Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2007 > April
April 2007
We interrupt this hiatus with qualifying news
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Six Republicans, three Democrats and a Libertarian have qualified to run for the seat left vacant by the death of U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood.
You wouldn’t exactly call this a free-for-all, with state Sen. Jim Whitehead holding a commanding lead in fundraising and endorsements. But it’s a big enough and diverse enough field, with everything from a couple of conservative activists to a Democratic former Yahoo! exec, to make it a challenge for Whitehead to escape a runoff.
From the secretary of state’s site, here’s the field.
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In the meantime, store up your energy for the sequel to “You and Your Legislature.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s been a delight to serve you during this session of the Legislature, and we’d like to personally thank you for the ride on that particular rollercoaster.
No matter how rickety it turned out to be.
But now we’ve got sweaty palms and thumping hearts, and we need some rest.
Use this space to argue amongst yourselves. We’ll be back sometime next week, but we’ll be checking the e-mail occasionally. If you’ve got an important tip, tell us.
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What’s the price of a session that does nothing? Two rumors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dunwoody didn’t happen, Peachcare didn’t change, and the House hung together, Democrat and Republican, on the veto override.
These three things may have nothing directly to do with each other, but they’ve been the grist for a lot of rumors we’ve heard since the legislature adjourned - in real terms, temporarily - Friday night. The rumor that either Dunwoody or Peachcare was the price for Democratic cooperation on the budget veto seems to be making the rounds in both parties.
The speaker’s office has specifically denied the Dunwoody rumor, and there may be better reasons than a short-term deal to explain why in the end there was no serious effort to perform radical surgery to perform radical surgery on Peachcare. But like all good rumors, these speak to the insecurities in both parties.
Rep. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody) said he couldn’t verify either report. But he noted again that one of the oldest Republican areas of the state was being stalled in its drive to incorporate while some Democratic areas of South Fulton were steaming ahead.
“To me, that’s rather unconscionable,” Millar said.
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Quick. Somebody call Hillary. And Rudy, too.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State employees at the Capitol are back at work today, so we can start sorting through what passed, and what didn’t.
Yes, the Legislature agreed to move Georgia’s presidential primary to Feb. 5, 2008, and the bill has been sent to Gov. Sonny Perdue.
As we thought, the vehicle turned out to be S.B. 194, according to Vicki Gavalas, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Karen Handel. The agency had someone tracking the bill, Gavalas said, and the primary move was tacked on in the last hours of the Friday night session.
The current, web site version of the bill doesn’t mention the primary, and should be updated later. But the measure is interesting in and of itself. The bill permits the early counting of absentee ballots on election day — if the person counting the votes is sequestered like a bird flu victim.
Says the bill:
All such persons shall have no contact with the news media; shall have no contact with other persons not involved in monitoring, observing, or conducting the tabulation; shall not use any type of communication device including radios, telephones, and cellular telephones; shall not utilize computers for the purpose of electronic mail, instant messaging, or other forms of communication; and shall not communicate any information concerning the tabulation until the time for the closing of the polls.”
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All rights reserved: Boortz and Richardson tangle over who gets to use ‘fair tax.’ And Linder clarifies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not enough that House Speaker Glenn Richardson has picked a fight with Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Now he and his boys must answer for allegedly poaching the phrase “fair tax.”
Last week, before the Legislature devolved into the fight over the governor’s veto of a budget bill, House Republican leaders tried to set the tone for next year’s meeting of the General Assembly.
They formally introduced H.R. 900, which will become their vehicle for reform of the state tax system.
The specifics of the bill have yet to be decided. House Republicans are thinking of a shift away from property taxes to a combination of sales and income tax.
But the legal caption says the bill would “provide for a comprehensive flat tax to be known as the fair tax.”
Oops.
Radio talk show host Neal Boortz has taken umbrage. You’ll recall that he and U.S. Rep. John Linder are joint authors of “The FairTax Book.”
“Glenn Richardson knows the fair tax is wildly popular in Georgia,” the WSB radio guy said. “So he has stolen the name of the fair tax and applied it to a tax bill that is not the fair tax and barely resembles it.”
On Saturday, while speaking to a Republican crowd, Richardson mentioned that he’d heard from Linder as well. Afterwards, he spoke with reporters.
“Linder called our office, and said if y’all don’t quit using that - that’s a trademark, and the state will be sued,” Richardson said.
It didn’t sound like Richardson was wedded to the name. “I kept saying, ‘Let me come up with an acronym that’s cutesy, but I was so bogged down in all the other details, I didn’t have time. One of my attorneys put ‘Georgia’s Fair Tax.”
But there is that matter of that call from Linder. We rang him up, and the congressman quickly responded just a few minutes ago. He tied all the many ends of the string together.
Linder said he did not call the speaker, or his office. But he did leave a message with a staffer for House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta).
It seems that “fair tax” is indeed trademarked, but not by Linder or Boortz. It’s the intellectual property of Americans for Fair Taxation, a non-profit group out of Texas that’s been pushing the idea since 1995.
They’ve been aggressive about protecting that trademark, Linder said. “I was just warning Mark that he didn’t need to get into that fight.”
In fact, that’s why in the Boortz-Linder book, “fair” and “tax” are a single word. And they still had to get the group’s permission to use it, Linder said.
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Just possibly, the Legislature approved a Feb. 5 presidential primary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today is Confederate Memorial Day, which means a state holiday, which means there’s no one at the state Capitol to sort out what bills passed and what didn’t in the final, pre-brawl hours of the state Legislature.
We know that H.B. 487 was given final passage by the state Senate. This was the original bill to have the ‘08 presidential primary moved to Feb. 5, and would be Georgia’s contribution to the longest race for the White House in history.
The Senate did strip away a House provision that would have lowered what it takes to win a contest to a plurality of 45 percent — so the bill was sent back to the House for final approval, which — so far as we can tell — never occurred.
However, late Friday, the House did attach the Feb. 5 primary provision to S.B. 194, another elections bill, and sent that bill back to the Senate for an agree vote, which the record indicates did take place.
But if you click on the final version of the bill, it shows no sign of the language the House attached. That may be a matter of the Senate clerk’s office catching up. We think it is. But we don’t know.
We’re open to anyone who can clarify — Jerry Keen, are you out there? It was your bill.
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Oh, dear. Real blood spilled over health care discussion?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blogger Jason Pye and PeachPundit.com have reported, and we have confirmed, that a fight broke out at the Sine Die party that House members attended early Saturday morning after the midnight adjournment of the Legislature.
“Apparently one lobbyist’s ear was partially cut off by a beer bottle to the head,” said Pye. The alleged topic of the argument was health care policy. We haven’t been able to get confirmation on either of those two statements.
Here’s what we have been able to confirm, in an on-the-record conversation with Chris Cummiskey, chief of staff to House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
“There was a fight,” Cummiskey said. The party was at the Spotted Dog on North Avenue. Both House and Senate members attended. We know not who picked up the tab.
The speaker was there at the time — though he didn’t mention it at a Saturday appearance several hours later — but Richardson wasn’t in the vicinity of the combatants, Cummiskey said.
Cummiskey called the fight an episode between “two kids” who had too much liqour.
The only official details we have is that a Peter Aaron Stokes, 26, has been booked into the Fulton County Jail. He hasn’t yet had a first appearance before a judge. Here’s his entry on the State Ethics Commission database, detailing Stokes’ clients.
Cummiskey identified the alleged victim for us, but we’ll wait for police confirmation before we publish the name.
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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.
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Signs that tensions are easing, and the session is winding down
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You can tell that the session is winding down, and the essential deals have been cut (i.e., the ‘08 budget) when bills belong to members of the leadership begin moving.
Even if a special session is now a certainty.
As mentioned below, the Senate just passed H.B. 487, the presidential primary bill belonging to House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons).
Right now, the House is debating S.B. 10, the measure sponsored by Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) to provide school vouchers to disabled students.
UPDATE: On the other hand, at 8 p.m., the Senate just recessed until the House moves Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s charter school system bill.
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Georgia moves closer to a Feb. 5 presidential primary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UPDATED: To remove error regarding Senate version of the bill.
The Senate just approved the bill to move Georgia’s presidential primary to Feb. 5, 2008 — by a vote of 47-2.
H.B. 487 originally sought to allow winners to be declared in races in which the leading vote-getter obtained 45 percent of the vote. The Senate, feeling the kick-back from many conservative and liberal voters that this appeared to be an incumbent protection act, erased that.
All primaries and general election winners would have to receive 50 percent of the vote, plus one, just as they do now, under the Senate version.
Because of the change, the bill now goes back to the House. If it doesn’t agree, there would be a conference committee. And it could still get bogged down in what may be a sloppy finish.
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The risk-takers on the veto vote, and the definition of transmitted
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Five House members voted against the motion to override Gov. Sonny Perdue’s veto of the mid-year budget on Friday.
They were:
— Jim Cole (R-Forsyth), a floor leader for the governor;
— Rich Golick (R-Smyrna), another floor leader for the governor;
— Mack Crawford (R-Concord), who was stripped of a House committee chairmanship this session;
— Austin Scott (R-Tifton), whom we’ve told you about below;
— And Rob Teilheit of Smyrna, the only Democrat to vote against the override. His wife works for Gov. Sonny Perdue. We’re guessing it was either the governor or the couch.
Incidentally, Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) was the one floor leader of the governor who voted with House Speaker Glenn Richardson. Smith said he told Perdue first, and still has his job.
“He’s a good employer,” Smith said. So both Smith and Scott were allowed to vote the “wrong” way and obtained the forgiveness of their superiors. The world is a kind and gentle place.
Now, as to this issue of transmittal.
The senators we’ve talked to say they’re on firm ground here. Perdue has three days to transmit official news of his veto to the House and Senate.
The House is taking a more informal view of transmittal, citing reports in the public media, a press release issued in the governor’s name, and such.
But one senator we talked to said the House seems to be picking and choosing when it comes to definitions of transmission. Remember, he said, when the House first passed the ‘07 budget bill.
Cagle immediately told them he wanted to strip out all the pork. The House clerk was sent to fetch the budget bill back out of Senate hands. And House members said they could do so because it had so many hours to reconsider its transmittal of the bill.
Which was physically, if not officially, in Senate hands.
UPDATE: But because we’re not taking sides in this fight, allow us to include this tidbit from a real, live lawyer we found in the hallways, who actually read the state Constitution.
She said transmittal was only an issue between the governor and the chamber that originated the legislation. Which is the House. In other words, she said, that issue is none of the Senate’s affair. That chamber has no business deciding whether the House has been legally informed of the veto.
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Here’s a forecast
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The negotiations over the $20.2 billion, ‘08 budget are the only thing holding this final day of the legislative session together.
But think about this: The Senate is siding with Gov. Sonny Perdue, who wants a combined ‘07 and ‘08 budget, now that the mid-year has been vetoed.
Which means the Senate has no incentive to reach a settlement on the budget. Our prediction: At some point, one side or the other will suddenly gavel this place away, so that lawmakers can go home and wait for Perdue’s summons to bring them back.
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The quick squeeze on Cagle begins: Dick Armey says he should override the veto
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re told that former U.S. House majority leader Dick Armey has faxed a quick letter to Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, urging him to override Gov. Sonny Perdue’s veto of the mid-year budget.
Armey is now chairman of FreedomWorks, an anti-tax group. Armey recently met with Cagle.
Here is the content of the letter:
On behalf of nearly 13,000 FreedomWorks members in Georgia, I am writing to strongly urge you to vote in support of the House position to override the Governor’s veto of the $142 million tax rebate for Georgia.
Given the recent growth of government spending in Georgia, and the rapid appreciation of housing prices and related property taxes, FreedomWorks believes this tax rebate is appropriate and necessary.
Indeed, according to the latest rankings from the Tax Foundation, Georgia’s state and local tax burden of 10.3 percent is higher than neighboring states Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama.
It is time to put taxpayers first, and to remember that it is their hard-earned money that is under discussion. As such, I urge your support for the $142 million in tax relieve for Georgia taxpayers.
Thank you in advance for your continued support of lower taxes and limited, responsible government.
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Austin Scott says he has his chairmanship back
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just ran into state Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) in the state Capitol.
He was one of a handful of Republicans who voted against overriding Gov. Sonny Perdue’s veto of the mid-year budget. We’d been told he’d lost his chairmanship of the House Governmental Affairs Committee as a result.
But at 2 p.m., Scott was wearing his chairmanship badge, and said Speaker Glenn Richardson had handed it back to him. Scott referred to the loss as a “temporary domestic dispute.”
A spokesman for the speaker called it a matter of “miscommunication.”
It’s not a surprise for Scott to hang out on a limb. The Tifton lawmaker was the only Republican in Gov. Roy Barnes’ circle of confidantes who plotted the removal of the ‘56 state flag and its Confederate battle emblem.
By the way, Scott predicted the Dunwoody bill would be taken off the table, and would pass.
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Hear the speeches: House votes 163 to 5 to override governor’s veto; state Rep. Austin Scott canned
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shirking any mention of partisanship and proclaiming this a fight for its independence, a somber House on Friday morning voted 163 to 5 to override the governor’s veto of the $700 million, ‘07 mid-year budget.
State Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) was immediately stripped of his chairmanship of the House Government Affairs Committee for casting one of the five votes against the override.
“I was given a choice between my vote and my chairmanship,” said Scott.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson immediately appointed a bipartisan squad of top lawmakers to take the vote to the Senate, and proclaimed that the constitution obliges the the upper chamber to act on it.
The Senate refused. “We cannot respond to a veto until we are in receipt of it. A press conference by the governor does not constitute transmittal,” Cagle said. Here’s the sound.
The House made the veto override the first order of business, handled in a matter of 30 minutes. Five lawmakers spoke: Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island; Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta); Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans); Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin); state Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus); and finally, Richardson, the speaker.
Click on a name to hear what they said. Pardon the roughness of the audio.
Of the set, Richardson and Porter were the most eloquent.
More than any other, Richardson dwelt more on the $142 million tax cut contained within the bill, and spoke most personally of Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Said Richardson:
“I respect the man. I’m his friend. First thing he did when he came into office here was to introduce a tax increase that he asked me to carry, and I did. I have voted and supported every position he’s had since he’s been governor.
