Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2007 > September
September 2007
Bad mood at Moody
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Moody Air Force in Valdosta, Ga., is getting 1,000 new troops in 2009. So far, it has a total of two houses to put them in. And neither house has 500 bedrooms.
Work stopped months ago on the base’s Magnolia Grove housing project in which a private developer, American Eagle Communities of Connecticut, was supposed to build more than 600 new, private homes. But only two homes have been finished, construction is already $25 million over budget and the project is now in receivership. The lawsuits have begun.
So what went wrong? That’s what Georgia’s Republican senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, want to know. The two won Senate approval Friday for a federal investigation into what happened at Moody and at least three other bases around the country.
“We need to take a good look at this situation and get to the bottom of the factors and decisions that contributed to the Air Force awarding this contract to ensure it does not happen again,” Chambliss said.
“The delays in the completion of these housing projects … are unacceptable,” Isakson said, “and have a significant impact on our airmen and their families as well as the local community.”
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Price, a speech but what about respect
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican and former physician, was an obvious choice for House Republicans to deliver the party’s weekly radio address this weekend. (Listen here.)
After all, the topic was health insurance for kids.
And while there’s no doubt Price is an up-and-comer in the House, we have to wonder how well those GOPers really know the guy deep-down.
For instance, Price is from Georgia. But the press statement the party issued Friday to advance the speech listed him as a North Carolina Republican. Stuff just happens at the end of a busy week, we guess. Still, Price mentions in the first line of the speech where he’s from. Maybe, they didn’t read it.
In the speech, Price tries to explain why so many House Republicans voted against a popular bill that would expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP nationally and PeachCare in Georgia. It’s part of an on-going GOP PR campaign to blunt the election-year advantage Democrats believe they won because they can now claim Republicans are against poor kids.
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If he ran: Newt Gingrich on why he’d base his effort in Georgia, but live in Virginia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a Thursday sit-down, during a break from his “American Solutions” schedule, Newt Gingrich said that — if he ran for president — he’d center his campaign in Georgia, but would keep his residency in McLean, Va.
“I wanted to stay very active on national security. We looked into this. I live 11 minutes from the CIA, I live 18 minutes from the Pentagon. I spend 40 percent of my time on national security,” Gingrich said. “It would have been dishonest to have pretended that I was coming home.”
The former Georgia congressman also said he would announce on C-Span — rather than on some Jay Leno program. Can’t think of who he might be making reference to.
Also, Gingrich said he needs those $30 million in pledges because, at bottom, he’s still a middle-class shlub.
“All of my immediate relatives are middle class. All of [wife] Calista’s relatives are middle class. And our daughters would say they’re middle-class. That’s who we are,” Gingrich said. “We’re fairly successful, but the idea of writing a $100 million check for a campaign is not part of my lexicon. I also think it’s just wrong. I don’t think we should be buying offices.”
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A ‘middle-class’ Gingrich says the door is still wide open
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If Newt Gingrich runs for president, it will be as a middle-class shlub just like you.
As part of his “American Solutions” weekend, Gingrich is spending this entire day at the Cobb Galleria convention center. This morning, he spent a half-hour with Neal Boortz — the radio talk show was on site.
Gingrich spoke of his need to know if there’s $30 million out there for him, before he decides to run for president.
“If you’re middle class and you can’t have that level of resources when you go in, then you don’t stand a chance against governor [Mitt] Romney, who can can write a $100 million check personally,” Gingrich said.
But he admitted he still considers the gap in the Republican field to be unusually wide.
“I really thought that by the time we had the workshops at the end of September, that the space would be filled up. I frankly thought this would not be an open question,” he said. “Everywhere I go, people walk up and say we need someone who can debate Senator [Hillary] Clinton, we need somebody who can make the case for conservative values. So I think there is a bigger vacuum than I would have expected.”
About 50 people saw the morning episode with Boortz, including one fellow who was quickly ousted after shouting, “How much did you get for your soul?”
And after signing several autographs, Gingrich posed with Vonnell Whitaker, a local Hillary Clinton lookalike.
“You may have a long career,” he told her.
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Gingrich chooses a grand, windy entrance into Carrollton
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich kicks off his “American Solutions” adventure today with an all-day event at the Cobb Galleria. Radio jocks Boortz and Hannity both will broadcast from there.
Officially, the event is intended to launch a high-minded discussion of solutions to this country’s problems. But the subtext is all about whether or not Gingrich will answer a GOP cry of despair over the current field, and decide to make a run for the White House.
On Friday, Gingrich visits his old stomping grounds, now called the University of West Georgia, where he once taught history. And here’s where the subtext becomes more distinct.
Gingrich will arrive on campus via helicopter, presidential-like, perhaps offering photographers and bystanders a sense of what the future might look like.
Or maybe the man just understands Atlanta traffic.
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The state Supremes attend a Red Mass in a red state, en masse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 11 a.m. Thursday, all seven members of the Georgia Supreme Court will troop the necessary half-mile or so to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in downtown Atlanta and bow their heads at a Red Mass. So will several dozen other judges and lawyers. But on this blog, the Supremes are the ones who count.
The Red Mass is a relatively new phenomenon in Atlanta’s religious and political life, though it has roots in the 13th century. Officially, it’s known as the Solemn Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit. The nickname comes from the color of vestments worn in the service and the red robes worn by judges in the Middle Ages, according to Pat Chivers over at the Archdiocese.
The ceremony marks the beginning of the judicial year — which, we surmise, is judged according to the calendar set by the U.S. Supreme Court. We’re told the Red Mass is a big deal in D.C.
In Atlanta, the ceremony dates back to 1995. Only last year was it greatly expanded to reach out to non-Catholics. None of our state Supreme Court members are Catholic. Some justices attended last year, Chivers said. This time it will be unanimous.
Two things can be drawn from this. First, the service is yet another sign of growing Catholic influence in the South, extending deep into Georgia’s political elite. Secondly, high court participation is yet another sign that the Supremes have begun to take politicking for their jobs much more seriously.
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Marshall: Why I voted against SCHIP bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In an attempt to assuage fellow Democrats at home, U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon just put out this statement about why he voted against the SCHIP expansion bill on Tuesday:
“Earlier today, the House voted to extend SCHIP’s authorization until the debate over the program’s expansion is resolved. There’s no question that I support expanding SCHIP.
“But I also have an obligation to the citizens of Middle Georgia to do everything possible to make sure that the program in its final form fairly distributes the burden and fairly distributes the benefits.
“Expanding SCHIP is among my highest priorities - and it should be among everyone’s highest priorities - but it’s also critically important that Congress and the President get this right.”
Marshall was the only Democrat who didn’t vote for the bill that passed Tuesday with a less-than-veto-proof margin. We’re told that Marshall had several problems with the measure: the size and instability of the tobacco tax increase; the lack of a standard applications for every state; and a lax identification process. Marshall appears to agree with Republican Nathan Deal, who has argued the ID standards would make the program easy for illegal immigrants to abuse.
The implication being that he expects to vote for the measure when it comes up again, if his objections are satisfied.
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Except that you can’t find Gingrich on the periodic table
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The current issue of Newsweek floats this thought on Newt Gingrich and a run for the presidency:
One sign that Gingrich may be more serious than people think: he’s been talking down his party’s chances in 2008. …There is cunning behind this glum talk. Foreseeing gloom, Gingrich may be positioning himself as a kind of latter-day Barry Goldwater, a candidate conservatives can be proud to vote for in a year when they face near-certain defeat.
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Georgia votes on SCHIP: Marshall goes against it, all others predictable
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s congressional delegation was largely split along party lines Tuesday when the House approved, 265-159, a $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known nationally as SCHIP and locally as PeachCare.
Republicans opposed it, Democrats supported it, and the only exception was Rep. Jim Marshall, a Macon Democrat, who voted no. Marshall is considered one of the most vulnerable congressmen in the country, and is once again facing a strong Republican challenge next year.
PeachCare has been successful and popular in Georgia, so state Republicans were careful to praise the local program while denouncing the expansion as a first step toward socialized medicine.
“Reauthorizing SCHIP is essential,” said Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican. But, he added, “I was forced to oppose the bill.”
“The reality is this bill does not protect the most vulnerable amongst our citizens,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Marietta Republican. “Rather it diverts precious resources from those who need it the most in order to cover adults and already privately insured children.”
Democrats pushed the bill through, even though President Bush vowed to veto it — anticipating that they’ll be able to highlight Republican opposition in campaigns next year.
“This bill is pure political posturing,” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Grantville Republican. “They are drastically expanding a well-run and popular program for the neediest Americans into HillaryCare for Kids.”
Democrats poo-pooed the charge. Rep. David Scott, of Atlanta, urged Bush to reconsider his veto threat, noting that the expansion would add millions of eligible children not already enrolled to the program.
And Rep. Hank Johnson of DeKalb County, wondered aloud about Bush’s real motive for vetoing the bill. The expansion would be funded through an increase in the federal tobacco tax.
“I’m sure that the tobacco industry will be pleased because they won’t have to pay the proposed taxes,” he said. “Tobacco wins. Our children lose.”
Marshall’s vote is already stirring the Democratic blogosphere. Writes Jon Flack on Tondee’s Tavern (the whole comment requires a language warning): “Marshall’s votes on Iraq, and now SCHIP…it’s just too much for me to swallow. Marshall is a problem on Choice, on Rights, and more… That’s it. I’m done.”
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Gingrich chooses a grand, windy entrance into Carrollton
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich kicks off his “American Solutions” adventure today with an all-day event at the Cobb Galleria. Radio jocks Boortz and Hannity both will broadcast from there.
Officially, the event is intended to launch a high-minded discussion of solutions to this country’s problems. But the subtext is all about whether or not Gingrich will answer a GOP cry of despair over the current field, and decide to make a run for the White House.
On Friday, Gingrich visits his old stomping grounds, now called the University of West Georgia, where he once taught history. And here’s where the subtext becomes more distinct.
Gingrich will arrive on campus via helicopter, presidential-like, perhaps offering photographers and bystanders a sense of what the future might look like.
Or maybe the man just understands Atlanta traffic.
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Because fat kids must play their part in the economy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on Wednesday will air a television ad in Atlanta targeting U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss because, the group says, Chambliss is responsible for fat school children.
The ad, called “Dirty Little Secrets,” plays out not in a field of waving grain but in a public men’s room, spoofing the arrest of Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), a member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, on charges that Craig solicited gay sex in an airport restroom.
“Secrets” is aimed at members of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the 2007 farm bill they drafted. The bill, Physicians Committee said, benefits corporations that produce fatty foods like ‘burgers and bacon that the government then buys and distributes to public schools and government assistance programs. In exchange, senators rake in fatty amounts of campaign cash from those corporations.
“Companies get rich, kids get fat,” the ad’s narrator intones.
But before “Secret” even aired on television the Physicians Committee came under a withering attack by the Center for Consumer Freedom as a fake public-health interest group that is really a front for the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA.
The Physicians Committee isn’t pro-kids, CCF said. It’s anti-meat!
CCF director David Martosko called the Physicians Committee “a bunch of chicken-saving extremists” and its ad “deceptive propaganda.”
“The phony Physicians Committee certainly chose a subject it knows something about: people who hide their true nature from the public,” Martosko said.
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Walking and chewing gum at the same time: Speaker says yes, Senate leaders say probably not
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The two top leaders of the Senate on Thursday said that House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s proposal to eliminate property taxes in Georgia will probably swamp any talk of a new sales tax for fixing metro Atlanta’s transportation woes during next year’s session of the Legislature.
“There’s no question that the speaker’s proposal will dominate the session. And it could very well overshadow this issue of funding,” Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said after addressing a House-Senate committee looking at transportation issues.
Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson said much the same thing a few hours later.
Richardson’s proposal, though the details have yet to be revealed, would eliminate property taxes levied by the state, local governments, and school systems in exchange for a single sales tax.
Piling on an additional sales tax, whether statewide or just in metro Atlanta, to address traffic woes, would be too much for lawmakers to tolerate — or so goes the thinking. Richardson disagrees.
He said the Legislature was entirely capable of walking and chewing gum.
“Surely we’re smart enough in this state to do more than one thing at a time. I hope we are. If we aren’t, we’ve got more problems than I thought,” Richardson said, after attending the same legislative committee meeting. “I think the Legislature is big enough and has enough backbone to take on more than one issue and put it out there for Georgians.”
Otherwise, Cagle and Richardson continued their unusual, hand-in-hand walk toward a reorganization of the way the state of Georgia approaches transportation — into territory usually reserved for governors.
Sonny Perdue addressed the group on Monday.
On Tuesday, both Cagle and Richardson dropped broad hints of big changes. Among Cagle’s points:
— “The thing that we have lacked is a vision,” he said.
— Federal cash for Georgia roads is currently divided equally among congressional districts. He wants that changed, with the implication that more money needs to be sent into metro Atlanta.
— “We cannot let a funding formula and a bureaucracy determine our needs,” he said.
