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Sunday, April 1, 2007
Like everything else, slavery statement caught up in the swirl around the budget
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For want of a nail, the battle was lost. And because of the Republican tiff over the budget, movement toward a statement on slavery has been stalled — or at least diminished.
The good news is that Eric Johnson, the Republican who has been negotiating with black Democrats on the issue, says the statement itself is nearly complete.
“In fact, it’s so close we’re talking more about process and timing,” the Senate president pro tem said.
But because Republicans in the state Capitol are busy not talking to each other, the slavery statement may not go any further than a vote by 56 members of the state Senate.
Johnson says he has had no communication with his fellow Republicans in the House about the issue. In fact, he can’t approach them — not without the certainty that the slavery measure would get caught up in House-Senate infighting.
Johnson is relying on African-American Democrats to present and sell the idea to House Speaker Glenn Richardson. You may want to pause here to contemplate the implications of that last sentence.
“The preference would be that everybody does the same thing. But there’s no commitment that that [would] occur, and I think the Senate is prepared to act unilaterally,” Johnson said.
Some Democrats in the House, including Minority Leader Dubose Porter of Dublin and Tyrone Brooks of Atlanta, want the process delayed until next year, to give interested parties more time to bring House Republicans into the process.
But Johnson said the train has left the station. Motivation for his involvement includes a desire to see the issue resolved and taken off the table.
“We want to get it done. That’s what [radio talk show host] Neal Boortz said the other day, too — just get it over with,” Johnson said.
As for content, the Savannah legislator said the statement would not contain the word “apology.”
“Nobody is asking for an apology or planning to give an apology. An apology is from somebody who did wrong to somebody who was wronged. That’s not going to happen,” Johnson said.
But he noted that the Senate last week approved a resolution of “profound regret” for a state program that sterilized 3,300 people in a 33-year eugenics program aimed at eliminating mental illness and physical deformities.
That was a hint, by the way.
Another hint comes with Johnson’s writing partner, state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, an African-American and a Democrat.
“He’s the historian and a writer,” Johnson said. “He’s a skilled politician that understands what might be concerns of conservatives or Republicans.”
If it becomes too tough for blacks and whites to find common ground in the antebellum South, Thurmond might crank the ‘way-back machine to a century or so before.
In past writings, Thurmond has declared himself a big fan of James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, who originally banned slavery from the colony and so could be described as first Southern abolitionist.
An expression of profound regret that we didn’t follow the Englishman’s good advice would be cheap, too. Oglethorpe already has a bust in the state Capitol.
One last word from Johnson, who cited one unexpected hang-up. “It doesn’t help us that the mayor of Atlanta allows it’s-okay-to-hate-white-people art in City Hall,” he said.
It was actually the City Hall annex, but point taken.
The connection between Obama and the U.S. Senate race in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While we’re talking race, the computer nerds of politics have been poring over the black-and-white breakdowns of the November general election, which have become available only in recent weeks.
The figures have everything to do with Barack Obama and Democrats’ chances of defeating Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in the ’08 race for the U.S. Senate.
Consider:
— In House District 56, occupied by Democrat Kathy Ashe of Atlanta, 43 percent of white voters cast a ballot. Only 24 percent of black voters did the same.
— In Senate District 39, represented by Democrat Vincent Fort of Atlanta, white turn-out was 49 percent. African-American turnout was 38 percent.
— In the Fifth Congressional District, belonging to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, white turnout was 54 percent. Black turnout was 41 percent.
— In the Eighth Congressional District, where Democratic incumbent Jim Marshall won by the smallest of margins, African-American turnout was only 43 percent. White turnout was 54 percent.
On and on it goes. Across the state, African-American voters were uniformly unenthusiastic about last year’s slate of candidates, led by Mark Taylor’s campaign for governor.
How’s that connected to an ’08 Senate race in Georgia?
Obama has dropped broad hints that, with him as presidential nominee, African-American participation in Georgia balloting would jump 15 percent or so.
That’s enough to give a fighting chance to a Democrat in a race to unseat Saxby Chambliss — particularly a white Democrat who can peel off conservative independents in Sam Nunn-like fashion.
This presumes that it’s possible for a white Democrat to get past Vernon Jones, CEO of DeKalb County, in a primary. Remember that the first priority of Jane Kidd, the new chairman of the Democratic party in Georgia, is to eliminate a costly intra-party confrontation in that race.
It also means that, as far as Georgia Democrats are concerned, be they white or black, it’s essential that Obama survive the presidential primary process relatively intact.