“But on this one, I respectfully disagree and say its time to stand up and say, ‘No more.’”
Porter gave House members a brief history lesson, tracing the independence of the General Assembly to 1966, when — after Republican Howard “Bo” Callaway failed to win a majority of the vote in the race for governor - the Legislature handed the office to Democrat Lester Maddox.
“The only way to stay relevant in this process is to keep the independence of the House,” Porter said.
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Georgia Right to Life says it will pursue “no abortions, no exceptions” next year
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This week’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court against partial-birth abortion has fired up those who would like to do away with abortion entirely — even in cases of rape and incest.
Dan Becker of Georgia Right to Life says his group next year will push a state constitutional amendment to declare the unborn as legal “persons” worthy of protection.
Becker is quoted on WorldNetDaily, a religious-oriented network, as saying that the effort is only a vote or two short of the two-thirds that would be needed to put the measure on the ’08 ballot.
Here’s the gist:
Becker told WND that’s the key, and since pro-life legislation in the state Senate already has been collecting about 39 votes, two more than would be needed to approve such a constitutional provision, and in the state House, the pro-life votes number about 116, just four shy of the needed number, the issue is within “striking distance.”
We’ve talked with other anti-abortion figures at the Captiol. They’re waiting until they get through this session to figure out their next moves.
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House override vote comes first thing this morning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House will make an override of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s veto the first order of business this morning, which could put the start of the debate in the 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. time slot. They’ve just started up.
Here’s the link the the video.
We haven’t talked to Democratic leaders yet, but we’re presuming enough will side with their colleagues to get to the necessary 120.
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The House calls.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House abruptly adjourned a few minutes ago, with no plans to suspend the session as Gov. Sonny Perdue wanted — to reconfigure the $700 million ‘07 budget.
The Legislature is obligated to meet tomorrow for its 40th and final day.
Nothing to do but wait and see if the governor will follow through on broad hints that he’s inclined to veto the supplemental spending bill, with a $142 million property tax.
More to come.
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Step into my office, says the governor to the House member
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Things are getting serious here.
We’ve gotten confirmation that the governor has been calling down House members — Democrats as well as Republicans — to his office to pitch to them the deal that he’s put on the table for House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
In a nutshell, this is what he’s telling them: Suspend action today. Don’t meet tomorrow, the 40th and final day of the session. Let budget writers from both chambers and the governor’s office fold the $700 million from the ‘07 budget bill into the $20.2 billion budget bill for ‘08.
That might take days. It might take weeks. The Legislature would come back for that final day, probably sometime in May.
Richardson has rejected this, and is betting the governor won’t be able to veto a $142 million tax cut. On the other hand, Cagle has already indicated he’s amenable to Perdue’s offer. Would he be able to bring his chamber with him?
We’re further assured that the governor isn’t asking House members whether they’d sustain his veto.
But we’ve heard that others, in the governor’s name, have been making first inquiries to Democrats. This is also denied by the governor’s office. We’ll let you decide.
We do know that members of the governor’s staff have been barred from the House floor. Clelia Davis, spokeswoman for Richardson, said they were detracting from the decorum.
The bottom line is that, for ages upon ages, the final two days of the Legislature consist of a budget confrontation between the House and the Senate. This year, it’s between the governor and the House speaker.
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Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and this bill no breath at all?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It may seem strange that in a year with so little legislation there should have been two competing bills dealing with funding for the arts. But therein lies an artful tale, with as much blood on the floor in the final act as a Verdi opera or a Shakespeare play. This is just an update - we’ll save the longer tale for later.
A bill championed by Sue Weiner, executive director of the Georgia Council for the Arts, didn’t make it past crossover day - the legislative equivalent of folding off-Broadway.
A rival bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Wilkinson (R-Sandy Springs) and championed by many in the arts community, had a longer run. But it failed to make it on the final Senate Rules calendar, and the word is that Weiner was instrumental in its downfall.
We hear a last-gasp effort to revive the measure was ongoing Thursday afternoon, but it appeared it, too, was about to be folded.
That headline is a play on a line from “King Lear,” by the way. If you didn’t know that, it’s a good argument for this bill.
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How about these bedfellows?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re told that Gov. Sonny Perdue is putting out feelers to House Democrats, to gauge whether they would support his veto of the $700 million, 2007 supplemental budget.
The question is what it might cost the governor.
Perdue on Wednesday threatened to veto the bill, which contains a $142 million tax rebate to property owners, though the cost of distributing the checks, and the amount, has become a matter of contention. The bill might also force temporary layoffs among some literacy teachers and prosecutors.
The 180-member House has proceeded apace. To override a gubernatorial would require a two-thirds vote of the chamber. Among the chamber’s 106 Republicans, an override vote would become a test of loyalty to the Speaker and his leadership team.
Democrats would find themselves the deciding votes. And something tells us the governor wouldn’t be the only bidder.
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Yearning for a little good ol’ fashioned hate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This session, the Republican members of the House have played the rough-and-tumble Spartans to the Senate’s peace-and-love, bipartisan Atheneans.
But this afternoon, a knot of legislators gathered at the front of the House, to set debate limits on the upcoming city-of-Dunwoody bill.
House Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta) and House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) were getting along splendidly with House Minority Leader DuBose Porter and state Reps. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus), David Lucas (D-Macon) and Stan Watson (D-Decatur).
Speaker Glenn Richardson looked down on the kumbaya circle and declared that the Legislature had indeed gone on too long. “Y’all are beginning to like each other. Soon you’ll be like the Senate,” he said.
Actually, members of the Senate think they’ve been too civilized as well. That long lunch senators took this afternoon was intended to slow down the number of House bills brought before them, and make the House more amenable to compromises.
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Deal close on ‘private cities’ legislation; taxation power removed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This afternoon, supporters of “private cities” legislation have dumped a provision that would allow developers to levy taxes on the inhabitants of their project, as a last-minute attempt to bring Democrats on board and reach the two-thirds majority needed in the House to pass a constitutional amendment.
We just finished talking to DuBose Porter of Dublin, the House minority leader who has been heavily lobbied for his support. He says a deal is being worked out that should give bill supporters the 120 votes they need in the 180-member changer.
Opponents of the legislation, designed to allow developers to raise more upfront money for massive projects in rural areas, have bandied about an effective slogan for the bill that has given conservatives in both parties heartburn.
They’re calling it the “let the developers tax’ bill. (Actually, the legislation is a matched set, S.B. 200 and S.R. 309.
Porter said the taxation portion of the legislation has been replaced by one that permits developers only to present purchasers with an upfront “assessment.”
Also beefed up in the new version of the bill is language intended to make sure it excludes Oaky Woods, a 20,000-acre, black-bear habitat next to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s home in Houston County.
During Perdue’s re-election campaign last year, critics charged that Perdue’s administration failed to buy and protect Oaky Woods from developers. The original bill excluded Muscogee and Houston counties.
Porter says a third county will be added.
Democrats in a furious Senate debate over the issue said the constitutionality of the excluding these counties was questionable. In the drafts he’s seen, Porter says a “severability” clause has been removed — meaning that if the exclusions are found unconstitutional, the entire legislation becomes unconstitutional.
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Bill for epilepsy patients can’t find footing in Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Somebody in the Senate call state Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock) and tell her what’s happened to her bill.
H.B. 127, one of those rare do-gooder pieces of legislation, would protect people with epilepsy from unsuspected changes in their medication.
It’s endorsed by the Georgia Epilepsy Foundation, and passed the House early this session on a 161-0 vote.
Byrd says her bill would prevent pharmacists from switching the brand of medicine — whether top-shelf or generic — without a physician’s permission.
The bill only applies to epilepsy patients.
Byrd says the minute differences in medicine prescribed by doctors — often recommended by pharmacists, usually to save money — have been found to trigger grand mal seizures in patients .
“With epileptic patients, any change — a slight change — in their medication changes their blood levels and it causes you to seize,” said Byrd, whose mother was epileptic.
A seizure can cost those with epilepsy their drivers license for several months, and and can wreak havoc with employment, Byrd said. About 100,000 Georgians have epilepsy.
While it breezed through the House, the legislator said H.B. 127 has been quietly opposed by health maintenance organizations, pharmacists. And the Georgia Retail Association.
Byrd said those first two organizations fear that the bill could serve as a precedent. “One lobbyist told me this is opening a door for every other kind of medication,” she said.
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White House and Senate Dems say Isakson’s approach to immigration not so bad after all
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Johnny Isakson’s having a pretty good spring. First his embryonic stem cell bill blew through the U.S. Senate. Now his approach to immigration reform may have legs.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that both the White House and Senate Democrats have embraced Isakson’s two-step, secure-the-border-first tactic as a means of reassuring “wary conservatives,” whose support is needed if any attempt at re-writing immigration laws is to succeed.
Last year, Isakson’s idea was dumped on by his Senate colleagues, 55-40.
We’ll let the relevant WSJ paragraphs pick up from there:
Since then, its chief supporter, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), has been courted by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has supported reviving the trigger to help broaden support. Democrats, now in control of Congress, say they also are open to the idea in a new immigration bill, if it wins Republican votes.
“It’s going to take some time to develop the systems that we’re creating in the immigration bill, and so we are looking at what triggers could apply that would satisfy someone like Senator Isakson,” said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.). “It is a change of position, and there are lots of different changes as we try to accommodate.”
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Take a few deep breaths, Lynn, and get a-holt of yourself
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Sharpsburg) was one of 50 or so House Republicans who attended a private meeting in Washington on Wednesday with Fred Thompson, the hot non-candidate for president.
“There was a breath of fresh air in the room today,” Westmoreland said, according to an Associated Press report.
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City of Atlanta payroll shooting up?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Creative Loafing’s John Sugg has a piece claiming that hiring has surged 27 percent under Mayor Shirley Franklin. He says City Hall employed 7,428 when she took office. Sugg says the current number is 9,438.
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Perdue raises possibility of special session — but is it a threat or a last-minute cattle prod?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Associated Press says Gov. Sonny Perdue is signaling that he might veto the 2007 midyear budget, raising the possibility that a long and tortuous session of the Legislature might have an encore.
“Every day the papers are filled with story after story about the shortcomings of this budget,” the AP quotes Perdue spokesman Dan McLagan as saying.
“This governor is unlikely to sign a budget that fails to meet the needs of Georgians,” McLagan said. “This certainly appears to be such a budget.”
The article noted that the timing of the comments seemed designed to give lawmakers an opportunity to fix the problems before they leave. Friday is scheduled to be the final day of the 40-day session.
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Edwards names his Georgia teams — House and Senate leaders at the top
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The John Edwards presidential campaign this afternoon released its list of early Georgia supporters — including Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown of Macon and House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin.
And you’re still wondering why Edwards was picked to speak at the Democrat’s Jefferson-Jackson Day fund-raiser on May 17.
Other Democrats jumping on the Edwards wagon:
— Former congressman Ed Jenkins
State Sen. Vincent D. Fort (D-Atlanta)
State Rep. Rob Teilhet (D-Smyrna)
State Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Atlanta)
State Rep. Michelle Henson (D-Stone Mountain)
State Rep. Gerald Greene (D-Cuthbert)
State Rep. Jeannette Jamieson (D-Toccoa)
State Rep. Charles Jenkins (D-Blairsville)
State Rep. Hugh Floyd (D-Norcross)
Chuck Byrd, Middle Georgia attorney
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The NRA loses the same fight in Florida; and Cagle tells critics to put on their ‘big-boy’ pants
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The National Rifle Association’s week didn’t get any better on Wednesday.
One day after our state Senate refused to take up its guns-in-parking-lots bill, a House committee in Florida killed that state’s version of the same measure.
Seven Republicans were key to the 10 to 4 vote. “NRA will not forget these anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-constitution representatives,” says the alert put out by the gun group.
Meanwhile, back in Georgia, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle declared the NRA bill dead for the session. But Cagle denied that he had placed his Republican caucus in a difficult position by pushing too hard to bring the issue to a vote.
“No I don’t think that’s a fair characterization at all. Listen, this is a big-boy process down here. No one likes to take difficult votes. I did not allow a vote to take place the first time it was on the floor, because there was dissension,” the lieutenant governor told our colleague Carlos Campos.
“Was I pushing both sides to the table? Yes. That’s part of the process, to find common ground,” Cagle said. “And at the end of the day, I have no desire to bring a bill to the floor that is going to be this divisive if there’s not sufficient votes. And clearly both sides could not come to an agreement, and the votes were not there to pass the bill.
“It’s my job to make sure we don’t harm the members of the body, and that we do what’s in the best interest of all Georgia citizens. In the end, I was not comfortable that [the legislation] met that test,” Cagle said.
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The blurring line between lobbyists and media consultants
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Fulton County Daily Report has a must-read article today on the blurring line between lobbyists and media consultants in Georgia — raising the question of whether some people who should be registering as lobbyists aren’t.
Reporter Andy Peters drops several important names, including Derrick Dickey, former press aide to Gov. Sonny Perdue; Matt Towery, who provides polling, consulting and news services to clients; former congressman Bob Barr, who has started Liberty Strategies LLC; former Southeastern Legal Foundation director Phil Kent, and “Georgia Gang” member Jeff Dickerson.
Many of the above are quoted as saying they don’t have direct contact with lawmakers, and so don’t need to register. But Rick Thompson, executive secretary of the State Ethics Commission, is quoted as saying they should.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re communicating directly with anyone or not,” Thompson said, citing O.C.G.A. § 21-5-70. “If you undertake to promote or oppose legislation, or you spend at least $250, you have to register.”
However, no one has filed a complaint about media consultants illegally engaging in lobbying, Thompson said.
“No one has ever asked the question,” Thompson added.
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In Cagle’s defense: Gun bill sponsor said the lieutenant governor did the right thing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Sen. Chip Rogers, the sponsor of the guns-in-parking-lot bill, sent us a note this morning.
It referred to last night’s intra-caucus dust-up that had some Republican senators in near revolt.
Said Rogers:
“Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle worked tirelessly over the last three weeks to find a compromise on this issue. The suggestion that he did anything to hurt the Republican caucus is preposterous.
