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Monday, May 7, 2007
But if not a special session of the Legislature, maybe an extra special one
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So House Speaker Glenn Richardson has apologized to Sonny Perdue for declaring that, by vetoing a $700 million budget bill, the governor had exposed his own rear end in a flagrant and unflattering manner.
The apology came in a private meeting between the two. It was also made in writing.
We suspect two motives here.
First, the apology was necessary to lower the temperature, so that some semblance of diplomacy could begin. We are 17 days into this episode, and Monday was the first time Richardson and Perdue had spoken to each other since before the end of the session.
Secondly, the apology was preparatory. It was intended to make it easier for Governor Perdue to withdraw his veto of the $700 million budget bill (and $142 million property tax rebate) that started us down this road. One reversal for another.
We have not heard from Perdue today. We don’t even know if he accepted Richardson’s apology.
But we do know that the weight of today’s verbiage was focused on finding a way to shuffle money hither and yon to fill the most blatant gaps left by the budget bill — and avoid bringing 235 lawmakers to Atlanta for a special session.
After his mea culpa Richardson laid out a strategy for moving the cash. We failed to extract any public comment out of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle today, but we know he has told Republican senators that he’d like to duck a special session if at all possible.
The chief hurdle is that it would require the governor to “unveto” the budget bill.
“The first thing would involve the governor changing his mind on the veto,” said Barry Fleming of Harlem, the House majority whip, who made the public case for no special session on Monday.
A governor can change his mind?
“Sure you can,” Fleming said. Perdue declared that the House’s April override of his veto was invalid be he hadn’t transmitted it. That can be turned into an advantage, Fleming said.
“The analogy would be me sitting on the floor of the House, deciding to vote yes or no on something. Until the speaker closes the machine, I can change my mind as many times as I want to.
“If you take the governor’s argument, which is ‘I have not transmitted this to the Legislature,’ then he still has it in his purview. There is case law — not in Georgia, but in other states — where situations similar to this have occurred,” said Fleming, an attorney.
The question is whether Perdue could find it within himself to backtrack.
After a brightly lit session with TV cameras, which recorded the flourish of his pen, saying “never mind” would be slightly embarrassing.
But moving forward brings its own uncertainties.
If Perdue calls a special session, the House would certainly make another attempt at an override of his veto. The governor has received assurances from Cagle that the votes are in the Senate to sustain the veto. But there’s no guarantee.
Liberals signing up a terrorist to vote? Nah, it was the BMV.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jim Whitehead of Evans, considered the leading Republican candidate in the race to fill 10th District congressional seat, continued to have problems over the weekend explaining a quote in which he accused liberals of registering al-Qaida terrorists to vote in the United States.
In a piece published Saturday, Jason Winders, executive editor of the Athens Banner-Herald, did a fine job of dissecting the comment, and its origin. But apparently Winders is no fan of Whitehead, so take that into account.
Winders quoted Joel McElhannon, Whitehead’s campaign manager, as saying the following: “That quote does not accurately represent [Whitehead’s] views on that matter,” McElhannon said. “He has no proof. He has seen no proof that al-Qaida has been registered to vote. He just thinks that was a misunderstanding on that quote.”
Continuing, from McElhannon: “Jim got the quote and said, ‘What? I never said that. Maybe I was sputtering that out. … No, I don’t think al-Qaida members are being registered to vote by anybody.’”
But then Winders showed that the comment was more than accidental, by taking a trip to Whitehead’s web site, which had this letter of response to a column by AJC editor Cynthia Tucker:
“… A very good place to start would be with the outstanding investigative journalism of the Columbus Dispatch, revealing left-wing political activists intentionally registering illegal aliens to vote, including known al-Qaida terrorists. Ms. Tucker really should try reading the papers sometimes.”
Winders traces the source of Whitehead’s information to a 2004 column by conservative Michelle Malkin, who wrote:
“Last week, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported that illegal alien Nuradin Abdi - the suspected shopping mall bomb plotter from Somalia - was registered to vote in the battleground state of Ohio by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a left-wing activist group. ….”
We checked with Lexis-Nexis. On Oct. 26, 2004, the Dispatch reported that Abdi had in fact registered to vote — illegally — in Ohio in 1999, but he apparently did it on his own, through that state’s bureau of motor vehicles. No group, liberal or otherwise, was responsible for signing him up.
Georgia pair carries the word about Romney to evangelicals
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In today’s edition of the Los Angeles Times is an article that details GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s growing reliance on two members of Georgia’s religious conservative community.
Says the article: “In the next few weeks, the campaign will take a more direct approach, sending two of its evangelical supporters for meetings with pastors and others in key primary states.”
Mark DeMoss, a public relations executive from Gwinnett County whose clients include Franklin Graham, has volunteered to stand up for Romney, a Mormon, in South Carolina and Alabama.
Jay Sekulow, a Washington insider and chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, an Christian advocacy group based in Alpharetta, is heading to Iowa and Florida. The Sekulow family were big supporters of Ralph Reed’s candidacy in the ‘06 primary race for lieutenant governor.
Polls have made clear Romney has a problem with Christian conservatives who view the Church of Latter Day Saints as something cultish. In the Times piece, DeMoss takes an optimistic view:
“I’m not going to suggest that evangelicals are running to the microphone endorsing Mitt Romney,” DeMoss said, “but neither are they running to microphones rejecting him, which I think is pretty positive.”