Both Richardson and Cagle spoke up forcefully for low-cost HOT lanes — interstate lanes capable of taking traffic in either direction, depending on demand.
Richard’s statement to the joint legislative committee was shorter, and to the point. He was tired of proposals and counterproposals and counter-counter proposals.
“I do not intend to study transportation anymore,” the speaker said. “We’ve got to do something, even if it’s wrong.”
Richardson’s spokeswoman later called to make sure that reporters understood that he was using humor to make a point — that he’s frustrated by the lack of progress on transportation, and was not advocating the use of square wheels.
For transit insiders, the most important news may have come from Tommie Williams (R-Lyons), the Senate majority leader. Williams said he wants a reorganization of the state Department of Transportation — to create a more powerful head of the state road agency.
Currently, a legislatively appointed DOT board names a commissioner — as well as a chief engineer and treasurer. All four entities often have different and competing agendas.
Williams wants a transportation CEO, appointed by a DOT board. The CEO would name a chief financial officer, and a chief operating officer.
“I don’t know of any CEO that can function when he doesn’t have control of his subordinates,” Williams said. “Somebody needs to be riding herd there.”
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‘Just thinking out loud, we ought to look at — what if Grady ceased to exist?’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You knew the effort to rescue Grady Memorial Hospital was going too smoothly. Someone in the State Capitol needed to suggest that perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad thing to let the charity hospital just disappear.
“I think this whole thing of we can’t let Grady go under — we ought to think out loud about that,” said Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah, the No. 2 ranking Republican in that chamber. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it did go under. Maybe the phoenix that would rise in its place would be better than the hospital that’s there now.”
Johnson (R-Savannah) called a Tuesday afternoon press conference for the specific purpose of floating that thought. (Conspiracy theorists note: State Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), who has been digging into Grady’s contract with Emory University School of Medicine, left Johnson’s office just as reporters began to wander in.)
We’ll apologize in advance for the poor quality, but you can listen to a four-minute audio clip here.
A number of poker hands are being called here — the largest held by Georgia’s health care community, whose representatives have said that closing Grady would place an unbearable burden on other hospitals in the area.
Says Johnson:
“This view that ambulances are going to be driving the streets of Atlanta, trying to find a place to put a patient, isn’t right. Federal law requires any hospital to take whoever walks into their emergency room.
“Just thinking out loud, we ought to look at — what if Grady ceased to exist? Maybe something better would come along. I think the burden’s on them to convince those that they want to receive funding from, that the problems are being resolved. Otherwise, we might just test the capacity of other health care providers in the region.
Johnson spoke of “fixing the unfair contracts” that Grady has tied itself to — giving specific mention to the city of Atlanta and Emory University.
“Everybody agrees that restructuring is part of the solution. But who goes on the board, and who appoints the board, and whether that board is going to have Grady’s best interests in mind, has yet to be determined,” Johnson said.
More specifically, the Republican senator said, “Just going to a non-for-profit hospital that’s run by the same people isn’t going to save Grady.”
And? “The CTCA option to me is ….very viable,” Johnson said. CTCA is Cancer Treatment Centers of America was an outfit that decided it wanted to the state’s hospital licensing process waived last year so that it could build a private cancer-treatment hospital that would compete with major medical institutions in Atlanta, including Emory.
Translation: Johnson is suggesting that it might be time to think about privatizing the entire Grady operation. Under something other than Grady.
ADDENDUM: On Friday evening, Johnson sent this e-mail in an effort to clarify:
“I didn’t mean to claim that CTCA could take over Grady. They do cancer only. HCA or Tenant or others can manage it in a privatized manner. I was simply referring to CTCA as an example of ‘new’ partners who could help create a ‘New Grady’ - someone who could improve the image and attract paying patients.”
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SCHIP invaded by illegal immigrants? House votes today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With the House set to vote today to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) has found a new reason to hate the bill. Illegal immigrants.
All of Georgia’s Republican congressmen voted against a similar bill in August that would have added at least $35 billion to the program, known locally as PeachCare, despite the program’s success and popularity at home. The vote today is on a compromise bill worked out by House and Senate negotiators
Taking their lead from President Bush, Georgia GOPers argue that SCHIP is a first step toward socialized medicine, a wild expansion of governmental powers and no longer doing what it was designed to do a decade ago.
Just hours before the House vote Tuesday, however, Deal warned his fellow congressmen in a “Dear Colleague” letter that the “deeply flawed” Democratic SCHIP bill would allow illegal immigrants to enroll in SCHIP and Medicaid at the cost of $3.7 billion over the next decade.
How would these illegal immigrants get into the program? Simple. A provision in the bill allows potential enrollees to show only a Social Security card - not documents proving citizenship - when they apply at the state level to get in the programs.
“While I am a strong supporter of the SCHIP program, I simply cannot vote for a bill that flagrantly encourages illegal aliens to break our immigration laws and fraudulently enroll in taxpayer-funded public assistance programs,” Deal wrote.
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Meet Sonny Perdue: Rebel Republican
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue is the star of an article in The Politico, which details a Perdue-led effort by the Republican Governors Association to seize the redefinition of the GOP from Washington types.
“I want to dispel you of the notion that I call this a re-branding campaign,” he told the reporter. “I’m calling mine a ‘Do what you say you are going to do’ campaign.”
“A small group of governors” will gather in Atlanta next month to look at new policy positions on energy, conservation, education and health care.
The article notes that the push from governors comes at the same time that the White House and Republicans in Congress are positioning themselves for budget confrontations with Democrats — particularly over health care.
Says Perdue: “People don’t want fights. They want people to solve problems with them. My simple philosophy is, people want good schools, safe streets, to feel protected and the opportunity for a good job. Then they want us to get out of their way. I believe that is a Republican message. I don’t believe that message has been repudiated.”
This explains why Perdue will be front and present with Newt Gingrich at the Cobb Galleria on Thursday, when the former U.S. House speaker launches what he calls an unprecedented, solution-oriented dialogue to confront the nation’s problems.
Gingrich has been invited to the October, small group meeting that Perdue his hosting in Atlanta. Other expected attendees include Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Charlie Crist of Florida, and Matt Blunt of Missouri.
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Somebody go to a construction site and find out how to say ‘red tape’ in Spanish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Remember how Gov. Sonny Perdue ditched a $1.6 million program to see that foreign languages are taught in a limited number of Georgia elementary schools? Instead, he decided that a $1,200 check for the same purpose should be sent to every elementary school in the state.
Except that, according to the Augusta Chronicle, the checks aren’t in the mail yet — even though the school year is well underway. And next year, they may disappear entirely.
“The money has not gone out because there is still kind of a dispute between the governor’s office and the Legislature about how that money should be assigned. Once they’ve resolved their differences, we will distribute that money in some method,” the newspaper quotes Dana Tofig, a state Department of Education spokesman, as saying.
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A Grady deal is on…..
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority is to be meeting at this hour, and here’s what we’re told will come out of it:
An 11-member committee will be assigned the task of planning the transition of Grady Memorial Hospital to an institution ruled by a non-profit management corporation. They’ll give themselves a 60-day deadline.
Fulton County will assign two members, DeKalb County will appoint another two. The business community gets two. And the Grady community gets a pair as well. House Speaker Glenn Richardson, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and Gov. Sonny Perdue name one representative each.
The involvement of the three state officials is important — not just the fact that they’ll have a seat at the table, but that the speaker, the governor and the lieutenant governor all have separate seats.
Perhaps it’s recognition that House Speaker Glenn Richardson was the first in the state Capitol to go public on the issue. We’re also informed by reliable people that he doesn’t always agree with the governor, or the lieutenant governor, but this is just a rumor.
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‘The piano, it sounds like a carnival, and the microphone smells like a beer’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Travis Fain of the Macon Telegraph’s Lucid Idiocy has posted a snippet of Gov. Sonny Perdue tapping his inner Billy Joel while at the keyboard of a player piano.
The video is from last week’s fund-raiser for Rick Goddard, the retired Air Force general who’s running for U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall’s seat. The governor gave a fulsome endorsement of Goddard, ignoring the fact that Mac Collins is also in the GOP primary.
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Begala: Hillary and Mitt in the final chase, and Zell is still the best
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic political consultant Paul Begala, who partnered with James Carville to make a governor out of Zell Miller and a president out of Bill Clinton, is teaching a course at the University of Georgia law school this semester.
Over the weekend, Athens radio talk show host Tim Bryant of WGAU (1340AM) sent us this sound clip of Begala’s thoughts on the ’08 presidential race. Hillary Clinton’s a sure thing on the Democratic side, Mitt Romney (who knew?) has the edge among Republicans.
And Zell is the best governor Georgia ever had. That came right out of the fellow’s mouth.
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The Chambliss comics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) continues to take flak for a TV campaign ad he ran in 2002 against Democratic incumbent and Vietnam vet Max Cleland. But this time it’s funny. Or, at least, in the funny papers.
The Chambliss ad was mentioned in the Sunday edition of Doonesbury, written by Garry Trudeau, that featured White House aides discussing which political opponent most successfully smeared by former White House political guru Karl Rove - including two former military men who were portrayed as dishonorable and cowardly.
When President Bush first ran for governor of Texas, a rumor was spread that his opponent, Democrat Anne Richards, was a lesbian. Then there were 2000 presidential campaign rumors in South Carolina about the private life of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). And, of course, there’s the “swiftboating” of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a Vietnam vet, during the 2004 race.
One comic aide agrees these were all pretty good. But, he adds, they were “not as purely Rovian as the Max Cleland smear! Who but Karl could redefine a disabled war hero as a sniveling defeatist?”
Umm. That would be the Chambliss campaign. Chambliss and his former campaign aides all say Rove had nothing to do with the ad that showed pictures of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Cleland. The campaign came up with the idea.
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The link between Grady and MARTA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It is possible that, in order to make sense of transportation in metro Atlanta, it is first necessary to save Grady Memorial Hospital.
This is a theme that’s quietly building in many quarters of the state Capitol. Democrats, particularly African-Americans, have long seen the connection. Ranking Republicans are just beginning to recognize its importance.
The linkage is so strong that one black lawmaker told us there is risk in the mere mention of it. “That kind of conversation feeds the paranoia that causes people to do irrational things,” said state Sen. Kasim Reed of Atlanta.
The connection is the near-identical circumstances in which Grady and MARTA find themselves. Both are creatures of Fulton and DeKalb counties. Both are controlled largely by African-Americans.
Both Grady and MARTA operate on antiquated, two-county funding mechanisms, but have become essential to a far larger geographic area. “There’s no question that we need to transform these institutions to keep up with the facts on the ground,” said David Adelman (D-Atlanta), chairman of the Senate Urban Affairs Committee.
Both institutions cry out for a deeper connection to state government. Grady requires cash. MARTA, while solvent, needs to be blended into a larger regional transportation system if it is to remain relevant. And in return, state government — controlled by white Republicans — would demand significant changes in the operation of each.
In Grady’s case, for instance, the first requirement is placing the hospital’s operation in the hands of a non-profit corporation.
This is not to say that Grady and MARTA are peas in a single pod. But in each case, the solution requires a mutual level of comfort between black Democrats and white Republicans that hasn’t existed — and extends far beyond the state Capitol.
“I get a surprising number of people who think there’s some crooked business going on. There’s no trust,” said state Sen. Gloria Butler (D-Stone Mountain).
Last week, after two separate committee hearings at the state Capitol, an informal, biracial group of lawmakers, business leaders, church leaders, and members of the Grady hospital authority convened in a private, invitation-only session.
They moved ever so slightly toward agreement on a restructuring of Grady. Many of the same people would be involved in any discussion of MARTA.
“If you have a willing partnership on Grady, you could have a willing partnership with MARTA,” said Adelman. His urban affairs committee could be part of any deal-making.
Reed, who’s often mentioned as a candidate for mayor of Atlanta in ‘09, doesn’t disagree that success with Grady could be contagious. “You’ve got the possibility of building a model,” he said.
But there’s the other side of the coin, too. If the Grady effort should tank, or is marred by coercion, Reed said, then that bodes ill for any rational discussion of restructuring MARTA.
Which is why he thinks it unwise to over-emphasize the link between the two. Otherwise, one institution’s future can be held hostage to the other.
Reed had an intriguing take on coercion. He defined it as the extraction of concessions without putting any money on the table.
This leads back to the matter of trust and transparency, and what Reed thinks his constituents will accept.
Consensus is growing for the idea of putting daily Grady operations under the auspices of a non-profit corporation. The Fulton-DeKalb hospital board could take a step toward it Monday.
The next hurdle is likely to be choosing the board that runs the non-profit.
Seats on the board should be distributed, proportionately, among the institutions that end up financing the new Grady, Reed said.
In other words, any dilution of Fulton and DeKalb’s authority over Grady — say, with appointments to the board picked or subject to approval by state government — would have to be matched by a appropriate amount of cash.
“Everyone understands that he who pays the piper calls the tune,” the senator said.
Newt to begin raising campaign cash
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday that he’ll begin raising money for a presidential campaign next Monday and, if he can raise pledges for $30 million over the next three weeks, he’ll join the Republican race for president.