“I was part of the entire negotiation process on SB 43 and HB 89. Casey Cagle’s effort to find middle ground, while protecting every member of the Senate, both Republican and Democrat, should be applauded.”
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Signs that the Legislature has over-lingered — the abridged version
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Three House Democrats — Michele Henson of Stone Mountain, Stephanie Stuckey Benfield of Atlanta and Karla Drenner of Avondale — have been passing around their top 20 signs that the Legislature has gone on far too long.
We’ve taken the liberty of a few edits, and have whittled the list down to the standard Top Ten:
— You hope its not an ethics violation to play solitaire on your state-issued computer.
— You wear your legislative badge so much that you forget to take it off at the grocery store and wonder why the guy at the meat counter knows your name.
— You ask your spouse if he/she yields before speaking.
— Job? What job? You introduce a bill to double the legislative salary since it’s your only form of income.
— Spouse? What spouse? You introduce a measure providing for legislative immunity from Georgia’s divorce laws.
— You’ve introduced so many resolutions that you’re now down to honoring the guy who sat two rows behind you in first grade.
— You get caught up in the incorporation frenzy and try to create a city named after yourself because you might want to be mayor.
— Your best friends in the Legislature are the ones with couches in their offices so you can catch up on your sleep.
— You forget what it’s like to pay for your own food.
— You’re so bleary-eyed from all the guests on the House floor that the Speaker starts to look like Miss Gum Spirits of Turpentine.
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Down for the count, the NRA made one last stab
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember that bunny-boiling Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction”? Once dead, she just wouldn’t stay down.
Tonight was kind of like that.
After Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour made the motion to put H.B. 89, the guns-in-parking-lot bill, to the bottom of the long day’s calendar, we assumed the NRA-backed bill was history.
“A lot of us don’t believe that a day after the gun shooting at Virginia Tech, the massacre of 30-some students, that it would be appropriate to be taking up really any gun bill right now,” Balfour told reporters immediately afterwards. “I think we need to be sensitive to the loss of those folks. Two of those folks are from Georgia.”
But an hour later, the bill came roaring back. Republican senators were called one-by-one up to the fourth floor office of state Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga), where an angry official from the NRA — who’d flown in from Washington for this very bill — gave lawmakers what-for.
A letter was passed out with the signature of Chris Cox, the NRA executive director. “H.B. 89 is NRA’s top legislative priority this session in Georgia. As such NRA intends to closely monitor all aspects of this bill — including scheduling of votes, hostile amendments, votes on final passage and any efforts to avoid voting on this issue.”
Translated: Republican senators had agreed to simply walk away from the bill without a vote tonight. The NRA told them that they would arrange a roll-call vote on adjournment.
We’re told a Democrat, J.B. Powell of Blythe, had agreed to raise the objection that would force the vote. He’s from a vulnerable district, and could use the assist of the gun group.
Republicans were told a vote for adjournment would be a vote against the bill. And the senator who voted to go home after an 11-hour day would get an “F” rating from the NRA — with all that means.
The Senate was trapped, faced with the prospect of churning on and on and on through the night.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who brokered the bill’s current form this week, isn’t talking tonight. But many Republican senators told us they thought Cagle had at least acquiesced to the NRA’s threat, and had left his Republican caucus hanging out to dry.
“We gave him the power, and he wants us to walk the plank,” one GOP senator was overheard muttering, from within a tight scrum of rebellion on the Senate floor.
So at 10:02 p.m., Cagle ordered the Senate to stand at ease for five minutes. And the entire Senate Republican caucus crowded into the nearby office of Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson. Cagle was the last to enter.
For close to a half hour, Democrats were left to mill about the chamber floor.
We don’t know all that happened in the closed-door meeting. Not yet. We’re told there was heavy opposition to moving the bill. At least 17 Republican members said they would vote against the bill today, Thursday, or any other day. That’s half the GOP caucus. Many of them are private property buffs, and think the gun bill impinges on land owners.
The vote count changed things a bit. We’re told that the NRA at one time had held this offer out to the GOP caucus: As long as the bill passed, the NRA wouldn’t condemn Republicans who were cut loose and voted against it.
But 17 Republican opponents and significant opposition by Democrats meant the bill wouldn’t pass. Those Republicans who voted against it faced exposure to NRA revenge.
At 10:25 p.m., the Senate Republican caucus returned to the chamber, members grim-faced. Balfour quickly made the motion to adjourn. Powell, the Democrat, shouted his objection for a roll call vote.
Cagle ignored him. There was no roll call vote.
The Republican caucus apparently had persuaded its lieutenant governor to back off.
We’re told that this is the end of the guns-in-parking-lots bill, at least for this year.
But then, they said the same thing about Glenn Close.
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At least for today, the Senate says gun bill too hot to touch
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Without objection, the Senate late Tuesday passed on the opportunity to engage in a debate over a controversial gun bill — even as Americans were still digesting the scope of the massacre at Virginia Tech.
The bill, heavily backed by the powerful National Rifle Association, would permit employees to keep guns in their cars parked on corporate lots, and would have allowed many gun owners to conceal their weapons under the seat, or elsewhere in the vehicle.
On a motion from Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour (R-Snellville), H.B. 89 was moved to obscurity at the bottom of a lengthy calendar — with no chance of reaching it before the chamber adjourned for the night.
“A lot of us don’t believe that a day after the gun shooting at Virginia Tech, the massacre of 30-some students, that it would be appropriate to be taking up really any gun bill right now,” Balfour told reporters immediately afterwards. “I think we need to be sensitive to the loss of those folks. Two of those folks are from Georgia.
“The law-abiding gun owner knows that today isn’t the day to bring a gun bill to the floor,” the rules chairman said.
Whether or not to address the bill had prompted a furious argument within the Senate Republican caucus that started before the chamber was gaveled into session this morning. Many were fearful of how the public would view an extended debate — with members holding up fresh copies of today’s newspapers.
Even without Monday’s incident at Virginia Tech, the gun bill had sparked a struggle among Republicans — many of whom think the bill infringes on the private property rights of employers.
But Republican lawmakers are also wary of the NRA’s mailing list, and its willingness to spend money to defeat elected officials who oppose it. Randy Kozuch, director of the NRA’s state legislative operation, flew in from Washington from the vote, and watched from the vacant office of a state senator.
The bill was placed on Tuesday’s calendar at the request of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who has brokered a watered-down version of the legislation — although the measure is still opposed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
The Legislature is not in session Wednesday. But we’re told that Cagle wants to see H.B. 89 placed back on the calendar for Thursday’s session — the last day it can be considered before the Legislature goes home.
But Balfour hinted that Cagle could face a revolt among members of his caucus should the lieutenant governor press the issue. “Obviously he’s the lieutenant governor,” Balfour said. “We’ll have to look at his wishes. But I think the jury’s out.”
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Presidential wallets: Who’s raising how much from Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Center for Responsive Politics made a database available today that shows how much money each presidential candidate has received from individual states, our colleague Bob Kemper in Washington tells us.
And the surprise is Barack Obama. Or, after last Saturday’s rally, perhaps it’s not such a surprise.
Obama received more money from Georgia donors than any other candidate for president, Democrat or Republican. He has milked nearly $478,000 from the solidly red state, most of it from metro Atlanta.
Next comes Republican Mitt Romney, who has raised $401,161 — nearly four times as much Georgia money as the next GOP candidate, John McCain.
Democrat John Edwards comes in third.
Here’s the entire Democratic list:
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama: $477,760
Former U.S. senator John Edwards: $376,845
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton: $81,925
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: $76,250
U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden: $8,650
U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd: $7,600
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich: $1,567
Mike Gravel: $20
And here’s the entire Republican list:
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney: $401,161
U.S. Sen. John McCain: $106,228
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani: $78,350
Former Virginia governor James Gilmore: $13,600
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee: $12,650
U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback: $7,450
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul: $5,300
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo: $3,500
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter: $0
Former Health secretary Tommy Thompson: $0
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Is it or is it not bad taste? Republicans debate over vote on gun bill today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UPDATED at 4:38 p.m. We’re told Senate Republicans have abandoned a plan to vote on the guns-in-parking-lots bill today, one day after the Virginia Tech massacre.
The measure is to be sent down to the bottom of today’s calendar. The Senate would then adjourn before it reaches the gun bill.
One additional wrinkle being discussed includes a recorded vote to table the measure — which Republicans in the Senate would oppose.
This would give them an on-the-record vote in favor of H.B. 89, offering them protection from National Rifle Association accusations that they killed the bill. Once the tabling motion fails, the hand-vote to place the gun bill — in which no senator’s name would be recorded — would occur.
The result would be a dead bill and no fingerprints.
ORIGINAL POST: A furious, closed-door argument erupted within the Republican caucus this morning over whether the Senate should follow through with a vote on a gun bill, one day after the worst massacre in American history.
H.B. 89 was the topic of heated discussion by a gathering of GOP senators that pushed back the start of today’s session by 40 minutes.
The measure, backed with the full force of the National Rifle Association, would permit employees to keep guns in their cars parked on corporate lots. Some corporations now bar firearms from their property.
It also would allow motorists without a criminal record or history of mental illness to conceal weapons inside their cars
On Monday evening, with the approval of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, the Senate Rules Committee put H.B. 89 on today’s calendar. But as he entered the chamber this morning, Cagle — who brokered changes in the current version of the bill — said the vote wasn’t a sure thing.
“It is on the calendar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a vote today,” the lieutenant governor said.
We’re told that a handful of GOP senators are insisting on a vote — and that Cagle has promised the NRA that the revised bill will come to the floor. Another 10 to 11 senators adamantly oppose moving the bill today or any other day this session.
The NRA has made the bill a scorecard issue, and promised an ‘F’ to any senator voting against it. The question for Republicans is whether to risk offending the public with the debate — two Georgians are among the dead — or to guarantee themselves trouble with the NRA in the next election.
Frank V. Rotondo, executive director of the Georgia Assocation of Chiefs of Police, wrote a letter to senators today, urging them to vote against H.B. 89.
Rotondo, a former police chief in Helen, Ga. and homicide detective in New York, wore a Virginia Tech tie at the Capitol today. It was given to him by his son, who graduated from Virginia Tech last year.
“Yesterday was indeed a day that we as Americans should never forget,” the letter opens. “The shooting deaths of 33 innocent individuals at one of our nation’s premier institutions of higher learning, Virginia Tech, has shown us that the bizarre conduct of one person, presumably a ‘law abiding citizen’ with firearms, could wreak havoc on the tranquility of society.”
The bill was considerably weakened on Monday, but the Georgia Chamber of Commerce is still opposed. In fact, some senators are saying the changes are so confusing, they’re not sure exactly what the bill accomplishes.
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Hillary Clinton, the ‘evidence-based decision-maker,’ here on May 19
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Days after Barack Obama left many Democrats in Atlanta breathless, we’ve snagged a copy of the e-mail that’s making the rounds, inviting certain people to a “relatively private visit” by Hillary Clinton on Saturday, May 19.
The author says the Democratic presidential candidate “can return our government to evidence-based decision-making. Surprisingly, she is pragmatic, fiscally-responsible and, contrary to lore, middle-of-the-road. She has an excellent chance to win the nomination and very possibly the general election.”
Event planners are asking for contributions of “$2,300 or $1,000.”
Ever since Obama and his 20,000 appeared last Saturday, Clintonites have been burning the phone lines to Atlanta, trying to keep past supporters in line.
The Clinton event, by the way, is scheduled for the same Saturday that the state Republican party holds its annual convention, this time in Gwinnett County. We think it’d make a fine platform for a pragmatic, fiscally responsible middle-of-the-roader.
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A day after the massacre, guns-in-parking-lots bill debate set for today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the day after what’s being called the deadliest single murder spree in American history, the Senate has scheduled debate on a bill to permit employees to keep guns in their cars parked on corporate lots.
But in the last two hours, whether or not the chamber will push forward with a confrontation over the bill remains in flux. “It is on the calendar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a vote today,” Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, the presiding officer, said just a few minutes ago.
The bill was weakened considerably on Monday, but the Georgia Chamber of Commerce remains opposed.
The measure, backed by the National Rifle Association and aimed at companies that have policies prohibiting the possession of firearms on their ground, has provoked a tremendous fight within Republican ranks over the right to carry versus the right to control one’s property.
We have a question on timing here, and don’t yet have a firm answer. Backers of H.B. 89 had anticipated the bill coming to the Senate floor on Thursday. It was moved up yesterday evening, just as the full brunt of the massacre at Virginia Tech was hitting TV screens.
The calendar is set by the Senate Rules Committee. For what it’s worth, we note here that Don Balfour, the Republican chairman of the committee, has been no friend of the bill — but who can say whether 24 hours after the event is any worse than 72.
The bill is No. 28 on a list of 49 pieces of legislation.
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Colonial Pipeline bill tanks in House Judiciary Committee, 7 to 4
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House Judiciary Committee on Monday abruptly killed a bill to ease restrictions that Colonial Pipeline Co. must meet to build a third petroleum pipeline from Baton Rouge, La., to Powder Springs.
The defeat came on a 7 to 4 vote led by a bipartisan coalition of Cobb County legislators. In the end, state Rep. Rich Golick of Smyrna, the highest-ranking Republican in the vote against S.B. 173, said he didn’t trust the company — which came to local legislators late in the process.
We’ll link to the detailed story later.
The bill was dumped only after chairman Wendell Willard introduced what he thought was series of compromises acceptable to opponents. Golick said he joined Democrats in the effort to block the bill at the committee level, because he didn’t trust what might come out in the House-Senate negotiations on the bill.
Willard was clearly caught off guard. Immediately afterwards, he turned to state Rep. Robbin Shipp (D-Atlanta) and asked, “What was wrong with it? What was wrong with it?”
Certainty and uncertainty in the coming gun bill debate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The certainty is that H.B. 89, the new vehicle for the guns-in-parking-lots bill, will be debated in the Senate in the aftermath of the worst campus massacre in U.S. history at Virginia Tech.
You’ll recall that on Day 30, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle shelved the first parking-lots-in-gun bill in part because debate coincided with an employee-on-employee slaying in Atlanta.
