Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2007 > March
March 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.”
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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.”
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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.
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In case of emergency, prison system wouldn’t have broken the glass — it would have pulled out the plastic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Until a few weeks ago, the state Department of Corrections had four credit cards with monthly limits of $1 million each.
News of the cards, and 1,130 others with lower limits taken out by the department, came to light at a House budget subcommittee meeting this week. The cards have raised eyebrows across the state Capitol. Cumulatively, the corrections department had acquired an $8.4 million credit line via the cards.
The corrections department turned off the million-dollar cards after an inquiry by House lawmakers. In a March 16 memo to the House Budget Office, a corrections official said the million-dollar credit cards were part of the department’s response to 9/11, and were never used.
The memo, written by Scott Poitevint, an assistant division director, said:
“Immediately following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, [the corrections department] began reviewing and modifying existing emergency/contingency plans. Part of that effort focused on our ability to continue operating and procure goods and services in the event the statewide financial system…was unavailable.
“Four emergency cards were activated on Nov. 1, 2001, and were assigned to key, central office purchasing staff. Each of the cards allowed for a single transaction up to $100,000 with a monthly limit of $1 million. Personnel changes over the years have necessitated new card assignments, however, generally we have only maintained four active emergency cards. No transactions have ever been processed against these cards. [Emphasis in the original]”
“I don’t know why any agency would need to have a state-backed credit card with a $1 million limit,” said state Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta), who discovered the cards’ existence while examining the Department of Corrections’ business model.
State Rep. Chuck Martin (R-Alpharetta), who chairs the budget subcommittee looking at spending by corrections and other agencies, said he was disturbed by the practice. “It worries me how we came to that,” Martin said.
Both Martin and Chambers said they would be looking at whether other state agencies had developed similar practices.
By lawmakers’ calculations, the Department of Corrections had taken out 1,130 cards, of which 769 are still active.
Of those:
— Four had the $1 million limit;
— 14 have a $100,000 limit;
— 18 have a $75,000 limit;
— 182 have a $50,000 limit;
— 158 have a $20,000 limit;
— The rest have limits of $5,000 or $10,000.
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McCain names his Georgia squad
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Heavy-hitters in Georgia Republican circles continue to spread themselves among three camps in the ‘08 race for the White House.
This morning, the campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain named its state advisory committee: state Sen. Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga, state GOP chairman Alec Poitevint; Derrick Dickey, former aide to Gov. Sonny Perdue; Leigh Ann Wood Gillis, in charge of raising money for Perdue; Clint Murphy who headed up campaigns for both U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in the Savannah area; John Sours, a long-time activist with libertarian leanings and excellent veteran contacts; and Jay Walker, the former chief of staff for House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
A spokesman for the campaign said McCain, who dropped by last month, is likely to make another pass through Georgia soon — though that will be delayed somewhat by a foray into the Middle East tomorrow.
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More Blogwatch: Edwards headed to Macon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bloggers are having a field day. Amy Morton of Georgia Women Vote says Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards will be in Macon on April 14.
This is as good a time as any to say we’ve heard some quiet worries expressed about the impact of Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer on the cash-starved Democratic party in Georgia.
John Edwards is the key-noter for the party’s major annual fund-raiser, the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner, now scheduled for mid-May. Elizabeth Edwards is scheduled to speak at a luncheon that same day.
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Blogwatch: Rudy Giuliani has radio ads up in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Libertarian blogger Jason Pye is the first to note that Rudy Giuliani has put up radio ads in Atlanta to boost his Republican bid for the White House.
Pye’s got the sound up here.
Says Rudy: “We need strong leadership to stay on offense in the war against terrorists. We need supply-side policies and reduced government spending…fiscal discipline to keep the economy growing.”
Our guess? This is an effort by the former New York mayor to build a crowd for the mid-April debut of his campaign in Georgia.
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Dobson throws cold water on a hot non-candidate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, says he prefers Newt Gingrich over Fred Thompson for president.
This is the same Thompson who, though he’s just dangled the possibility of running for the White House, scored well in straw votes at GOP conventions in Cherokee and Gwinnett County last weekend.
Here’s a snippet of what was posted Wednesday by U.S. News and World Report:
“Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson said of Thompson. “[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian; at least that’s my impression,” Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party’s conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.
A spokesman for Dobson later said the FOF leader wasn’t calling the former Tennessee senator a heathen. Thompson is a member of the Church of Christ denomination.
“We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians,” the spokesman said.
We haven’t checked with the Vatican to see whether its experts agree with the above definition. But this could be the start of a tremendous trademark battle.
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Gunfight at the Gold Dome corral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First, let’s make this clear: Every side in the fight says that, despite what happened last night, it ain’t over.
Before this session of the Legislature, Republicans admit, the National Rifle Association will get its vote on a measure that would permit employees to keep guns in cars parked on corporate lots.
After nearly four hours of negotiations that involved Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, other top Senate leaders, and lobbyists and representatives for the NRA, the Senate adjourned late Tuesday without taking up S.B. 43.
Very rarely do you see the NRA rebuked in such fashion — not by Republican institutions. The gun group’s representatives left the state Capitol tight-lipped and livid.
When the sun came up, they put out the following statement:
“The facts surrounding this legislation were polluted by half-truths and bold-faced lies by opponents during the 11th hour,” the NRA said. “While we are concerned that some referred to our effort to defend the merits of S.B. 43 as heavy-handed, we are unrepentant as our objective was to counter a blatant campaign of misinformation.”
The reason that the Senate backed away from the bill may have been the story of Crossover Day.
S.B. 43 was opposed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Association of Realtors — organizations that believe he who owns the land should make the gun-packing rules.
The bill forced a deep philosophical breach in the Senate caucus between “property right” Republicans and “gun right” Republicans. “It had us fighting amongst ourselves,” said state Sen. Jeff Chapman (R-Brunswick).
Then there was the fact that the NRA had declared the bill would be the only issue legislators are graded on this year. Any lawmaker who blocked it, or voted against it, would be given an ‘F’ that would be featured on thousands of postcards sent to his district.
To many Republicans that meant a lifetime of support for NRA issues could be wiped out with a single vote, on what many GOP lawmakers considered a matter of true principle.
Others doubted the legislation even necessary. “I think this bill deals with a problem that doesn’t exist,” said state Sen. Cecil Staton (R-Macon). Most companies have a don’t-ask-don’t-tell arrangement with employees, he said.
Last week, Cagle gave a green-light to a floor debate on the bill.
But on Tuesday morning, a female employee was shot by a co-worker at a furniture store in northwest Atlanta. Democrats — who were mostly against the bill — put Republicans on notice that they would highlight the event during any debate that took place.
That gave Cagle and other Republicans pause. The GOP caucus was split, and Democrats were against the bill. Not only would the measure lose, but gruesome video would serve as a file footage for every TV station in Atlanta.
After a brief dinner debate, the conclave of Cagle, legislators and NRA designees began their meeting. Amendments to satisfy property-right Republicans were batted back and forth.
But the final straw of the evening came when Senate Republican leaders found they had been out-maneuvered. NRA lobbyists revealed they had extended their efforts beyond the GOP family, and had begun approaching Democrats. They’d made enough progress to assure passage of the bill.
(Democrats we talked to Wednesday said, yes, NRA overtures had been made, but not enough to snatch the bill from the jaws of defeat. But remember that on Tuesday, the chamber had just finished a highly partisan battle over private cities, and some Democrats may have been smelling payback.)
The bottom line was that Senate GOP leaders believed that, if the bill came out, not only would it pass, but several prominent Republicans would be caught on the wrong side. And some Democrats who might be vulnerable in ‘08 would receive important cover from the NRA.
So Cagle took the bullet and ordered the bill held.
H.B. 89, a measure sponsored by state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica) would allow many motorists to tuck handguns under the seat of their cars, or under cushions.
It has passed the House, and now resides in the Senate. This bill, the NRA said, will undergo a transplant. The innards of the parking-lot bill will be attached to it.
Senate Republican leaders tell us the NRA will have to accede to more protections for land-owners if they want their floor vote.
In the first years of the Republican takeover, GOP lawmakers and the Christian conservatives that helped elect them engaged in many closed-door confrontations — until it became clear who was the tail, who was the dog, and which entity would wag what.
The confrontation over S.B. 43 is a similar conversation between Republican lawmakers and yet another, essential member of their base. But this one has money — lots of it — and doesn’t like to lose.
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A spell in the brig would no longer be considered a qualification for serving in the Legislature
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You may not have noticed, but state Sen. John Wiles (R-Kennesaw) got a little ol’ bill passed out on Tuesday.
S.B. 264 would bar members of the military who misbehave from public office — in particular, those jailed “for more than 30 days in a proceeding resulting in a dishonorable or bad conduct military discharge.”
We do not know if Wiles has anyone specific in mind.
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Blogwatch: Two Democrats joined Republican effort to trim PeachCare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blogger Amy Morton at Georgia Women Vote is going after two Democrats in the House who voted for House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s bill to pare down the number of families eligible to enroll in PeachCare, the state’s health insurance program for the children of the working poor.
“I get that Richardson is fine with that, but what about the Democrats who voted for the bill? Did their finger slip?” she asks. Morton identifies Ellis Black of Valdosta and Mike Jacobs of Atlanta as the pair who went with the speaker.
She also had harsh words for three Democrats who walked on H.B. 340.
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Because when a budget fight swamps the Legislature, everything else sinks into the bog
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many reasons stand behind Tuesday’s failure by the House to pass a bill with changes to the way the state licenses hospitals and other, competing institutions, as demanded by private-care interests.
The most simplistic is that all parties involved — doctors, private hospital chains, public hospital chains, even nursing homes — have deep pockets and are worth shaking down for another years’ worth of campaign donations.
Another theory is that the issue of health services across the state is so complicated that — like transportation — it needs a whip hand to guide it through the process. Without Gov. Sonny Perdue to lead the discussion, the effort never stood a chance.
Here’s another thought: The so-called certificate of need bill (there were several versions, including the governor’s, but only one was to pass) was floundering just as House Republican leaders were battening down hatches for their biggest budget confrontation with the Senate in years — perhaps decades.
The fight is likely to sour everything around it. And probably would have doomed any consensus on a certificate of need bill. It became just another deck chair to be thrown overboard when the call to battle stations came.
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Handicapping ‘08: The twins like Giuliani-Thompson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Black brothers, Earl and Merle, have become the chroniclers of the South’s rising political importance and its shift toward Republicanism. In their latest book, “Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics,” they take a broader view of how regions figure in the razor-thin balance between the two parties.
The politically scientific brothers gave a summary of their latest research at an Emory-sponsored breakfast Wednesday.
Earl, who teaches at Rice, and Merle, who teaches at Emory, still see the South as the most significant region in terms of its growing size and importance to the elctoral fate of the GOP. But since the Northeast and Coastal West have swung to the Democrats, they argue in this book, the swing region - the one most critical to the outcome of the next presidential election - has become the Midwest.
One of the features of this hair-trigger politics, Earl noted, is that practically everybody is frustrated with the results. And that brings the subject to the next election.
The Blacks didn’t attempt to predict the outcome of next year’s presidential election, but there is one potential ticket that makes sense to them. Rudy Giuliani, they note, would be the first Italian Catholic Republican presidential candidate, and as such would have appeal to a crucial Midwestern and Northeastern demographic. But they think he would need an acceptable running mate to keep evangelical Protestants and/or Southerners in the fold, and former U.S. senator and actor Fred Thompson - who has polled big since dangling the possibility of a hat-throw - would be just the ticket.
Now let the debate begin on which Democratic ticket would best offset that one.
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The kind of environment Obama’s got to like
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We haven’t received the official details about U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s trip to Atlanta next month, which is being billed as a public appearance to follow up on his wildly successful Monday night fund-raiser. But we have seen a press release for the upcoming National African American Earth Day Summit, to be held at Morehouse on April 19.
According to the release, Obama and U.S. Rep. John Lewis will be appearing at an evening reception before the summit, which will bring together black environmental leaders from around the country. We’re still trying to find out whether that’s the event we’ve heard about, or an add-on.
But we have heard more about the fund-raiser. According to co-chair Kirk Dornbush, the campaign received pledges of $573,000 — more than double what the Obama campaign originally estimated for this visit, and enough to leave the candidate “blown away” in a telephone conversation Tuesday, Dornbush said. That total doesn’t include a number of contributors who showed up unannounced Monday and wrote checks to get in the event, by the way.
This represents a milestone in terms of African-American fund-raising clout in Atlanta. It was by no means an exclusively black event, but by the accounts we’ve heard and what was apparent from standing outside the VIP reception Monday night, at least 60 percent of the money came from African-American contributors, many of them new to political fund-raising.
Something tells us the April event won’t be the last time we’ll see Obama in the ATL.
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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.
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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.
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‘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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Jerry Keen: Budget confrontation is bad for the public and the Republican party
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a half-hour press conference on Monday, the most interesting point made by House Majority Leader Jerry Keen was that the current budget confrontation with the Senate is not only bad for the public, but bad for the state GOP.
Budget stand-offs are common affairs at the Legislature. But rarely do you see them described in terms of party welfare, and in a press conference.
Keen and other House leaders, all Republican, expressed bewilderment at a left-field move by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle to reject out-of-hand a $700 million spending bill to augment the current budget.
It’d be an understatement to say that Cagle’s decision to make the issue a very public matter of Republican philosophy has put them on the defensive.
Keen referred to the shift with skepticism. A “new religion,” was his phrase.
“Somehow, the House is being accused of being fiscally irresponsible and liberal if we appropriate priorities in March,” Keen said. “But if you wait, and spend the exact same amount of money in July, you’re a conservative. Candidly, it just doesn’t add up.
“[The Senate is] not reducing any spending at all. All they’re saying is, we like the priorities you’ve identified, but we want to put them in ’08,” Keen said. “My question for them is, when did this become conservative to do that? Sometime last week or two?”
Keen was accompanied by both House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter of Alpharetta, and House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin of Evans.
For newcomers to budget politics, here’s a recap:
Every year, the governor guesses how much money the state will receive in tax revenues the next year. Because the state constitution doesn’t permit us to run deficits, state spending for that is a tad below that. Which means, unless there’s a major economic slowdown, there’s a bit of extra money at the end.
Most of this money goes to shore up school spending, which is also unpredictable. But much of it did not. When Democrats were in charge, much of the money went to what we call pork.