“I think the odds are very high, if we ended up with that level of pledges - I don’t see, as a citizen, how you could turn that down,” Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday.
“So you’d run?” host Chris Wallace asked.
“I think you’d be compelled to,” Gingrich said.
“If we have enough resources, then close to that (fundraising deadline) we’ll face a very big decision in late October,” Gingrich said. “If there aren’t enough resources, I’m not for doing unrealistic things.”
Prior to the start of that fundraising, Gingrich this week will host a national dialogue on all the issues that a presidential candidate would need to address. Under the umbrella of a group he formed, American Solutions, Gingrich on Thursday and Saturday will open debate - via satellite TV and the internet - on immigration, healthcare, education and other issues.
Hmmm. Talking about all those issues. Raising all that money. What does that sound like?
More SCHIP: Revived but already dead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Good News: House and Senate negotiators struck a deal on PeachCare’s parent program Friday that would expand the program by $35 billion.
The Bad News: President Bush already announced he’d veto it.
The final agreement, which still must pass the House and Senate, would insure the 6.6 million low-income children already enrolled in the program, known nationally as the States Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP and locally as PeachCare. It also would as many as 4 million more kids by 2012.
The legislation would repeal President Bush’s order to the states forbidding them from expanding local SCHIP initiatives on their own.
The compromise bill encourages states to enroll children of parents who earn 200 percent of the federal poverty rate ($41,000 for family of four), but allows an expansion up to 300 percent ($62,000). The only adults allowed to get coverage through SCHIP are pregnant women. Parents and childless adults, now covered by some states, would be phased out of the program.
Bush has vowed to veto any SCHIP bill that greatly expands funding, saying it was a move toward socialized medicine. Bush said the program should continue to focus on children only, with eligibility capped at 200 percent, as the program was originally designed 10 years ago. Some states are now as high as 350 percent.
Still, the Democratic Congress continues pushing a bill Bush is sure to veto, believing that Democrats would still win a political points by portraying Republicans as virtually heartless in the 2008 election.
Broun and SCHIP: Another walk on the maverick side?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This week, U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal announced his sponsorship of a stop-gap measure to allow the continued funding of the federal-state children’s health insurance program.
It’s not an uncommon tactic in Washington. Democrats in Congress want to expand the program. The White House doesn’t. If two opposing sides can’t come to terms on the program, this kind of legislation would keep the program — called PeachCare in Georgia — going until a resolution is reached.
Deal’s suggestion would keep SCHIP funding at its current level for 18 months — until there’s a new resident in the White House.
Georgia has seven Republican members of Congress. Six, including Deal, have endorsed the measure.
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun has not — prompting rumors to fly that the Athens physician was ready to take another walk on the maverick side and oppose the entire concept of government-subsidized health insurance for children of the working poor.
Broun has bucked Republican consensus before — within a few hours of taking office in July, in fact. He voted in favor of legislation to bar federal prosecution of those who use marijuana for medicinal purposes in the 12 states that permit it.
So we called his office. And his spokesman said it was premature to say whether Broun was for — or against — his colleague’s SCHIP legislation. “Congressman Broun has not yet looked at the specifics of the legislation,” said John Kennedy, Broun’s director of communications.
Kennedy said his boss, who faces opposition next year in both a Republican primary and the general election, will make a decision early next week.
They’ll be talking about Obama in the morning.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama told his crowd of supporters in Atlanta that he walked away from the Senate condemnation of MoveOn.org’s newspaper ad about General David Petraeus.
“I happen to believe that General Petraeus has served this country honorably. And I think it probably was a distraction to try to attack him as opposed to [President] George Bush’s policies,” Obama said.
But the Illinois senator said he couldn’t tolerate “the notion that at a time when we know young men and women are dying, and veterans are not being served right here at home…. We’re wasting time debating about a newspaper ad.”
“I did not vote on that bill. This is the kind of game plan that the American people are tired of,” Obama said.
And yes, he mentioned the Jena 6. Twice.
Waiting for Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re here in the Tom Murphy ballroom of the Georgia World Congress Center, waiting for Barack Obama. Organizers just let the crowd in three minutes ago, and already have several hundred around the main stage.
It looks like a large crowd count, multi-racial, skewing young — but with a good many geezers, too. At least 10 TV cameras. Make that 11. The Democratic presidential candidate will be here about 5:30 p.m., we’re told — although it could be much later. Getting some mixed reports about whether he’s even left Washington yet.
One thing he’s dead certain to address, in one fashion or another, is the Tuesday report out of South Carolina, in which Jesse Jackson said Obama was behaving too “white” — i.e., Jackson thought Obama’s reaction to the Jena 6 situation has been too tepid.
On Wednesday, Jackson said he didn’t remember making the statement.
Justice asked to investigate Scott
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Washington watchdog group on Thursday asked the Justice Department to investigate Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) for possible tax violations and improper use of his House office and staff.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) filed the complaint here just two days after declaring Scott among the 25 “most corrupt” congressmen here for mingling personal and campaign interests, failing repeatedly to pay personal and business taxes and, as one of his former aides claimed, using his House staff to work on his campaign.
“We urge the Justice Department to commence an investigation immediately,” Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said in a statement.
Scott’s office rejected CREW’s claims as “inaccuracies” and unproven accusations, adding, “a review of the record will clear up these allegations.”
Scott’s office said he’s paid all back property taxes on his home in historic Inman Park and “significantly reduced” the taxes still owed by his family’s advertising business, Dayn-Mark.
“CREW basically recycled a 5-month-old news story and added no new insight or additional review of Congressman Scott’s record,” Scott’s office said.
The campaign ad that will not die
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) was dragged into the middle of a highly partisan argument on the Senate floor Thursday without uttering a word of his own.
Senate Republicans, still chaffing over a newspaper ad run more than a week ago by the liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org that referred to the U.S. leader in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, as “Gen. Betray Us,” offered an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill that tied all Democrats to the now-notorious peace group.
But Democrats were ready with an amendment of their own, one that listed instances in which a Republican questioned the integrity of a Democratic war veteran.
Can you guess whose campaign ad got first mention in the Dems’ amendment? Here’s a hint:
“In 2002, a senator from Georgia who is a Vietnam veteran, triple amputee and the recipient of a Silver Star and Bronze Star had his courage and patriotism attacked in an advertisement in which he was visually linked to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein,” the amendment reads, taking care not to violate Senate rules by naming individuals.
It is, of course, the most famous Georgia political ad that no one in Georgia remembers and no Democrat outside the state can forget - Chambliss’ 11th hour TV spot attacking incumbent Democrat Max Cleland.
In a roll call vote, here’s the amendment mentioning Chambliss got 51 votes, nine shy of the 60 needed to pass it.
Cardwell on YouTube: A plea to ‘everyday people’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former television journalist Dale Cardwell, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is out with his first YouTube video, following similar — and similarly underfunded — efforts by rivals Vernon Jones and Rand Knight to take their cases to the Internet.
As might be expected, the production values in Cardwell’s ad are strong. And the spot looks like it’s intended specifically for fund-raising.
Says Cardwell:
“I’m not taking money from Washington lobbyists or the big-money PACs that special interests use to buy influence in Congress. That means I need to count on help from everyday people like you and me. Whatever you can give will help.”
This should be no surprise to Fred-heads: Dobson says he’s not for Thompson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Associated Press has just put this out:
James Dobson, one of the nation’s most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week he will not support Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson.
In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.
“Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes, and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?” Dobson wrote.
“He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!”
The founder and chairman of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, Dobson draws a radio audience in the millions, many of whom who first came to trust the child psychologist for his conservative Christian advice on child-rearing.
Here’s a bit of background from last week. Dobson has also ruled out support for Rudy Giuliani.
Thompson will make his first Georgia appearance as a candidate in October.
Notes from a Grady meeting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Those watching carefully in the state Capitol on Wednesday could see some shifting of ground on the issue of saving Grady Memorial Hospital.
A pair of committee hearings were held, one in the House and one in the Senate, one controlled by Republicans and one by Democrats.
The gathering of the Senate Urban Affairs Committee, chaired by David Adelman (D-Atlanta) and peopled with nine Democrats, may have been the most telling.
Tom Bell, the chairman and CEO of Cousins Properties, laid out the rationale behind the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce report calling for a shift in management for Grady to a non-profit corporation.
Not present was state Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), who has been pressing the point that the charity hospital’s contract with the Emory University School of Medicine is one-sided, in Emory’s favor, and needs to be reviewed.
Emory and Morehouse College provide physicians and doctors-in-training to the hospital.
Despite his absence, Shafer scored a victory — but a limited one.
“First of all, every major contract needs to be reviewed and renegotiated, starting with medical school contracts. They’re out-dated. That needs to be changed,” Bell told senators.
On the other hand, the business executive made it clear that Grady needed Emory more than Emory needed Grady. It would be hard for the hospital to find another source for so many doctors, Bell said — while Emory already has two hospitals that could become classrooms for its medical students.
Bell also outlined how the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority would be responsible for selecting the members of a board of directors for any 501(c)3 corporation created — although, he said, board membership would probably need the approval of financial entities involved in the bail-out.
After its creation, the new Grady board would be self-perpetuating.
That seemed to mollify state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta), who expressed his worry that state government — i.e., Republicans — would dictate board membership in return for increased state assistance.
State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), who also sits on the committee, remains unconvinced that a change in Grady’s management structure is necessary. He expressed objections to what he called “a coerced approach” to reforming Grady.
And he promised that the Grady issue would be most “volatile issue” in next year’s legislative session. Remember that Grady and the Capitol are separated only by a few blocks in downtown Atlanta.
Sam Williams, president of the metro chamber, was in the audience. After the session, he said a deal on Grady is something that needs to be struck before lawmakers gather this January. Without it, he said, Grady’s not likely to make it those four months.
Peace groups at war with Johnson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Hank Johnson, a DeKalb County Democrat, has been feeling the love on Capitol Hill ever since he replaced the bombastic Cynthia McKinney in 2006. At home, former McKinney supporters are lining up behind Johnson.
Yet, now there’s talk among anti-war groups of another Democrat challenging Johnson in 2008 -someone other than McKinney, who is flirting with the idea of running again.
No names have surfaced, but Congressional Quarterly is reporting here that anti-war groups like Code Pink are angry over the Democratic Congress’ failure to pull U.S. troops from Iraq and are targeting six Dems, including Johnson, to make their point.
“There’s a lot of anger, especially in districts where people won in 2006 on an anti-war platform,” Medea Benjamin, the leader of Code Pink, is quoted as saying. “They deserve to be challenged.”
Johnson has spoken out against the war and said he supports withdrawing troops. But he voted against Democratic legislation that set a strict timetable or target date for a speedy withdrawal, saying it ties the hands of military leaders and announces our intentions to the enemy.
Johnson has said he expects to have opposition in next year’s race in one Georgia’s most liberal districts. But he didn’t mention any names either.
Elizabeth Edwards: Hillary Clinton’s health care plan ‘remarkably similar’ to her husband’s
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, breezed through Atlanta for a fund-raiser on Wednesday — and was kind enough to pick up the phone for some quick conversation.
As her husband John’s chief — and often outspoken — advocate, Ms. Edwards is breaking the mold created for potential First Ladies. Her sharp comments have put her on the cover of this week’s Time magazine.
In her phone call, Ms. Edwards noted an eerie sameness between the health care proposal laid out by Hillary Clinton this week, and the one her husband trotted out this winter.
She doesn’t use the word “plagiarize.” Nor does she speak of copyright infringement. But she does say “mimic.”
And she suggests Clinton might “cave” when it comes to negotiating the details of universal health care.
“I guess you could slip a piece of paper between what Ms. Clinton and what John proposed in February, but that’s about it. It’s remarkably similar,” Ms. Edwards began.
“We’re of course glad to have her company, and to the extent that this is an endorsement of his proposal, we’re happy to have that.
“We hoped, actually, in February that it was going to push all the candidates immediately, to propose [universal coverage]. It’s taken much too long — so you have to wonder where it’s going to come on their agenda, if it comes this late in the political process,” she said.
“I think [Clinton] has said that this is a starting point for negotiations. It makes me think she’s willing to negotiate it back. John is not willing to negotiate universal health care back. That’s a bottom line for him. It’s not a starting point for negotiation,” Ms. Edwards said.
And now you know how she got that spot on Time magazine.
Blogwatch: Sonny Perdue and an SCHIP rerun
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blogger Amy Morton of Georgia Women Vote caught an interesting rerun the other day.
It was a look by the PBS news magazine “Now” at the federal-state program to provide health insurance for children, known nationally as SCHIP and locally as PeachCare.
Don’t feel bad if you missed it the first time it aired back in July — as we did. The program is broadcast locally at 2:30 p.m. each Sunday.
This particular program looked at two children, both from Georgia. One was a teenaged girl with Type 1 diabetes — the kind of diabetes that requires an insulin pump and such. Her father had been laid off, and efforts to get on PeachCare were useless — it was accepting no new clients, because of the fight over the program in Washington.
