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got word that the Senate will do two more bills, and then adjourn without addressing S.B. 43, the bill to permit employees to store guns in cars parked on corporate lots.
Hard-core tactics by the NRA were blamed by some senators. We hear that Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle was concerned that the Senate would be debating the issue on the same day a woman was killed by a co-worker with a gun in northwest Atlanta.
We’ll try to flesh that out tomorrow.
Legislation on billboards, sonograms for women seeking abortions, and deannexation tanked with the gun bill.
Outside the Senate chamber, the mother of Genarlow Wilson walked away in tears. He’s the teenager who was sentenced to 10 years of hard time for oral sex with a consenting 15-year-old girl. A bill to permit a judge to shorten his sentence died as well.
And now we’re really gone. Good-night.
Bill to give police powers to state’s income tax squad abandoned
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Republicans late Tuesday quietly killed a measure that would have allowed the state revenue commissioner to create a force of eight law enforcement officers to go after those who evade state income and property taxes.
We hear that the GOP leadership thought that the small squad bore too much of a resemblance to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
H.B.385 was an agency bill backed by Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Commissioner Bart Graham had argued his current investigators needed the authority to request search warrants and make arrests, saying that Georgia had not prosecuted anyone for tax fraud in the last 20 years.
‘People are running like rabbits,’ Republicans said. Probably through Oaky Woods, replied Democrats
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just after 6 p.m., the ransom was paid and the hostage freed. In that order.
S.R. 309, the private cities bill, was passed by the Senate on Tuesday evening, at the cost of much of the good feeling that Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle had taken pains to nurture over the last two months.
By the end of the transaction, Senate Republicans were hinting that an unsavory, but unspecified motive was responsible for Democratic attempts to block the measure. “Something smells here,” Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah growled from the well. “People are running like rabbits.”
And Democrats had openly accused Republicans of concocting a bill that covertly aided the developers behind Oaky Woods, that hunting acreage next to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s home in Houston County. “I have a problem with that,” said state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta).
Six or so hours earlier, S.R. 309 failed by a single vote.
Because it involves amending the state Constitution, the bill to permit private developers to tax homeowners in planned communities — to raise upfront money for roads, sewers, even golf courses and clubhouses — required 38 votes, a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
It failed by one vote. Some Democrats had walked out, and had avoided voting. Another claimed his voting machine had failed.
Republicans were livid. They quickly called for a re-vote, but delayed a second try until enough pressure could be brought to bear on Democrats.
They blocked action on S.R.130, authored by state Sen. David Adelman, a Democrat who is also chairman of the Senate Urban Affairs Committee. The measure would permit the creation of townships — something less than cities, which would have control over land-use within their territories.
Republicans grabbed yet another bill, belonging to state Sen. Curt Thompson of Tucker, another Democrat, and one of those who walked.
Finally, bill sponsors felt ready to deal. They brought S.R. 309 back.
Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon) took the well to complain of the rough treatment.
Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams (R-Lyons) rose to complain about Democrats who fled the floor. “I’m also aware there are people listing to this that are not going to be here to vote,” he said.
S.R. 309 was important to south Georgia, Williams said, where developers sometimes can’t afford to build curbs and gutters into a subdivision. He accused the Democratic leadership of playing politics with a bill with no regard for policy.
Which brought an angry state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) to the well, to lay out exactly why Democrats were so ticked off. A request for a study committee was ignored, he said. Parts of the measure were contradictory.
And there was the fact that private cities bill covers only 157 of Georgia’s 159 counties. Houston and Muscogee counties were specifically kept out — to avoid any mention of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s personal land deals and his administration’s failure to preserve the middle Georgia hunting preserve known as Oaky Woods.
It was a sham, Reed said. Any law school student would be able to have the bill extended to Houston and Muscogee counties, on simple standards of equal protection.
The vote was called for. We hear that Democrats thought they had persuaded one of their own, Ed Harbison of Columbus, to take a powder. But he stayed to vote, and the game was up. The measure was assured of passage.
Other Democrats who had been staying in the wings abandoned their opposition, and the measure passed with two votes to spare, 40-13.
Immediately, Adelman’s bill was freed. It passed 43-4.
Afterwards, Adelman refused to characterize his bill as a freed hostage. “But I understand the sequence of events,” he said.
Another note from Cagle, this time on the House certificates of need bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Somebody read the post below about the hospital licensing bill running into trouble in the House, and that the GOP leadership had expressed doubt that the Senate would take it up — based on a statement last Friday by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
Cagle just issued this statement to the Medical Association of Georgia:
“Our committee process remains open to any [certificate of need] legislation passed by the House. Should legislation become available, we will fully hear it in committee and provide all sides an opportunity to have input and work toward a compromise…”
“If that process results in broad agreement, we are willing to consider bringing a bill to the floor.”
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Call in the SWAT team — there’s a hostage in the Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Sen. David Adelman of Decatur is one of the few Democratic chairmen in the Senate. He’s got the urban affairs committee.