The uncertainty is the impact of the bill. We’ve got reports that it’s been thoroughly gutted. NRA types say they’ve got what they want.
Here’s the new version of the bill. Somebody get a lawyer and tell us what it means.
Your morning bulletin: Senate Judiciary smacks down the express-lane death penalty bill; NRA decides not to fight lawyers, too.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Senate Judiciary Committee just delivered a unanimous vote against the House bill that would allow the application of the death penalty with a less than unanimous vote from the jury. We’ll link you to the detailed story once it’s posted.
And the Senate Rules Committee voted out a guns-in-parking-lot bill absent the proposal to end “vicarious litigation” and sever the liability link between employee and employer.
The NRA decided they didn’t want to fight the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the state’s lawyers. The chamber is claiming the bill left the rules committee gutted, but we’ll wait for the details.
We’ll post the new version of H.B. 89 as soon as we get hold of it.
FYI, Boortz seems to be on the side of the NRA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As we write this, WSB radio talk show host Neal Boortz has taken up the guns-in-parking-lots issue, and appears to be siding with the National Rifle Association.
Boortz says trial lawyers are exaggerating the threat to vicarious liability issue (for details, see the post below.) And says he keeps guns in some of the cars he drives to work each day.
Want to upend the legal system? State Bar says the gun bill will do it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The most important press release of the weekend came from the State Bar of Georgia, which announced that — after a Friday emergency meeting of officers — it would oppose the latest permutation of the guns-in-parking-lots bill.
The Georgia Trial Lawyers Association had jumped in a day earlier, but that group has all sorts of baggage from tort-reform fights and its membership’s tendency to donate to Democratic causes.
The State Bar, by contrast, is old money. Corporate, staid, and, more important, ubiquitous. Wherever there’s a lawyer, there’s the Bar.
The issue is the National Rifle Association’s proposal to end vicarious litigation, a concept whereby the employer is held responsible for the employee’s actions.
The NRA proposed to dump the legal doctrine, which is only a few centuries old and looks years younger, as an enticement to Georgia’s business community. Chamber of commerce types have opposed the effort to give employees the right to keep firearms in cars on the company lot as an infringement of private property rights.
Details are to tucked into H.B. 89.
But the business community says its not impressed. And State Bar president Jay Cook on Saturday put the issue in easy-to-understand, apocalyptic terms:
“Surely our legislators don’t realize the devastating consequences this will have on our justice system and the people of Georgia.
“Vicarious liability is a principal of law that’s been with us for more than a thousand years. Is it wise to wipe out a millennium of legal tradition with three paragraphs in an unrelated bill?
“I hope our representatives will give this matter the careful consideration it deserves.”
As a matter of fact, the Senate Rules Committee is to take up the bill within minutes.
The doozey of ‘06 and what now may be the world’s richest animal rights charity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Legislature’s mad dash for the exit this week will end with a flurry of bills and money thrown hither and yon.
Somewhere in that chaos will be at least one unintended consequence — a good deed gone bad. It happens, like clockwork, every year.
Today, in point of fact, the Senate will be asked to fix the doozey from last year.
It was admirable legislation. Goodwill Industries wanted relief from property taxes on its facilities in Savannah. The Legislature was happy to oblige with an exemption for “charitable institutions.”
The bill, passed overwhelmingly by both chambers and approved in a statewide referendum last November, resulted in a loophole big enough for several hundred lumber trucks to pass through.
Over the last few months, timber baron Holland M. Ware of Hogansville has donated 67,000 acres in Georgia to his favorite do-good entity, the Fayetteville-based Holland M. Ware Charitable Foundation, dedicated to animal rights and anti-cruelty movements.
The charity’s last tax statement, signed by Ware a year ago, put its assets at about $300,000. Ware’s spokesman at the state Capitol said the value of the new round of gifts was “maybe $100 million.”
Consequently, the foundation — controlled by Ware, his wife and a third party — has also applied for nearly $700,000 in property-tax exemptions for land it now owns in 18 of the poorest counties in South Georgia.
These are counties that already struggle to fund schools and the bare essentials of government.
State and county officials fear a stampede of timberland into the protective arms of similar charities.
“It could be devastating statewide if this continues to happen,” state Rep. Richard Royal (R-Camilla) told members of the Senate Finance Committee last week, during a hearing that brought the issue into public view.
Royal has introduced H.B. 445, to close the loophole.
At the hearing, everyone agreed that Royal’s bill is necessary. The question was whether the foundation of the animal-loving timber baron should be allowed to keep its tax break.
The charity is real, argued Pete Robinson, Ware’s lawyer-lobbyist. “It gives money to the Auburn University school of veterinary medicine. [Ware] built the LaGrange animal shelter,” he said.
And the donation? “It was done legally, it was done honestly, it was done charitably, and it was done because of the passage of this law by the General Assembly and its people,” Robinson said.
State Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), chairman of the committee, agreed. “I’m prepared to state for the record that [Ware] did operate within the bounds of the law we passed.”
Rogers proposed to “grandfather” Ware’s tax breaks into law, which prompted a near-snort from Royal. “It rewards somebody for finding a loophole in some legislation. I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think it’s fair to these counties,” Royal said.
As for legalities, Royal said he had an opinion from Attorney General Thurbert Baker that “raises some questions of whether [Ware is] acting within the law.”
At which point Bart Graham, commissioner of the state Department of Revenue, stood up from his seat in the audience to add his doubts.
“This foundation was set up for the protection of abandoned animals. You hardly need 65,000 acres to do that,” Graham said.
Dave Wills, chairman of the Webster County Commission, was among the last to testify. The Holland foundation has 2,733 acres in Webster, worth $20,000 in taxes to the county government.
That exemption alone would mean a half-mill property tax increase for the 2,400 residents of Webster, he said.
In the end, the Senate committee sided with Royal and the 18 rural counties. Holland Ware and his foundation lost. The full Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill today.
Don’t think that you’ve seen the end of this unintended consequence. A lawsuit is certain.
Elsewhere, good intentions may pave the road to hell. In the Legislature, they’ve built an interstate leading to the courthouse.
So much for critics who say the General Assembly doesn’t care about transportation.
First word on money: Whitehead raises more than $250,000
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While the Legislature’s been spinning its wheels, state Sen. Jim Whitehead (R-Evans) has been on the phone.
Word is that Whitehead, a candidate for the 10th District congressional race, will report raising $264,521.87 from 491 individual donors. He’s also taken out a $100,000 line of personal credit.
It’ll be a few days before we can compare those numbers with other candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in the formally non-partisan race.
Meanwhile, down in Macon, John Edwards met with his lawyers…..
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While Barack Obama was in Atlanta stirring up an army, rival Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards stopped in Macon, where, in the offices of a local law firm, he promised to keep in touch with rural America.
“It’s where I’m from and I take it very personally,” Edwards said, according to today’s Macon Telegraph. “I grew up with eating fried chicken for dinner, going to Friday night high school football games, going to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon) was there, and threw his weight behind Edwards.
And by the way — when is Hillary coming to town?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Crowd-size estimates are notoriously imprecise. But by just about any count, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s Saturday rally at Georgia Tech was unprecedented. And it gives you as good an indication as any we’ve seen of just how front-loaded the next presidential election is going to be.
Georgia Tech Fire Marshall Michael Hodgson - who had the benefit of a good vantage point - gave the official estimate of 20,000. Some who were there estimated the crowd size as considerably less.
But a crowd of even half that size would be comparable to the biggest presidential rallies this city has seen, unless you count Michael Dukakis’s 1988 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
According to newspaper files, Jesse Jackson drew an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 at a rally in February of that year. Bill Clinton drew an estimated 10,000 at an Oct. 25, 1996 rally. And while we can’t find a crowd estimate, we recall his Nov. 1, 1992 appearance at Decatur High School Stadium as being that big also.
But bear in mind that two of those events were held during the height of the general election campaign, and Jackson’s rally was in the early stages of the 1988 primary season.
What makes Saturday’s turnout remarkable is the timing. We’re more than nine months away from the Georgia presidential primary, assuming it’s moved up to Feb. 5, and a whopping year and a half from the general election.
There’s some danger in this. Campaigns can burn out early. And we note that Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin was not among a group of some 75 elected officials who met with Obama before the rally.
But you can bet that any other candidate in either party would give away a significant portion of their warchest for this kind of public enthusiasm.
Notes from the Dome: Bills dear to the Religious Right still live
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cleaning up on a few items from Friday’s session of the Legislature:
— State Sen. David Shafer’s adult stem cell bill looked like it had hit a wall this week when it didn’t get a vote at the committee level. We spoke with House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island), who said the stall is merely temporary.
“We should get that bill out,” Keen predicted. Shafer’s bill would encourage the construction of a cord-blood bank
S.B. 148 would require all state hospitals by June 30, 2009, to inform pregnant women that they can donate placenta, umbilical cords and amniotic fluid to either public or private banks for medical research. Georgians who contribute to “non-destructive” stem cell research would be eligible for a state tax break.
The biomedical industry has opposed the bill — they say its language takes an unfair swipe at embryonic stem cell research. Keen said all sides are working on that issue.
— H.B. 147, which dwells on the issue of sonograms for women seeking abortions, is headed for a conference committee after the House disagreed to changes in the bill made by the Senate.
State Rep. James Mills (R-Gainesville) said the Senate had inserted language to make the sonograms more cumpulsory, and thus less constitutional.
— Also, the House gave final passage to H.R. 102, the measure that gives Robert Clark a $1.2 million annuity to compensate him for the 23 years he spent in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
The House had to approve a minor change made by the Senate. The measure now goes to the governor.
David Nordan, one of a kind, passes on
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Quite a few writers have come along since David Nordan’s heyday at the old Atlanta Journal, but none with more wit, passion and visceral appetite for the game of politics.
We’ve gotten the sad news that Nordan died Thursday afternoon, “with his loving family by his side.”
A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. Sunday at Parrott Funeral Home in Fairburn. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to Mercer University, marked to the “David Nordan Memorial Scholarship.” It’s a scholarship for adult continuing education students - David was an instructor at Mercer’s adult writing lab and felt very strongly about the program.
The address is:
Mercer University University Advancement 1400 Coleman Ave Macon, Georgia 31207
A memorial service is also planned — he’d be mighty ticked off if there weren’t — for next Tuesday night at Manuel’s. Angelo Fuster, a longtime friend, put it very well when he said that session will bring together those who “sometimes liked and sometimes didn’t like, but always loved Dave.”
In elementary school, we called this ‘caught being good’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Friday afternoon, the House gave final approval to H.B. 79, a bill to permit licensed private investigators to drive cars with dark-tinted windows.
That way philandering husbands and bail jumpers can’t see who’s stalking them, although you’d think the dark windows themselves might be a tell-tale sign that something’s up.
On its first trip through the House, we didn’t notice that the bill had been amended so that members of the General Assembly could share this polarized privilege with private detectives. Driving around in smokey-glassed cars just like the by-God President of the United States is pretty cool, after all.
Ah, but someone in the Senate saw a danger in 236 swelled heads cruising Georgia highways in sublime privacy. The chamber stripped the bill down to its original scope, so that it only covered private investigators.
State Rep. Calvin Hill (R-Canton), the No. 2 sponsor of the bill, told his fellow House members that the Senate change was for the best. People might start thinking lawmakers viewed themselves as being above the law, he said.
The stripped-down bill won final passage, 121 to 10.
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Dogwood blossoms and stretcher-bearers: Two signs that the end of the session approaches
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two House members are in hospital with chest pains today. State Rep. Greg Morris (R-Vidalia) was taken away by ambulance. State Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah) went under his own power. House Majority Leader Jerry Keen said both are staying the night, but are doing fine.
State Rep. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody) went for an ambulance ride on Thursday, after he, too, experienced chest pains. He was back at his desk today.
You know, of course, that the Legislature is the No. 1 cause of heart attacks in Georgia, whether you’re inside the state Capitol — or outside.
Heads up: The gun bill is shifting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The National Rifle Association is attempting to re-shape its stalled guns-in-parking lots bill. The new version includes a highly tempting morsel for the Georgia business community.
But it’s also drawn a new player into the fight — the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association.
S.B. 43 ran into a brick wall on Day 30 of the legislative session. As written, the bill would have allowed employees to keep firearms in cars parked on company lots.
Business organizations, principally the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Realtors Association, declared the bill to be an infringement of property rights.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle kept the bill from a floor vote on Crossover Day, significantly reducing its chances of passing this session.
The new version — we haven’t seen a formal draft — is said to have these points:
— Companies would be prohibited from searching employee cars on their property;
— And a prohibition of guns in those cars could not be made a condition of employment;
In essence, the bill would codify the unspoken, don’t-ask-don’t-tell relationship that now exists between many employees and companies.
To lure the business community, the bill would end “vicarious litigation” in Georgia. If a FedEx truck runs over your toddler, right now you’re allowed to sue both the company and the driver. This bill would end that practice. You’d only be able to sue the driver.
Chamber leaders met today to discuss the offer. It’s not clear whether they’re biting.
Says Staton of Oxendine: He’s cooking the numbers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier this week, we told you that state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine had put out a letter criticizing S.B. 276, a bill to expand the rights of policy-holders with uninsured motorist coverage.
Oxendine said the measure, now in the House, would cost Georgia consumers an extra $400 million a year — or an extra $92 for the average policy-holder.
But the sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Cecil Staton (R-Macon), says that’s not what the insurance commissioner told him last month. Staton has put out a response, basically charging Oxendine of caving to insurance companies. Here an excerpt:
“Over six weeks ago, we asked Commissioner Oxendine’s office for an evaluation of the fiscal impact of this legislation, and representatives from his office assured me, in writing, that industry estimates showed a potential increase in uninsured motorist rates that was marginal at best.
“However, earlier this week, representatives from Commissioner Oxendine’s office called and informed me of his intention to oppose Senate Bill 276 on the grounds that it will represent an overall premium increase of 14 percent for Georgians.
“Yesterday, over a month after our initial request for information, Commissioner Oxendine changed his numbers yet again and informed us that the mandates of Senate Bill 276 will represent an overall premium increase to Georgians of 21.3 percent!