Gov. Sonny Perdue appears at about the eight-minute mark, and comes across a bit prickly. He’s asked what he would tell the young girl.
Says Perdue:
“We’re doing our part, and the federal part. We’re doing all that we can. To blame us for freezing a part where our federal partners are not fulfilling their obligation is not right — and I won’t accept that blame.
“We’re doing our part. You tell her to call her congressman.”
Says the reporter:
“And I’m sure if I called her and said, ‘Listen, the governor says you should call your member of Congress, she would say, ‘That’s not going to [get] me what I need to survive.’ So the next thing you would say to her would be…..”
Perdue:
“We can do no more. We’re doing the state’s portion and the federal portion. For you to take an individual and want to cast blame on the state of Georgia and me, and what would I do — what would I offer her, I do take offense to that.”
For the record, last week, the governor did put his name to a bipartisan letter urging all sides to calm down and do whatever needs to be done to keep tSCHIP/PeachCare alive.
Fair Tax: 65 down, 35 to go
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Fair Tax is back and its top promoter, Duluth Republican Rep. John Linder, said Wednesday that support for the measure has reached an all time high in the House.
By Wednesday, 65 lawmakers had signed on to Linder’s tax bill, which would replace the income tax with a national sales tax, said Linder, the undisputed Little Engine That Could on the issue.
Linder is aiming for 100 co-sponsors before Congress adjourns at the end of 2008 so he can get a hearing and possibly a vote by the full House.
He’s boasting that his perennial tax bill has more co-sponsors “than any other piece of tax reform legislation proposed in over three decades.”
“We have seen extraordinary traction this year, Linder said. “I believe this is just the beginning. I can’t go anywhere anymore without someone asking me how the fair tax is doing.”
Gingrich, Kemp: Republican candidates can’t run from black, Hispanic forums
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich has a few words, in today’s Washington Post, about the lack of enthusiasm that Republican presidential candidates have shown for forums sponsored by blacks or other minorities.
The most recent example is the refusal by Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson to participate in a Tavis Smiley-hosted debate to be aired on PBS on Sept. 27.
“For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error,” Gingrich said. “I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse — this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It’s just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer are disingenuous. That’s baloney.”
Said Jack Kemp:
“We sound like we don’t want immigration; we sound like we don’t want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do — meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we’re going to be competitive with people of color, we’ve got to ask them for their vote.”
A large but not quite smashing event for Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Look for tomorrow’s Barack Obama event to be large, even impressive, but nowhere near the 20,000 who gathered to hear him speak at Georgia Tech last April.
Organizers are expecting somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 to come to the Georgia World Congress Center on Thursday afternoon to see the Democratic candidate, plus Dominique Wilkins, the ex-Hawk, and some fellow named Usher.
They base those expectations on crowds drawn to similar events in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cincinnati. Tickets are $15 for students, $25 for everyone else.
Money is a secondary goal at this event. Think about it — the maximum take would be $100K, and really will probably be $60K or less. Work in venue expenses, and that’s not much. The ratio of dollars earned to trouble taken will be much higher at another Thursday event, where tickets start at $1,000.
The GWCC event is an effort to turn enthusiasm about Obama — which skews young — into actual votes on Feb. 5. Historically, whether black, white or Hispanic, voters under 25 are lazy and unreliable. With each donation, Obama’s people get a name, address, phone number and e-mail address, all of which can be used as cattle prods come Georgia’s presidential primary.
And remember that Georgia is close to South Carolina, which votes first.
Pack a few buses in Atlanta, and you can quickly deliver several hundred door-knockers to Greenville and Spartanburg.
So many candidates, so few endorsements
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s congressional delegation has been slow to endorse any of the presidential primary contenders, Republican or Democrat.
The Hill newspaper reported here Tuesday that only six of the 15 Peach State pols - four Republicans and two Democrats - have made their preferences known. Nearly 230 members of the House and Senate - about half the total - have endorsed candidates, The Hill reported.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) had the most congressional endorsements (60) of the 17 candidates listed by the paper.
Two Georgia Democrats - Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany and Rep. Hank Johnson of DeKalb County - are backing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for their party’s nomination. Democratic campaign recruiting among Georgia’s African American officials has been intense and both Bishop and Johnson staved off overtures from the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) - including calls from former President Bill Clinton.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, appears to be the most popular candidate among Georgia lawmakers. Three state Republicans - Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta, Rep. John Linder of Duluth and Rep. Tom Price of Roswell - are all backing him.
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican from Grantville, is backing former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee.
Chip Rogers to be voice, chief staffer for Thompson campaign in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Fred Thompson presidential campaign is about to get its boots moving on the ground in Georgia.
The Thompson organization plans to announce tomorrow that state Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) will serve as its executive director and spokesman for the Georgia campaign.
Rogers is the fellow who sponsored the big Republican effort in 2006 to crack down on illegal immigrants in Georgia.
Joel McElhannon, who did much of the strategy work for Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in his 2006 campaign, will serve as regional political director.
Steve Croy, a major developer from south Georgia, will serve as Thompson’s finance chair here. He did the same thing for the Cagle campaign in 2006. Funny how that works.
Rogers’ involvement is the personification of the crush that’s headed Georgia’s way in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 5 presidential primary.
The Legislature, with Rogers as one of its members, will begin its winter session on the second Monday in January.
Look for Thompson to make his first appearance in Georgia next month.
A Rasmussen/WAGA poll on the U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dale Cardwell, one of three announced Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, is bragging on a WAGA (Fox 5)/Rasmussen poll that shows him doing slightly better against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss than fellow Democrat Vernon Jones.
See the poll here.
The Chambliss/Cardwell match-up comes out at 49 to 33 percent. The Chambliss/Jones race was measured at 53 to 28 percent. That shows him the better candidate, Cardwell is arguing this morning.
But more interesting is the favorable/unfavorable line on all three candidates. Chambliss’ ratio is a relatively healthy 58 percent to 30 percent. Jones has the near reverse — 29 percent view him favorably, while 54 percent view him unfavorably.
Yet Cardwell’s rating doesn’t exactly show him to be a muscle-bound candidate, either. Those polled were nearly even in their judgment. Thirty-four percent saw Cardwell favorably, while 39 percent viewed him unfavorably. Former journalists, like lawyers, may carry a heavier burden than most when it comes to public opinion.
Group: Rep. Scott one of “most corrupt”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. David Scott, an Atlanta Democrat, today was named one the 25 most “corrupt members of Congress” by a ethical watchdog group that cited, among other charges, Scott’s failure to pay taxes on time and the mingling of his personal business interests and his campaign finances.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) made the charge in a report Here CREW said “documents the egregious, unethical and possibly illegal activities of the most tainted members of Congress.”
Citing news reports and Scott’s campaign-finance records, CREW said Scott’s family advertising business, Dayn-Mark, failed to pay $154,000 in payroll taxes on time and $4,600 in local and state taxes since 1998. Scott also was late in paying $23,200 in property taxes on his home.
CREW questioned campaign payments to members of Scott’s family that the FEC records indicate were reimbursements for office supplies and other items. The group also cited a former Scott aide’s claim that Scott used House office staff for campaign work.
“It has become abundantly clear that many public officials believe that the rules don’t apply to them,” CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement.
Michael Andel, Scott’s spokesman, called the report “ridiculous” and “untruthful.”
“It’s unfortunate that they didn’t come in an talk to us before they did their little report, because there are a lot of inaccuracies here.” Andel said. Incidents cited in the report are either false or have already been addressed, including the full payment of Scott’s back taxes, Andel said.
The damaging information on which stories about Scott’s campaign finances were based was distributed by Republicans looking to weaken Scott in next year’s election, he said.
Scott has said the late payments were due to his wife’s failure to pay them on time. Alfredia Scott accepted that responsibility in an earlier interview.
In Augusta, ‘poorly worded’ e-mail forces resignation of GOP official from authority
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dave Barbee, chairman of the Republican party’s 10th District operation, has resigned from his post on the Augusta Housing Authority, two weeks after his controversial e-mail was made public, advocating an increase in white residency in the city’s downtown area.
Here’s the Augusta Chronicle take on the issue.
Barbee has repeatedly apologized for his “poorly worded” e-mail to developers, and submitted his resignation on Sunday to Mayor Deke Copenhaver.
On Monday, the mayor said: [Barbee] has expressed to me his sincere regret for the inappropriate wording of his recent e-mail. He apologizes to anyone in the Augusta community that he may have inadvertently offended. I have accepted his apology and with God’s help, may we forgive and move forward as a community of trust and hope.”
Ralph Reed stands in the background of the Giuliani-MoveOn.org throw-down
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed has become part of the silent subtext in the latest round of blows exchanged between MoveOn.org and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.
Five days after Giuliani bludgeoned the liberal activist organization — and in a bank shot, Democratic Hillary Clinton, too — for its “General Betray Us?” ad in the New York Times, MoveOn.org announced it has a new anti-Rudy TV spot it will launch in Iowa.
The ad accuses Giuliani of being tossed off the the Iraq Study Group, a 10-member bipartisan effort to assess conditions in that country, for missing too many meetings.
Though it’s not mentioned in the ad, MoveOn.org included one local example in some back-up material:
On May 18, 2006, one of four days the Iraq panel gathered that spring, Giuliani instead delivered a $100,000 speech on leadership in Atlanta. Then he attended a Buckhead fund-raiser for Ralph Reed, who was making a run for lieutenant governor in Georgia.
Now, possibly, MoveOn.org didn’t want to complicate its TV spot unnecessarily. But you also have to wonder whether the group feared that, as conservative as Iowa Republicans are, bringing Reed into the picture would have helped Giuliani more than hurt him.
Rand Knight on YouTube, and a Libertarian swing at the U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rand Knight, one of three Democrats in the 2008 race for U.S. Senate, has put up an introductory spot on YouTube.com.
The ecologist cites Sam Nunn as his inspiration.
Also, we’re picking up that Libertarian Allen Buckley, a Smyrna tax attorney who ran for lieutenant governor in 2006, intends to inject some third-party excitement into the Senate race. He’s to announce next month.
All those against poor kids, vote ‘nay’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House and Senate negotiators are working on a compromise over how much the government should spend on programs that, like Georgia’s PeachCare, provide health insurance to poor children. And Sen. Saxby Chambliss has some election-year figurin’ to do.
House and Senate negotiators worked through the weekend on a compromise funding bill for SCHIP, the States Children’s Health Insurance Program. But reports on their efforts indicate the measure still contains some of the poison pills that led Chambliss - and fellow Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson - to vote against it and then come home to explain how they really don’t dislike poor kids.
The compromise, still a work in progress, would expand SCHIP by about $35 billion over five years, raise tobacco taxes to pay for it and provide insurance for another 4 million kids. It would not tinker with Medicare to fund it, as the House proposed.
President Bush repeated his threat to veto the measure.
Chambliss, up for re-election next year, now has to figure out how to fit “I voted against a tax increase, wild expansion of government-run health care and a subsidized insurance for the middle class, not against kids” on a bumper sticker.
As Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) of Illinois, leader of House Democrats, told the New York Times, Republicans need to back the bill. If they don’t, or Bush vetoes it, he said, “It’s a political victory for us.”
Certain sectors are asking all involved to keep a lid on the politics. “For health and moral reasons, Congress must pass and the President must sign a reauthorization of SCHIP by Sept. 30, 2007,” wrote Govs. Sonny Perdue of Georgia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas to House and Senate leaders of both parties, in letter last week.
Perdue is chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Sebelius is his equivalent on the Democratic side. The pair demanded that all involved “not allow partisan politics to thwart continuation of this vital program.”
Documents on the Grady-Emory-Morehouse issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s a look at two documents relative to the brouhaha over Grady Memorial Hospital and its relationship with Emory University School of Medicine — both wrapped up by this weekend piece on ajc.com.
The issue could heat up on Wednesday, when a special House committee on Grady meets. On Friday, state Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Cobb County) requested an audit of state funds flowing to Grady, Emory and Morehouse — the other medical school that uses Grady to train its physicians.
First, we offer the press release issued by Emory on Saturday, which quotes Dr. Michael M.E. Johns, executive vice president for health affairs: “Any claim that the Emory-Grady contract is written to the advantage of Emory and the disadvantage of Grady ignores a great deal of available evidence and does not even pass the test of common sense.”
The university also said it welcomes the audit requested by Cooper.
Perhaps more politically significant is this resolution now under consideration by the DeKalb County Commission. Republicans in the state Capitol, chiefly but not solely state Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), have raised questions about the 30-year contract that binds the two institutions, describing it as one-sided in Emory’s favor.
But the GOP concerns had gained little resonance among black Democrats. The DeKalb resolution indicates this might be changing. The sponsors of the resolution are Commissioners Connie Stokes, a former state senator, and Larry Johnson, both African-American. Stokes was a floor leader for Gov. Roy Barnes.
