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Saturday, April 21, 2007
The speaker and the governor: Getting down to the bare essentials of a special session
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When House and Senate gavels came down at midnight on Friday, the winter session of the Legislature finally ended, one month into spring.
The campaign to win the next session began milli-seconds later.
Mark the start of it from House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s post-midnight conversation with reporters. That’s when Richardson declared that Gov. Sonny Perdue had bared “his backside” with his veto of a $700 million mid-year budget bill plus the $142 million tax rebate it contained.
Perhaps by mid-week, Perdue will call a special session of the Legislature to rewrite the budget bill, which the governor said was weak on Internet predators, short-changed preparations for a flu pandemic, and turned a blind eye to the spread of methamphetamine labs. He said the tax rebate caused “real problems.”
When the Legislature will convene hasn’t been decided.
We are in rare times when high-ranking Republicans in the state Capitol declare that the governor has no clothes - at least below the waist.
But Richardson’s “backside” comment was no accident. Hours later, on Saturday morning, Richardson said much the same thing. He was in west Cobb County, not far from his home in Hiram, meeting with a large roomful of GOP activists at the Trinity Church of God.
According to Richardson: “We inked an agreement, between the House and Senate, to send the money back, and the governor said, ‘Waaah, I don’t want to send that money back.’”
Yes, that “waaah” you heard was a House speaker’s characterization of a tantrum-throwing governor.
Obviously, we’re witnessing a personal breach form between two men who were once close. Richardson was Perdue’s first floor leader in a Democratic-controlled House, his emissary to the largest part of the Legislature.
“I have introduced tax increase bills for him, and I have carried bills for him and held my nose,” Richardson told the crowd.
But even politicians who advertise their short fuses, as both Richardson and Perdue have, rarely conduct public feuds out of mere pique. Other agendas are always at work.
When the Legislature next assembles, Richardson again wants to attempt an override of the governor’s veto. Over the next few days, perhaps weeks, Richardson must persuade his Republican caucus in the House to hold together.
He’d like to persuade the Senate, which sat out Friday’s attempt at an override, to join him.
To do that, Richardson needs to fire up the fiscal conservative, anti-tax base of the state Republican party - to match any pressure the governor is sure to apply to lawmakers.
The tax rebate contained in the mid-year budget bill would be no giant windfall for homeowners. For many, if not most, it would amount to a extra tank of gas. “The governor to his credit, has tried to make it look like it’s not significant,” Richardson said.
But the speaker intends to make the tax rebate a matter of Republican principle. Standing ovations book-ended his speech at the church in west Cobb.
“On principle, I’m definitely with him,” said Sam Teasley of Marietta.
Doris Fuller of west Cobb believes the governor overstepped his authority. “He used his power to get what he wanted and it did not benefit the people of Georgia,” she said.
Jared Thomas, executive director of the Georgia chapter of Americans For Prosperity, a new anti-tax group, says he intends to mobilize his membership on Monday. They’ll urge Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle to join the Richardson’s attempt to override the governor’s veto.
But the feeling wasn’t unanimous. J. Daniel Hutcheson, the coroner of Haralson County, approved of Perdue’s veto. “I feel like the governor had the needs of the larger number of people in mind when he did that,” he said.
And Terry Agne, chairman of the Carroll County GOP, is willing to split the difference between the governor and the House speaker. “Somewhere in the middle there’s going to be a compromise,” he said.
This special session will, in fact, have a winner. But he won’t be declared by us. Shortly after this special session ends, Sonny Perdue, Glenn Richardson, and Casey Cagle will appear before the annual state GOP convention in Gwinnett County.
We’ll have an applause meter handy.