“However, the research provided to us early in this process shows that Senate Bill 276 will increase the premium less than $4 per month.
“I regret that Commissioner Oxendine is siding with the insurance companies and against Georgia’s drivers. Georgia drivers deserve to collect the insurance they are paying for and, and they should have the same access to coverage the citizens in our sister states currently enjoy.”
Reading other people’s mail: The exchange that preceded the bust-up over the slavery apology
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Republican-endorsed effort in the Senate to apologize for slavery in Georgia imploded today, following a strange exchange of e-mail between Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah and the chamber’s lead Democrat, Robert Brown of Macon.
We have the e-mails, and you’ll read them soon enough. Here’s the context:
Johnson has been working with state Rep. Al Williams of Midway, a Democrat and chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, to refine the wording of the resolution. But Democrats in the Senate had not been involved.
Johnson apparently approached Brown, the minority leader and an African-American, about joining his effort. And Brown, who can be very blunt at times, probably told Johnson what he’s told us — that he sees no value in the issue.
Then came Johnson with his e-mail and a fired-up BlackBerry. We’ve retyped the exchange to put it in chronological order, and have omitted e-mail addresses — the two lawmakers were using their private accounts.
From: Eric Johnson
To: Robert Brown
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 6:59:31 AM
Subject: Slavery Statement
I plan to issue this this morning. I think it’s classy and it will be a national story. Do you want to issue it together?
After weeks of research and cooperative bi-partisan negotiations, the Senate Democratic Caucus and I have agreed that no apology is necessary for Georgia’s role in slavery.
Any resolution would simply state the obvious — slavery was wrong and Georgia regrets its participation in it. Such an effort, while well intentioned, would be meaningless.
We cannot change history, but we can work together to make our future one of hope and promise.
Two hours later, Brown tapped out a reply.
From: Robert Brown
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:05:16
To: Eric Johnson
Subject: Re: Slavery Statement
Eric,
After our brief conversation a few minutes ago regarding a joint statement on a slavery apology, I reviewed your e-mail.
I do not agree to sign on this statement. Also I want to make clear that the Democratic Caucus has not taken a position on a slavery apology and no one representing the Senate Democratic Caucus has been negotiating on this matter.
The views I have expressed to you are my own. This includes the response I made to the proposed resolution you asked me to review.
Thank you.
Robert
Johnson replied. We have the text of the message, but with no header or time stamp. Just the following:
Robert, please know that we were trying to do the right thing. I never wanted to put you in an awkward situation. I will be releasing a similar statement soon so you may get a call. I will work on phrasing it so that the door isn’t slammed.
At 2:39 p.m., the Senate Press Office sent the following statement over Johnson’s name:
“After weeks of research and cooperative bi-partisan discussion, the Senate Democrat Leader has not made a request that we pursue an apology this year.
If the Democrats are focused on moving this issue forward this year, our door remains open to introduce a bi-partisan resolution as long as it has the support of both the Democrat and Republican leadership.”
The downside of a $140 million property tax break
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just ran into a knot of county tax officials at the state Capitol, and they were uniformly unimpressed by the budget deal between the House and Senate struck this week, which would return $140 million or so to Georgia property taxpayers.
By check, issued by 159 counties to property owners.
Phillip Hogsed, chief appraiser for the Cobb County Board of Tax Assessors, said postage alone will cost county government $55,000. Paid for by county taxpayers.
Pam Register, tax commissioner for Schley County, said the distribution doesn’t make much sense to her. The law calls for her and other county officials to make the payments to those who own property in 2006. But the land might have changed two or three times since then, she said.
Who gets the check?
Betty Story, tax commissioner of Sumter County, said it would make better sense to distribute the money as property tax credits in next year’s bills.
Ah, but then taxpayers couldn’t see the tax break they’re getting. And the proper politicians wouldn’t get the credit.
UPDATE: We just learned that the House and Senate are discussing the possibility of adopting Ms. Story’s suggestion, and putting the tax break in the form of a tax credit applied to this year’s property tax bills, which are usually issued in late summer.
Eric Johnson balks on slavery apology — says he needs Senate Dems to ask for it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An interesting, official statement just popped into the in-box.
Said Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah:
“After weeks of research and cooperative bi-partisan discussion, the Senate Democrat Leader has not made a request that we pursue an apology this year. If the Democrats are focused on moving this issue forward this year, our door remains open to introduce a bi-partisan resolution as long as it has the support of both the Democrat and Republican leadership.”
Looks like Johnson wants to hear from Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown of Macon, before he moves the apology statement toward a floor vote. Heretofore, the Republican Senate leader has had state Rep. Al Williams a black Democrat from the Savannah area and chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, as his partner.
We don’t know whether Brown, who is also African-American, will accept Johnson’s invitation. The last time we talked to Brown about the slavery apology, he said that — to his mind — the issue wasn’t worth a bucket of warm liquid.
That’s our phrasing, not his.
At high noon on April 26, we’ll find out who’s really running in the 10th
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Secretary of State Karen Handel today set April 24-26 as the qualifying period for the special election to fill the 10th District congressional seat made vacant by the death of U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood of Augusta.
Qualifying that Tuesday and Wednesday will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Thursday, the hours are 9 a.m. to noon. It’ll cost the candidate a fee of $4,950 — which may weed out a few of the names we’ve been batting around for several weeks.
The election is June 19, and the run-off, if necessary, will be July 17. Voters in the 21 counties covered by the district have until May 21 to register.
TABOR resolution set aside for the year?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UPDATE: This evening, State Sen. Chip Rogers, sponsor of the bill, sent the following message:
“The House Ways & Means Committee was nice enough to schedule a hearing on SR 20. I asked sub-committee Chairman Tom Graves if we could wait until next week. I had too much on my agenda for today and could not appropriately present this important measure to committee members. I appreciate the House for giving me this opportunity to present the resolution and look forward to answering any of their questions.”
ORGINAL POST: We’re told that a House Ways & Means subcommittee has canceled a hearing on S.R. 20 that had been scheduled for this morning.
This is the legislation sponsored by state Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) to put a constitutional cap on spending. The anti-tax crowd that came to support it is a little miffed that a) the hearing isn’t being held; and b) no one will tell them exactly why.
Two reasons immediately come to mind: a) House GOP leaders want to wrap all tax-reform related bills into next year’s session — except for that property tax rebate agreed to this week; or b) they think the proposed constitutional amendment would tread on the constitutional powers of the House, which are based on control of the budget.
Looks like the race for state GOP chairman is over, one month early
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Next month’s state Republican convention in Gwinnett County may have just been robbed of its last shred of drama.
The Marietta Daily Journal reports today that Anthony-Scott Hobbs, radio talk show host and former Cobb County party chairman, has bowed out of the race for state party chairman.
That leaves longtime GOP activist Sue Everhart of Cobb County, a close ally of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, the only announced candidate. She’s already wrapped up every endorsement in sight, from Gov. Sonny Perdue to — gosh! — Isakson.
Hobbs just wrapped up his four years as chairman of the Cobb GOP, said a pending marriage and financial pressures led him to drop out. “I understand it’s a full-time volunteer job and at this junction in my life - these are my earning years,” Hobbs told the MDJ.
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Surprise! Paper ballots declared unmagical
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Did you see this piece on the paper-ballot pilot project in Georgia?
People liked the idea of a receipt they could hold in their hands. But a return to hand-counting of ballots is rife with expensive complications. Cobb County officials, for example, estimated it would take 120 days and $520,000 to manually audit its 191 precincts.
And in smaller, rural precincts, vote-counters could easily figure out who voted for whom.
Secretary of State Karen Handel, elected last year, says she’ll proceed with caution. “Clearly, we need to continue to evaluate paper audit trail technology,” she said.
Handel now sounds very much like her predecessor, Cathy Cox. The pre-‘06 version.
Cox expressed skepticism about the use of paper ballots — until she ran for governor. Makes you wonder whether all those heart-felt expressions of support for paper ballots last year, by both Republicans and Democrats, were just so much pandering.
Both embryonic stem cells pass, but….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bill sponsored by Tom Harkin, the remake of the one President Bush vetoed last year, again failed to get a veto-proof margin. It passed 63 to 34.
The bill sponsored by U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson passed 70 to 28. See postings below for the implications.
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The stem cell debate on C-Span
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson is on the verge of a stunning victory this evening.
The U.S. Senate begins voting on two embryonic stem cell bills shortly before 6 p.m. One of them is Isakson’s.
Each needs 60 votes to move to the House. We’re hearing that Isakson has those in hand and more.
You can watch it here on C-Span 2.
We’ve lectured you enough on this topic, but these are the essentials: S. 5 will be voted on first. It’s a version of the measure that was vetoed by President Bush last year, and would permit federally funded researchers to use healthy embryos created by fertilization clinics, with the permission of the parents.
Isakson’s bill, S. 30, would permit federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, but would restrict scientists to “naturally dead” embryos — i.e., embryos that have simply stopped dividing and are “non-viable.”
Scientists and advocates clearly prefer S. 5. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada just called S. 30 a “cover vote” for Republicans.
But they ignore the political import of Isakson’s accomplishment.
S. 30 has been endorsed by the White House and by the Catholic bishops. Isakson has been able to get both institutions to shift their positions on embryonic stem cell research, to acknowledge that it is worth pursuing — within the boundaries the bill has laid out.
Marshall to members of the House: Ignore that guy behind me
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A significant non-confrontation took place in the state Capitol today, as U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, a conservative Democrat, addressed members of the House.
In front of Speaker Glenn Richardson, who has proposed new limits on the reach of PeachCare, the congressman said Georgia should be expanding — not contracting — the reach of the health insurance program of the children of the working poor.
This year, Marshall said, PeachCare “will be funded at least as well as its funded now, and it’s quite likely that it’s going to receive even more funding.
“There’ll be all kind of initiatives to expand the program, all kinds of different ideas for expanding the children’s health insurance program,” he said. “And I think Georgia needs to be in synch with that.”
Georgia, said Marshall — who’s often mentioned as a potential candidate for the U.S. Senate in ’08, or governor in ’10 — “could potentially lead the nation in coming up with different ways of trying to get more and more of these kids from poor families insured. It’s pennywise and pound foolish for us to be short on this program. This program saves us money in the long run.”
Perdue weighs in on the budget compromise, and he has ‘concerns’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At last night’s press conference to announce the triumph of compromise in House-Senate negotiations over the $700 million mid-year budget, Speaker Glenn Richardson admitted that Gov. Sonny Perdue had not been consulted.
The crux of the deal is $142 million in property tax rebates sent the way of Georgia homesteaders.
On Wednesday afternoon, the odd man out had his say. And despite the polite language he used with reporters, it’s clear that Perdue wasn’t happy with the end of the budget drama.
Said Perdue: “It seems that it came about in a very strange fashion. I’m not sure that the budget negotiations conference table is the place to really discuss and talk about tax strategy and fiscal policy positions such as occurred.”
He said it again, which among politicians sometimes signals a well-rehearsed, premeditated message: “Tax policy ought to be debated and talked about in an open environment. As I said, I’m concerned about the appearance of using tax and fiscal policy to sort of come to a consensus in a budget conference negotiation.”
And yes, he sees that the cost of the property tax rebate would cost about as much as his proposed tax break for some Georgia retirees, which the House chose not to move on this year.
“It didn’t go without notice that that was about the same amount that we think our senior tax cut was going to take of our revenue. I certainly would prefer that. That’s why I proposed it,” he told reporters.
Perdue also questioned the “complex” way the House and Senate proposed to distribute what is essentially a tax rebate — by giving 159 counties a homestead exemption grant that would presumably be passed on to homeowners.
Gov. Roy Barnes did that several years in a row before leaving office, and when — in tougher budget times — Perdue chose not to, he was accused of raising property taxes.
That would mean the same $142 million tax break would have to be included in the ’08 budget, Pedue said — or the Legislature would expose itself to accusations of proposing a tax hike. In an election year.
By the way, a property tax rebate is technically an appropriation. And the governor does have the power of the line-item veto to erase it, if he so chooses.
As for a special session, Perdue told reporters that an unscheduled legislative session is in the hands of lawmakers — and whether he sees enough restoration of “the things I’m really interested in.”
He mentioned his “Go Fish Georgia” program, as well as some appropriations for land conservation.
So who won? Richardson or Cagle?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Speaker Glenn Richardson said his House wanted to spend much of a $700 million mid-year budget on needed local projects. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle wanted the money rolled over into reserves.
As a compromise, they decided to give $140 million or so back to taxpayers.
Here’s the sound from last night’s press conference.
Best quote from Richardson: “I still believe it’s the better policy that we wait and see if we have money, then spend it on one-time projects. But the time to do that is not right now. The time to do that is in the off-season.”
It was Cagle’s first time in budget negotiations. His best quote: “There really are no losers in this. There are only winners. This is a beautiful way of resolving an issue.”
What’s the view from outside the state Capitol. Who smells better coming out of this?
Greetings, Rudy. You’re in the lead.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the same day that Rudy Giuliani comes to town, a Strategic Vision poll has released a poll that puts him at the top of the GOP presidential pack in Georgia.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads among Georgia, but both Barack Obama and John Edwards are close on her heels.
The poll by Strategic Vision, a Republican-leaning public affairs firm, also shows U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent, beating Vernon Jones, the only Democrat who has expressed public interest in the ’08 Senate race, by 57 to 29 percent.
Here are the parameters of the three-day poll: 800 voters contacted April 5-7, with a breakdown of 46 Republican and 41 percent Democrat. Margin of error on the broadest questions was 3 percent, but much higher on primary questions.
Among Republicans, it was:
— Giuliani, 23 percent;
— John McCain, 17 percent;
— Fred Thompson, 12 percent;
— Newt Gingrich, 10 percent;
— Mitt Romney, 5 percent;
— Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson, all at 3 percent;
— Mike Huckabee, 2 percent;
— Chuck Hagel, Jim Gilmore and Ron Paul, all at 1 percent.