Adelman’s legislative focus this year has been on a package that would let communities in Georgia create townships — something less expensive than a city that would give a community over land use issues. The first part, a bill that required a majority vote, received 41 votes in the 56-member Senate.
The second portion was a resolution change the state Constitution and required a two-thirds vote. It was tabled — although the first vote showed the necessary support was there.
Why?
Because Democratic votes needed to pass the Republican-backed private cities bill earlier in the day (see the posting below) leaked away, leaving it one vote short of a necessary two-thirds constitutional majority. One Democrat said his voting machine didn’t work. Others vanished from the floor.
This is intended to pressure on Adelman to keep Democratic votes on the floor when the private cities bill returns later today.
We caught Adelman on the floor. He had two points. First, members of the Senate Republican leadership have signed onto his bill. Secondly, because constitutional amendments also require the approval of voters in election years, he’s got all of next year to pass the portion of his bill that’s been held.
In other words, Adelman was saying that, if his legislation is indeed a hostage, it’s a poor one.
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Intriguing quote from the lieutenant governor’s office
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just before noon, only an hour or so after the House finally sent the $700 million supplemental budget to the Senate, the office of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle put out the following statement:
“The Senate will have our version of the budget publicly available in less than 24 hours. I look forward to working closely and cooperatively with the House to resolve our different positions on state spending.”
That sounds like the Senate may have a few tricks up its sleeves.
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A tough day for the big bills
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before lunch, a legislative package to let developers levy taxes to finance low-interest bonds on their own projects was defeated when it fell one vote short of the required two-thirds.
It won a vote for reconsideration, but was immediately tabled. The implication is that the votes still aren’t there, but supporters think they might get get there by day’s end.
This could be the third piece of legislation to scrape bottom on the shoals today. Payday lending is gone for the session, and the certificate-of-need/hospital licensing bill may be held back as well.
How real life sometimes creeps into the state Capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 9 a.m. this morning, an employee walked into a northwest Atlanta furniture story company and shot a co-worker dead.
Not the headline you want to see on the day the Senate is to engage in a volatile debate over S.B.43, the bill to permit employees to keep guns in cars parked on company property.
The bill’s at the bottom of today’s calendar, so expect a late decision. Read the news story here.
Hospital bill likely to be sidelined in today’s triage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The payday lending bill is dead. Now word on the House side of the state Capitol this morning is that GOP leaders will most likely sidetrack an effort to revise the way the state licenses hospitals and institutions offering competing services.
The certificate of need bill is one of the most heavily lobbied bills of the year. Several versions exist, including one from the governor. One version was passed out on Monday, but we’re hearing that even committee members have got questions about it.
Moreover, last Friday, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he was unwilling act as negotiator among all the parties when the bill came to the Senate side — a signal that it might have hard sledding.
No need to put their members at risk, House leaders are thinking, if the bill won’t move this year in the Senate. Right now, thinking is that the House will in fact pass it, but only late this session. The Senate could have all of next year with the issue.
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An Isakson-McCain immigration bill? NRO says McCain could use it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re late to pass this on, but U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s attempt at resolving the debate over illegal immigration picked up a major endorsement last week from the National Review.
In an on-line editorial, the conservative publication noted that U.S. Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate for president, had gotten crossways with voters over his alliance with Ted Kennedy on an immigration bill that offered what many interpreted as amnesty to illegals.
To redeem himself, the NRO editorial suggested an Isakson-McCain immigration reform bill.
Here’s a taste:
McCain should endorse an immigration reform that won’t repeat this mistake and can enjoy broad support in Republican ranks: in other words, the proposal of Sen. Johnny Isakson.
Isakson would prohibit granting legal status to any illegal alien until border-security measures were fully operational. His bill would also create an identification system to verify the legality of workers.
Only when the current chaos is under control would a guest-worker program go into effect. (Isakson’s plan would be even better if a separate, expedited vote were required to create such a program.)
This sequential approach offers a welcome compromise between the border-security and amnesty camps, and represents a realistic acknowledgment that the current system is incapable of handling the enormous demands of a legalization program.
There is legitimate suspicion that “comprehensive” immigration proposals cynically promise popular enforcement measures to help an unpopular amnesty go down.
That Isakson’s reasonable “enforcement first” plan was defeated last year on a 55-40 vote by senators who claimed to be committed to border security strengthens such skepticism.
“Enforcement First” enjoys broad support. An Isakson-McCain reform would smooth over the rough spots that the Kennedy-McCain bill has created on the campaign trail.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007: The Day of the Ham
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We are at Crossover Day. And not coincidentally, this is Ham Day. We kid you not.
More specifically, it is HoneyBaked Ham Day. Gov. Sonny Perdue is to be presented with a spiral slice this morning.
Insert your own joke here. And feel free to include the Legislature, as a whole or in part, in your observations.
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