Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2007 > March > 30
Friday, March 30, 2007
Lobbyist alert: Cagle on PeachCare, the gun bill and the budget
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sorry this is posted so late — stuff happens, the center does not hold, etc.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle held what has become his usual press availability on Friday afternoon. He hit a number of topics.
On the PeachCare bill sponsored by House Speaker Glenn Richardson:
Said Cagle: “We’re looking at his bill. It is somewhat problematic. It’s different than what initially we had talked about. They did make vision and dental optional, so there’s a fairly significant reduction there.
“Are we going to pass the bill as is? No. We’re going to work it through the process and try and find a way to insure that the children that are eligible for PeachCare are going to have that access.”
On the employee-guns-in-parking-lots bill, held by the Senate this week but backed by the National Rifle Association:
Said Cagle: “The issue is somewhat of a property rights issue versus a Second-Amendment issue. I would argue that it has very little to do with Second Amendment issues, and more to do with private property rights.
“At the end of the day, I was not comfortable passing the bill as it was because it did infringe on private property rights.”
But Cagle said there might be room for compromise around the issue of retail establishments, and instances where customers who park in lots are not banned from keeping weapons in their cars, but employees are.
“There may be some common ground on that particular issue,” the lieutenant governor said. He was to sit down with business and NRA lobbyists immediately after his session with reporters.
On his budget confrontation with House Republicans, and their accusation that he merely wants to shift spending from the current mid-year budget, to the ’08 budget:
Said Cagle: “I’m talking about spending less money. Not more money. There’s a big difference, a significant difference.”
“The shell game that they’re wanting to try to articulate quite honestly does not hold water. You’re either for spending more or you’re for spending less. And I can promise you, less is not more, to quote [House Majority Leader] Jerry Keen.
On the House failure to take up Senate bills, and on attaching Senate legislation to House bills:
“I’m disappointed that the House has engaged in a tit-for-tat exchange. If they’ve got a philosophical difference on the budget, then you need to debate that, centered around the budget. You don’t need to just close up shop and do nothing.
“We’re having to survive within the framework that the House has prescribed. If the House chooses not to pass any bills…then the Senate has no other option than to begin amending House bills in order to get our issues heard.
“I can promise you there’s charter school legislation and career academy legislation that’s going to get tacked onto every single education bill that comes over from the House until they pass my two bills.”
Isakson’s embryonic stem cell bill gets its chance in April
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s attempt at an embryonic stem cell bill that would avoid a veto by President Bush will get two days of debate followed by an April 11 vote, we’re told.
His bill, S.B. 30, will receive a side-by-side vote with a stem cell bill similar to one approved by Congress last year, only to be vetoed by Bush.
The 2006 bill would have lifted a federal funding ban on embryonic stem cell research, allowing research on stem cells derived from well-developed embryos produced by fertility clinics and donated by the parents.
Bush vetoed the bill because he said it would have supported “the taking of innocent life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others.”
Isakson’s bill, drawn up in consultation with University of Georgia researcher Steve Stice, would limit federally funded research to stem cells derived from embryos that are “naturally dead.”
That takes some explaining. Basically, it would give scientists access to embryos whose lack of development leads to their disposal by fertility clinics — because they’re judged incapable of surviving in the womb.
The senator has dubbed the legislation the “Hope Offered through Principled and Ethical Stem Cell Research Act.” Or the Hope Act for short.
Here’s the definition of ‘naturally dead’ in the Isakson bill:
“The term ‘naturally dead’ means having naturally and irreversibly lost the capacity for integrated cellular division, growth, and differentiation that is characteristic of an organism, even if some cells of the former organism may be alive in a disorganized state.”
And here’s a link to a February posting that explains exactly what Isakson and other Republicans — and maybe a few Democrats — are trying to do. Just substitute “naturally dead” for “organismically dead.”
The fight was between Senate Republicans and the NRA, but the year was 1999
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The fight over the pistols-in-company-parking-lots bill continued to churn Thursday, as Senate Republicans tried to find a path between gun advocates and business interests. No progress was reported.
With his GOP caucus split, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle put S.B. 43 on hold on Tuesday, Crossover Day, sparking outrage from the National Rifle Association, which is backing the bill.
This isn’t the first time Republicans have stuck a thumb in the eye of the NRA. In fact, the last time, the GOP actually got something out of it.
Shortly after his election in 1998, Gov. Roy Barnes, who’d been endorsed by the NRA that year, was persuaded by the group to support legislation that would prevent cities from suing gun makers for crimes committed with their products.
Such a measure had timely resonance. Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell was about to file just such a lawsuit. H.B. 189, filed by state Rep. Curtis Jenkins (D-Forsyth), breezed through the Democrat-controlled House, and through the Senate committee system, also under the sway of Democrats.
Victory was assured, until two senators — Minority Leader Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) and a newly minted member of the GOP, Sonny Perdue of Bonaire — stepped in.
Republicans were ticked that the NRA had endorsed not just Barnes, but a slew of other Democrats the year before. On a Friday, Johnson joined forces with black Democrats, who disagreed with the aim of the gun bill, first to table the measure — and then to adjourn the Senate to keep it out of reach through the weekend.
“We decided we had to send a message to the NRA that they had a problem in Georgia,” said state Sen. Robert Lamutt (R-Marietta), according to a Wall Street Journal account of the incident. “They had to decide whether they wanted to be an arm of the Democratic Part or whether they wanted to go with the philosophical supporters of the Second Amendment.”
The NRA went ballistic, just as they have in past weeks. The group sent a barrage of phone calls into Republican senate districts, accusing GOP lawmakers of an unholy alliance with the unpopular mayor of Atlanta.
When the Senate reconvened, arm-twisting by Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor — in his rookie year, as this is Cagle’s first season — brought the bill off the table, and the measure passed. Republicans joined in voting for the bill, but had made their point.
Three years later, while planning his quixotic campaign to unseat an incumbent Democratic governor, Perdue — with his wife Mary and aide Dan McLagan — flew up to Washington to talk to Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the NRA.
U.S. Rep. Bob Barr joined the conversation.
That fall, the gun group again endorsed Barnes, in keeping with its policy of sticking with incumbents. But Perdue — and the GOP stand in 1999 — had blunted the endorsement. The NRA did little to aid the Barnes during the next critical weeks.
Perdue felt comfortable enough to challenge Barnes to a skeet shoot for the NRA endorsement. “Roy Barnes doesn’t know the difference between a shotgun and a bass boat,” said McLagan, by then the candidate’s spokesman.
The question now becomes whether Cagle, in 2007, is making a similar impression.