Among Demcorats, it was:
— Clinton, 25 percent;
— Obama, 22 percent;
— John Edwards, 20 percent;
— Bill Richardson, 4 percent;
— John Biden and Wesley Clark, 3 percent;
— Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich, 1 percent.
Oxendine: Senate bill would cost motorists $400 million
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Having ingratiated himself with a certain House Republican leader by opposing a payday lending bill, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine is now picking on a Senate motor insurance bill that he says would cost Georgia consumers an extra $400 million a year.
Oxendine says that, based on 2003 figures, it would increase the average premium from $431 to $523, or $92 a year.
S.B. 276, sponsored by Sen. Cecil Staton (R-Macon), would prohibit insurance companies from using the other guy’s insurance policy to reduce what they pay out on uninsured motorist claims.
Here’s how it was just explained to us by a supporter of the bill:
State law currently requires motorists to carry something like $50,000 in insurance to cover damage to the other fellow.
Obviously, many, many accidents result in much more damage to car and people. So most motorists also pay for extra uninsured-motorist coverage — for damage beyond the other guy’s limited cap.
Say you’re in an accident caused by the aforementioned other guy, who has the $50,000 limited coverage. You have $100,000 in uninsured motorist coverage. The damage is $125,000. So you’re good, right? Not exactly.
The insurance backs out the $50,000 provided by the other guy from its limit, and pays the policy-holder only $50,000, leaving that motorist $25,000 in the hole.
This legislation would prevent insurance companies offering uninsured motorist coverage from doing that.
Oxendine says it’s not worth it. “In my analysis, the minimal befefits of S.B. 276 would be greatly by the increased costs to Georgia consumers,” he writes. Click here to see his letter to David Ralston, chairman of the House committee where the bill now resides.
Richardson caught the Senate doing something. We’re not sure what.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To those of you who object to the way a fight over a $700 million budget bill is reduced by journalists to a contest of wills between two testosterone-charged men, let us offer you this vignette:
Both of us were leaning against a wall on the third floor of the state Capitol on Tuesday afternoon, talking about the future, while the Senate took up that very budget bill.
Suddenly, the door to the office of the House Speaker flew open, and Glenn Richardson himself charged out, alone and headed for the Senate in a dark-suited blur.
We thought that a felony was about to occur — perhaps the strangulation of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
It was more technical than that.
“They’re using a hand vote on a budget amendment!” the Speaker shouted as he passed by us, then through the pair of startled guardians of the Senate door.
Richardson arrived just in time to see the hands of senators rise up. Then he melted quietly away, satisfied.
A few minutes later, the speaker said he had caught the Senate trying to give cover to state Sen. Jim Whitehead, a legislator from the Augusta area now running for Congress, on an appropriation that would fund the beginning of a rival medical school in Athens.
We’re still puzzled by the incident. We couldn’t find a budget amendment that backed the speaker’s accusation. The closest was an amendment that added $5 million for a dental school at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. Perhaps that was the cover Richardson spoke of.
In any case, the Senate always has hand votes on amendments — unless a roll call vote is demanded.
But it was clear that Richardson had been monitoring the proceedings via the Internet, and — suspecting that something nefarious was afoot in the rival chamber — wanted to make the collar himself.
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About those Obama tickets: Here’s where to get ‘em
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Democratic presidential campaign of Barack Obama has this link at its web site for those who want tickets to the Saturday rally in Atlanta.
The location is Yellow Jacket Park on the Georgia Tech campus, at Atlantic and Fourth streets.
The campaign also listed a dozen metro area locales that will also be doling out tickets. But first, you’re probably asking why a campaign is handing out tickets to a free event — which so far as we can tell, is the first major ‘08 presidential event in Atlanta.
From what we’ve heard, this is an extremely smart tactic that kind of harkens back to Ralph Reed on the Republican side of grass-roots organizing. The only thing required to get your ticket is your name, mailing address, e-mail address and phone number.
You get the ticket, and Obama gets a massive mailing list that identifies people most enthusiastic about his candidacy.
Here are those other ticket pick-up points:
Georgia Democratic Party Headquarters
Monday-Friday: 9 AM-5 PM
1100 Spring St. NW, Ste. 408, Atlanta, GA 30309
Chapter 11 Books - Ansley Mall Location
Monday-Saturday: 10 AM-9 PM
1544 Piedmont Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA, 30324
Chapter 11 Books - Emory Commons Location
Monday-Saturday: 10 AM-9 PM
2091 N. Decatur Rd., Atlanta, GA 30033
Chapter 11 Books - Sandy Springs Location
Monday-Saturday: 10 AM-8 PM
220 Johnson Ferry Rd. NE Sandy Springs, GA 30328
Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse
Monday-Sunday: 10 AM-11 PM
991 Piedmont Ave., Atlanta, GA, 30309
Charis Books
Monday-Tuesday: 10:30 AM-6:30 PM, Wednesday-Thursday: 10:30 AM-7:30 PM, Friday-Saturday: 10:30 AM-8 PM
1189 Euclid Ave., Atlanta, GA 30307
Acapella Books
Monday-Thursday: 11 AM-9 PM, Friday-Saturday: 11 AM-10 PM
484-C Moreland Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA 30307
Tall Tales Book Shop
Monday-Thursday: 9:30 AM-9:30 PM, Friday-Saturday: 9:30 AM-10 PM
2105 LaVista Rd., No. 108, Atlanta, GA, 30329
Sports Avenue
Monday-Saturday: 10 AM-5 PM
Located in the Underground Mall, 50 Lower Alabama St. SW, Atlanta, GA 30303
Gladys Knight and Ron Winan’s Chicken and Waffles
Monday-Thursday: 11 AM-11 PM, Friday-Saturday: 11 AM-4 AM
529 Peachtree St. NW, Atlanta, GA, 30308
Gold Star Café and Bakery
Monday-Saturday: 7 AM-8 PM
903 Peachtree St., Atlanta, GA 30309
Wax ‘N Facts Record Store
Monday-Saturday: 11 AM-8 PM
432 Moreland Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA 30307
Bernie Marcus on Rudy Giuliani
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shannon McCaffrey with the Associated Press may have gotten the first public pledge of support from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus to GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.
“I will do anything I can to help him,” Marcus said. “He is unlike most political candidates in that he doesn’t say what everybody wants to hear. I think people will connect to that kind of candor.”
We found the full story here, at the Newsday web site.
On Wednesday, Marcus hosts an Atlanta fund-raiser for Giuliani, which you know about — because we told you last week. Marcus’ association with Giuliani dates back to that campaign memo the Giuliani staffer lost last year, later published. Marcus was penciled in as Southern campaign chairman.
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Lobbyist alert: Click on these documents, and join in the budget negotiations
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With tempers running short, the budget fight in the Legislature, which was conducted behind closed doors yesterday, has broken into the open.
The office of House Speaker Glenn Richardson has released Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s first two compromise proposals on the $700 mid-year budget — and the speaker’s formal rejection.
Clearly, the intention of the release is to show the lieutenant governor to be less pure on the issue of pork-barrel spending than his rhetoric has indicated.
Jaillene Hunter, a spokeswoman for Cagle, said the correspondence reveals no contradiction.
“We have reached out in good faith to the House with offers to accept some of the projects its leaders insist on having, in return for significant cuts in spending and returning funds to the reserve, recognizing that no agreement will occur if both sides get everything we each want,” Hunter said.
Here’s the first offer from Cagle, in Excel format, and the more formal second offer, in a PDF. And here’s the Speaker’s response, in a Word document.
The last offer from Cagle, dated April 6, indicated a willingness to split nearly $60 million in projects between the House and Senate. Another $30 million would be returned to reserves.
“Based on our latest discussions, I believe the best way to reconcile our differing positions is to agree on basic spending parameters and then allow you and your leadership to prioritize projects internally. The Senate would then be willing to agree to the projects by the House within that overall spending cap,” Cagle wrote last Friday.
Continued the lieutenant governor: “As you know, on next Wednesday, the state will host representatives from the three major bond-rating agencies for an unusual joint visit to Georgia. It would be an exceptionally positive and fiscally responsible move for both chambers to be able to announce an agreement to return a significant portion of the surplus to the reserve fund in advance of that visit.”
Replied Richardson: “At this point, in light of the suggestions contained in your letter, it appears that you and I may somewhat be circumventing the conference committee process. While clearly we could continue along this path, I do not believe that such action is wise, prudent, or in the best interests of the House, the Senate, or the people of this State.”
It’s April 20 or bust.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Speaker Glenn Richardson threw down a gauntlet of his own on Tuesday, declaring that Day 40, the final day of the session, would be April 20. That’s Friday week.
A statement like that is intended to pressure the other side — i.e., the Senate. And that means the two chambers probably still have some distance to close before they reach agreement even on the first — and smallest — of two budget bills.
“Time is starting to run very, very, very short,” Richardson warned. “I believe next Friday is it. I see no reason to continue to perpetuate this session.
We’re told that Gov. Sonny Perdue has informed both sides that, should they gavel down without the proper budget agreements, he’ll call a special session for the next Saturday, requiring the attendance of all 236 lawmakers.
The pipeline company answers — and there’s a map
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re a House member in the state Capitol, one of your bigger decisions this session will be which way to vote on S.B. 173, the bill that Colonial Pipeline Co. says it needs to put a third petroleum line from Baton Rouge, La., to Powder Springs in Cobb County.
The bill that would remove the eminent domain requirements the Legislature slapped on in 1995 to punish the company for misbehavior.
You saw our earlier post on an anti-pipeline mailer that went out last week, directed at House Speaker Glenn Richardson of Paulding County.
Colonial answered this morning with a packet of its own — aimed at legislators, but also shared with us. Most helpfully, the company provided a map. But Colonial also included its talking points for the coming debate, and the letter the firm sent to House members.
“If this bill passes, federal and state oversight will more than adequately protect citizens’ property rights and…protect our state’s environment. Indeed, Colonial Pipeline’s ability to condemn property will remain the most restricted of any utility in Georgia,” writes Norm Szydlowski, Colonial president and CEO.
Digest, and enjoy.
Better Know a District: Meet Terry Holley, beleaguered Democrat
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrat Terry Holley, who’s running for the 10th District congressional seat in east Georgia, suddenly finds himself on the defensive with his own people.
State party strategists are attempting to unite behind a single candidate in the special, formally non-partisan election on June 19. And that single candidate is not Holley, who was thumped last November by the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood.
James Marlow of Lincolnton, an Internet businessman, has been endorsed by a majority of county chairmen in the 10th, and the state’s labor leadership has done the same.
Holley responds today with a YouTube address to district voters. His message? He’s the hometown guy, and Marlow — never mentioned by name — is not.
“I’ve been to your churches spoken at your meetings and traveled the length of your district many times over,” Holley says. “I’ve lived here, I’ve worked here, and I’ve raised my family here.”
Just in time for the resumption of hostilities
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Legislature reassembles today, and the only matter of importance is the state of budget-oriented tensions between House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
Blogger Jason Pye figures the fire could use a little more gasoline. He’s got a new web site, still being tweaked, called Georgia Porkbusters.
Just one suggestion: On the list of inappropriate pork-barrel spending, it might be wise not to lead off with a $24,064 expenditure for “the relocation and continuation of the Anne Frank in the World exhibit and for the operational costs of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust.”
The details on Obama: 20,000 tickets for Saturday, on the Tech campus
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Barack Obama presidential campaign plans to distribute 20,000 free tickets to the event, which will be held at Yellow Jacket Park on the Georgia Tech campus, said Kirk Dornbush, vice chairman of the Illinois Democrat’s national finance committee.
Dornbush said an organizational meeting for rally volunteers will be held at 7 tonight in the Regency V room at the Hyatt-Regency Hotel.
From the looks of things, this is part of a Southern swing for the candidate. On Friday, Obama is in South Carolina, speaking at a fund-raiser for that state’s legislative black caucus. So says The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C.
Fulco GOP to hash things out Friday night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Recently, you’ll recall, we asked for a report from anyone who attended last months Fulton County GOP Convention, which we had heard was a highly contentious affair.
We heard from Mark Irle, the outgoing first vice chair of the county party, who described a tumultuous affair in which the voting for chairman was marked by a number of irregularities including a shortage of ballots and considerable confusion over the final vote count in the chairman’s race, in which incumbent Mike Dvorscak was declared the winner over challenger Shawn Hanley.
Irle was a Hanley supporter, but he passed along a letter from John Fredricks, a self-described Dvorscak supporter, who also deplored what he described as “Machiavellian floor tactics” and “miscalculated ballots.”
Anyone who has ever been involved in a local convention fight like this will deduce we’re considerably shortening the description to get to the point.
There was enough protest over the election that the party has scheduled a special executive committee meeting for 7 p.m. Friday at the Roswell City Hall to go over what happened.
Irle questioned the timing of the meeting, which he said was designed to suppress turnout for what he describes as more of a fiasco than a convention.
We called Dvorscak, and he said Friday night was the only time when there wasn’t a conflict with local city council meetings. He said there was also a concern the legislature could be meeting into the evening on other nights of the week, which would keep those executive committee members who are legislators from attending.
Dvorscak declined to comment on the charges made about the handling of the convention.
“These types of intra-party things are normally settled in-house without bringing in the press, and in that spirit, there’s not a lot I want to say about it,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean others can’t get in touch.
Taxpayers union jumps into budget fight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The dialogue isn’t getting any tamer in the House-Senate budget confrontation.
The National Taxpayers Union has entered the fray, on the side of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and the Senate, with a letter the organization says is going out to 8,000 members in Georgia.
The group takes on the specifics of the mid-year, $700 million budget. “A $1 million sop for the Tour de Georgia is not a core responsibility. Nor is $5 million for the National Infantry Museum Project,” the group states.
We’re having a problem posting the entire letter, dated March 29, as a PDF. But these are the most incendiary paragraphs:
“Many members of the Assembly spent years campaigning on the reduction or elimination of the supplemental budget.
“Unfortunately, some have allowed the trappings of office and the appeal of pork to change their minds.
“Our members, however, have not changed their minds and believe that this supplemental should not be used as an excuse to propagate wasteful spending.”