The resolution advocates that:
“The agreements between the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, Emory University and Morehouse College be amended to reduce the payments made by the Fulton DeKalb Hospital Authority to those institutions to reflect the in-kind benefits those institutions receive by using Grady Hospital as a training ground for their students.”
Blogwatch on Jimmy Carter: ‘Does he recruit nuns?’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many bloggers this morning are citing a six-minute Youtube clip of a 1974 broadcast of “What’s My Line?”, in which the mystery contestant was then-Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia.
He gets a chance to brag about his state. It’s not mentioned, but he’s already thinking of his presidential run.
John Dean, reckless Republicanism, and veto overrides in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The historical image of John Dean is that of the bespectacled attorney, hunched over a microphone, who coolly brings the scandal of Watergate home to millions of living rooms in a dull, droning monotone.
Thirty-five years later, the former White House counsel is still a whistleblower.
At 7 p.m. Monday, he’ll be at the Carter Center, autograph pen in hand, flogging his latest book: “Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches.”
There’s nothing subtle about the title. It’s one of a number of recent tomes about the excesses of the Bush administration, written by current or former Republicans.
Dean — who, by the way, is now a licensed independent in California — has ditched the lawyer’s monotone for the writer’s polemic. Passion is probably the word he’d prefer.
“But when I see what’s going on — I can’t believe these people,” he said in a telephone interview.
Among his points: A prediction that Republicans are on the verge of turning the word “conservative” into a pejorative — much as they rendered “liberal” into an unspeakable slur in today’s political rhetoric.
Except “conservative” is rapidly becoming a synonym for incompetence, Dean says. From Iraq to Katrina, he said, Republicans have lost their sense of practicality.
And for that, he said, partial blame must be laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan, who famously declared that government is the problem, not the solution.
“Why in the hell are you trying to run the government if you don’t believe in government?” Dean asked. “It’s the wrong attitude to bring to the process — and that is, how to destroy it rather than how to make it work.”
“Broken Government” also touches on Dean’s alarm at his former party’s eagerness to expand the power of the presidency, exemplified by Vice President Dick Cheney.
“Republicans and conservatives once were deeply opposed to an overly powerful executive branch — certainly after [Franklin] Roosevelt,” Dean said.
Now they’ve embraced “authoritarian conservatism,” he said. Of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, Dean ranks Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich as “high authoritarians.” Fred Thompson, a U.S. Senate staff attorney Dean faced during his Watergate testimony, is ranked as a “low authoritarian.”
It would be tempting to brush Dean off as an out-of-touch political relic with little relevance to Republican rule in Georgia, which even now is only five years old. But Dean is very much clued into the behind-the-scenes debate that’s roiling the GOP at both the national and state level.
In Washington and Georgia, Republicans are trying to puzzle out what it means to be a conservative.
Case in point: This year’s session of the Legislature came to an embarrassingly messy end because of growing unrest in the Legislature — particularly the House — over the reach of executive power in the state Capitol.
Gov. Sonny Perdue ended up vetoing 41 bills, most of them sponsored by Republicans. He drew his pen through $130 million in proposed spending, and a $142 million property tax rebate.
Unlike in other states, veto overrides have never been common in Georgia. But that may be about to change. Republican legislators have spent much of the summer discussing how best to assert themselves.
The current plan, gaining favor in both the House and Senate, is for legislators to override one or two of Perdue’s vetoes when the General Assembly reconvenes in January. Just to show they can.
One of the vetoed bills may be H.B. 91, a measure to require that state agencies, controlled by the governor, give more detailed information on spending to the Legislature.
“It’s something under discussion,” said state Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta), the bill’s sponsor.
She cut loose with this: “The contest of the ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.”
Chamber wasn’t channeling John Dean. That’s Daniel Webster.
Odds “very high” Gingrich won’t run
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who said he’d announce next month whether he’ll run for president, is now playing down the odds that he’ll enter the race.
“I think the odds are very high that I won’t run” Gingrich was quoted as saying in Saturday’s Washington Post here.
“The only circumstance where I’d want to undertake a personal candidacy would have to involve the ability to raise enough money to be genuinely competitive in a race where my presumption is Gov. (Mitt) Romney can write a 50- or 60-million check,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich last week told The Washington Times that he’d need to raise $30 million before he’d run.
Never short on advice, however, Gingrich repeated his prediction that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) would win the Democratic presidential nomination and told Republican candidates that if they want to beat Clinton next year they must separate themselves from President Bush.
“You think the Republican base is proud of New Orleans?” Gingrich said in reference to the federal government’s botched recovery effort during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“The average Republican is pretty smart,” he said. “The average Republican is sitting out there saying, ‘This ain’t working.’”
Another tale of Newt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich, the top non-candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is under fire again for his fundraising practices.
The Politico, an insider newspaper for the Beltway crowd, is reporting here that Gingrich’s group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, solicited an illegal $50,000 contribution from a Republican-friendly Hasan Family Foundation in Colorado.
American Solutions returned the money to Hasan. But Hasan’s lawyer, Ryan Call, is still crying foul, saying the foundation never would have given the money if it hadn’t been misled by American Solutions into believing it was legal.
Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s spokesman, said Hasan made the mistake, according to the paper.
Gingrich’s problems with his web of political and policy committees has been a problem since his days as House Speaker.
Gingrich maintains that American Solutions, which deals with healthcare issues, is not what Politico called “a stealth campaign committee.” However, it is organized under federal law as a political committee.
Gingrich recently said he’d finally decide in October whether to jump into the GOP presidential race officially. He said he’s in if he can raise $30 million for advertising.
A question for the GOP faithful: Where will Fred Thompson be at 11 a.m. this Sunday?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Now that we’ve had Rudy Giuliani hemming and hawing his way through Georgia on the issue of immigration, it seems only fair to offer up something to put supporters of his chief Republican rival on the defensive.
GOP blogs are still buzzing over Tuesday’s Bloomberg article out of South Carolina, in which former U.S. senator Fred Thompson confessed that he’s not a regular church-goer.
After Thompson told an audience that he got his values from his parents and “the good Church of Christ,” reporters asked him for specifics.
“I attend church when I’m in Tennessee. I’m in McLean right now,” he said — a reference to his home in the Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. “I don’t attend regularly when I’m up there.” Thompson said he’s not a member of any church in the Washington area.
“Me getting up and talking about what a wonderful person I am and that sort of thing, I’m not comfortable with that, and I don’t think it does me any good. People will make up their own mind about that, and that’s the way I like it,” Thompson said.
It doesn’t sound like Thompson’s Sunday habits are that different from those of the largely unchurched Ronald Reagan. But the issue could be a problem for Thompson in close-fought primaries across the South.
As a topic, Thompson’s church attendance has been cooking since this spring, when James Dobson of Focus on the Family famously questioned Thompson’s faith — though Dobson quickly backed away.
The Bloomberg piece arrived a few days after Richard Land, a Thompson supporter and head of the the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, declared that Thompson sat in a Virginia pew on a “regular basis.”
(Land is also the fellow who described Thompson as a “Southern-fried Reagan.”)
So far, the web site EthicsDaily.com has taken the most thorough look at the issue of Thompson and his church attendance. It’s worth a look.
Towery poll: Support for Petraeus plan under 50 percent
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Matt Towery’s InsiderAdvantage is out with a national poll on Gen. David Petraeus’ recommendations for the future conduct of the Iraq war.
A smidgen less than a majority agree with the general’s assessment, which would have the number of U.S. troop levels back to a pre-surge level by next summer.
Download the crosstabs here.
The break-down is entirely partisan. A neat 78.5 percent of self-identified Republicans agree with the general. And 72.3 percent of Democrats disagree.
Independents are the ones who are split — but they’re showing signs of weariness, too. A bare majority, 50.5 percent, say they’re not buying what Petraeus is selling.
The poll also asked this: “Are you more or less likely to vote for the Republican nominee for president if a substantial number of troops have not been withdrawn from Iraq by election day?”
The breakdown: 42.6 percent said they were less likely to vote GOP; 35.9 percent said they were more likely; and 21.5 percent said they didn’t know.
Vance Smith says he, too, wants to be the state’s top road-builder
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve got another entry in the sweepstakes to become the next head of the state Department of Transportation — and House Speaker Glenn Richardson is backing him.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports this morning that state Rep. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain), who owns a construction and grading company, has put in his application for the job.
After four years, DOT Commissioner Harold Linnenkohl announced recently that he would retire.
Gov. Sonny Perdue and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle are pushing Gena Abraham, head of the Georgia Building Authority and several other state entities.
Said Richardson: “Gena is obviously very capable, but Vance is a proven expert in the field of transportation. I fully support him and assume the rest of the House leadership does as well.
So we’ve got a contest.
Giuliani attacks Clinton for her ‘disbelief’ of Petraeus, and says illegal immigration isn’t a crime
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In Atlanta for a pair of private fundraisers, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Thursday criticized Democrat Hillary Clinton for expressing her “disbelief” in Gen. David Petraeus’ assessment of the situation in Iraq.
Giuliani also said he intended to place an ad in Friday’s New York Times to rebut MoveOn.org’s advertisement referring to “General Betray Us.”
Giuliani said he would ask the newspaper for the same discount it gave the liberal grassroots organization for its full-page ad.
The former mayor of New York City also addressed recent comments in which he said illegal immigration isn’t a crime, and that it shouldn’t be. The Washington Times gave space to the issue today.
In Atlanta, Giuliani said this:
“It’s not up to me to decide whether it’s a crime or not. It’s up to the U.S. Congress to decide that, and the lawbooks say that crossing the border without permission is a misdemeanor.
“Other than that, it’s not a crime. The Congress tried to make it a crime, but didn’t make it a crime, so that’s a question of law, not political rhetoric or political spinning or political positioning.”
Giuliani quickly shifted the topic by declaring that he has the best background to address the difficult topic.
Giuliani and other presidential spottings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Update: The Giuliani campaign just called to say they’ll make a quick stop at the OK Cafe off I-75 this morning to catch a few TV cameras.
Rudy Giuliani zips into Atlanta at noon today for a private, West Paces Ferry fund-raiser. Pocket change being so inconvenient, neither of us have the required $1,000 entrance fee, and so will not attend.
You’ll have to be satisfied with the invitation. Use it as a scorecard to see who’s aligned themselves with America’s mayor in his Republican race for the presidency.
Afterwards, he heads to Flowery Branch for another private event. He’ll spend the night in Atlanta, and watch President Bush’s speech from here. And next week, on Giuliani’s behalf, former U.S. solicitor general Ted Olsen, now a front-runner to replace Alberto Gonzales as attorney general and husband of a 9/11 victim, will be in town to raise even more money.
In other presidential-like spottings, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, is scheduled to be in Atlanta on Sept. 19, according to blogger Amy Morton.
This is a marvelous coincidence. Because Barack Obama, John Edwards’ rival, will be in Atlanta the very next day for a mass rally at the Georgia World Congress Center.
And Bill Richardson, one of several Democratic candidates mired in the second tier, will be in Atlanta on Oct. 5 for a fund-raiser. More details to come on that one.
Senate researcher: Contract guarantees that “Grady is perpetually indebted to Emory”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An attorney within the research arm of the state Senate has gone through the contract between Grady Memorial Hospital and the Emory University School of Medicine.
He didn’t like what he saw, and said so in a five-page memo to the top Republicans within the Senate, including Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah.
See it here.
The examination was made at the request of state Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), who’s been advocating scrutiny of the relationship between the two venerated Atlanta institutions — before any state money goes toward a rescue of the indebted hospital.
“It could be argued that the practical effect of this agreement is to create a situation in which Grady is perpetually indebted to Emory in such a manner and at a level that is unilaterally determined by Emory,” writes attorney Brian Scott Johnson.
Here are bits and pieces of his summary:
“Grady is bound into an unusually long contractual relationship in which medical services are performed at the downtown hospital but the benefits flow back to Druid Hills. Emory obtains the use and benefit of a large, urban teaching hospital providing a large array of teaching opportunities.
“Grady’s medical leadership either originates from Emory or is subject to a practical veto; its spokesman is required to make joint statements with and approved by Emory whenever possible.
“It is Grady’s lone burden to assume malpractice liability of Emory’s physicians and indemnify Emory against all liability. Grady is required to pay Emory for the cost of Emory faculty physicians at rates that both parties agree that Grady cannot afford….”
A strange new habit for Sang-Ni Pu-Du
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At the state Capitol on Wednesday, Gov. Sonny Perdue hosted an extraordinarily elaborate ceremony announcing the decision by Sanyi, a Chinese firm that builds concrete pouring equipment, to start a new plant in Fayette County.
The event was pure Chinese in style. Red carpet was spread across the front of the Capitol. A long white table was garnished with flowers. Lilies, possibly. Each dignitary had his or her name on a placard, in English and Chinese.
We’ll let the business section fill you in on the details. The company is owned by the province of Hunan.
It’s always interesting to see how the Chinese translate English names. They try to come as close as they can, phonetically.
The governor of Georgia’s name came across as “Sang-Ni Pu-Du.”
Usually, those doing the translating pick a series of Chinese words at random, signifying nothing.