Republicans promised that when they were put in charge, they’d abolish supplemental spending. House Republicans, in their third year of power, haven’t done that. But Keen argues that they have made the process transparent, and raised standards for mid-year spending.
Among their points:
— As late as last year, the Senate enjoyed the fruits of the current spending tradition. Keen read out a list of project demanded for last year’s supplemental budget demanded by senators, including $750,000 to replace 50 vehicles for the state Department of Agriculture; $500,000 for a state trade office in China; and $500,000 to help local courthouses increase security.
— Cagle showed disrespect to the 30 or more House members who endured lengthy budget hearings to come up with the budget bill. Cagle might have told House members of his intentions before last week, when the House passed the measure.
“Not one time was there any mention by anybody in the Senate that they had this sort of new religion. When you look at it this way, you have to ask why,” said Keen.
— That Cagle isn’t saying he’d spend less. Just that he wouldn’t spend it before July 1 of this year. “They just want to shift when you spend. That’s a shell game. This is not a time for gamesmanship,” Harbin said.
Keen interjected: “What the Senate is recommending does not reduce spending one red cent. Not a penny. It does not, in any shape fashion or form reduce the size of government. Not one bit.”
As for Cagle? He laid low today, so far as we know.
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Calvin Smyre’s back.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus), chairman of the House Democratic caucus and one of the most plugged-in politicians in the state, returned to the state Capitol on Monday after major back surgery.
He’s got a foam collar, and he’s not into head-only twists of the neck. In that sense, he looks a bit like a preacher in a strip club.
Smyre, former chairman of the state Democratic party, returns just in time for Crossover Day, which could be a 15-hour marathon. He’s not saying he’ll be able to sit through the entire thing.
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NRA loses senator, who says gun group acting like ‘hysterical teenaged girl’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The National Rifle Association has apparently lost state Sen. John Douglas (R-Social Circle) in its effort to drum up support for S.B. 43, the bill to permit employees to keep guns in cars parked on corporate parking lots.
Over the weekend, the NRA sent out a crush of e-mails to members, accusing many big corporations — United Parcel Service, Wal-Mart and AFLAC among them — of curtailing Second Amendment rights.
Douglas is important as a bellwether. He’s one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, and usually supports NRA-backed legislation. Check out this bottom-to-top exchange of e-mails between the senator and a voter in south Georgia, distributed today by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
In the finale, Douglas accuses the NRA of “acting like a hysterical teenaged girl.” We’ve removed the e-mail and street address of the voter.
Here ‘tis:
From: Douglas, John [mailto:John.Douglas@senate.ga.gov]
Sent: Sat 3/24/2007 11:28 PM
To: Keith L.
Subject: RE: SB 43
While you are contacting others, contact the NRA and tell them their bullying, threatening tactics are backfiring. I have for the past two years earned an A+ and A rating from them and supported their efforts all the way. They are accusing every major company in Georgia of being anti gun, sending out their alerts every few hours naming more companies as anti gun and acting like a hysterical teenaged girl.
They are falling on their swords over this bill and so am I. There is no way I would vote yes with the way they are conducting themselves.
I am sorry we have come to this point and I look forward to supporting logical, rational gun legislation in the future, but not SB 43. I appreciate your efforts, but the NRA is making their supporters look foolish on this one.
By the way, Sen Tommie Williams is your Senator. He is an excellent, articulate spokesman for southeast Georgia. Feel free to call on him at tommie@tommiewilliams.com
John Douglas
From: Keith L.
Sent: Sat 3/24/2007 11:21 PM
To: Douglas, John
Subject: Re: SB 43
Sorry to hear that. I’ll let others know how you feel. Thanks anyway.
From: Douglas, John John.Douglas@senate.ga.gov
To: Keith L.
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 8:53 PM
Subject: RE: SB 43
Don’t count on me, I dont represent Lyons and am voting NO.
John Douglas
From: Keith L.
Sent: Sat 3/24/2007 10:38 PM
To: Douglas, John
Subject: SB 43
I’m counting on you to stand up for me & get SB 43 to the floor & support it . It’s time to put a stop of having our Second Amendment rights played with.
Keith L.
Lyons, Ga.
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Offered the opportunity to settle the land dispute with shotguns, the two governors apparently declined
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, several Georgia newspapers are carrying a Associated Press report that says Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina spent an off-the-calendar Saturday quail hunting in January, weeks before they announced a proposal to build a new port owned by both states.
The price of the expedition, on an 18,000-acre tract in the Carolina low-country, was estimated at $1,000 per hunter for a half-day. There was no word on who paid the bill, or who else was in the hunting party, according to The State newspaper in Columbia, which first published the article.
The deal the two governors’ struck on the port is intended to avert a looming legal battle between the South Carolina State Ports Authority and Georgia. The Ports Authority had filed paperwork to condemn and seize land owned by Georgia, but which sits in South Carolina. Georgia uses the acreage as a site to dump silt dredged from the bottom of the Savannah River.
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If the Legislature’s budget fight is about principle, Republicans could be in trouble
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are signs that this budget stand-off between Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson could be more serious than it looks.
Meltdowns over how to divvy up the millions and billions in budget bills are common, nearly annual events in the Legislature. Yet because they involve mere dollars, most of these disputes can be resolved with Solomon-like precision. Put the baby on the table and split the difference.
But the current crisis is rapidly developing into a dangerous matter of Republican principle. There is no baby to chop in two. And there are the voters of the GOP base to worry about. Principle makes it hard to back down in front of them.
Each year, the governor of Georgia estimates how much money tax revenues will bring in the next year. Because our constitution prohibits a deficit, state spending is usually a notch or so below that.
Which means that each year, the state usually gathers in excess revenue. This year the amount is about $700 million. Most of it will go to local schools, to help pay for each year’s unpredicatable increase in the number of students.
When Democrats controlled the Capitol the remainder would be divided among the state’s most powerful lawmakers, and sent to their districts — to pay for anything from museums to libraries to high school band uniforms.
Republicans were appalled. In 2002, candidate Sonny Perdue and nearly every other Republican on the ballot called for the abolition of the supplemental budget. This year, Governor Perdue included in the “little budget” a healthy portion of his “Go Fish Georgia” program.
House Republicans have followed Perdue’s lead with projects of their own, but were stopped in their tracks this week when Cagle, the new kid on the block, announced that he wanted to do what he’d promised while campaigning. Cagle wanted all excess spending stripped from the supplemental budget.
On Friday, Cagle told reporters he wouldn’t back down.
You can say that the newbie lieutenant governor is engaging in holier-than-thou grandstanding, that he’s making an early bid for the 2010 race for the big house on West Paces Ferry. And all of that is probably true. Even so, the grandstanding is resonating with the anti-tax base of the state GOP.
“I think the lieutenant governor absolutely has his priorities in line,” said Jared Thomas, Georgia director of Americans for Prosperity. Thomas has declared that excess spending in the supplemental budget will be a “graded vote.” In other words, come the ’08 election, his group will be scoring Republican lawmakers on the issue.
“We take in more money than we say we need, and then we look for new ways to spend it. I don’t think that that’s being a good steward of Georgia’s tax dollars,” Thomas said.
Americans for Prosperity is a new group in the state, and its clout hasn’t been proven. Thomas is more important because of his immediate past. He was the campaign manager for Ralph Reed, the Republican icon whom Cagle roughly pushed aside last summer to get where he is now.
That’s how much the spending issue matters to some Republicans.
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Voters like Sunday beer and wine sales, says Casey Cagle’s own pollster
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bill to allow grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sunday is in dire straits, clogged in the Senate Rules Committee. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has issued strong hints that the measure will still be there when the session ends.
To help squeeze the bill out onto the Senate floor for a vote, the forces in support of Sunday sales released yet another poll late last week, showing that Georgians like the idea of local choice in the matter.
This survey tapped 300 likely voters — scattered in the districts of three influential Republican senators: Renee Unterman of Buford; Ronnie Chance of Tyron; and Lee Hawkins of Gainesville. Hawkins is a newcomer, but the district is the one Cagle represented.
In each district, S.B. 137 received the support of more than 60 percent of voters — even when just Republicans were counted, said Jim Tudor, president of the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores.
Not only did the group poll the lieutenant governor’s former district, but it used Cagle’s pollster, Jim McLaughlin — the one who helped him Cagle into his current office at the Capitol.
“We thought it would lend credibility,” Tudor said.
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But note that he’s not asking for any black helicopters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Anti-tax Republicans in the state Capitol are looking askance at a bill backed by the Department of Revenue that would give Commissioner Bart Graham — for the first time — authority to create a force of eight law enforcement officers to go after tax evaders.
H.B.385 is an agency bill backed by Gov. Sonny Perdue. The legislation passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee last week. We presume it’ll hit the House floor on Tuesday.
The Department of Revenue already has agents with arrest powers when it comes to alcohol and tobacco regulation — revenooers of moonshine fame.
The new force would investigate cases relating to “income, withholding, sales and use, excise, and property taxes.”
Given that many Republicans would like to see the Internal Revenue Service abolished, Graham knew that the legislation would raise eyebrows, and was quick to respond personally to an inquiry. In essence, he said, Georgia’s been giving a pass to tax cheats.
“Nobody has been prosecuted criminally for [state] tax evasion in this state for 20 years,” the commissioner said. Fraudulent returns have merely been blocked.
The legislation would require no new hires. The people are already there, but only as investigators without the power to arrest or obtain search warrants. Outside agencies such as the GBI can’t be brought in, Graham said, because of restricted access to the 9 million tax returns the state receives each year.
“It’s not about becoming a police-oriented state. I’m not interested in pushing anybody around,” Graham said.
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Sounds like a darned liberal cabal. Bet they put daisies in rifle barrels.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The NRA unloaded its heavy artillery this weekend, to ensure a Senate floor vote for S.B. 43, a bill to permit employees to keep their heat in cars parked on company parking lots.
“Arrogant big corporate lobbyists are working overtime to defeat this bill,” says one e-mail to membership.
It specifically names the Georgia Chamber of Commerce; United Parcel Service; the Georgia Association of Realtors; CSX, the railway company; AFLAC, the insurance company; and Georgia Traditional Manufacturers Association as those “big corporate associates…spreading lies about S.B.43 and working behind the scenes to attack your right to keep and bear arms.”
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Champ Walker: If you’re interested in prosecutors, look at this one
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If we were bookies, we’d put this at 50-to-1. But Champ Walker called on Friday. He’s the former congressional candidate, and son of former state senator Charles Walker, 59, who’s serving a 10-year prison term for tax evasion, mail fraud and conspiracy.
Walker has been in Washington. He’s trying to persuade members of Congress interested in the firing of U.S. prosecutors to take a look at Rick Thompson, the former federal prosecutor in Savannah canned for “announcing the initiation of a criminal investigation for the purpose of benefiting a personal and political ally.”
It was Thompson who started the investigation of Walker. His replacement finished it.
In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the letter announcing Thompson’s dismissal.
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In Gwinnett, Fred Thompson gets a boost in the GOP race for the White House
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many Georgia counties held their Republican conventions on Saturday. From Gwinnett, state Sen. David Shafer of Duluth posted this on his blog:
”But the most interesting news came from the presidential straw poll, which had been tacked on to the end of the officer ballot, almost as an afterthought. The delegates were given a choice of a dozen or so candidates. None of the Presidential campaigns were represented at the convention.
The national frontrunner, Rudy Giuliani, placed third, right behind Georgia’s own Newt Gingrich, who finished second. But the winner was former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who received more votes than all the other candidates combined.
Fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh place went to Romney, McCain, Huckabee and Brownback, in that order.
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Westmoreland: We got what we deserved
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Libertarian blogger Jason Pye snagged an interview with U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Sharpsburg) today. Here’s the link.
As usual, Westmoreland - often mentioned as a gubernatorial possibility in 2010 - was chockfull of quotes. To wit:
— “The Republican party in Washington got exactly what they deserved. We had abandoned any type of leadership that we had. We were controlling the money and it was being spent hand over fist. We failed to deal with the immigration issue. We failed to deal with the fair tax. We kind of abandoned our authority. The shame of it is that we got what we deserved, but the American people did not get what they deserved.”
— On Dennis Hastert, the former U.S. Speaker of the House: ”One of the nicest people I’ve ever met, but I think he was the weak link in the leadership.”
On gun control in the nation’s capital: “You got a better chance of being killed in D.C. than you do Iraq.”
— On presidential preferences, Westmoreland said he was a fan of Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee, and that he isn’t fond of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain or Mitt Romney.
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Lobbyist alert: Cagle on budget, red-light cameras, and the gun-in-parking lots bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle told reporters just before noon that he’s still determined to strip excessive spending out of a 2007 budget bill, but that he wouldn’t escalate the confrontation by blocking House bills from moving through the Senate.
Cagle told House GOP leaders of his intentions soon after the House passed the $700 million supplemental budget. They immediately pulled the bill back, said they would hold it — and the larger $22 billion budget for 2008 — until the final days of the 40-day session.
And they promised that Senate bills in their possession would be frozen in place.
Cagle said he planned no “tit-for-tat,” and in fact had nice words for House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s bill to limit the use of red-light cameras across Georgia. “I do question whether the red-light cameras are being used for safety, or for raising revenue,” he said.
But most curiously, Cagle said that if House Republicans didn’t send them a budget bill, he would send them one. He declined to explain what he meant by that. Constitutionally, revenue bills must originate in the House.
Despite the crowded calendar, Cagle also predicted that a bill to permit employees to keep guns in cars parked on company property would come to the Senate floor on Tuesday. It’s a hot issue within the GOP camp, and could eat up precious time on the day when all bills with a future must pass one chamber or another.
On the governor’s legislation for a constitutional amendment to limit the use of lottery money solely to the HOPE scholarship and pre-K programs, Cagle said he was working with Democrats on a compromise. The measure requires passage by a two-thirds vote.
And on the bill to permit the sale of beer and wine on Sunday: The lieutenant governor wouldn’t say whether the legislation would make it to the floor for a vote, but said Republicans in the Senate had noted with interest the defeat of a bill this week to allow limousine companies a greater hand when it comes to selling alcohol in their vehicles.
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Blogwatch: Putting a premium on an incumbent insurance policy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bloggers on both the right and the left are worked up over the election bill that passed the House on Tuesday, and not because it would permit Georgia’s presidential primary to be moved up to Feb. 5.
H.B. 487 would permit victory to be declared in three-way races when the leading candidate reaches the 45 percent mark.
Both Decaturguy and Jason Pye damn the legislation as an incumbent insurance policy. They make virtually the same points.