Rudy’s coming to town. Unlike Six Flags, the ride’s not free
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Word’s being passed around that Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and current leader in the GOP presidential sweepstakes, is headed to Atlanta for a Wednesday fund-raiser.
This will be the debut of his campaign in Georgia. His last public appearance here was with Ralph Reed last year.
Minimum price for the 103 West event is $1,000. Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, whom Giuliani had his eye on as his Southern campaign chairman, is the prime mover.
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Pipeline saga continues: ‘Thankfully, we have Glenn Richardson’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The fight over S.B. 173 might just have taken a turn. Which way, we don’t know.
You know the bill. This is the one that eases the way for Colonial Pipeline Co. to construct a new liquid petroleum pipeline from Baton Rouge, La., to Powder Springs in Cobb County. Read the background here.
The issue has moved from the Senate to the House. And was quiet, until the mailman came today, with a note for House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
The U.S. Postal Service dropped off a glossy, 11-inch by 14-inch glossy mailer from Landowners for Environmental and Economic Protection of Washington, Ga.
On one side is a detailed black-and-white photo of a child being hugged by her mother, who’s holding a cardboard sign that says “Evicted by Big Oil.” Underneath is the headline: “Colonial Pipeline wants to take your property.”
On the other side is another headline: “Thankfully, we have Glenn Richardson to block S.B. 173.”
This mailer came to a west Cobb County address, but carried the following message for the Speaker, who lives in the county next door: “If S.B. 173 passes, Paulding County will be in the bull’s-eye for condemnation! It will threaten Paulding County homes and businesses….”
Oh, yes. It includes maps of the pipeline’s alleged path through the Speaker’s Paulding County territory. Maybe not through his exact district, but you get the gist.
Sometimes these things work. Sometimes they have just the opposite effect. We’ll let you know.
POSTSCRIPT: Amy Morton at Georgiawomenvote.com has posted a copy of the flyer here.
Taking a private fight public: Senate Republicans call in the fiscal hard-cores
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fights among lawmakers in the state Capitol, over who has say-so over how many millions in tax dollars, are the essence of every session of the state Legislature.
But historically, such tussles have been restricted to a circle of a dozen or so legislators in the House and Senate, plus the governor. In other words, it’s largely been a private fight over public money.
This year, Republicans — in particular, Senate Republicans — are bringing in outsiders. They’re calling in The Base. An e-mail campaign this week, rallies next week.
You’d think it was November, and Democrats were on the ballot.
Here’s the issue: Most years, the state takes in slightly more in tax revenues than it plans to spend. This year, the amount is $700 million.
Each year, most of the surplus — contained in a mid-year budget document — goes toward unanticipated school spending. Under Democrats, many millions also went toward what Republicans called pork— spending projects advocated by influential lawmakers.
Republicans vowed to be different. And while the process is slightly more transparent, much of the annual surplus still goes toward projects of the kind that many GOP lawmakers once condemned.
That changed last month, when Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, commander of the Republican-controlled Senate, demanded that the mid-year budget be stripped of everything but what could be justified as emergency spending.
House Republicans were stunned. The session came to a stand-still. It will remain stalled until either the House or Senate blinks. Which brings us to the decision by Senate Republicans to bring members of the GOP’s fiscal conservative core into the fight.
This isn’t about popularity. Republicans in the Senate are out to crack the will of Republicans in the House with a very public campaign.
The Republican Liberty Caucus of Georgia, a loose subsection of the state GOP, this week urged its associates to e-mail letters of support to members of the Senate. And to Republicans in the other chamber, if they feel so inclined.
“Georgia House Republicans have added over $214 million dollars of pork to the 2007 supplemental budget,” the organization’s web site states.
Jared Thomas, executive director of the Georgia chapter of Americans For Prosperity, a new anti-tax group, says he intends to mobilize his membership next week.
These efforts aren’t aimed at House Speaker Glenn Richardson or his lieutenants. They’re directed at the right-wing of the chamber’s GOP caucus. The true-believers.
When the $700 million mid-year budget was presented to the House last month, state Rep. Steve Davis of McDonough was the only lawmaker to vote against it. He’s a Republican.
Davis said he’s not out to embarrass his own leadership. “I just want to do the right thing. It’s not about me and them,” he said. “I don’t feel that I’m alone.”
Davis isn’t a high-ranking member of the House. But he is a member of the 216 Group, a collection of 20 or so GOP lawmakers dedicated to fiscal conservatism and limited government. They meet in Room 216 of the Capitol.
State Rep. Tom Graves of Ranger, Ga., is the chairman of the 216 Group, according to its web site. We weren’t successful in our efforts to contact him Thursday.
In the fall of 2002, party chairman Ralph Reed and the entire Republican ticket assembled at the state Capitol to endorse something called the “Declaration for a New Georgia.”
The manifesto was modeled after Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” and listed the major reforms Republicans would implement, should they ever become masters of state government.
Included in the declaration was a vow to end the tradition of burning through surpluses: “Republicans will end this practice by abolishing the [midyear] budget.”
To stage right of the group — Reed was on one side, Sonny Perdue on the other — was a placard of the declaration. Republican candidates were invited to decorate it with florid John Hancocks.
Nearly six years later, the hunt is on for that placard and the signatures on it. The signboard has become evidence in the budget fight.
But the placard and its signatures have gone missing.
Speaking of the Speaker, he’s speaking to other Speakers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Speaker Glenn Richardson has let slip that he’ll spend much of this week in Augusta at the Master’s tournament.
He’s to be shepherding his peers from other four other states. “It’ll be in the 30s when they start teeing off. It’s going to be interesting,” he told our colleague Bill Hendrick.
A spokeswoman for Richardson wouldn’t say which states the other House speakers hail from. Probably so as not to arouse the jealousy of lieutenant governors in those same, mysterious commonweals.
But she did say that Richardson is using the occasion to learn what his duties will be when he assumes the leadership of a national association of House speakers.
Yes, there is such a thing. It’s kind a union, with legislative agendas and dues and everything. We hear, for instance, that the group is currently lobbying Congress for an adjustment in the federal penal code, to require capital punishment for offending journalists.
A little shrimp talks hurricane politics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As many of us know so very well, Georgia money spends just fine in Louisiana. So U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu was in Atlanta Wednesday afternoon, collecting some for her upcoming 2008 race.
In a phone conversation, Landrieu said she’d been feeling pretty good about her fundraising efforts, which have gotten off to a late start in the aftermath of Katrina/Rita. But seeing the extraordinary first-quarter numbers put up by her Senate colleagues Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination left her “really feeling like a little shrimp - and not of of those big, brown Louisiana shrimp.”
Landrieu said her state is making progress in securing more funds for hurricane recovery, although the Bush administration has called the $1.3 billion included in the upcoming supplemental budget “excessive and extraneous.”
“If he’s not going to do it, Congress will do it. And if he’s going to veto it, let him go ahead,” the Louisiana Democrat said.
Landrieu was particularly critical of the administration’s refusal to waive the requirement that the state match 10 percent of what the feds send in disaster money, something Landrieu said has been done in the case of 32 of the last 38 federally-declared disasters.
The per capita cost of Andrew to the citizens of Florida was $139, and 9/11 cost New Yorkers $390 per capita, and the 10 percent match was waived in both cases, Landrieu said. The per capita cost of Katrina/Rita to Louisianans was $6,700.
On the subject of the day in Louisiana politics - whether former U.S. Sen. John Breaux can qualify to run for governor, although he has established resident in Virginia - Landreiu’s allegiences are clear.
“If people say, is he a citizen of Maryland or a citizen of Louisiana, I don’t think there’s any question,” Landrieu said of her longtime ally. “But I think eventually that question will have to be settled in court.”
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Rallying the GOP troops for a fight over the budget
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republicans are taking this state House-Senate budget fight to lengths we never saw under Democrats.
Participants in the state Capitol tussle are bringing in outsiders. They’re bringing in The Base.
The Republican Liberty Caucus of Georgia is urging its associates to e-mail letters of support to members of the Senate. And if said enthusiasts want to send House Republicans a message, they can do that, too.
Here’s the set-up, as defined by the Liberty Caucus:
Georgia House Republicans have added over $214 million dollars of pork to the 2007 supplemental budget.
This number does not include the funds needed to operate Peach Care. Currently the Lt. Governor and Senate leaders are attempting to remove this [frivolous] spending.
And here’s the sample letter the group offers:
Dear Senator,
I’m writing you today to let you know I support the efforts of the Lt. Governor and Senate leadership to strip the unnecessary pork from the 2007 supplemental budget.
Supplemental budgets should only be used for emergency spending and not economic development and other pet projects.
Please support the removal of unnecessary spending from the 2007 supplemental budget.
On its web site, the Liberty Caucus lists seven House members, 15 senators and Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle. State Sen. David Shafer of Duluth is listed as the honorary chairman.
In an accompanying press release, the Liberty Caucus sought to give cover to one of its members:
“The RLC would like to also recognize State Rep. Steve Davis (R-McDonough), who was the only member of the State House to vote against this pork-laden budget.
Representative Davis took a big risk in contradicting the wishes of his leadership to cast the lone dissenting vote in favor of the taxpayer.”
Whitehead to Pelosi: Don’t start the immigration war without me
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Sen. Jim Whitehead, considered the leading Republican in the race to replace the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood in Congress, continues to press the immigration button.
He’s sent a letter to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking her not to bring any attempt at immigration reform to a floor vote until he gets there. The special non-partisan election is scheduled for June 19.
Notice, in the following passage, how Whitehead, from Columbia County, is using the issue to put a bit of air between himself and the Bush Administration:
“Legislation addressing this hotly-debated and volatile issue could be decided by a very narrow margin. The people of this district deserve to have their voice heard and their wishes recorded in any vote taken on this issue.
The overwhelming majority of the people of Georgia’s Tenth District vehemently oppose the position of both you and President Bush to offer citizenship to illegal aliens, as do the majority of the American public at large. Please do not use this vacancy to thwart democracy.”
No rest for the weary: Barrow and Marshall again on GOP hit list
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To no one’s surprise, the Associated Press is reporting today that U.S. Reps. John Barrow of Savannah and Jim Marshall of Macon will remain among the most likely Democrats to be a target for Republicans in ‘08.
That’s part of a political analysis by White House advisor Karl Rove that was intended for a private audience, but was made public last week by a U.S. House committee.
The best part of the piece is a brief interview with Mac Collins, the Republican who challenged Marshall and lost by just under 2,000 votes. Collins, himself a former congressman, still hasn’t conceded the race.
“A concession is running up a white flag,” he told AP. “I never ran up a white flag.”
But he wouldn’t say whether he’ll challenge Marshall again for the 8th District. But state Sen. Ross Tolleson (R-Perry) has shown interest in the race. In the 12th District, the AP says former Augusta mayor Bob Young is considering a challenge to Barrow.
Says the AP: Rove’s analysis became public last week as part of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on whether the White House and the General Services Administration were injecting partisan politics into the agency’s operations, which include federal contracting and management of federal buildings.
A Rove deputy presented the election forecast at a meeting of GSA political appointees in January. Critics say the presentation could only have been aimed at getting the agency to help Republicans win in 2008.
Home is where the House district was
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We caught a little of the rebroadcast of the Feb. 28 Cooper Union debate between Newt Gingrich and Mario Cuomo last night on CSPAN, and one passing comment grabbed our attention. Gingrich was kidding Cuomo about having once been Bella Abzug’s press secretary, and he said:
“How do I go home to Atlanta and explain that?”
He’s spent so much time elsewhere since leaving office that some have wondered whether Gingrich would claim Georgia as his residence if he ran for president. Guess from that remark he would. (BTW, constitutional scholars will realize this means there couldn’t be a Gingrich-Perdue ticket.)
Johnson reports threat
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Another development springing off the Genarlow Wilson case: Today’s Savannah Morning News reports an apparent death threat against Sen. Eric Johnson.
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Obama rolls in big
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We just got off the phone with a jubilant Kirk Dornbush, who is heavily involved in the fundraising for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and had just received word of the Democratic presidential hopeful’s first quarter numbers. You’ll be seeing fuller reports later, but at first wink the numbers are eye-popping.
Obama raised $25 million, only a mill off Sen. Hillary Clinton’s record haul of $26 million and two million more than Republican Mitt Romney first-quarter take. That means Obama raised close to three times what any previous presidential candidate had raised at this time in the cycle, and the details are even more impressive for a relative newcomer to the national stage.
Clinton’s campaign so far has not said how much of the money it raised was designated for the primary campaign, and how much for the general. Dornbush said $23.5 million of Obama’s take is primary money, leading him to confidently predict Obama will have financial parity with Clinton in next year’s huge Feb. 5 primary. If that proves true, the impact could be massive.
Obama’s money came from 100,000 donors - twice the number reported by Clinton. In fact, Dornbush said, the number of internet donors to Obama was greater than Clinton’s total of 50,000 contributors.
And he outraised her on the net: $6.9 million to $4.2 million. Dornbush said 90 percent of the internet money was in contributions of $100 or less, and half of it was in checks of $25 or less.
If it says nothing else, this latest first-quarter report is a clear sign we’re in for the most expensive presidential campaign in history. One story we saw about Romney’s first-quarter report called it “astonishing.” After Obama’s report, maybe we should hold the adjectives until we see what the next quarter brings.
Another state takes up the “we’re sorry” issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The debate over apologizing for slavery and segregation has spread to North Carolina.You can read the Charlotte Observer’s report here.
Vernon Jones at Manuel’s Tavern: Establishing his conservative creds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vernon Jones, perhaps a candidate for the U.S. Senate next year, filled the backroom of Manuel’s Tavern on Tuesday evening. It’s hard to say why.
The event was billed as a campaign kick-off. But Jones is still in his “exploratory” mode.
“I am not officially announced. But I tell you what. There’s a man coming, and his name is Vernon Jones,” the non-candidate said.
Much of the night’s dialogue was dedicated to the conservative philosophy of the CEO of DeKalb County. Yet the bar, a Democratic stronghold, wasn’t exactly the ideal venue for an African-American trying to establish his street creds with the white bourgeois belly of Georgia’s political middle.