For instance, “Perdue” can be translated as “Universal Degree.”
But Sonny. That’s another matter. It means the “Mulberry Nun.”
Sounds like a new security handle.
Newt still a great, big maybe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is still playing the guessing game: Will he or won’t he run for president?
The Washington Times reported this morning here that Gingrich, a Republican, would decide in early October whether to turn his pseudo-campaign into a real one.
“I will decide based on whether I have about $30 million in committed campaign contributions and whether I think it is possible to run a campaign based on ideas rather than 30-second sound bites,” Gingrich, a reporter’s dream sound-bite machine, told the Times.
That $30 million is what Gingrich believes is needed to run TV ads in the first primary and caucus states, New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, the Times said. He’s likely to decide before Oct. 15, the deadline for official candidates to pay $500 to Utah to get on the state’s ballot.
Gingrich has been traveling for well over a year, delivering policy speeches outlining his agenda on healthcare, national defense and virtually any other issued that pops into his mind. He is speaking Thursday on Capitol Hill about programs that provide health insurance to poor children, including Georgia’s PeachCare.
“I will conduct workshops around the country through Sept. 30,” Gingrich told the Times, “after which I will make a decision.”
McKinney said to be bowing out of ‘08 presidential run
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blogger Jason Pye pointed us to what could be a decision by former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to skip the ‘08 presidential race. She had been flirting with the Green Party.
On Ron Gunzburger’s Politics, McKinney is said to have written a Monday letter to the Greens with these lines:
“After careful consideration about the political conditions facing our nation, the level of development within the [Green] Party, my own readiness to take on such a daunting task and my own long postponed personal priorities, I write to inform the Party that I must at this time withdraw my name from consideration for the Party’s 2008 Presidential Nominating contest.”
The Gunzburger blog notes that this would leave McKinney free to challenge Hank Johnson for her old seat. But we’ve no independent information that this is the case.
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Eggs, grits and issues: Perdue on the Speaker’s tax plan, and negotiations over the budget start
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue reached out to the state Capitol press corps this morning for the first time in more than a year, hosting a breakfast of eggs, grits and conversation at the Silver Skillet diner on 14th Street.
Topics included his recent overnight, underwater stay on a nuclear sub, the shift from property taxes to a sales tax proposed by House Speaker Glenn Richardson, and negotiations with legislators over control of the state budget.
The good news: The governor said he sat down with House Speaker Glenn Richardson on Tuesday, after a long silence between the two. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and several other budget-writing lawmakers were witnesses.
Richardson’s tax plan would eliminate property taxes at both the state and local level, and would funnel all sales taxes through the central state government. While Perdue expressed empathy with some of Richardson’s aims, the governor said the loss of local control by counties and cities was a serious issue.
Said Perdue: “If President Bush and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid and [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi called up today and said, ‘Governor we know you’ve got a sales tax and income down there, and Georgia’s doing pretty well. Florida’s in trouble, Michigan’s in trouble, California’s in trouble. If you’ll just send us your sales tax and income tax, we’ll make sure you get back what you need.’ I wouldn’t be very comfortable with that.”
On the political side of things, Perdue said he might not make a public pick in the Republican race for president, although the end of his term as chairman of the Republican Governors Association in December could give him more leeway.
But the governor did say that he’d talked to Newt Gingrich, who is to announce within the next few weeks whether he’ll enter the fray. “I think he’s essentially dismissed the idea, although I don’t want to speak for him,” Perdue said.
More to come.
A DeKalb County commissioner wants a look at the Grady-Emory relationship
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Elaine Boyer, the only Republican member of the DeKalb County Commission, has jumped to state Sen. David Shafer’s side by echoing his call for a close look at the contractual relationship between Grady Memorial Hospital and Emory University.
In a letter to the chairman of the House health committee, Boyer plugs Shafer’s call for Grady to be managed by a non-profit corporation — something that others, including Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, have recommended separately.
But Boyer also asks state Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Cobb County) to “dig deeply into the relationship between Grady and Emory University, based in DeKalb County.
“It is obvious to many of us in the community that Emory has had a monopoly relationship with Grady for decades. And as we all know, a monopoly can only lead to waste. In this case, the taxpayers are paying for it,” Boyer writes.
That’s been an argument specifically advanced by Shafer, a Republican from Duluth whose district covers portions of north Fulton County.
We put a call into Cooper, but no luck.
Politically, a letter from a white Republican in DeKalb County doesn’t advance Shafer’s position all that much. When an African-American Democrat starts using his talking points — that’s when you’ll know something’s afoot.
The woes of Max Cleland
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Senator Max Cleland ‘s public image took another hit Tuesday.
Roll Call is reporting here that Cleland has just quit as a director of a Pennsylvania charity created by his friend, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), following an investigation by the Capitol Hill newspaper that raised serious questions about the charity’s funding and spending habits.
The charity, the Pennsylvania Association of Individuals with Disabilities, or PAID, opened in 2001 and announced last month that Cleland, a Vietnam vet who lost three limbs in the war, would be joining its board of directors.
“I am honored to be joining a first-class organization whose sole mission is to fight for people who deserve the same opportunities as every able-bodied American does,” Cleland was quoted saying in the official announcement.
After learning of the results of the paper’s investigation Monday, Cleland told Roll Call, “I am no longer considering being a member of the board. … I really don’t know much about the organization and really don’t have time to get involved.”
Murtha funded the charity and at least two other affiliated groups with earmarks — protected money for a lawmaker’s pet project — in the federal budget, Roll Call reported.
The report marks the second time in less than a month that Cleland’s high-profile image has taken a beating.
Just weeks ago, it came to light that Cleland’s chief of staff, Michael Duga, had a long police record, including arrests made while working for Cleland, after Duga was involved in a brouhaha during a John Edwards fundraiser at Martha’s Vineyard. Duga was later arrested at a Coast Guard station on charges of breaking and entering, and possession of marijuana.
Cleland has placed Duga on administrative leave.
A 24-hour delay in the race for the 10th District
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By now, you’ve noticed that state Rep. Barry Fleming of Harlem did not — as we said he would — announce his congressional campaign today against his fellow Republican, incumbent Paul Broun of Athens.
Our educated guess is that someone looked at the calendar, and decided that Sept. 11 was the wrong day for that kind of news.
Fleming’s announcement has been re-scheduled for tomorrow.
The RGA and why Nick Ayers isn’t looking for a new job
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to the Rothenberg Political Report, the Republican Governors Association is attempting to match a long-term strategy initiated by Democrats.
Here’s the part about Sonny Perdue and his former campaign manager, Nick Ayers:
In January, Republican governors changed the RGA bylaws to allow a governor to serve more than a one-year term as chairman.
Proponents of the change hope that removing the honorary status will create some healthy competition for the post, motivate the chairmen to invest in the committee and not allow other governors to ignore the committee for the three years they aren’t up for re-election.
Previously, many governors didn’t think much about the Washington-based RGA when they weren’t running for the office.
The current RGA chairman, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, chose not to be the first to seek a second term to avoid it looking like he changed the rules for his own benefit.
But he is hoping to leave his mark at the committee — and current Executive Director Nick Ayers will be part of that legacy.
RGA Vice Chairman Matt Blunt (Mo.) was slated to become chairman in 2008, but because of his tough re-election race next year, Gov. Rick Perry (Texas) is likely to ascend to the top slot, according to knowledgeable GOP sources.
But as part of the move, Perry has agreed to keep Ayers and other staff on through 2008. The Republican governors’ official vote on the move won’t take place until November, but it is expected to be a formality.
It’s unclear, however, whether future RGA chairmen will buy into the staff-continuity concept.
How to save Grady and build roads, all at the same time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Clay Cox (R-Lilburn) has a plan that he says could generate $24 million a year: sell advertising space on those message boards that span metro Atlanta’s interstates.
“We’ve all seen these signs sitting idle or simply reminding us to buckle up. Why not sell a few seconds per minute of ad space to our business community and help fund our trauma system, or needed road projects- without raising taxes?” Cox said in a press release issued this morning.
According to Cox, the state could lease 100 of the message boards at a cost of $1,000 per month per retailer. As many as 20 messages lasting only a few seconds could be sold for each sign, per month.
And they could be programmed to give way to regular Department of Transportation messages, including emergency alerts.
The only hitch? The state would have to apply to the feds for an exemption to a rule banning commercialization of the signs.
More on the Fair Tax and Scientology
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last month, supporters of the Fair Tax — including John Linder and Neal Boortz — got quite bent out of shape when former U.S. treasury official Bruce Bartlett said its origins lay with Scientologists and their hatred for the Internal Revenue Service.
Reminders can be found here and here.
Bartlett ain’t backing away, but he’s refining his argument some in an article now posted with The New Republic, entitled “Fred Thompson Channels L. Ron Hubbard: Dianetics, the Tax Plan.”
Writes Bartlett: “FairTax supporters don’t know the history of their own proposal. That’s too bad. Perhaps if they understood its origins in Scientology, they might have a greater appreciation for its inherent flaws.”
The hunt for a candidate to challenge John Barrow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s worth nothing that the Georgia congressional race that, in private conversations, has excited the most attention from Republicans involves a GOP incumbent.
House Majority Whip Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) is to announce his challenge this morning to U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens), who won the 10th District seat only two months ago.
In past election seasons, Democrats Jim Marshall in the 8th District and John Barrow in the 12th have been perennial Republican targets. And on paper, they’re still vulnerable.
But the anointed GOP candidate in the middle Georgia race against Marshall, former Air Force major general Rick Goddard, has had a rough start.
Even more indicative of trepidation among Georgia Republicans, and their fear of a poor harvest in ’08, is the party’s failure — thus far — to field any candidate to challenge the Savannah-based Barrow.
We called state Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Pooler) on Monday. “I’m still giving it consideration,” he said. “It’s still an option, no question about it.”
Family-wise, the 50-year-old Carter is in good shape. He is nearly an empty-nester, with a son in his senior year of high school. Business-wise, the decision may be tougher. Carter is the sole proprietor of a small pharmacy chain with three locations.
Current events also will play their role, Carter said — he was carefully following Monday’s appearance of Gen. David Petraeus before Congress, and noted that Barrow will be called on to vote on several spending bills in the next few weeks.
While we had him on the phone, we asked Carter about Gov. Sonny Perdue’s comments regarding the mega-development site in his backyard, once earmarked for a Daimler/Chrysler van plant.
Perdue said it might be time to break up the 1,500-acre piece of real estate into smaller plots. It would be a significant shift away from efforts to win an economy-altering, big-ticket manufacturing plant for Georgia.
Carter said he still hasn’t given up on landing a huge buyer for the Pooler site, but driving by a huge vacant lot, day after day after day, has affected his resolve.
“I’m willing to see it split up now,” Carter said. “At one time, I wasn’t.”
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Almost live, from the Prado, it’s your favorite Fred-heads
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The videographer Grayson Daughters, a.k.a. Spacey Gracey, is back with another entry in her Atlanta political diary. This one is all about Fred-heads who gathered at a Sandy Springs watering hole last week to speak well of Mr. Thompson and his Republican run for the presidency.
We found it on youtube.com. You can also catch it on the Huffington Post.
We’re proud to report that no one looks excessively wasted. Nothing for wives or girlfriends to be ashamed of. The stars of the evening include GOP strategist Mark Rountree, Jason Sheperd of the Young Republicans, and Chris Farris, the blogger and long-time Thompson fan.
Barack 2, Hillary 0; Bishop backs Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After months of lengthy phone calls and occasional not-so-subtle pressure from two of his party’s presidential contenders, Rep. Sanford Bishop, an Albany Democrat, announced Monday that he’ backing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the Democratic presidential primary.
Bishop, in a statement issued by the Obama campaign, said he picked Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York because “I believe Sen. Obama truly understands the needs of Georgians within the greater context of changing our nation for the better.”
Obama and Clinton have been in an intense fight for Georgia’s African American community. Both hope to harvest enough ATL cash and votes from the African American community that both believe could help tip the balance in the primary election.
Bishop is the second African American congressman from Georgia to back Obama. Rep. Hank Johnson of Dekalb County endorsed Obama earlier and is already helping him raise money in the Atlanta area, home to a huge share of African American Georgians.
Bishop and Johnson will serve as Obama’s state chairmen, Obama’s campaign said.
Two other African American congressmen - Rep. John Lewis and Rep. David Scott, both of Atlanta - have still not announced a choice between Obama and Clinton, though both have been eagerly courted by both camps.
Bishop first hinted at his preference for Obama a month ago when he was still be pressured by what he called “The Arkansas mafia” run by Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Next time, when you think NutriSystem, think Johnny Isakson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Roll Call newspaper, which covers Capitol Hill, has put U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Marietta and U.S. Tom Price of Roswell among the 50 richest members of Congress.
In its annual examination of wealth, Roll Call ranked Isakson at No. 30, and Price at No. 37.
Isakson is worth at least $8.07 million, the newspaper’s analysis indicated, and has increased his net worth a healthy 6 percent in the last year.