Says Decaturguy:
Don’t think this is a big deal? Well, in the 2006 election cycle, most notably, Cynthia McKinney wouldn’t have had to face a run-off with Hank Johnson (she got 47 percent in the primary) and would probably still be the representative from the Fourth District today. And Democrat David Burgess would still be on the Public Service Commission (getting the most votes with 48 percent in the general election).
Says Pye:
But I’d like to remind Georgia Republicans that without a run-off against David Burgess and Chuck Eaton, which the Libertarian candidate caused, the Republicans wouldn’t have picked up that PSC seat. One could argue that Eaton’s win in the run-off dealt a very big blow to Georgia Democrats.
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John Lewis on one side, Hank Johnson in the middle in the debate over Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On tonight’s broadcast of PBS’ “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” two Georgia Democrats were featured in a piece on the U.S. House effort to use the budget to bring an end next year to U.S. military involvement in Iraq.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta) is part of the whip effort to keep Democrats in line. “I’m not prepared to vote for another dollar or another dime to support this war. It is time to bring our young men and our young women home,” he said.
But U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-DeKalb County), the man who booted anti-war activist Cynthia McKinney from office, is among those unsure about the efffort.
Says Johnson: “The people of the Fourth District by and large are ready for this war to come to an end, and the want to see a cessation of deaths of United States soldiers in combat on the streets of Iraq and they want to see that happen now.
“Politically, the reality is that you just can’t yank the troops off the streets. You just can’t leave them without the funding they need in order to wind this process down.”
Here is the audio.
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For a good time, call your state rep
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A tip of the hat to Peach Pundit for alerting us to the howler of the week. By early afternoon the site had been fixed, but until then the 800 number listed on the General Assembly website for the House Information Office actually got you to a phone sex chat line.
According to House communications director Clelia Davis, her office dropped the 800 number more than two years ago, and the number was later reassigned. But until today, nobody noticed the number was still on the website.
Davis said sabotage isn’t suspected - it’s apparently just a coincidence that a phone sex outfit picked up the number. But you can’t tell us the fates don’t have a randy sense of humor.
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It’s not the South Carolina border he’s worried about
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Issues come and issues go. But a recent fundraising letter sent out by Sen. Jim Whitehead for his 10th District congressional campaign makes it clear immigration is just as much a hot-button at the grassroots as it was before the Republicans lost their congressional majority.
“No one can replace a legend like Charlie Norwood. But I can be who I am, Jim Whitehead, and as such I will fight with everything I have to stop Ted Kennedy and bring this immigration crisis under control!” writes Whitehead, who is considered the frontrunner in the special election race to fill the seat left open by Norwood’s death in February.
This week, Whitehead introduced a measure to name the school of dentistry at the Medical College of Georgia after Norwood, who practiced that profession before he went to Congress.
In his letter to potential contributors, Whitehead also puts an interesting spin on the state’s long-bemoaned lack of participation at the polls.
“When the liberals bemoan the low turnout we often see, what they are really saying is that everyone should be able to vote, whether or not they live in the district, whether they are a citizen or illegal immigrant.
“”I was proud to support our Voter ID law which required anyone voting to prove they were a citizen and eligible to vote in that district. An illegal immigrant should no more be voting in our elections in Georgia than you or I should be voting in Mexico. That’s just wrong!” Whitehead writes.
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A little monkey business in the Legislature
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Give us two weeks off, they said, and we’ll get our act together. They didn’t tell us it was a Marx Brothers revue.
On Tuesday, the Legislature celebrated a 14-day, cobweb-clearing recess by sinking into a duck soup of paranoia, inexperience and gamesmanship that threatens the little work that 236 semi-grown adults have accomplished to date.
One news cycle later, on Wednesday, both the House and Senate were still whispering threats of a special session in May.
The only reason you should care is that the debacle could ultimately threaten short-term funding for tornado-ravaged Americus and many school systems — not to mention millions of dollars for PeachCare, the insurance program that offers health insurance to hundreds of thousands of kids.
Read the news story here.
Maybe you thought it was a bit contrary for a Legislature to consider Confederate history month and an apology for slavery in the same breath.
That was child’s play.
On Tuesday, the House passed a bill to speed murderers to their executions, by requiring the approval of only 10 of 12 jurors. Then the same body put a hold on a $700 million budget bill — which included cash for a near-bankrupt public defender system.
Cash that, given the legal niceties that courts demand, might actually hasten Brian Nichols’ date with a needle.
But the weirdness had begun hours earlier, when House GOP leaders abruptly ended a generations-old tradition by barring reporters from the chamber floor.
We’re told there was concern that some journalists were eavesdropping. But the expulsion also came shortly after the “Cracker Crumble,” an evening of satirical skits and song hosted by the Georgia Press Association.
The March 8 dinner included ribald references to House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s alleged relationship with a gas company lobbyist.
Keeping the news media at a distance is no crime. But the over-the-top reaction of House Republicans — something about it brought to mind the Spartans at Thermopylae — set the tone for the day.
The $700 million budget bill passed by the House, months later than normal, is aimed at filling spending gaps between now and July. Hours after it was sent to the Senate, first-term Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle called on Gov. Sonny Perdue, then on Richardson, the House speaker.
Cagle told both fellow Republicans that he intended to implement a campaign promise. The Senate would strip the budget bill of pork, give schools and PeachCare the money they need, and put the rest toward the debt or a reserve fund.
It was a rookie mistake, a boxer telegraphing his right-hook days in advance.
The act of self-righteous diplomacy was interpreted by Spartans in the House as a threat. Cagle intended to knock down their carefully constructed budget like a stack of blocks.
A little-known rule permits the House to reconsider all of its actions. Leaders sent the House clerk to yank back the two copies of the $700 million budget document sent to the Senate.
House members now say they intend to hold it — and a larger $20 billion budget bill — close to their bosom until the last few days of the session. That way, the Senate has less time to monkey with it.
In the meantime, said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen, his chamber will move no Senate bills, including Cagle’s signature legislation to allow entire school systems to shift to charter school status.
One presumes Cagle will respond likewise. A Legislature that has done little will now do less.
We ran into some top House budget writers in the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
In the Legislature, budget negotiations between the House and Senate are commonly viewed as multi-billion dollar poker games. So why, we asked the budget writers, wasn’t Cagle’s statement of intentions treated as just another opening gambit? Why go nuclear?
Because they could, was the answer: “Why did he tell us?”
And here you thought the game was about you.
A moderate Republican gives it a pass: Eldridge out of the race for 10th District
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s the sound on former Athens mayor Doc Eldridge declaring himself out of the 10th District congressional race to fill the seat vacated by the late Charlie Norwood.
“I’m going to sit this one out,” Eldridge told Tim Bryant with WGAU in Athens. Eldridge, who had contemplated running as a moderate Republican, said that family issues had delayed his decision-making — giving Republican state Sen. Jim Whitehead (R-Evans) a three-week head start.
“I didn’t see any way to catch him,” Eldridge said.
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Hmmm. A giant plasma TV and a liquor cabinet….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Matt Towery’s subscription web site, InsiderAdvantage, has an editorial this morning lamenting what has become a dysfunctional session of the Legislature.
In machine-gun fashion, the editorial mows down the governor, the Republican leadership of the Legislature, and the press — which he says spends far too much time chasing the personal misdeeds of lawmakers. That doesn’t happen in Florida, the piece said. But then it offers the following:
That said, we are not sure the term-limited legislators give the Florida media that much to chase after. By the time they know enough to be full of themselves or to become dangerous, they are out of office. The thought that some big shot legislator would demand that lobbyists buy a giant plasma television for his “hang out,” keep it stocked with unreported spirits and other goodies, and insist on endless meals at his favorite restaurant, again unreported, would never cross anyone’s mind in Florida. It just doesn’t happen.
Gone at 11:54 p.m.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House ended its longest day just before midnight. Last bill of substance was a bill to allow teachers in start-up charter schools to join the state teacher retirement system.
The sponsor, a newbie, was duly roasted.
Good night.
Payday lending fails with an 84-84 tie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s approaching midnight, and after an exhaustive debate in the state House, the bill to revive payday lending in Georgia failed on Tuesday in an exciting 84-84 tie that broke party lines.
Earl Ehrhart, chairman of the House Rules Committee, immediately announced he’d seek to revive the measure next week when the Legislature next gathers.
The debate ate up precious time on the longest day of a start-and-stop session, and saw both Republicans and Democrats doing the unexpected. Among the last to speak in favor of the bill was long-time community activist “Able” Mable Thomas.
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Counting sonogram votes: Three Republicans say ‘no,’ but 14 Democrats say ‘yes’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Christian conservatives were cheered on Monday by House passage of a bill to require women seeking an abortion to be offered a sonogram of the fetus.
H.B.147 had some of its rough edges smoothed out in the final version, but the 116-54 margin was still impressive. Even more impressive was the list of 14 House Democrats who voted for the bill.
Sadie Fields, leader of the Georgia Christian Alliance, provided her supporters with the names. The list included House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin and four members of the Legislative Black Caucus: Carl Von Epps, Mike Glanton, Randall Mangham and Keith Heard.
Three Republicans voted against the bill: Jill Chambers and Ed Lindsey of Atlanta; and Bobby Franklin. We weren’t able to catch up with Chambers or Lindsey while the House was in session.
Franklin, a vociferous opponent of abortion, said he voted against the measure because it was too soft. “We’re just saying, ‘If you do this, this and this, then murdering the baby is okay,’” Franklin said.
Jim Gilmore and Georgia’s move to the Feb. 5 presidential primary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the same day the House was to take up a bill to move the Georgia presidential primary to Feb. 5, one of the movement’s possible victims trolled the state Capitol for supporters.
Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore describes himself as “a mainstream, Reagan conservative in this race, someone who can attract people from the right to the center.”
Gilmore had paid an early morning visit to Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, met with a gathering of House and Senate leaders, and had his eye on a meeting with Gov. Sonny Perdue when we caught up with him.
Coincidentally, Gilmore came only days after state GOP lawmakers held an informal meeting to gripe about their dissatisfaction with the top current candidates for the White House — John McCain and Rudy Giuliani in particular.
Gilmore’s got substantial military experience. He was chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism. “I was the governor of Virginia during the 9/11 attack. Virginia was attacked, you know,” Gilmore said.
You can go to his web site for more biographical details. It’s gilmoreforpresident.com.
The immediate question is whether Gilmore — or second- and third-tier candidates like him — will be hurt by the country’s stampede toward a national primary.
“It’s fair to say that it will make American democracy very unpredictable. This is unprecedented,” Gilmore said. He was careful with his comments. It is a candidate’s job to soldier on, regardless of obstacles thrown up. Anything else looks like whining.
“One scenario is that the advantage goes to the richest person, or the person the press supports — which means the American people will not really have an opportunity to decide this based on philosophy or issues,” Gilmore said.
His other thought? Nobody has enough money to run a campaign in every state in the Union at the same time. The system might fracture, he said, and who knows what might result from that.
House Majority Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) is a big proponent of moving Georgia’s primary. Efforts to reach him Tuesday afternoon, while the House was in session, were unsuccessful.
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All is explained: Larry O’Neal presides as reporters barred from floor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is what it’s all about. House Speaker Glenn Richardson is at the well, explaining the ban on reporters on the House floor.
But the presiding officer is Larry O’Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who was tied to the midnight-hour change to legislation that gave Gov. Sonny Perdue his tax deferral on his Oakie Woods land purchase.
O’Neal didn’t like his press clips.
The rule change has now passed, 132 to 29.
It must be Sunshine Week! House GOP leaders decide they want to bar reporters from chamber floor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They haven’t cast the floor vote to put it into effect yet, but members of the state House are about to adopt new rules barring all reporters from their chamber while the place is in session.
The new restrictions would put reporters in much the same class as lobbyists, who depend on adolescent pages to carry requests for interviews to legislators. Naturally, the House will take up the new rules during a week celebrating the virtues of open government.
House Majority Leader Jerry Keen said an end to access for journalists was necessary for good decorum in the chamber. Rumors that plaid sports jackets formed the basis for this opinion were unfounded.
Outside of the chamber, a Republican bird told us that certain high-ranking House leaders were concerned that reporters who wandered onto the floor were eaves-dropping on high-level strategy sessions. Or reading lips.
We only have two points. The first is this: Directional mikes.
Secondly, we predict that House members will see a great deal of the following phrase in the next few weeks: “Efforts to contact state Rep. Joe Somebody (R-Wherever) were unsuccessful. But state Sen. Somebody Else (R-State Your City Here) said…..”
Coming next: How ol’ Gene Talmadge whupped up on FDR and became the first president from Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To win the war is to write the history. Or rewrite it.
Once Republican Sonny Perdue had ousted Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes from the governor’s mansion in 2003, he immediately cut hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools in his effort to balance the budget.
Democrats railed against those cuts right up until last year’s elections.
Perdue, meanwhile, bragged during his 2006 re-election campaign about his fiscal management, his ability to navigate the state through the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression.
But never mind. All that history is now history.
Our colleague James Salzer tells us that a House appropriations subcommittee this morning recommended the restoration of $7 million worth of cuts to elementary schools made in 2003.
In a document handed out to subcommittee members, the budget item is described thusly: “Restore Barnes’ reductions to Classroom Operations.”
“This is revisionist history,” said Rep. Kathy Ashe (D-Atlanta).
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Someone needs to explain this one to us
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sometime today, the state Senate will debate S.B. 123. We don’t know the background, but it would require local school boards to put twins (and triplets and quadruplets, etc.) in the same classroom if the parent asks.
The bill’s lead sponsor is Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), but other signers include David Shafer (R-Duluth) and Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville). All three have reputations for dwelling, to put it mildly, to the right of center.
So we have to ask, what’s so conservative about the state of Georgia dipping this deeply into a local school board’s business? And will the Legislature provide a guiding hand when it comes to deciding between chalkboards and dryboards as well?
Alabama has passed similar legislation, by the way. It mandates that school authorities place fathers and sons in the same class, if the wife/mother demands it.
In any case, the Georgia bill has one of the more interesting legal definitions you’ll ever see: “For purposes of this Code section, the term ‘higher order multiples’ means triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, or more.”
That’s enough to give an inferiority complex to anybody who came out of the womb by his lonesome.
ADDENDUM: Just ran into Rogers on the Senate floor, who gave this defense of his bill:
First, he said, in his book, parents are at the top of any public school hierarchy, followed by teachers and school boards. In that order.