Jones was introduced by Shelley Wynter, the conservative WAOK radio talk show host who offered DeKalb County’s AAA bond rating as proof of Jones’ familiarity with the right side of the aisle. Wynter stood on a chair to rise above the crowd.
“I don’t care what any pundits say. I don’t care what the little guy says. The money follows DeKalb County,” Wynter said.
Jones followed, with an extemporaneous speech that touched on family, the military, energy and the people outside — African-American demonstrators who called themselves Women Against Vernon’s Violence.
Jones had apparently entered by the tavern’s back door, avoiding the picket line. Even so, he acknowledged the protesters. “That’s what makes this country great,” Jones said. “Now, they’re wrong….”
Jones painted himself as a friend of the Georgia farmer, drawing upon his family’s farm in North Carolina. His father was a World War II vet, mistreated upon his return home. Jones’ brothers also served.
The non-candidate’s message on Iraq was mixed. “They were not given a clear-cut strategy,” Jones said of the troops. “The mission was not accomplished.”
Even so, Jones said, he does not support reducing funding for the war effort.
“Now, that’s being conservative,” the DeKalb CEO said of himself.
‘Wrong place, wrong time, and in the wrong numbers’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just before 10 a.m., we got a call from James Marlow, the new Democratic candidate for the 10th District congressional race in east Georgia.
He’d just finished breaking the news of his candidacy to the hometowners in Lincolton at the steps of the county courthouse. He counted nearly 60 witnesses, which in a town with four stoplights constitutes a throng.
“I just feel a calling to serve. I know that sounds a little corny,” Marlow said.
He’s a 46-year-old native, whose father served as mayor of Lincolnton. The son rode the Internet. You might remember the younger Marlow as the founder of AnythingSouthern.com, which was to be a way to get information on, well, anything Southern — food, religion, entertainment, the works.
The site was one of the many dot-com bubbles that popped.
Most recently, Marlow was a sales director for Yahoo Inc. He’s now a full-time candidate.
He’s eager to talk about health care, education, and the creation of good jobs. “Iraq is obviously an issue,” he said.
As we said yesterday, it’s clear that Democrats think it’s to their advantage to talk about the Middle East in this race.
Marlow says he’s an eager defender of America, but is also a defender of American troops. In the latter category, he places decent treatment for wounded soldiers and armor for those in battle.
It also means — and this may become his catch phrase — “not putting troops in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the wrong numbers.” Competency, in other words.
As for those who think the Tenth too Republican to elect him, Marlow points out that Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin, Attorney General Thurbert Baker, and Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond all carried the district. All, of course, were Democrats.
They were incumbents, too. But give the guy a chance to make his own case.
In many campaigns, the candidate — or those behind him — have a Plan B. We’re not saying this is the case, but Marlow does fit a certain profile. Suppose the first-time candidate doesn’t win — but does well enough in a tough race to raise eyebrows. Then one would have to consider him a possibility in next year’s U.S. Senate race.
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Wait a minute. Go back to that part about George Bush
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a phoner with Tim Bryant of WGAU in Athens, U.S. Johnny Isakson declared himself no fan of the movement toward an early presidential primary that could settle Democratic and Republican hash by early February.
Bryant was kind enough to send us the sound, which you can get here.
In summary, Isakson said:
“Personally, I don’t think it’s good to put them all so early and have the nominee determined nine or ten months before the election. Just think back to recent presidential primaries.
“The implosion of Howard Dean, George — if you had an early primary, George Bush probably wouldn’t be president today. If you had an early primary, Howard Dean probably would have been the [Democratic] nominee. It’s kind of a winner-take-all, one-day national lottery,” Isakson said.
“I think having a protracted period of time, in the past it’s been six months, January through June, where the nation went and had primaries every couple of weeks around the country, it really was a good test of the candidates that aired out all the issues,” he said.
“That is a lot better pace and that is a lot better process than having two candidates isolated and exposed for 10 months when anything could happen.”
And Linder dashes the dreams of Republicans clinging to the rungs below him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After the rally in downtown Atlanta on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. John Linder said he and radio guru Neal Boortz are working on a paperback sequel to their wildly successful “The Fair Tax Book.”
There’s no publication date yet, but Linder said he didn’t think it would take long to pull the necessary information together.
He described the next book as one that will “take the most urgent questions [about the FairTax idea] and answer them.” It’s a response, he said, to some of the misinformation that has been put out on the issue.
There have also been some faint rumblings that Linder might call it quits in Congress. He’ll have served 16 years in 2008. So we asked Linder if he plans to run for another term.
His answer, in a clipped, Linderesque tone, was “yes.”
That wind you just felt was the collective sigh of a dozen or so state lawmakers with ambitions of their own.
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Fair Tax language changes to fit new, Democratic realities
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The fervor is still there, the goals are still the same, but was interested to note the little shifts in emphasis at the Fair Tax rally at the Depot in downtown Atlanta on Tuesday morning.
For starters, while the Fair Tax movement is still primarily a Republican thing — Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Reps. John Linder and Tom Price, and radio host Herman Cain spoke — the rally had a more bipartisan tone than similar events in the past.
“If there’s one issue that can heal the divisions between the right and left, it’s the Fair Tax. It is good for all,” said Ken Hoagland, communications director for FairTax.org, the national umbrella organization.
Linder even allowed as how Democrat Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House ways and means committee, had remarked that if those who want to replace income taxes with a national sales tax could show that it wouldn’t affect the poor, he’d be for it.
An open-ended commitment, sure, but the fact it was worth mentioning indicates the recognition that with the Democrats now in the majority in Congress, the Fair Tax idea has to be couched in terms that appeal to both sides.
Cain told supporters this was “a movement that only a few of our elected officials have made the commitment to get out in front of,” but it’s clear supporters would like for a few more Democrats to be included in that number.
Of course, it hasn’t been that way in the past. Democrats in races in South Carolina, Georgia and elsewhere have bashed Republicans for supporting what they call a huge tax increase.
But Hoagland said if that happens again, the Fair Tax forces would defend themselves without the benefit of any special tax category organizations to fund their efforts.
Fair Tax “will not go down the road of political action committees or 527s, because they divide the public,” he said.
Chambliss showed another shift in emphasis when he spoke of how the country was “in the throes of a real economic crisis.” He spoke of the positive impact the Fair Tax would have on the trade deficit. There’s a tax cost of 22 percent built into the cost of American goods going to China, he said.
The plan he has introduced in the Senate would bring that down significantly, the senator said.
On the bright side, there’s that carrot-and-cottage cheese diet to look forward to
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House is putting out official word, through his family, that state Rep. John Lunsford (R-McDonough) underwent cardiac catheterization on Monday, after experiencing chest pains, but is doing well.
Word from the family is that they found a 40 percent blockage in one artery. Lunsford was expected to be discharged at noon today.
No immediate word on the length of his at-home recuperation.
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Fitch says it doesn’t like TABOR-like legislation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dick Pettys and InsiderAdvantage report that a Senate measure passed last month, calling for a constitutionally mandated spending cap, has raised the eyebrows of one of the financial rating agencies that helps determine the interest rate on state-issued bonds.
Pettys says Fitch Financial recently hosted a conference call with state money managers. One participant said the firm warned that the Taxpayer Protection Act wouldn’t immediately threaten the state’s AAA bond rating, but that it might in the future.
It’s not likely that House GOP leaders will move the measure toward the necessary two-thirds vote on the floor. Speaker Glenn Richardson jealously guards his chamber’s current constitutional advantage when it comes to budget matters.
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We knew this place had lost that South Dakota feeling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Associated Press has done everyone a favor today by putting into perspective last month’s decision by the state House to bar reporters from the chamber floor.
Georgia joined Kansas this year in adding restrictions, after several years in which few - if any - legislative leaders moved to restrict access, according to the AP report by Greg Bluestein.
In Georgia, House leaders said decorum was the issue. But the restrictions came amidst increasingly critical news coverage of several influential members of the chamber.
Legislative leaders in at least 38 states have restricted reporters from accessing lawmakers on the floors of at least one chamber during a floor session.
Says the AP:
There’s only a handful of legislative chambers where reporters are allowed to walk on the floor and freely speak with lawmakers while they’re in session. They include Nebraska’s one-of-a-kind single-chamber legislature and both chambers of the legislative bodies in Delaware, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota.
Many of the states that do allow journalists on the floor limit them while they’re there.
In Connecticut, reporters are allowed on the Senate floor but can’t pass a brass rail. At the North Carolina statehouse, reporters are barred from speaking with legislators during debate, but they’re restricted to a cordoned-off area on one side of the chamber where lawmakers sometimes come to visit. And in the Missouri House, reporters aren’t allowed to walk along the desks, but they can access a side area and interview legislators there.
Often, the restrictions have led to peculiar tactics. Journalists in Alaska are allowed on the floor of both chambers but they cannot address legislators and can only respond to them, leading to a strange sort of dance as reporters wander around to try to land interviews.
“The vast majority of legislative chambers, movement by anyone is usually controlled,” said Brenda Erickson, a researcher for the National Conference of State Legislatures who has studied the procedures. “It’s not uncommon at all.”
Some states have adopted stricter policies. In the South Carolina Senate, where journalists sit on benches at the back of the chamber, a sergeant of arms will reprimand reporters for nodding at legislators or subtly trying to gain their attention.
Reporters covering the Pennsylvania House have been banned from the floor since 1996, prompting most reporters to monitor the debate through closed-circuit TVs. In a 2001 letter asking legislative leaders to revoke the policy, the press corps lamented: “As a practical matter, there is no longer a House press gallery.”
The Kansas move was announced in a memo distributed to reporters by the speaker’s chief of staff, but it was never voted on. Enforcement has somewhat varied, although doormen have been instructed to ban reporters from accessing lawmakers while in session.
Chambliss, Jones show themselves to friends and foes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two candidates for the U.S. Senate make appearances in Atlanta today. Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss participates in a 10:30 a.m. rally at the Georgia Freight Depot, where he and U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell) will swear fealty to the fair tax.
On the Democratic side, DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones holds a 6 p.m. campaign kick-off at Manuel’s Tavern. We hear a group calling themselves Women Against Vernon’s Violence will be holding a protest outside, to draw attention to Jones’ alleged mistreatment of the opposite sex.
Tonight’s homework: Tell us what happened at the Fulton County GOP convention
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re a die-hard Republican, you probably know that county conventions were held last month, in part to select delegates for the statewide gathering in May.
But even if you’re a die-hard Republican, you’ve probably got no idea what the heck happened when the Fulton County GOP got together.
Frankly, we don’t know, either. We’re seeing e-mail fly back and forth and around and back, but can’t get a straight take on the cause of it all. We weren’t there.
The only thing we know is that some relatively prominent Republicans are now calling for a reconvening of the county convention for a re-vote. A mulligan, in other words.
So, yes, we’re begging: You eyewitnesses please post a straight-forward account of what happened at the Fulton County GOP convention.
Lay off any name-calling, and activate your blogger objectivity. State libel laws apply. Just give us a linear, blow-by-blow account of what went wrong at the convention, and what the concerns are.
If we get enough, we’ll sift through the best and repost them later this week for a full account.
And many thanks for your help.
Those who get bounced, teach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Walking through the Sloppy Floyd building at lunch-time, and who should walk up but a tie-less, grinning Teddy Lee, the former executive director of the State Ethics Committee. He was just here to look up a few old friends.
You’ll remember that Lee was bounced when the state ethics board decided a new change in direction was in order. Mind that, 14 months later, no one has yet decided what direction that is — except that certain people in the State Capitol think it should be traveled with as little state funding as possible.
What’s Lee doing? The Villa Rica resident is a teacher at Douglas County High School, teaching Brit Lit and World Lit. And helping to coach the mock trial team. He’s got spring break off this week.
So Teddy Lee is inspiring a new generation of lawyers. Scary thought, that.
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Meet James Marlow: He’s a Democrat running for the Tenth, and he’s anti-Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re told that, over the weekend, a majority of 21 county Democratic chairmen in the Tenth District endorsed James Marlow, a first-time congressional candidate from the world of high-tech business.
Marlow is to formally announce his candidacy on Tuesday in Lincolnton and other spots in the district.
From the outset it looks like Marlow intends to force Republicans in the race, primarily state Sen. Jim Whitehead, to talk about Iraq. Marlow says he wants a quick but honorable end to the conflict there.
The June 19 special election to fill the vacancy left by the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood is officially non-partisan, though the conservative district tilts heavily toward the GOP.
At least two other Democrats have expressed interest in the contest: Augusta Attorney Evita Paschall and Terry Holley, a teacher and jeweler who ran against Norwood last year.
But Democrats at the top of the state organization have insisted on the need to rally behind a single candidate. The vote by county chairmen may indicate that Marlow is that candidate. That, and the fact that his campaign is being run by Jeff DiSantis, former executive director of the state party, and by Emil Runge, the former party spokesman.
Judging from the biography on his web site, Marlow may also have some of his own money to put into the race. The bio says he owns his own Internet firm.
The Tenth District race, scheduled for June 19, will be the first federal contest since Republicans lost Congress in 2006. Republicans have pretty much cleared the field for Whitehead, a close friend of Norwood and a state senator from Evans.
Early fund-raising literature indicates that illegal immigration will be Whitehead’s issue. On Iraq, he supports President Bush’s strategy.
By contrast, here is what Marlow is saying on his web site, under the topic of national security:
“I will vote to support efforts that strike at our enemies when necessary. The defense of our nation is my top priority.
I promise to support our troops. That means not putting them in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong numbers. It means taking care of them when they return home wounded. It means providing them body armor when in the field and shielding for Humvees.
I will work everyday to bring our involvement in Iraq to an honorable end as quickly as we can, while also protecting our national interests in the region and the world.
I support the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. We must establish clear goals for our military involvement in Iraq.”
Sounds like the attorney general has put Isakson on the fence
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Chicago Sun-Times had this to say about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Sunday:
Lawmakers impatient to hear Gonzales’ side of the story said the attorney general needed to explain himself quickly — or risk more damage to his department.
Gonzales is to testify on Capitol Hill on April 17.
If lawmakers don’t fully believe Gonzales’ explanation, his ability to run the Justice Department ”would be very difficult,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said.
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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.
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