“The Senator owns more than $1 million worth of stock each in both Georgia-based Synovus Bank and Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia,” according to the report. “Shares of trendy clothier Urban Outfitters, Starbucks and NutriSystem round out Isakson’s portfolio. He also owns tens of thousands of dollars in U.S. Treasury bond funds, a timeshare in Hilton Head, S.C., and a partial interest in 54 acres of undeveloped land in suburban Atlanta.”
Price, apparently the poor man’s rich man, clocked in with only $6.09 million.
Said the newspaper: “Price, a surgeon, reported owning partial interests in three medical offices in Roswell, Ga., worth at least $450,000 combined. He also owns investment properties in Georgia and North Carolina worth at least $1.15 million; an annuity valued at $500,001 to $1 million; and more than $3 million in investment and retirement accounts.”
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In the 10th District, Barry Fleming is set to knock on Paul Broun’s door
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Only weeks after he formally registered an exploratory committee, state Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) will announce his candidacy Tuesday for the 10th District congressional seat — challenging recently elected incumbent U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens).
Fleming is scheduled to formally proclaim his intentions on radio stations in both Athens and Augusta. Jay Walker, former chief of staff for House Speaker Glenn Richardson, is in charge of the campaign for Fleming, who is currently the House majority whip.
Fleming filed paperwork for the exploratory committee in late August. But exploratory status permits a candidate-to-be to raise only $5,000. Not enough even to buy a mailing list.
Sept. 30 is the next reporting deadline for federal campaigns. Fleming apparently hopes to make a showing that will frighten away others looking at the race — and show that his fund-raising abilities are on par with those of an incumbent congressman.
Perdue: It might be time to break up the Pooler site
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue could be signaling a major change in economic development strategy.
He says it might be time to think about breaking up the Pooler site — a 1,500-acre swath at the intersections of interstates 95 and 16, once earmarked for a Daimler/Chrysler plant.
The governor’s musings made the front page in Sunday editions of the Savannah Morning News.
“How long do we wait for that perfect guy or gal to come along and take the whole site?” Perdue asked.
In October 2002, as his re-election was approaching, Gov. Roy Barnes announced that Daimler would build a $750 million van plant on the location. The company withdrew its plans less than a year later.
Earlier this year, the Savannah newspaper reported, “a study commissioned by the Georgia Department of Economic Development ranked the Pooler mega site as a leader among 20 similar locations in an 11-state Southeast region.”
On a trade mission to Europe this summer, marketing the plot of land was one of Perdue’s prime objectives.
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Playing good cop, brimstone cop with the Georgia GOP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The good cop, bad cop routine has been done too many times to provide anything but laughs on TV.
But in politics, it’s still rare enough to work.
Mike Huckabee, the Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor, came to town over the weekend. It was his first campaign swing through the state.
Huckabee has a reputation as the nicest guy without money in the 2008 campaign — quick with a quip and a smile, inoffensive to a fault. The former Southern Baptist pastor gave a speech to Cobb County Republicans that could have been delivered, with its focus on taxation, fiscal responsibility and patriotism, to any crowd in the country.
Huckabee was the good cop.
The bad cop — better yet, the brimstone cop — was the Iowa chairman of the Huckabee campaign. Bob VanderPlaats is an evangelical politician from the western, more conservative side of Iowa — a former, unsuccessful candidate for governor.
In a booming voice, VanderPlaats spoke directly to the fears of conservative Christians who serve as the scandal-weary foot soldiers of the GOP in Georgia — a base embarrassed by Larry Craig’s restroom habits, out-of-control spending sanctioned by the Bush administration, and corrupting ties to Washington lobbyists.
You’ll never have to apologize for Huckabee, VanderPlaats argued. He told the crowd — think about this one, now — that he would trust Huckabee “with my wife, and I’d trust him with my four boys.”
“We want somebody who hates dishonest gain. No more smoke and mirrors — [candidates who] tell you one thing, do another thing, just to get your vote,” the man from Iowa said.
In the front row was Sadie Fields, chairman of the Georgia Christian Alliance. She was favorably impressed, but made no commitment. She’ll have a private conversation with Huckabee later this month.
With little cash, and with a quickly advancing primary schedule, dissatisfaction within the GOP’s evangelical base is Huckabee’s best shot at rising into the top tier of Republican candidates, now occupied by Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and — as of last week — Fred Thompson.
Thrice-married Giuliani supports abortion rights and civil unions for gays. Romney is Mormon — a high theological hurdle, particularly in the South. Many conservative Christians consider him a late-comer to the cause.
Thompson is still an unknown factor, but already is defending himself from charges that he worked for abortion rights interests as a lobbyist in 1990s. “It’s going to be hard for Fred Thompson to find his niche,” Fields said.
Unlike Huckabee, all three leading GOP candidates have substantial networks laying the groundwork in Georgia. But they only have slivers of public commitment from evangelical voters.
“There is this strong anti-establishment sentiment — almost a skepticism,” said Tim Echols, a Christian political activist who helped U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) to his seat this summer.
“Huckabee has jumped on that horse and is trying to ride it for all it’s worth,” said Echols, who counts himself a Huckabee supporter.
But Echols doubts Huckabee’s ultimate ability to compete with the high-dollar crowd. And at some point, he said, the GOP base may have to forsake purity for pragmatism.
That’s when the real tussle for evangelical voters would begin. And when it comes to the result, Echols is of a different mind than most.
Rather than reluctantly choosing Giuliani or Thompson, he predicts we’ll see the GOP’s Christian base lining up behind Romney. “The Mormons — say what you will about them — are political allies of the Religious Right,” he said.
He cited two bits of information to back up his theory, both drawn from the internal politics of conservative Christian activists.
James Dobson, founder of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, is considered by many to be the most influential evangelical in the country. Mormons form a significant portion of his radio audience, Echols said.
Another clout-packing leader, Tony Perkins, is president of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council. Perkins developed a working relationship with Romney during the fights over gay marriage in Massachusetts. Echols said he was there to see it happen.
“Romney really carried the water for us,” he said.
Cagle says he’d like to see Abraham as head of DOT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With this week’s announcement that Harold Linnenkohl will soon retire as state transportation commissioner, and a Legislature-driven reorganization of the Department of Transportation in the offing, movers and shakers in the state Capitol are quickly making their ideas about a replacement clear.
In a letter to Republican state senators, just e-mailed today, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle all but endorsed Gena Abraham, who heads the Georgia Building Authority, as well as the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission.
She’d be the first woman to hold the job, and has something of a squeaky-clean image around the Capitol. “Reform-minded,” in the phrasing of the lieutenant governor.
Wrote Cagle:
“While this is a decision that will ultimately be made by the [state DOT] board, I did want to make you aware that I have a very high opinion of Gena.
“She has a demonstrated record of success at GSFIC for managing projects to completion on time and under budget, implementing design build methods, and securing favorable underwriting terms for our debt portfolio.
“Should she make the short list for the board to consider, I believe she would be a strong, reform-minded candidate.
See the entire letter on the jump.
To the Senate Republican Caucus:
As you’ve no doubt become aware, Commissioner Harold Linnenkohl has announced his decision to begin enjoying a well-earned retirement from the Georgia DOT after years of valued service to the state.
The political process being what it is, speculation has now become focused on who might be chosen by the GDOT Board to fill this position. In my view, our state is at a critical juncture on transportation, and the importance of selecting a commissioner who will boldly guide us into new ways of doing business - such as utilizing concession and design build processes - cannot be overstated.
As you know, the Senate will and should play a significant role in the process of selecting a Commissioner because of our responsibility for electing members of the GDOT Board. For that reason, I would encourage you to pay close attention to this process and give me - and your board members - any thoughts you may have on filling this vacancy. Additionally, Chairman Jeff Mullis and Majority Leader Tommie Williams both have significant expertise on the transportation issue, and will be deeply involved in the selection process, so I would encourage you to talk with them as well.
You may also have read that our State Properties Officer, Dr. Gena Abraham, has been discussed as a possible replacement for Commissioner Linnenkohl. While this is a decision that will ultimately be made by the Board, I did want to make you aware that I have a very high opinion of Gena. She has a demonstrated record of success at GSFIC for managing projects to completion on time and under budget, implementing design build methods, and securing favorable underwriting terms for our debt portfolio. Should she make the short list for the board to consider, I believe she would be a strong, reform-minded candidate.
As always, if you have any thoughts on this issue, please let me know. I look forward to seeing you at our retreat in October, but hopefully before then.
Your friend,
Casey Cagle
Huckabee’s Saturday schedule
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who’s been pitching himself as the alternative to Fred Thompson in the GOP presidential race, has his first big day in Georgia on Saturday.
Here’s a rough schedule:
— 10:00 a.m. in Kennesaw at McCollum Airport, meeting with Cobb County Republicans;
— 1 p.m. in McDonough for an Operation Homefront event at Motorheads Bar and Grill;
— 2:30 p.m. in Duluth at the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce building;
— 5 p.m. in Atlanta for a private fund-raiser;
— 8 p.m. in downtown Kennesaw.
Murphy tosses voter ID lawsuit: See the order, listen to sound clips here
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy of Rome on Thursday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the state’s voter ID law.
It’s a lengthy decision, in two parts, that can be found here and here.
Wrote Murphy:
“Voters who lack photo ID undoubtedly exist somewhere, but the fact that the plaintiffs, in spite of their efforts, have failed to uncover anyone ‘who can attest to the fact that he/she will be prevented from voting’ provides significant support for a conclusion that the photo ID requirement does not unduly burden the right to vote.”
Secretary of State Karen Handel and Gov. Sonny Perdue, both in a good mood, held a quick press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“The photo identification requirement is now in effect for the Sept. 18 election, beginning with in-person early voting, which begins on Monday,” Handel said. “And for all elections thereafter.” Click here for a sound bite..
Said Perdue: “We’re going to do this in a respectful and fair way, and do everything we can to allow people to participate in this most basic of American liberties.” Click here for a sound bite.
See the developing daily story here.
We will now entertain praise of Murphy from Republicans who accused Democrats of judge-shopping the case.
Democrats are no doubt bummed by the news. Remember that only yesterday, U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta) testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, citing U.S. Justice Department approval of Georgia’s voter ID law as evidence of the disarray left by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
“Thankfully a federal court saw the law for what it was — a poll tax — and struck it down,” Lewis said. Today, that same federal judge decided the state had improved the law, and provided enough safeguards, to allow it to stand.
Kind of like a murder of crows: A wrinkle of Fred-heads gather tonight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fred-heads are using their hero’s entry into the Republican presidential race as an excuse to drink beer.
They’ll be meeting at 6:30 p.m. today at the 5 Seasons brewery in Sandy Springs, just below I-285 in the Prado. Despite reports to the contrary, no new announcement by Fred Thompson is afoot. The Leno appearance and the webcast here is all there is.
However, about two beers in, there’s supposed to be a telephone conference call in which Thompson will report on his first day in Iowa.
After the phone call, and perhaps a third beer, here’s a suggested topic for discussion: Was it a smart move by Thompson to blow off a New Hampshire debate sponsored by Fox, the TV network most important to the GOP core?
Senate’s first budget director balances his last book
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state Senate’s first budget director is calling it quits.
Kevin Fillion, who is credited with changing the way the Legislature addressed the state’s annual budget, was hired to run the newly-created Senate Budget Office in 2003 when Republicans took over the chamber.
Senate Republicans wanted their own budget office because they felt the old Legislative Budget Office was tied too closely to the Democrats who still ran the state House at the time. They also wanted a budget office independent from the House.
Fillion helped greatly increase the amount of budget information lawmakers received and produced documents that showed the true cost of programs, not just what the state kicked in.
Senate President Pro-Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), made the announcement this morning that Fillion is retiring from his post.
“He has led the effort to expand the transparency and increase the accountability of our state’s budget,” Johnson said. “He has challenged us and the departments to be better stewards.”
Blogwatch: More from Shafer on the Grady-Emory relationship
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Far from backing away, state Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth) is delving deeper into the relationship between the Emory University School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital.
Specifically, Shafer is looking at the details of an audit of the contract between the two, made public last week.
Here’s the link to his latest blog entry. Why was the audit conducted? Writes Shafer:
Under the 1984 contract, Grady assumed all liability for malpractice by Emory’s physicians at the hospital.
Because Grady is a public hospital that enjoyed a degree of “sovereign immunity” when the contract was signed, this was not initially a costly undertaking. It simply worked to extend the benefits of immunity to Emory’s physicians when they were working at Grady.
But a 1994 Supreme Court decision significantly eroded that immunity, and Grady found itself paying millions of dollars each year defending and settling lawsuits for alleged malpractice.
According to the report, faced with these mounting bills, the Grady trustees felt it important that they make sure Emory’s physicians were actually at Grady, giving proper supervision and preventing financially costly mistakes.
Obama now up in Iowa
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
See Barack Obama’s first ad in Iowa here. Definitely an “outsider” spot, dubbed “change” on the http slug.