But specifically, the senator said the legislation grew out of some trouble that one of his constituents was having with a specific school in Cobb County. He didn’t say which one.
Rogers said that putting twins in the same classroom — “a teacher can put them on opposite sides, it doesn’t matter to me” — makes a parent’s life much easier. “Same textbooks, the same homework, the same gifts for the teacher,” the senator said.
The black Democrat who defended the sponsor of the Confederate bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle wasn’t the only one who reached across racial and party lines on Monday.
Hours before Cagle announced that he would back a statement of regret for Georgia’s role in slavery, Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown of Macon took the well to defend the author of S.B. 283, the bill to have April declared Confederate history month.
Brown, who is African-American, gave an eight-minute defense of state Sen. Jeff Mullis, a Republican who hails from Chickamauga — the site of the battlefield.
Mullis’ bill had become the subject of strong comments, essentially for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Republican leaders had rejected calls for an apology for slavery, saying they were too focused on the future.
Then came Mullis’ bill. A version of it has been an annual ritual in the Legislature for years. This time, it didn’t look so harmless.
“I don’t want to get into the content of the bill, talking about the issue itself. The thing that I’m concerned about is the tenor and the tone of the debate that seems to be evolving,” Brown said.
Brown spoke up for Mullis’ character and detailed his involvement in finding state money to fund a museum in Macon dedicated to Harriet Tubman of Underground Railroad fame.
“I think we have an obligation to be candid in our debate. I think we have to be above-board,” Brown said. “But I think we do ourselves, both individually and collectively, a disservice when we unnecessarily impugn the character of an individual because we disagree with what they may be proposing.”
Mullis, close to tears, responded by wrapping Brown up in a bearhug on the Senate floor.
We caught up with Brown later Monday. And asked if he was trying to tamp down the hot talk so that the statement of regret could be worked out. He scoffed.
Brown said he didn’t want anything to do with a statement of apology for slavery. It wasn’t worth a moment of his time. But he said he’d heard Mullis called a racist. That was wrong, he said.
Senate schedules a debate on guns-in-parking-lots bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rack up a victory for the National Rifle Association. We’re told that S.B. 43, which would permit employees to keep guns in their cars parked on company lots, will be allowed to come to the floor for a vote by the full Senate.
We’re told the NRA cut loose with a heavy round of robo calls over the weekend, plugging this and other legislation.
This destroys our pet, but completely unverified theory that Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle had made a tacit agreement with the Georgia Chamber of Commerce — that he would slap a hold on the gun bill, which the business group opposes. And the price would be a similar hold on the bill permitting Sunday sales of beer and wine, which the Chamber supports.
And for dessert, we’ll all dig into some yellow cake
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The local ACLU has virtually guaranteed itself a sell-out at its annual Bill of Rights dinner on May 12.
The civil liberties group has landed Joseph Wilson as a keynote speaker. You know — the ambassador who was sent to Niger to check out a claim that Iraq was in the hunt for uranium. The guy married to that CIA spy. Valerie Flame. Plame. That one.
We’ve no word on whether his spouse will be with him in Atlanta. Tickets are $150. The Saturday gig is at the Westin Peachtree Plaza. Men are required to wear white starched shirts, narrow black ties, and black suits. And dark glasses.
Women are expected to don their femme fatale best.
Cagle: Time is right for statement of regret on slavery
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a quick sit-down interview just a few minutes ago, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he was on board with the bipartisan, biracial movement to issue a statement of regret for the government of Georgia’s role in slavery and segregation.
“We sat down and talked last week about a strategy,” Cagle said. “The NAACP is very adamant about a resolution regarding slavery. The reality is we pass a lot of resolutions that pass on sympathy and regret, and I think it makes sense. If this is something that’s important to them and their constituency group, then I think it’s the right thing for us to do.”
Said the lieutenant governor: “It’s one of those issues there’s very strong emotions for. They’ve made their case that we’ve never done that in Georgia, and I think the timing is probably right that we express our regret for something that happened over 100 years ago.”
Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson announced his involvement last week. We caught up with state Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway) at a noon luncheon. Like Cagle, he said the wording of the resolution was the key issue.
Obviously, there’s more to come, here and elsewhere on ajc.com.
Chasing the base: Gilmore comes to woo disenchanted lawmakers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Only days after a meeting of Republican state lawmakers bemoaning the lack of true conservatives in the ‘08 race for the White House, former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore will come to Atlanta on Tuesday to make the case for his long-shot candidacy.
He’ll be squired around the Capitol by state Sen. Chip Pearson (R-Dawsonville).
Gilmore was elected governor in 1997 with promises to cut the property tax that local governments in Virginia levied on personal cars and pickup trucks.
The ‘Hillary 1984’ ad everyone’s talking about today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 74-second Internet spot, entitled “1984” is posted here on youtube.com. It deftly mixes an old Apple computer ad with Hillary Clinton’s “let’s have a conversation” statement that opened her campaign.
The beneficiary of the pitch is Barack Obama. His campaign is denying any culpability.
“It’s about the end of the broadcast era,” said Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank on politics and new media. The background is in this piece by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The return of the Jedi: With luck they’ll be gone by Memorial Day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You have only 10 days left to live, your doctors have declared. Somehow, what you do with the few sunrises left seem more important than the multitude that passed before.
This is the situation facing the state Legislature, which returns today[cq Monday] after a two-week recess, to finish out the rest of its 40-day session.
We are at Day 28. The rules say that if legislation has not passed one of the two chambers of the General Assembly by Day 30, it’s dead for the session. Resurrections do occur, but as in the Bible, they’re few and far between.
In other words, the next three working days will determine what state lawmakers will argue about for the next 10. The short answer? Red-light cameras, executions and the Civil War.
Money is always the bottom line. Constitutionally, the Legislature is required to approve a $20 billion budget for 2008, and a second, smaller budget bill to make changes for the current year.
Central to the spending bills is the financing of PeachCare, the federal-state program to provide health insurance for 280,000 or so children of the working poor. A $131 million hole in federal funding was the reason Gov. Sonny Perdue gave for requesting the two-week recess. The gap is still there, and the state will have to fill it.
The House and the governor want to limit access to the program, to diminish its reach into the lower middle-class. The Senate would like to preserve the range of children under the PeachCare umbrella, by increasing the premiums paid by parents with higher incomes.
Pay attention to this. It’s Casey Cagle’s first big test as lieutenant governor.
Beyond that, the boys and girls in House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s playpen have a short list of items they want to fight over.
The proliferation of red-light cameras is one matter. Whether to readmit payday lenders into the state is another. Then there’s the opportunity to let Georgia voters join a multitude of other states next year in a near-national, Feb. 5 presidential primary.
House leaders would also like to deprive lone jurors of their power to spoil perfectly good executions.
But time is short, and late last week, House Republicans also signaled their willingness to walk away from complicated issues that might bog down the process. Any talk of new taxes for transportation has been jettisoned.
House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) said an effort to change the permitting process for hospitals could fester until next year. (Crass observation: The delay would allow health care operations and doctors time to review the amount of money they give to political campaigns.)
On the Senate side, the lieutenant governor has already moved his signature legislation, which would encourage entire city and county school systems to shift to a charter format free of state mandates.
For Cagle, it’s now a matter of avoiding internal GOP feuds, by keeping its most controversial legislation bottled up.
Though he hasn’t said so publicly, Cagle, the lieutenant governor, doesn’t want a vote on the bill to permit grocery stores to sell beer and wine on Sunday.
Nor does he want debate over a bill that would permit employees to keep guns in their cars parked on company property. Both measures pit the state’s business community against the GOP’s ideological base.
A third snake was defanged last week, when Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour (R-Snellvile) announced he’d killed his own bill to mandate that sixth-grade girls be given a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.
The trees are leafing, and the Legislature’s re-assembling, which must mean it’s time to talk about Robert E. Lee
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
But if the Legislature is down to its last few scripted hours, if crisis after crisis is bearing down on Georgia, then it also must be time to talk about the Confederacy and segregation.
Perhaps it was a deficiency of Wilson Pickett in their diets when they were young. Or a simple lack of practice. Either way, our ruling Republicans have displayed a tin ear when it comes to politics and race in Georgia.
Two springs ago, they devoted an entire day in the Legislature to sweeping ancient - and unenforced - Jim Crow laws from the Georgia Code. It was a wasted gesture.
The day before, they had unleashed a bill to require photo IDs at the voting booth, a measure that a federal judge would ultimately condemn as a poll tax that would have the effect of dampening turnout among black and elderly voters.
Weeks ago, Republican leaders dismissed an effort to squeeze an apology for slavery out of the state and its current GOP management. Republicans rallied around a single talking point: We’re about the future, they said, not the past.
The comments rang hollow, betrayed by a resolution to declare April a month to honor the Confederate attempt at “Southern independence.” The bill shot through a Senate committee, toward a vote by the entire Senate that will come in the next several days.
It was another opportunity lost, a failure by this party of Lincoln to recognize the other people in the room. In fact, the legislation was a splendid example of how the South continues to segregate its history as efficiently as it once segregated its people.
A deliberate slap? Probably not, but white Republican sponsors recognized the volatile ground they walked on. S.B. 283 is intended to encourage instruction about the Confederacy in schools, but allows that principals need not tolerate “behavior that disrupts or involves substantial disorder or the invasion of the rights of others.”
Which brings us to Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. He’s formed an alliance with state Rep. Al Williams, an African-American Democrat from coastal Georgia.
Johnson will spend the rest of this year’s session on a resolution that - if not apologizing for slavery and segregation - might express regret.
“I’ve been arguing privately for a while that Georgia ought to be in the lead, and not forced into anything, on the slavery issue,” Johnson said Friday.
The senator broadly hinted that whatever he proposes will focus on how the state should publicly approach the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. Success in the hectic, last days of the session is possible, but distant.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson has said he’s not interested. Democrats, he said, had 130 years to make their apologies, and did not. Which is true, but only half the point.
Democrats lost their hold on power because, after decades of papering over the past, they failed in their efforts to - through a new state flag - rally behind a single history that satisfied both black and white Democrats.
In the next few days, and perhaps next year as well, Johnson will warn Republicans not to build on the same sand.
Jim Marshall and the ‘08 race: No rest for the weary. Perhaps.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re told that state Sen. Ross Tolleson of Perry recently flew up to Washington to speak with members of the NRCC about challenging U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, the Democrat from Macon, in ‘08.
We called U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, who has a hand in the Republican candidate selection process. A spokesman confirmed that Tolleson met with Westmoreland, and that an ‘08 race was the topic.
Several games of chicken may be at work here.
Marshall, who inhabits a 60 percent Republican district and won by a whisker in ‘06, is being lobbied by the Senate Democratic operation to challenge U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican.
The House Democratic operation would prefer for Marshall to stay — it’s likely that Democrats would lose the seat if Marshall leaves it to take on Chambliss.
It’s in Marshall’s interest to keep both Democratic entities guessing as long as possible. You get more money out of them that way. (Yes, we’re crass to suggest such a thing, but whattya gonna do?)
Tolleson took Sonny Perdue’s seat in the state Senate. He’s earned a good reputation in Atlanta, but does lack the military gravitas that has made Marshall so survivable in the 8th District. Nationally, Republicans are in disarray. And with his party in power in Congress, Marshall will not lack for funds.
So would Tolleson be in this thing to challenge Marshall — a move likely to draw a multi-million dollar response from national Democrats? Or would his aim be to encourage Marshall to jump into the Senate race, and have the pole position in the race for an open seat?
You tell us. We don’t know.
Balfour yanks the needle on mandatory cervical cancer vaccines
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In today’s editions, the Macon Telegraph reports that Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour has declared his bill for mandatory HPV vaccines for sixth-grade bills to be dead for the session.
Balfour cited overwhelming opposition from member of his own republican party. He told the Telegraph there’s a possibility it could come back up next year.
“Maybe,” Balfour said.
Red-light camera bill gets the green light, and so does a Feb. 5 presidential primary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simons Island just finished a morning press conference, laying out the priorities for a two-day crush of legislation that hits next week.
First news item: California’s decision to move its presidential primary to Feb. 5 guarantees the movement of similar legislation in Georgia, he said. We’re headed to a national primary, people, and don’t nobody know where it’s going to lead.
Second news item: Among the small list of priorities Keen rattled off, at the top was a bill intended to remove the financial incentives that lawmakers say are causing cities and counties to erect red-light cameras across the state — as revenue-raising ventures rather than traffic safety tools.
The bill doesn’t have his name on it, but H.B. 77 is Speaker Glenn Richardson’s baby. Here’s the audio link to the speech he gave before a House committee on the topic.
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Just a presidential election. Nothing to get excited about.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not even April, and already it’s a cruel season for conservative Republicans in Georgia — evangelicals in particular.
The three men at the top of the GOP’s presidential polls, to many Christian conservatives, are far from ideal. John McCain is a long-time foe, twice married. Rudy Giuliani, thrice-married, is wrong on gays, guns and abortion.
Mitt Romney, despite the lack of multiple wedding vows, has a liberal past. And he’s Mormon — a bigger issue in the South than many will admit, especially among Southern Baptists.
Litmus-test candidates, like Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, and U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, haven’t scratched.
“You know when they’re praying for Newt Gingrich, there’s a real problem,” said Rusty Paul, a Sandy Springs councilman and former state Republican chairman. He’s just cast his lot with Giuliani.
It’s not just the candidates troubling the Republican core. It’s the calendar as well. A front-loaded primary calendar in 2008 could give states with caches of more moderate Republicans, like California and Nevada, a larger say in the nomination process.
“We’re in the political equivalent of a world without the law of gravity,” says Republican strategist Ralph Reed in Time magazine this week. “Nothing we have known in the past seems relevant.”
On Wednesday, over lunch, several dozen state GOP lawmakers gathered in the Capitol to bemoan the imperfections of the current leaders, and to discuss whether a mass endorsement of a second-tier candidate might provide a needed spark.
The only point of agreement? McCain was unsuitable and Giuliani was nearly so.
Sadie Fields, leader of the Georgia Christian Alliance, doesn’t like any of the top three, and says she’s still waiting for her candidate to jump into the picture.
There are people who say they’ve seen this day coming. Located down the hall from Reed in a Duluth office building, Mark DeMoss runs a public relations firm that caters to Christian-oriented firms.
DeMoss has become a national, unpaid emissary for Romney, making his case before Southern Baptists and other evangelicals.
He organized an introductory meeting last October that included Jerry Falwell and Franklin Graham. Last month, he put Romney in front of 100 attendees at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Orlando.
“The strategy among many of us has been, ‘Let’s go find the most Christian person we can find and make him president,’” DeMoss said. “This year — for the first time, perhaps — we’re seeing one of the real problems with that.”
DeMoss argues that Romney’s resume proves that his religion is irrelevant — and that nowhere is there evidence during Romney’s term as governor of Massachusetts that his personal faith has raised any eyebrows.
“As an evangelical, I have more in common with most Mormons than I do with a liberal Southern Baptist,” DeMoss said. “What’s he going to do? What tangible action can come from what you feel is a bizarre theological belief? We don’t apply that standard anywhere else.”
Romney has had good luck in Georgia, sweeping up many Bush adherents among the GOP’s leadership. But DeMoss acknowledges that you might not see Romney behind many pulpits in Southern churches. “It’s possible that may not happen,” he said.
To say that enthusiasm has been lacking in Georgia would be an understatement.
State GOP chairman Alec Poitevint is backing McCain, but no organization has been announced.
The Giuliani campaign is only now cranking up in Georgia. Plans for a mid-April unveiling of support are underway, with Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus as one of the hosts.
Clint Austin of Marietta, a lobbyist, political operative and evangelical, has decided that Giuliani is his man. “We must make a mature and grown up decision,” Austin said. In a back-handed way, he’s impressed that Giuliani hasn’t backed off his positions on abortion or gay marriage. “I don’t think he’s pandering to me,” Austin said.
He compared the former New York mayor to Paul Coverdell, who came from the moderate camp of the Georgia Republican party, and was embraced by hard-core conservatives.
“Like Paul Coverdell, like Johnny Isakson, [Giuliani] is a guy who’s going to bring conservatives into his governing coalition,” Austin said.
But Republican fence-sitters abound in Georgia. Jerry Keen, the House majority leader and one-time head of the Georgia Christian Coalition, is among them.
Keen has met McCain and Romney. His pastor in Glynn County likes the man who brought New York City through 9/11, but Keen is waiting for an audience with Giuliani next month. Even then, he may take his before backing a candidate.
Bottom line, though, Keen said the Republican base doesn’t want to see Democrats hold the White House and Congress. “We can’t let that happen,” Keen said. “Conservatives want to win, too. The movement has matured. We want to retain one leg of the three-legged stool.”
Up from No. 49 to No. 36: Georgia’s heft increases with Dems in charge of Congress
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re late on this one - so hat-tip to chisishardcore and peachpundit.com.
Contrary to what you might think, Georgia has actually picked up clout in Congress with Democrats in charge, according to the annual calculations of congress.org.
Last year, the organization ranked our glorious red state at No. 49, just ahead of Arkansas and the principalities of the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam - which were also included in the survey.
But behind Puerto Rico.
With Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in charge, Georgia’s ranking now stands at No. 36.
Formulations are based on party, committee assignments, seniority, and other such stuff. U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, one of two Democratic members of Congress to win by a whisker in ’06, appears to be the biggest winner.
Last year, he was ranked No. 407 in the 435-member House of Representatives. He jumped to No. 45, ahead of John Lewis (D-Atlanta).
Credit probably goes to the fact that Marshall picked up a third major committee assignment in ‘06. He already sat on the House armed services and agriculture committees, weighty in themselves. Now he’s also on the exclusive House Financial Services Committee, which oversees banking, insurance and securities legislation.
U.S. Rep. John Barrow (D-Savannah), who was declared the caboose of the Georgia delegation last year behind Cynthia McKinney, rose to No. 91.
Naturally, the influence of Republicans tumbled with the change in party control. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) is now judged the most cloutless in the Georgia delegation, ranked at No. 414.
Jack Kingston (R-Savannah), whose seat on the House Appropriations Committee made him the most powerful member of the Georgia House delegation last year, tumbled to the middle of the pack.
In the 100-member, seniority-driven Senate, Republicans Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson also dropped in influence, according to congress.org, though the changes weren’t drastic. They were Nos. 64 and 84, respectively. Now they’re Nos. 59 and 91.
They also wore thick, woolly coats: A sign of a cold, barren season for the Republican core
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A band of several dozen Republican lawmakers held a quiet, noon meeting in one of those half-hidden rooms of the state Capitol on Wednesday, to discuss uniting behind a single candidate in the ’08 presidential race.
So far as we can tell, participants included state Sens. Chip Rogers of Woodstock, John Wiles of Kennesaw, David Shafer of Duluth, Judson Hill of Marietta, state Reps. Tom Graves of Ranger and Steve Davis of McDonough. Even Eric Johnson of Savannah, the Senate’s president pro tem, dropped by.
These are mostly hard-core conservatives. We’re told the group adjourned without making a decision, but dissatisfaction was a general theme. First on the agenda appears to be ABJM, as in Anybody But John McCain. Second is ABRG. As in Rudy Giuliani.
That would seem to leave Mitt Romney as a possibility, or one of the underfunded, second-tier candidates: Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Duncan Hunter of California, or Jim Gilmore of Virginia. And there’s Newt Gingrich as well.
But please, leave Simon off the debate panel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Imagine, if you would, a Giuliani-Nunn ’08 presidential ticket. Or a pairing of Michael Bloomberg, the Republican New York mayor, with Kathleen Sibelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas. Or Bill Bradley, the former senator and basketball player, on a ticket with Carly Fiorini, the former Hewlett-Packard boss.
Those are among the intriguing possibilities floated by Gerald Rafshoon and Doug Bailey, the odd couple of ’08 presidential politics, when they make their pitch for Unity ’08.
In 1976, Rafshoon and Bailey were the opposing ad men for that year’s Democratic and Republican presidential opponents.
“As Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter became good friends, we have become good friends, independently of our bosses,” Rafshoon told a group which gathered in the offices of the architectural firm Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates Tuesday night to see their presentation.
Although they welcome checks in support of their cause, the Rafshoon-Bailey roadshow appears chiefly designed to win influential citizens like those who came to see them here that this isn’t just a wild idea concocted by the Democratic ad exec who went on to become a movie producer and the Republican strategist who went on to found The Hotline.
Unity ’08 is a brash yet centrist scheme to upset the political applecart next year by choosing a bipartisan ticket next summer through a nationwide online convention that would last several weeks as the contenders are winnowed down. The group’s founders, who also include Carter strategist Ham Jordan, don’t particular care what combination of Democrat, Republican or independent their process produces, so long as it gives voters an alternative to what they view as the deepest partisan rut the nation as ever been in.
We got the impression they don’t exactly welcome the inevitable comparison of their proposal for an internet selection process with “American Idol,” but the resemblance is precisely why you can’t discount Unity ’08 as a fanciful notion.
The rush of states to the earliest possible primary date is likely to mean both parties will have selected their presidential candidates by next February, Bailey pointed out, leaving plenty of time for buyer’s remorse to set in.
Bailey believes Unity ’08 can recruit 10 million Americans to participate in their convention, which will be open to any registered voters, whether they’ve already voted in one of the party primaries or not. If they could come anywhere close to that in the dead spot before the Democrats and Republican hold their conventions, they’d get a ton of media attention as the competition comes down to the finalists.
And the more unlikely the combination, probably, the better for capturing the nation’s fancy. Let’s see… Stabler-Perdue?
The Sunday sales issue and the Republican conundrum
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After weeks of hemming and hawing, the bill to permit the Sunday sales of beer and wine in grocery stores passed through a Senate committee on Tuesday.
But despite what Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour has said, a floor vote in the chamber isn’t a sure thing yet.
We asked around after the vote. Expect S.B. 137 to be the topic of intense discussion within the Senate Republican Caucus.
From what we hear, many in the Senate want substantial evidence that the House Republican leadership intends to bring the issue to a vote in that chamber before they’re willing hang their rear-ends out the window.
Republicans in the Legislature are trapped between two competing social forces. First, there’s the time pinch that has caught up most of suburban Georgia, that rich but often practical vein of GOP votes.
With both parents usually working, and Saturday devoted to softball, soccer or whatever with the kids, Sunday has become the day to fill the kitchen cupboard for many Georgians.
According to the Georgia Food Industry Association, 25 percent of grocery chain customers shop on Sunday. But more important, one in 10 customers shops only on Sunday. It’s the flip side of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s call for time management when it comes to purchases of alcohol.
The phenomenon is relatively recent, and explains the timing of the discussion. Call it an outgrowth of those loyalty cards some grocery chains use to track buying habits.
On the other hand, some religious conservatives — members of the Republican ideological base — have drawn a line in the sand on this one. They feel it’s a case of creeping secularism, yes. But it’s also a test of their continued clout within the state GOP.
Boiled down, here’s the conundrum that the Sunday sales issue presents to many GOP lawmakers in suburbia: Overall, their districts want the liberty to buy what they want on Sunday.
But anyone who knows anything about this most recent rise of fundamentalism in America — and Christian conservative clout in the Republican party — knows that it isn’t merely a rural phenomenon. It’s largely a suburban thing.
Those same suburban districts that demand Sunday sales are dotted with super-church congregations who march in lockstep to the polls, especially in Republican primaries.
It’s significant that Jim Beck, leader of the newly re-organized Georgia Christian Coalition, has chosen this issue to establish his clout. Beck picked up the pieces of the Coalition when Sadie Fields left last year to form the Georgia Christian Alliance.
Fields is present and accounted for in this fight, but it’s Beck who has repeatedly and publicly pointed out to Republican senators that a vote in favor of this bill would be dangerous to their health.
Beck compares the intense feelings of religious conservatives have on this issue to the fervor that Confederate enthusiasts felt when the ’56 flag was pulled down by Gov. Roy Barnes six years ago.
“You almost have to be a member of the group to understand how important this is to us,” he said.
Hands across the Gnat Line
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vernon Jones, CEO of DeKalb County and potential candiate for the U.S. Senate next year, announced late Tuesday that he and the fair citizens he represents had agreed to send two surplus DeKalb County police vehicles to tornado-ravaged Americus.
The healing has begun.
The PeachCare fix is in: Let’s party like it’s Groundhog Day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hardly anyone disputes the wisdom of the PeachCare solution jointly announced Tuesday by Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
The only question being asked around the state Capitol was this: Why couldn’t it have been done three weeks ago?
Democrats raised the point publicly. Republicans and lobbyists with bills still in play did so in private.
The delay isn’t playing well with the rank-and-file of either party. It has pushed adjournment to late April — assuming that budget conferees don’t work through Easter weekend. This is a particular hardship for lawmakers who run their own businesses — lawyers, accountants and such.
The problem is a $750 million gap in a federal program aimed at helping states provide health insurance for the children of the working poor. Georgia’s share stands at $131 million.
As early as January, Republicans knew that Congress was unlikely to move quickly, and that Georgia would have to loan itself the money to get past the deficit.
But Perdue told GOP leaders he wanted the recess to get a clearer picture of the funding package offered by Congress. We’ll let you decide if he got it.
Last week, Democrats in the U.S. House announced that the financial patch would be contained in an emergency spending bill that included cash for the war in Iraq. The same bill is saddled with many, many restrictions on President Bush regarding how and when he can send troops.
Even many Democrats say the measure won’t make it through the Senate. Bush is sworn to veto it.
Still, Perdue pointed to the legislation as his reason for optimism. “Congress’ recent action gives me confidence that using these funds as a stop-gap is appropriate to meet the needs of our children,” Perdue said.
The funding mechanism is so insecure that a few hours after the governor explained himself, U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson — fearful that the patch for PeachCare will become a casualty of the Iraq war — struck out on his own.
The Democrat from DeKalb County on Tuesday announced that he would offer a stand-alone bill to fund PeachCare and similar insurance programs in other states.
It’s identical to a bill offered in the U.S. Senate by Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, and would scrape excess funding from states whose insurance programs are running a surplus, and hand them to needier states, including Georgia.
Imagine that. An impromptu alliance between two Republican senators and the congressional district once represented by Cynthia McKinney.
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The conservative Christian agenda, and whether global warming should be on it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For those who keep track of the intersections between religion and politics, which in the South is as necessary as monitoring the politics of race, the brewing fight among evangelicals for control of the conservative Christian agenda has gotten downright fascinating.
Early this month, the top leaders of the Religious Right drew down on the National Association of Evangelicals, condemning the organization for its stand on global warming.
The protest was signed by those most active in rallying congregants for national Republican causes: James Dobson of Focus on the Family; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Gary Bauer of Coalitions for America; and 22 others.
The only local signature came from Tim Echols of Alpharetta, founder of TeenPact, who’s been active in several recent Georgia campaigns.
Read the entire letter here. But in summary, it makes three points:
- The broadside condemns the NAE’s top Washington lobbyist, Richard Cizik, for waging what it calls a relentless, individual campaign to highlight the dangers of global warming.
“The existence of global warming and its implications for mankind is a subject of heated controversy throughout the world. It does appear that the earth is warming, but the disagreement focuses on why it might be happening and what should be done about it,” the letter said.
“We believe it is unwise for an NAE officer to assert conclusively that those questions have been answered, or that the membership as a whole has taken a position on a matter. Furthermore, we believe the NAE lacks the expertise to settle the controversy, and that the issue should be addressed scientifically and not theologically.”
A focus on global warming distracts from issues like abortion and gay marriage. “We have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.”
Cizik’s “disturbing views” have contributed to confusion over what it means to be an evangelical. The letter quotes an article from USA Today, which stated that “the word may be losing its moorings, sliding toward the same linguistic demise that ‘fundamentalist’ met decades ago because it has been misunderstood, misappropriated and maligned.”
It’s no wonder that leaders of the Religious Right are nervous. The keys to success for Christian conservatives in GOP politics over the last 25 years have been twofold: a simple and uncomplicated message, and intensity of belief.
By picking up an important element of the Democratic agenda, a topic subject to nuance and debate, the NAE has jeopardized both.
A kernel of unease over the Colonial pipeline bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In today’s editions of the Marietta Daily Journal, Bill Kinney has picked up some local uneasiness over Senate Bill 173, which would permit a new petroleum pipeline to be run through the lower and western part of Cobb County.
Kinney lists a number of elected officials, Republicans as well as Democrats, who say they knew nothing of the bill until it appeared in the Senate late last month. The measure quickly passed the Senate, and is now in the House.
State Rep. Don Wix (D-Mableton) said he’d only recently been contacted by a lobbyist for Colonial Pipeline Co., the business interest behind the bill. “Wix said he told the lobbyist that if there were shortages and needs for an additional pipeline capacity, Colonial should have been talking about that for months before the legislation was introduced,” Kinney writes.