Lewis: His heroes once were Justice Department lawyers, but not anymore
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. John Lewis went before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, tying the disarray in the U.S. Justice Department to Georgia’s voter ID law.
Here’s the gist of his printed remarks:
“During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, we knew that individuals in the Department of Justice were people who we could call any time of day or night….
“And we felt during those years that the civil rights division of the Department of Justice was more than a sympathetic referee, it was on the side of justice, on the side of fairness.
“During the movement, people looked to Washington for justice, for fairness, but today I’m not so sure that the great majority of individuals in the civil rights community can look to the division for that fairness….
“In the last few years we have lost more career civil rights lawyers than ever before. The new lawyers are being hired, for the first time in the division’s history, by political appointees, rather than career attorneys. It is not surprising that the division is hiring fewer lawyers with civil rights or voting rights backgrounds.
“There is also a clear shift in the types of cases being brought by the division. The division is neglecting traditional civil rights cases, and it appears to have given up on enforcing the Voting Rights Act all together. I am particularly disturbed by the way the civil rights division handled the Georgia voter ID law in 2005.
“It takes special people to enforce Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. There is always the potential for political interference. However, the Voting Rights Section has always been above partisanship and it has resisted attempts by other administrations to influence the outcome of cases.
“However, this was not the case with the Georgia law. The Georgia voter ID law would required voters to show a photo ID at the polls and would have disproportionately prevented minorities from voting in Georgia.
“The career attorneys found that the law violated the Voting Rights Act and recommended that it should be denied pre-clearance, but the career attorneys were overruled by the political appointees. This type of political influence — preventing the enforcement of our civil rights laws — is shameful and unacceptable. Thankfully a federal court saw the law for what it was — a poll tax — and struck it down.
“It is clear that the civil rights division of the Department of Justice has lost its way. The Civil Rights Division, once guardian of civil rights, has been so weakened that I do not recognize it. Congressional oversight could have prevented some of this. Freedom and equality are rights that are not simply achieved; they must be preserved each and every day. But, we have not been focused on protecting our rights, and therefore, we are watching them slip away….
“We must reverse the political hiring process and put the decisions back in the hands of the career professionals, who know what it takes to enforce our civil rights laws.
Cagle: A cut in the state income tax might be a better idea
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Even as House Speaker Glenn Richardson moves around the state, pumping his idea of a shift away from property taxes toward a broader sales tax, certain other figures in state Capitol are showing signs of resistance.
Polite signs, but signs of resistance nonetheless.
Here’s a sound clip of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle talking about Richardson’s proposal with radio host Tim Bryant of WGAU (1340 AM) in Athens.
In it, Cagle says he’s worried about the effect of the Speaker’s plan on old people, and wonders outloud whether a cut in the state income tax might make more sense.
“I’m very concerned, quite candidly, with the senior citizens, because they’re the ones — right now, in most communities — who get a significant reduction in property tax, just because of their age and a public policy decision that local jurisdictions have made
“And now they’re going to be taxed at a much higher level. That’s a huge concern,” Cagle said.
“And I think the other side is, if you’re going to make a tax policy change and have a discussion, then you need to do something really that’s going to spur the economy. I think many of us think that the way you do that is a reduction in the income tax….”
Real estate advice from Isakson: Buy low, sell high
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Marietta Daily Journal has re-vamped it’s on-line offerings — going heavy on video.
Here’s an Aug. 18 interview of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, conducted by MDJ publisher Otis Brumby.
Much of what Isakson says you’ve already read. The senator talks about immigration, No Child Left Behind, and whether he’ll run for governor in 2010.
But Isakson made his millions in Atlanta real estate — though he’s now out of the biz — and Brumby asks him what advice he might have for those who want to be homeowners.
“There has never been a better time to buy a house. It’s a buyer’s market,” Isakson said. On the other hand, the senator said, if you’re a seller, you might want to wait until spring to put your house on the market, after things have settled down.
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Democrats are from hell?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican, has never been at a loss for words when it comes to demonizing Democrats. However, Kingston, a leader on the House Republicans’ message/spin team, may have run out of earthly insults to hurl at the other party.
Congressional Quarterly, a wonkish policy magazine in Washington, reports this morning that Kingston recently issued a press release declaring that Democrats are, in deed, from hell.
“Demoncrats and Republicans Split Over Government Healthcare” was the headline on a release criticizing Da Dems for proposing a tobacco tax increase to pay for children’s health insurance programs, including Georgia’s PeachCare.
Freudian slip or typo?
“Obvious typo,” Kingston’s spokeswoman, Krista Cole, laughingly told the magazine.
“I believe it’s a typo,” an anonymous Democratic aide told CQ. “But I also believe in the Easter Bunny, unicorns and that the (Washington) Nationals will win the pennant this year.”
The magazine noted that Kingston’s office never corrected the typo. Instead, the release was moved to a more prominent position on Kingston’s web site. Read it here.
Larry Craig and Michael Vick: Far fewer than six degrees of separation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This from an Associated Press report today on U.S. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho reconsidering his resignation:
“Craig has hired a high-powered crisis management team including Billy Martin, the lawyer for Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick in his dogfighting case, and Washington attorney Stan Brand, a former general counsel to the U.S. House.
“Martin is looking into the Minnesota guilty plea; Brand, who represented Major League Baseball in the congressional investigation into steroid use, will handle any Senate Ethics Committee probe.”
Complex in a very simple way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lawmakers were migrating back to Washington Tuesday after a month off and at least three Georgia congressmen - Reps. Jim Marshall (D-Macon), David Scott (D-Atlanta) and Tom Price (R-Roswell) - are already busy.
The trio is on the House Financial Services Committee, which is investigating - starting with a hearing on Wednesday - why the subprime mortgage industry imploded, creating thousands of home foreclosures across the country. The Atlanta market ranks second nationally in such foreclosures.
In interviews, the three congressmen made clear that the problem is complex and that identifying a chief culprit will be problematic. Democrats say Congress has a lot to do to fix the problem. Republicans say the only way to ensure the lending market recovers is for Congress to stay out of it.
After exchanging all the esoteric jabber we could stand about “exotic financial instruments” and such, we finally just asked Price what’s going to happen with it all.
“Well,” he said, “I think the Democrats will take about 10 days to take the pulse (on the Hill) to see if they can rush something through.”
Hmmm. Maybe it’s not so complicated after all.
With Doraville settling down, senator thinks it’s better not to stir things up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Friday resignation of a Doraville councilman took the air out of a state Senate hearing on the firing of that city’s police chief.
State Sen. John Douglas (R-Social Circle), chairman of the Senate veterans affairs committee, was to hold the hearing today, but instead announced the meeting’s cancellation — with no plan to take up the issue again.
King was fired Aug. 7 in a 2:30 a.m. vote by a council majority, after Councilman Tom Hart criticized King — a National Guard officer — for being out of the loop during the 18 months he served in Iraq.
King was reinstated the next day by Mayor Ray Jenkins, who called the firing “illegal.”
The departure of Hart, who wants to run for mayor, eliminates the council majority that had been pushing for King’s removal.
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Blogwatch: The Carter-Edwards gig on Youtube
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The blog a la gauche has a 33-minute YouTube clip of former President Jimmy Carter and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in Americus, Ga., last week.
See it here.
ICYMI: A Sam Nunn presidential update
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The question below was at the tag end of a telephone interview with Sam Nunn published over the weekend.
The news is in who he’s talking to. To wit:
Q. Are you weighing in with any of the presidential candidates, advising any of them on this, and are you considering throwing your own hat in the ring?
A. I’ve made it clear to any presidential candidate I’m available for advising them on this - whether they’re Democrats or Republicans.”
(Nunn said he has discussed the issue with former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.; Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.; Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.; Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn, and that he is scheduled to meet on the subject with former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.)
“As far as throwing my own hat in the ring, as I’ve said, it’s possible but not probable. At this stage I am completely consumed with my present activities and not making presidential moves.
Charlie Bailey, who made the GOP ballot his second home
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican strategist Mark Rountree tells us that Charlie Bailey, a perennial presence on ballots in Georgia, died Monday morning of “heart-related issues.”
Bailey ran for secretary of state in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2006.
He won the Republican nomination in 2002, but lost in the general election to Democratic incumbent Cathy Cox. He placed third in the ’06 primary, finishing behind Karen Handel — the eventual winner — and Bill Stephens.
“Charlie was truly and uniquely a decent and honorable man,” Rountree said.
The man may be gone, but his web site continues. It says he was once the Georgia president of Pop Warner football, was a member of Roswell United Methodist Church, and has three adult children: Charles Jr., Anne, and Kevin — all of whom live in metro Atlanta.
About the new guy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’ll notice that, once again, two faces are atop the Political Insider. The new guy on the left is Bob Kemper, our Washington correspondent.
We picked Bob up as a free agent two years ago, while he was the White House reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Bats right, throws right. Getting a bit old, but can still handle a curve, and knows PeachCare back to front.
See his bio here.
Together, in this space and on ajc.com, we’ll offer you an Insider with expanded reach, covering the whole of the ATL/DC axis — on the theory that all politics, even in Washington, is local.
So, no more complaints that we don’t write enough about Phil Gingrey’s missing moustache, right?
The evolution of the Legislature’s fight over science
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Everyone had a good chortle last month when state lawmakers convened a stacked hearing to dismiss concerns about global warming.
The word in the state Capitol? The whole thing was rigged by beach developers backing a bill to prohibit any increase in sea level.
But giggles aside, science is at the heart of a growing tug-of-war in the Legislature. The shadow-boxing put on by the House energy committee — in drought-ridden August, no less — is only the smallest part.
At one end of the rope are social conservatives and many others sincerely disturbed by the moral implications of new technology.
At the other end is the Research & Development crowd, a relatively new body with growing influence in the Capitol, who see these explosive gains in knowledge as the foundation of Georgia’s next economy — and something not to be trifled with.
Last week, six men — five Republican and one Democrat — gathered in a fourth-floor room in the Capitol to convene the Senate Study Committee on Rights Relating to Reproductive and Genetic Technology.
(A male witness noted that committee members were of a single gender. “We all answer to women somewhere,” quipped chairman Eric Johnson of Savannah.)
One purpose of the committee is to examine gaps in the law created by the increasing use of frozen sperm, eggs and embryos — often, but not exclusively, by couples with fertility problems.
A legal expert testified that many military personnel in Georgia are banking their genetic material before they leave for the Middle East, to ensure that something of themselves will remain should the worst happen.
Which raises a significant question: Is a baby born two years — or five years — after one parent dies entitled to inherit the estate of the deceased?
“My hope is that we don’t get into the moral side,” said Johnson in an interview. Yet, only a few moments later, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate said his committee might also consider a measure to limit the number of embryos a fertility clinic can create when couples come to call.
Ultimately, spare embryos must be disposed of. Some parents sign them over to stem cell researchers, and that opens an ethical debate that splits Republicans right down the middle.
It’s fair to say that science has been a raw topic at the Capitol since Charles Darwin evolved his way into the classroom.
But close-quarters fighting only began last year, when Georgia’s biomedical interests were caught flat-footed by a Senate bill that — so the industry said — would have criminalized some stem cell research now going on in Atlanta and Athens. Suddenly, real money was at stake, not just a scientific theory.
Intervention at the highest Republican levels was required to stop the bill. Pass the bill, the biotech message was, and watch the best brains drain from Georgia.
R&D interests were more organized this year. They forced a compromise on the stem cell bill. And the conservative chamber of Speaker Glenn Richardson passed H.R.662 establishing the House Committee to Examine Bioeconomic Development in Georgia.
“This state cannot afford to leave the development of a bioeconomy to chance, for each year Georgia fails to act, the state falls further behind the competition and Georgia loses its substantial investment in university research programs,” the legislation reads.
The seven-member committee includes a University of Georgia professor and two biotech business executives.
State Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock) chairs the panel. She convened a first meeting in relative obscurity, the day before the show trial on global warming.
Topics of interest include biofuels, medical and drug development, and the manufacturing of medical devices. Stuff that Georgia’s biotech industry wants to talk about.
Her committee isn’t likely to touch ideological hot buttons like stem cell research. “It’s not a priority. That’s only one small part of the bio-life picture,” she said.
Dog with no bark gives Chambliss new hope
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Sunday morning talk shows were rife with pundit predictions about the 2008 Senate races. But listen closely for the dog that’s not barking.
The two men running the Senate campaign committees - Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York - both talked tough on their chances next November, each citing races that could determine which party will control the Senate come January 2009.
Schumer is focused on races in Oregon, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine. Ensign, who has 22 incumbents to protect compared to Schumer’s dozen races, named only Louisiana as a potential GOP coup.
And both men are scrambling to deal with the just-announced retirement of Sen. John Warner in Virginia and the resignation of Sen. Larry “Wide Stance” Craig in Idaho.
Left out of the conversation, interestingly enough, was Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, who was once considered a top target of opportunity by national Democrats. Is Chambliss’ race off the A-list? Are the nationals going to be too busy to play in Georgia? If so, Chambliss could move from doom to zoom in ’08, proving miracles can happen.
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