Once upon a time, during the 1970s and 1980s, Cobb County ruled the General Assembly. Back then, a lack of diplomacy would have been unthinkable.
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NRA ups heat on guns-in-parking-lots bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Getting ready for next week’s resumption of the ’07 session of the Legislature, the National Rifle Association has sent out a — nearly, but not quite literally — a call to arms in support of Senate Bill 43, which would permit employees to keep guns in vehicles parked on company property.
High-ranking NRA officials were to make rounds in the state Capitol today.
The Georgia Chamber of Commerce has lined up against the measure as an infringement of property rights, and activated its membership last month.
“Big business is pressuring your state senator to hold hostage our right to keep and bear arms and our right to self-defense,” said the e-mail alert dispatched to NRA members in Georgia.
But right now, the pressure is on the side of gun enthusiasts. Once the Legislature is back, S.B. 43 has only a few days to pass the Senate — otherwise, its chance of passage dims considerably.
Finally, heeeere’s Sonny — and his introduction of the President
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last month, people kept telling us that Gov. Sonny Perdue had made it into Jay Leno’s monologue on “The Tonight Show.”
But trying to find the clip on the NBC web site was like searching for WMDs in Iraq, or talent in a cattle call for “American Idol.” It proved so elusive that it became more legend than fact.
But find it we did, from Feb. 27, sandwiched between a Hillary joke and the news about Strom Thurmond and Al Sharpton. The link is here.
For the readers among you, here’s what Leno said:
“I love this. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue introduced President Bush at the Republican Governors Association meeting yesterday. And this sounded like a back-handed compliment he gave President Bush. I’ll play it twice. Listen to this.”
Leno then rolls the C-Span video, in which Perdue says:
“You know, Vince Lombardi once said that success is not about strength, it’s not about knowledge. But it’s about will. That’s the leadership that President George W. Bush is providing. Thank you, Mr. President.”
Continues Leno: “So what is he saying there? That Bush isn’t strong, he isn’t smart, he’s stubborn? And Bush looks a little stunned, too.”
We confess that we saw the video in a more local context. The clip is a thorough explanation of the governor’s decision to have the Legislature abandon Atlanta for two weeks. Perdue wanted to give Congress time to accede to his demands on how PeachCare should be fixed.
It was a matter of will, not strength and not knowledge. Our governor was channeling Vince Lombardi.
Says Deal: No paperwork, no coverage — no problem
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The New York Times reports today that a federal law intended to keep illegal immigrants off Medicaid has “shut out tens of thousands of United States citizens” who can’t come up with birth certificates and other paperwork.
The NYT identified the principle authors of the 2006 legislation as two Republican congressmen from Georgia: Nathan Deal and the late Charlie Norwood.
A spokesman for Deal said he’d fight any attempt to ease the restriction. In fact, Deal will try to add it to the federal-state insurance program for the children of the working poor — known in Georgia as PeachCare.
Not that it’s likely to happen in a Congress now controlled by the other party.
Blogwatch: Gingrey says Walter Reed is no flophouse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the weekend, Democratic bloggers were buzzing about a statement U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) made about the Walter Reed scandal during a House committee hearing, in which he said Building 18 reminded him of the motel his parents had in Augusta.
Said Gingrey:
“It’s not a five-star hotel, make no mistake about it, but it’s not a flophouse. It’s not a dump. It’s not a dive. It needs some work, no question about it. I’m not making excuses, of course.
“And when I read the Washington Post report I was glad to know that those cockroaches were belly up. It suggested to me that at least someone was spraying for them, Mr. Chairman.”
Here’s the audio posted by thinkprogress.org.
A transcript is on the jump.
U.S. REP. PHIL GINGREY AT HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE HEARING, MARCH 8
I want to say for the record that, Mr. Chairman, that, um, I have been to Building 18. I have been to Walter Reed on a number of occasions, but specifically in regard to this issue went to take a look first-hand.
Having grown up in a motel, when I was going to medical school and living in one of the rooms, when I saw this old Walter Reed Motor Inn, it really reminded me a lot of, Mr. Chairman, of a, of the motel that my parents had in Augusta, Georgia.
It’s not a five-star hotel, make no mistake about it, but it’s not a flophouse. It’s not a dump. It’s not a dive. It needs some work, no question about it. I’m not making excuses, of course.
And when I read the Washington Post report I was glad to know that those cockroaches were belly up. It suggested to me that at least someone was spraying for them, Mr. Chairman.
And, of course, if you leave food around in a motel room or a dorm room at a college, you’re going to get some mice show up at some point in time. But there’s no question that there’s a problem. I’ve heard some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle suggest that specific heads should roll.
I don’t know that, ah — I was a little bit shocked, quite honestly, that the Secretary of the Army was relieved of his command and the commander at Walter Reed, General Weightmann was relieved of his command and a change has been made there.
I don’t know what comes next, but I would guess if you ask, since General Schoomaker has had to recuse himself, ask the Washington Post whose head should roll I think it probably would be the Commander-in-Chief, would be the only satisfaction, and that would be President Bush.
But here again, let’s try to take some of the politics aside and some of the rhetoric, and try to solve the problem.
Meet us at the fireworks stand across the river. No cops, or you’ll never see your dog again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The office of Gov. Sonny Perdue put out a mysterious alert this morning, offering to drive unwary press types to an undisclosed location near the South Carolina coast for a “major announcement.”
The last stretch requires an SUV. We presume the concrete boots are provided free of charge.
But really, there’s little mystery. The topic of the joint announcement is in this morning’s edition of The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C.
Perdue and his South Carolina peer, Mark Sanford, are to announce an agreement to operate a joint port facility — possibly with some private investment — on the Savannah River in Jasper County.
Says the newspaper:
The 1,800-acre site on the S.C. side of the Savannah River has been the scene of a three-way turf battle for years.
Jasper County struck a deal to develop a port with a private developer in January 2005, but that plan has been on hold since both the S.C. State Ports Authority and Georgia challenged the county’s claim to the land in the past two years.
In January, a judge ruled the S.C. Ports Authority has first rights to condemn the land, which Georgia owns and uses as a dump site for material dredged from the river.
A hand goes down the badger hole, and…..
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Several years ago, a Democratic governor named Roy Barnes wanted to improve education by making it easier to fire public school teachers in Georgia who didn’t measure up.
Politically, it turned out to be poor policy. In 2002, educators - a large Democratic constituency - rose up and smote him at the polls. Sonny Perdue, the Republican governor who replaced Barnes, quickly restored the rules of “fair dismissal.”
Teacher tenure, as many called it, quickly gained a reputation as the angry set of teeth at the dark end of a badger’s den. No one’s dared stick his hand down that hole since.
Not until now.
But Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is doing so with a thick pair of gloves, and in such a smooth fashion that he’s likely to get away with it. Cagle’s bill to permit entire school systems to abandon state mandates breezed through the state Senate, which the lieutenant governor controls. Its fortunes look good in the House.
Under S.B. 39, charter school systems would be allowed to make up their own rules regarding class size, days of operation, teacher hiring and teacher firing - as long as performance objectives were met. Cagle frames his measure as a chance to hack at educational bureaucracy, and revive the independence of local districts.
“This bill was never about teacher tenure, and it isn’t today,” Cagle said Friday. Well, at least it’s not solely about teacher tenure - which is perhaps the better point. When the entire applecart is turned upside down, it’s hard to focus on a single apple.
Then there’s the fact that, at least for the time being, the concept of a charter school system is an experiment. The bill would permit only five school systems to move in that direction in 2008. Small ones - no monster systems with names like Cobb or Gwinnett.
“I need school systems that can be nimble, that can adjust at a fairly rapid pace,” Cagle said.
Georgia’s two largest teacher organizations are against the bill, but abandonment of fair dismissal rules is not their chief concern. Right now, individual public schools that convert to a charter status require an approving vote of the faculty. Not so when a whole county or city school system switches.
Under Cagle’s bill, the local school board would be the only voting body. “I’m not interested in giving a veto to any organization. Trust me, no one’s being shut out of the process,” The lieutenant governor said.
But why no badger-like reaction from teachers on the tenure issue?
Times change. Teachers feel the market offers more protection, said Tim Callahan, spokesman for the Professional Association of Educators. Teachers are in such short supply in Georgia that any district that junks the rules of dismissal in wholesale fashion would quickly find itself with unfillable vacancies, he said.
Then there is the matter of style. It’s not just what Barnes did that angered teachers, but how he did it, said Jocelyn Whitfield, a top lobbyist for the Georgia Association of Educators. Educators felt locked out of the discussion.
While Cagle hasn’t responded to all of GAE’s objections, Whitfield said, he has responded to some. When the teacher’s group saw that the power to hire and fire would be almost solely vested in each school principal, conversations with Cagle staffers resulted in a change, she said.
Cagle was a Gainesville state senator when Barnes attacked teacher tenure. He acknowledges he drew a lesson from it. “It was the way [Barnes] went about it. You have to show leadership, and leadership is not ‘my way or the highway.’ It’s about bring people together, and persuading others to follow,” he said.
Confirmed: Hudgens drops out of contest for 10th, but may still have a race on his hands
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Jackson County News has confirmed the withdrawal of state Sen. Ralph Hudgens from the 10th District congressional race to replace the late Charlie Norwood.
The move gives an instant advantage to state Sen. Jim Whitehead, a Republican from the Augusta area.
“It’s just my heart feeling that I just don’t have it in me to run,” the newspaper quoted Hudgens, also a Republican, as saying. “There was no discouragement. I know they’re going to say that people from Augusta got to you. But I haven’t talked to anybody from Augusta except those who were encouraging me to run.”
Hudgens said that he and his wife, Suzanne, have been praying about whether he should run. He said they reached a decision Friday morning. Hudgens said that he will seek re-election to his District 47 post in 2008.
“I love being in the Senate,” Hudgens said. But that may not be a sure thing now. Hudgens’ change in direction has left some frustrated, and angry.
Former state senator Brian Kemp of Athens, a Republican who left the chamber last year to run for commissioner of agriculture, had already announced his intention to replace Hudgens in the Senate. With Hudgens’ blessing.
And now Kemp says he’s in that race to stay. Even if he has to wait another year and challenge Hudgens in the GOP primary.
A spokesman sent us the following statement from Kemp last night: “I have already filed paperwork to run for state Senate District 47 and intend to run, regardless of when the election is.”
Says the Politico: Ralph Hudgens to drop from congressional race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dear Brian Kemp:
About your desire to make a quick return to the state Senate.
The Politico has a source who says state Sen. Ralph Hudgens (R-Hull) is about to drop out of the race for the 10th District congressional seat, made vacant by the death of Charlie Norwood.
“That departure leaves GOP state Sen. Jim Whitehead as the odds-on favorite, for now, to win the June 19 special election. Norwood, a Republican, died Feb. 13 after a long illness,” says the web site.
Whitehead, we know, spent a few days in Washington this week. And apparently was able to persuade key Republicans that it would be in everyone’s best interest if there were no run-off in this special election, the first federal one since the November 2006 vote.
Cagle likes regional transportation approach, but doesn’t think much of an apology for slavery
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and his state Senate are lining up against Speaker Glenn Richardson’s House on transportation.
The Legislature has been pitched two proposals. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has introduced the idea of a statewide and temporary, one-cent sales tax.
But Cagle on Friday put his weight behind a strategy backed by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, for a regional, metro Atlanta sales tax — but acknowledged that he wasn’t sure whether either approach had the juice to advance this year.
Cagle also declared himself unsatisfied with the current performance of the state Department of Transportation.
Here’s a few of his remarks from his Friday morning sit-down with reporters:
“We have some real, fundamental problems in transportation. None of us thought that we’d be paying more for right of way acquisition than we would for road construction,” Cagle said. “We need to have a serious dialogue with the Department of Transportation, relative to the delivery of projects in a much more timely manner, and in a more efficient and effective manner.”
“Relative to the two proposals that are put out, I think the statewide, one-cent sales tax would have little to no ability to pass this year,” the lieutenant governor said. “The regional concept I find more palatable, because ultimately it puts the local communities in charge of solving those issues,” he said.
“I think when you have the right checks and balances in the equation, which this proposal does, it merits debate.”
On other topics:
— Cagle said he hadn’t made up his mind on state Sen. Don Balfour’s bill to mandate the vaccination of girls against a virus that can cause cervical cancer.
— The lieutenant governor didn’t sound very excited about any official state apology for slavery. Said Cagle:
“I don’t condone slavery. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible part of our past. But I’m focused on the future. I want to focus on building a Georgia we can all be proud of,” he said. “I’m not saying we don’t acknowledge the past. We all acknowledge the past. We learn from our mistakes and we move on. Slavery’s outlawed.”
Says Zell: Military shortages, Social Security crisis, and illegal immigration all linked to abortion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It hasn’t gotten widespread play yet, but former U.S. Sen. Zell Miller made a little news this week in Macon when he declared that abortion has contributed to the military’s manpower shortage, the Social Security crisis, and the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.
“How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years? Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed,” Miller said.
“Over 45 million since Roe v. Wade in 1973. If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security,” the former Georgia governor said. “Still, we watch as 3,700 babies are killed every single day in America. It is unbelievable that a nation under God would allow this.”
If you doubt us, check out the video at the Macon Telegraph’s web site. The comments were made at a Tuesday night fund-raiser for a local anti-abortion counseling center.
State Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville), who has become an ideological ally of Miller on the abortion issue, made a similar statement almost exactly a year ago, but backed off upon press inquiries. Somehow, we don’t think Miller’s inclined to throw himself in reverse.
Another Cracker Crumble. No fistfights or duels reported.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia Press Association held its annual “Cracker Crumble” tonight at the Cobb Galleria. Several hundred attended.
It is a strange event. Ostensibly, it’s a means of funding a journalism scholarship program. In truth, it is a hostage situation, without the option of bringing in the SWAT team.
Politicians, who pay good money, are forced to endure 90 minutes of insult comedy and song, from both journalists and professional actors. Usually, the prime targets are smart enough not to show up.
Estrangement is a signature of the dinner. It is, in fact, a throw-back to the days of separate-but-equal Georgia. In a hall full of tables, journalists and politicians end up eating with their own kind.
One of the few tables with a mixture of scriveners and elected officials appeared to be the one occupied by House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin, his wife, their three sons and dates.
Porter is also a newspaper publisher. The family seemed conflicted.
Matt Towery, publisher-proprietor of InsiderAdvantage, again acted as master of ceremony. Perhaps in error, he assumed the crowd had not imbibed enough, and sought to encourage more applause with a drinking game called “Sonny Did.”
“Who skipped the Cracker Crumble again?” Towery asked.
“Sonny did,” the crowd responded. A drink was required.
“Who employed more twenty-somethings as top experts in policy than anyone in America?”
“Sonny did.” Another drink.
“Who, according to Bill Shipp, fired the fatal shot at the grassy knoll?”
And so on.
Your next news story: A Rome woman says she was denied emergency contraception.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, Kroger endured hottie bank thieves.
Now, an abortion rights group has scheduled a press conference for 1 p.m. Friday at the state Capitol to protest the refusal of “a local Kroger pharmacy” to dispense Plan B emergency contraception to a woman.
The group is NARAL Pro-Choice Georgia. We’ve no details about the location of the Kroger in question, except that the woman allegedly denied the drug is identified as a resident of Rome, Ga.
Gingrich, the non-candidate, focuses on the GOP’s church-based family
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First it was twice-married John McCain.
Now it’s thrice-hitched Newt Gingrich baring his soul the Republican party’s conservative Christian base — which is still up for grabs in the ’08 race for the White House.
Gingrich will give the May 19 commencement address at Liberty University in Lynchburg, founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
McCain addressed the student body last year. Gingrich, the former speaker and Georgia congressman, last spoke at the school’s commencement in 1991.
Also this week, Gingrich is cozying up to James Dobson of Focus on the Family, currently the most influential religious conservative in the nation, in a two-part radio interview being broadcast this week.
Dobson has turned up his nose at the GOP’s two current front-runners, McCain and Rudy Giuliani.
Gingrich tells Dobson that he’s “gotten on my knees and sought God’s forgiveness” for his moral failings.
At least that’s what Dobson’s web site says. We listened to the first installment here.
In that first 28-minute segment, Gingrich reviews his pro-God credentials, endorses the abolition of Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, and hawks his new book, “Rediscovering God in America.”
Confessions are always best held until the end. It keeps the audience listening.
Even Mr. Smith could stand Washington only so long
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Rome News-Tribune quotes Preston Smith, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as saying his time in the Legislature is capped.
“I just don’t see myself here in the long term,” the three-term Republican said. Smith would commit to running only one more term.
(Later in the day, The News-Tribune slightly changed the the wording on that above thought, to make it a little more open-ended. The newspaper said Smith would only commit to running one more term, saying he had no idea what he would do beyond that point.}
Said the News-Tribune:
Despite only four years in office and his lofty position, Smith said he has grown tired of the politics and the lack of meaningful debate between legislators.
“There is a certain frustration factor that goes with the kind of things that go on down here,” he said. “Sometimes you wonder if you could go do more good somewhere else.”
He elaborated, saying legislators are too often motivated by special interests rather than their constituents.
You’ll recall that, two years ago, the Rome lawyer approached Gov. Sonny Perdue about an appointment to a non-partisan judgeship.
Just Brilliant: Cox’s ex-manager to run S.C. Dems, making inter-state talks wonderfully awkward
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first manager of Cathy Cox’s campaign for governor, fired last year for dabbling in Wikipedia, has landed a temp job running the South Carolina Democratic party.
Morton Brilliant will serve through April. He was hired to replace Lachlan McIntosh, who took a position with the ’08 presidential campaign of Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico.
Brilliant was canned by Cox for tinkering with the entry for Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor on the on-line encyclopedia.
Joe Erwin, the chairman of the S.C. Democratic party, noted that Brilliant “has a lot of experience managing high-pressure, demanding situations.” This according to The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C.
Morton is also a former aide to former Gov. Jim Hodges of that state.
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Why those seeking an apology for slavery may not be whistling Dixie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got back from a late afternoon press conference at the state Capitol, in which the president of the Georgia NAACP and several state lawmakers asked Gov. Sonny Perdue — on behalf of his state — to sponsor a resolution apologizing for slavery and segregation.
Similar resolutions have passed legislatures in Virginia and Tennessee.
In the past, we would have dismissed something like this as wishful thinking. Something that might happen — someday, in the sweet by and by.
But this may be a peculiarly auspicious time to deal with an official condemnation of the South’s peculiar institution.
We’ve already experienced unofficial apologies.
“It was wrong to rebel against the United States. It was wrong to defend the horrible institution of slavery,” Roy Barnes said in 2003, shortly after leaving the governor’s office.
At the time, we thought the statement — made in Boston, by the way — was Barnes’ way of telling the world that he would run for high office no more, forever.
But that was a calculation based on Democratic politics. When it comes to an apology for slavery, the Republican calculus may be far, far different.
There is, for instance, the case of Sonny Perdue, who would very much like to be somebody’s candidate for vice president in 2008. Last year, he impressed Republicans in Washington with the share of the black vote he gathered up for his re-election as governor.
But there’s still the matter of how Perdue first came to office in 2002. He beat Barnes largely by quietly encouraging white voters who were upset that the Democrat had brought down the 1956 state flag and its Confederate battle emblem.
Perdue’s signature on a resolution condemning slavery might cause some people to forget that.
“Let your legacy reflect that on your watch, you took a stand to unite Georgia by becoming the first governor to acknowledge these wrongs,” wrote Edward DuBose, the NAACP president.
Imagine how those words might look on a brass plaque in a Republican governor’s office. Or in a 30-second TV spot, in which the object is to quickly reassure Ohio voters that the governor of Georgia is not George Wallace reborn.
Then there are the host of Republicans in the Legislature who want to be governor in 2010.
Until they figure out another path, the key to victory for Democrats means securing 90 percent or more of Georgia’s black vote, and 35 percent of the white vote.
As Perdue demonstrated, GOP landslides are built by weaning enough of the African-American vote to wreck that formula.
That thought alone may be enough for the likes of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle or House Majority Leader Jerry Keen to think that, just maybe, Abraham Lincoln and his Republican party were right after all.
Besides, who can you blame for slavery and segregation except Democrats?
Hola, Georgia voters. This isn’t Mitt Romney.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ain’t life just one irony piled on top of another?
On the same day that Republicans at the state Capitol revived an English-only push, the ’08 presidential candidate backed by many of Georgia’s GOP elite cut loose with his first radio ad targeting Spanish-speaking voters in Florida.
“It is a difficult time in the world, in the Americas, and in our Cuba in transition,” says Al Cardenas, former chairman of the Florida GOP and a Jeb Bush ally, in his native Spanish. “Mitt Romney understands the dynamic of Cuba.”
Contrast that with the effort by state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica) to give the state’s current English-only statute a place in the state Constitution.
H.R. 413 escaped a House subcommittee on Tuesday. If it gets a two-thirds nod from the General Assembly, it would still require a crowd-pleasing vote in the November general election next year.
Yes, like the gay marriage prohibition, English’s place as the official language of Georgia is already in the state code. There’s a good reason to put it in the state Constitution as well, but it’s something only lawyers can put into words.
At the risk of losing some of you, we’ll attempt the technical explanation passed on to us by a high-ranking member of the state bar:
Currently, using Spanish in official state documents is merely illegal. Whereas, if the prohibition is part of the state Constitution, it is really, really illegal. Which is another thing entirely.
Members of Cagle’s ‘06 team get behind Whitehead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Not surprisingly, state Sen. Jim Whitehead (R-Evans) announced last night that his campaign for the 10th District congressional race will include two guys who played strong roles in Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s victory last year.
Joel McElhannon will act as Whitehead’s general consultant and campaign manager. Jay Williams of the Stoneridge Group will handle direct mail and Internet ventures.
The pair weren’t likely to go elsewhere. The other Republican state senator in the race is Ralph Hudgins of Comer. He was a big backer of Ralph Reed in the ’06 primary for lieutenant governor.
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Blogwatch: Where’s the Democratic road-rail plan?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Decaturguy goes after his own partisans this week with sharp posting on transportation at Atlanta Public Affairs:
Where is the voice of the Democratic Party of Georgia on this issue? Where is our “leadership” in the General Assembly. I just did a search of “Dubose” and “Porter” on Georgia Daily Digest and I did not see anything of any substance in the results.
And he’s supposedly the minority leader in the House. Are you telling me that the minority leader of the House, a newspaper man himself, can’t get a story written in any major Georgia newspaper all session that mentions his name? What in the hell is he doing down there?
Signs that the CEO of DeKalb County is taking this U.S. Senate race seriously
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vernon Jones, the CEO of DeKalb County, has just announced that he’ll lead a disaster relief team to tornado-ravaged Americus, Ga. The team leaves at 7 a.m. Wednesday.
Not to be critical, but that’s nearly a week after the event — and slower than George W. Bush.
Says the press release: “The relief team will consist of seven DeKalb County employees and equipment—including three grapplers, four dump trucks and one Roll-Off truck and container.”
More Republican opposition surfaces against mandated HPV vaccine
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The two-week hiatus by the state Legislature has become an opportunity for critics to gin up opposition to Sen. Don Balfour’s measure to mandate that girls entering the sixth grade be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.
Late Monday, Sadie Fields, chairman of the Georgia Christian Alliance, sent out an e-mail blast to supporters, urging them to ring up Balfour’s office.
And over the weekend, the board of directors of the Georgia Federation of Young Republican Clubs condemned the measure.
“We felt that the State of Georgia should not be using its police power to force all sixth grade girls to take the woefully under-tested and very expensive vaccine,” said chairman Jason Shepherd.
Shepherd has connections to state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, but also once served as a legislative aide for Balfour, a Republican from Snellville.
Given that Balfour is chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, S.B. 155 is sure to get a floor vote when the Legislature reconvenes.
But even before Fields and the Young Republicans stepped in, the legislation had been getting poor reviews from the GOP’s rightward contingent. Last week, U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) came out against mandating the vaccine. On the state Senate floor, David Shafer of Duluth is likely to be one of the leading opponents. He’s posted this on his blog.
In her message, Fields said: “First, it sends the wrong message to young girls that it is okay to engage in premarital sex at a very young age.
“Secondly, it does not address all strains of the HPV virus and covers no other sexually transmitted diseases and may lull young girls into thinking they are protected when indeed they are not.
“Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the decision about whether or not a young girl receives this vaccine should be left up to parents, the child and the doctor.”
More national headlines for PeachCare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ken Edelstein, on Creative Loafing’s political blog, has picked up indications that USA Today is about to dip into Georgia’s problems with PeachCare funding.
Report: Lawyers out to loosen grip of 2005 tort law
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Fulton County Daily Report is reporting today that a hefty alliance of state senators and lawyers have set out to tweak the 2005 changes to state tort law.
They’re saying the measure went too far in giving cover to emergency room physicians.
Says the newspaper:
The proposal, Senate Bill 286, would repeal the section of the law that requires medical malpractice plaintiffs to prove that emergency room doctors acted with gross negligence. The bill would leave intact other major portions of the tort law, such as a $350,000 cap on pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice cases.
Lead sponsor is Seth Harp (R-Midland). Other signers include Majority Leader Tommie Williams (R-Lyons) and Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon).
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Blogwatch: John Edwards will join the March rush to Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgiawomenvote says that, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, John Edwards is headed to Atlanta.
The Edwards event is Monday, March 12. We hear Clinton will be here March 19, and we know Obama will be raising cash here on the 26th. Looks like Georgia is the place to sober up after a Sunday hangover.
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Perhaps the beginning of another fight over gay rights in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As much as it tried to do otherwise last week, the state Supreme Court may have set the table for yet another fight over gay rights in Georgia.
The case was Wheeler v. Wheeler, a gay adoption case that pitted two halves of a lesbian couple in DeKalb County against one another.
Gay rights advocates declared victory. But it was not a full-throated declaration. Successful Alpine skiers express the same level of restraint during avalanche season, and for the same reason.
Two Supreme Court races, for seats now held by justices Robert Benham and Harris Hines, are scheduled for 2008. Both incumbents were part of the 4-3 majority. Wheeler v. Wheeler could easily become part of the discussion.
No legislation growing out of the case should be expected this year. But again, 2008 is another matter — especially given the success that Republicans had with the statewide referendum on gay marriage in 2004.
Wheeler v. Wheeler wasn’t about the right of gay or lesbian adults to adopt a child, or serve as foster parents.
The case challenged the legitimacy of spousal adoptions among gay and lesbian couples — in which one of the partners is usually the biological parent. A handful of the 193 Superior Court judges in Georgia permit them.
One of them is Anne Workman on the DeKalb County bench. In 2002, she permitted Melody Doss Wheeler to adopt the biological child of Sara Leann Wheeler, who had gotten pregnant via artificial insemination.
Things did not work out for the Wheelers. They split three years later. Court papers say Melody Wheeler challenged Sara Wheeler, the biological mother, for custody.
Sara Wheeler and her lawyer retaliated with what must be viewed by many gays as a weapon of mass destruction. The two challenged the legitimacy of the Wheelers’ 2002 adoption — and by implication, the legitimacy of all similar adoptions in Georgia.
“She’s been ostracized by the community,” said her attorney, Anthony Zezima.
Bottom line, Zezima argued that spousal, or “step-parent,” adoptions require a legitimate marriage. And among same-sex partners, marriage is forbidden in Georgia.
The Wheelers went before Judge Workman, who — not surprisingly — upheld her own decision, and Melody Wheeler’s right to participate in the raising of the child.
Sara Wheeler appealed first to the state Court of Appeals, then the state Supreme Court.
Last Monday, the state Supreme Court rejected a request for review. Like the Court of Appeals, it did so without a word of explanation.
Greg Nevins is a staff attorney with the southern regional office of Lambda Legal, which defended the adoption.
“This particular case is about the fact that adoptions are final. The court didn’t look with a lot of favor on someone who encouraged the adoption, and then tried to undo it, years later,” Nevin said.
But the last word, for now, may belong to George Carley, one of three justices on the losing side of Wheeler v. Wheeler.
In a written dissent, Carley bridled at his colleague’s reluctance to take a pass at ruling on the legitimacy of same-sex adoption, which he called a matter of “great concern, gravity and public importance.”
It was also a case of first impression, the justice said. Unplowed ground.
“Whether a person who has never been, and indeed cannot be, a spouse of the living parent may nevertheless adopt the child, while that parent still retains all her rights, is an important issue,” he wrote. The question has far-reaching implications, Carley added, whether the partner is a same-sex lover or an old family friend.
Not exactly bumper-sticker material. But give it time.
Waiting for PeachCare: A message from a well-read Republican
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Got a note this morning from Eric Johnson of Savannah, the No. 2 Republican in the state Senate — when the Legislature is in town and working.
It’s not today. The General Assembly has thrust itself into a two-week limbo to see if Congress will fill that $131 million hole in state’s health insurance program for kids of the working poor.
Wrote Johnson:
I hope that our wait on Washington for help with PeachCare isn’t in vain. It reminded me this weekend to reread Beckett’s play, “Waiting for Godot.” Do you remember the play? It is one of my favorites. After two days of waiting for an unknown character named Godot, the two tramps finally have this to say:
Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let’s go.
And nobody moves…. …and the curtain drops.
I thought you might like the comparison.
John McCain on illegal immigration
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An interesting National Review piece on U.S. Sen. John McCain’s ultimate survivability in the GOP presidential primary includes this paragraph:
Last year, Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia proposed that the [immigration reform] bill’s border-enforcement provisions go into effect first, and be shown to work, before illegal immigrants could start on their path to citizenship. McCain is open to the concept.
See it here, through SCHotline.
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Blogwatch: Four-year terms don’t thrill the House gatekeeper
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Peachpundit.com, the topic was a measure by state Sen. John Douglas (R-Social Circle) to extend the terms of state senators from two-years to four. As might be expected, a House bill demanding similar terms for members of that chamber has also been launched.
Among that blog’s responders was Decaturguy, a Democrat who maintains the Atlanta Public Affairs blog. “Grab that power, Douglas,” was Decaturguy’s posting.
Next came this one from eehrhart: “Sign of the [apocalypse]….I agree with Decaturguy!
“Two year terms are sufficient for House AND Senate members. We need to face the voters every two years it keeps us accountable for our actions.”
It just so happens that state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, a very conservative Republican, is chairman of the House Rules Committee, which determines what bills come to the House floor.
To be young, gifted, and Barack Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When he sizes up Sen. Barack Obama - something a lot of African-American Democrats are doing these days - state Rep. Bob Holmes thinks of that T-Mobile commercial featuring Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade.
“You’re hot right now, but I’m a legend. I’m an icon. Everybody knows me,” Barkley, the former NBA great, tells the young Miami Heat star. Then a waitress walks over and gushes over Wade, asking as an afterthought if Barkley is his dad.
Obama, who will make his first post-announcement appearance in Atlanta at a March 26 fundraiser, is hot right now, Holmes reasons. There’s evidence of that from the Strategic Vision Georgia poll, which had Obama trailing Sen. Hillary Clinton by 15 points last November. In a poll conducted toward the end of February, he’d cut her lead to three points.
But Holmes views presidential politics, unlike the NBA, as a game in which the advantage goes to icons. He likes what he sees in Obama, but he wants to see more, and notes that even Obama’s past colleagues in the Illinois legislature aren’t sure they know where he stands on everything they care about. Clinton, on the other hand, is a known quantity, and the wife of a president who connected with African-Americans like no one since Roosevelt.
The Atlanta legislator’s analogy seems especially apt because Obama’s candidacy has put many black politicians of his age in a new territory. His appeal is as much generational as racial, and one in which the old color distinctions have been blurred.
State Sen. David Adelman, a white supporter, recently referred to Obama as “post-race.” Probably not, literally. But you can catch what he means. This is the first major African-American candidate who’s had to deal with a story about his white ancestors who owned slaves. (The prevailing color in the email list of those alerted to the upcoming fundraiser, incidentally, is green: there’s a lot of money in that group.)
“People in my age group are definitely much more excited about him than about Hillary,” said state Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, who is reading Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
But, she insisted, “It’s not just an age thing. It’s old versus new.” She likes what she describes as an ability to analyze both sides of an issue without always ending up in the middle.
State Rep. Calvin Smyre, recuperating from back surgery at his home in Columbus, watched CSPAN Sunday when Obama and Clinton made their appearances in Selma, Ala. Like Holmes, he remains noncommittal, and mentions Sen. John Edwards as another contender who could win black votes. But he found Obama’s message in Selma, with its homage to the civil rights generation, reassuring.
“Today I think he wanted to articulate who he was and what he was about, and I think he did that,” Smyre said.
Speaking of Selma, one stray note: Has anyone done a candidate a greater favor than conservative commentator Ann Coulter did Edwards last Friday afternoon?
Until Coulter took a gratuitous swipe at Edwards at the Conservative Political Action Committee Conference, referring to him as a “faggot,” the weekend belonged to Obama and Clinton. But by Saturday morning the blogs were afire and Edwards’ campaign was launched on an effort to raise $100,000 in “Coulter cash.” There could be many an unexpected twist in this campaign.
Obama makes an Atlanta date
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At the end of last night’s post about Gov. Bill Richardson’s visit, we mentioned the ATL might be seeing more Democratic presidential candidates by the end of the month. Since then the cat has jumped out of the bag and into our email box.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has scheduled a March 26 fundraiser at a location still to be announced. Tickets for a 5:30 p.m. VIP reception will be $2,300, with a $500-a-ticket kickoff reception to follow.
We’ve also heard, but haven’t confirmed, that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton will be here March 19.
It would be interesting to know, by the way, where Atlanta ranks both in terms of the number of fundraisers by ’08 hopefuls and the money raised here. We think it would be pretty high on both lists.
Richardson’s in town Sunday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination last month, will be in town Sunday for an afternoon fundraiser at the home of Rutherford and Laura Seydel.
That’s a sign of the cred Richardson, who served as Secretary of Energy in the Clinton administration, has with environmentalists. The Seydels are co-founders of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund and sit on scads of boards of environmental organizations.
Others on the host community include former U.S. Rep. Buddy Darden, Atlanta attorney and politico Kevin Ross, and corporate attorney Gene Watkins.
Look for more Democratic presidential candidates to come to town in search of money later this month.
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Democrats say Legislature’s hiatus unnecessary, and a waste of money
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bipartisan effort over salvaging PeachCare in the Legislature is fraying a bit around the edges.
Senate and House Democrats on Friday afternoon issued a joint statement expressing their “profound disappointment” with the Republican decision to recess the General Assembly for two weeks, to see if Congress can come up with cash to plug a $131 million hole in the state insurance program for the kids of the working poor.
While some committees grind on, the Legislature won’t reassemble until March 19, and won’t finish until the latter part of April.
“Such a work stoppage will halt momentum in both chambers and frustrate the ability of legislators to carry out issues of importance to the people of Georgia,” the e-mail said. Democrats say they’ve already introduced legislation to put a temporary patch over PeachCare financing, but that Republicans have ignored the bills.
They also noted that, when the Legislature was under Democratic control, Republicans often criticized lengthy legislative sessions as a waste of taxpayer money.
This is the first partisan breach in a two-month truce between Republicans and Democrats, created in an effort to present a united front in Washington on PeachCare funding.
On the other hand, that breach may be relatively small. When it comes to the necessity of the two-week sabbatical, Democrats are only saying publicly what many Republicans are saying privately.
Red-light cameras: There’s another fight in the wings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You know that H.B. 77, a bill to prohibit red-light cameras, was substantially changed in a House committee this week.
In a compromise largely supervised by Speaker Glenn Richardson, the bill now would permit the cameras, but cap the amount of revenue a city or county could earn from them.
But if you think that’s the end of the effort to shut down red-light cameras in Georgia, you’d be wrong.
The sponsors of the anti-camera campaign have another card up their sleeves, H.B. 590, which would reduce the maximum fine for a red-light violation from $70 to $35.
The second bill has its first committee hearing next week. We’re told that, should it pass, the slashed fines would make new red-light cameras uneconomical for local governments — and would likely to put a halt to new installations.
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The National Journal’s ‘who’s conservative and who’s liberal’ list
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The National Journal is out today with its conservative/liberal rankings of the 2006 members of Congress.
Among Georgia’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Sharpsburg) was judged the most conservative, and U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta) the most liberal.
But Westmoreland is more conservative than Lewis is liberal. Among 435 members of the U.S. House, Westmoreland was judge the sixth most conservative. Lewis was the 35th most liberal.
U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon) is one of three House members who scored dead-center.
In the U.S. Senate, Johnny Isakson was ranked sixth most conservative. Saxby Chambliss followed close behind, at ninth. The two Georgia senators are like peas in a pod. Only Maryland’s senators voted together more times.
The rankings are based on 103 House votes and 84 Senate votes in 2006, on economic, social and foreign policy.
Among Georgia’s House members, the most moderate Republican was more conservative than the most conservative Democrat.
Here’s how they lined up, from conservative to liberal: Westmoreland; John Linder; Jack Kingston; Charlie Norwood; Nathan Deal; Phil Gingrey; Tom Price; Jim Marshall; John Barrow; Sanford Bishop; David Scott; Cynthia McKinney; and John Lewis.
More on the weirdness of slavery and politics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First we find out that one of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s ancestors was owned by an ancestor of Strom Thurmond. Strange enough.
But now we find that one of Barack Obama’s ancestors — on his white mother’s side — may have owned slaves.
Here is the Baltimore Sun piece on the topic, just out this morning.
You’ve got to wonder how this might play in the South, where Obama is surging.
Does this mean there could still be a virtual Nixon?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the best reads in last week’s AJC was the story by reporter Alison Young about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using the virtual world of Second Life to educate Net-addicted users on health issues by giving virtual inoculations to virtual children, and such.
Second Life, if you’re out of it, is a kind of computer game for grownups in which real people create avatars, their digital counterparts, and carry on a virtual facsimile of real life.
Now comes news that a group of Republican avatars, some with “Bush ‘08” tags, showed up late Monday night and vandalized the virtual headquarters of Democrat John Edwards.
We get this from the blog gamepolitics.com, “where politics and video games collide.” Oh, don’t we wish we’d thought of that one.
The new red-light camera bill: What happens when matter and anti-matter collide
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Late yesterday, the House Motor Vehicles Committee passed out an altered version of H.B. 77, a bill to ban red-light cameras in Georgia.
As it now stands, the bill permits the cameras, but seeks to remove any incentive for counties and cities to use them to generate revenue.
And it was House Speaker Glenn Richardson, in a surprise appearance, who stepped from behind the curtain and claimed much of the credit - or responsibility - for the new face of the bill.
Richardson the Libertarian met Richardson the Pro-Safety Figure, he explained, and these changes were the result. We’ve got eight minutes of rough audio in which Richardson explains his divided feelings. It’s worth the listen.
Richardson, who lives in Paulding County, tells of encountering cameras at three straight intersections, in an adjoining county that can only be Cobb.
“Those cameras are generating a lot of money, and perhaps we’re doing it for the money now instead of the safety,” Richardson. “And we shouldn’t be taxing citizens who violate the law for the purpose of raising money, period, in my opinion.
“I don’t like red light cameras, and my initial reaction when I saw Rep. [Barry] Loudermilk’s and Rep. [Bobby] Franklin’s bill was, let’s just go in there and repeal it.”
He then explained how he came to decide otherwise. But this was his closing thought:
“If I get pulled over for speeding and it costs me $200, I can pay it. But by the time you get to the surcharges and add-ons that we have, that $200 fine is $300. And I can pay that.
“And most of you can, too. But for a lot of citizens of this state, who’ve been sitting in traffic like I did for an hour and a half, $300 to them is a week’s pay.
“It means they don’t make part of their house payment, or their car payment, or they don’t pay their insurance or they don’t take care of their kid.
“And we have to always remember that, yes, they did run the red light, yes, they did speed, but we’re taking money from citizens.”
Bush delays implementation of ‘Real ID’ drivers licenses
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Washington Post has the following article this morning, of importance to many in the state Capitol:
The Bush administration will allow states to postpone the planned May 2008 launch of a program to toughen security requirements for driver’s licenses by up to 19 months, in response to complaints about the projected $11 billion cost and potential disruptions, congressional and Department of Homeland Security officials said yesterday.
Another Democrat in the wings for the race in the 10th
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Augusta Chronicle this morning says a second Democrat has entered the 10th District congressional race.
She’s a 55-year-old Evita Paschall. The well-established Augusta attorney has been reading the headlines. “One of the things I’m concerned about is health care and the effect of cutbacks on veterans’ medical treatment and their health plans,” she told the newspaper.
The other announced Democrat in the race is Terry Holley, who was been by Norwood last year.
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Who knew that the Legislature tracked the stock market?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Leave it to China to create the perfect metaphor for this year’s session of the Legislature.
We were chatting with House Rules Committee Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) about the sloth-like pace of things. The man who controls the flow of legislation on that side of the Capitol began with the party line.
“We are trying to develop a more deliberative pace,” he said. “We’re truely going to prove that we are the party of limited government. The key to this is in the committees. The work needs to be done right, so that we don’t have to come down here year after year and fix ‘oopses.’”
But there are other reasons for the slow-down. Gov. Sonny Perdue’s style in his first term was laissez faire. Now pre-occupied with plugging the hole in PeachCare, the governor is even more hands-off this year. Which means there’s no prime mover, insisting that bills keep inching along.
“He doesn’t have a legislative agenda, really,” Erhhart said.
Then there’s China. In the first two years of the Republican takeover in the House, Ehrhart said, there was a pent-up demand for legislation that Democrats had denied over the decades. That has subsided, the chairman said. Everyone’s taking a breather.
See? This is a market correction.
Ehrhart held out the possibility that this year’s fight over the licensing of hospital services across the state could stretch into next year. So could debate over his proposal for education tax credits, he admitted.
Expect the pace to pick up when the Legislature comes back, he said. That will continue through 2008. “We’re probably slowing it down a little bit much. we’ll probably level it out over the next year,” Ehrhart said.
More Pollies for the group behind Casey Cagle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Stoneridge Group, an Atlanta based political direct mail and Internet firm, has gotten two more Pollies for its work last year with Casey Cagle, the successful Republican candidate for lieutenant governor.
The awards come from the American Association of Political Consultants.
It won a “best overall negative/contrast” direct mail piece — that’s a hit piece for you novices — for its mailer on rival Ralph Reed’s involvement in the lobbying efforts for the Northern Marianas Islands. Which is ironic, because in substance, that mailer was the weakest of those produced by the Cagle campaign. See it here.
The firm also won a Pollie for “best overall web-based humor” for “ralphreedsgreatesthits.com,” featuring a South Park-like Bill Clinton giving advice to Reed. Here’s the link. The best part is the radio announcer reading the small print at the tail end.
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