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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Another Democrat explores the U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vietnam vet and business executive Josh Lanier of Statesboro, a former staffer for Herman Talmadge, has announced the formation of an exploratory committee as a prelude to a run for the U.S. Senate.
Lanier put out the press release late Wednesday. He’s promising a “clean campaign,” and so is restricting donations to $100. His campaign web site, with video, can be found here.
We’re a bit pressed for time, and will have to revisit the topic later. In the meantime, click on this copy of his announcement. Enjoy.
Sayeth the Speaker to agency heads: Say hello to my auditors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Never let it be said that House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) picks his targets randomly.
Richardson sold the Legislative Services Committee this morning on the idea of authorizing up to $50,000 for a “forensic audit” of state agencies, according to our colleague, James Salzer.
Richardson wants to use the accounting firm of KPMG to do the audits as part of his three-year plan to transition into so-called “zero-based” budgeting.
The idea is that state agencies, which will collectively spend $20.2 billion in 2008, will have to start from scratch each year and justify every dime the General Assembly allocates. The audits are to give the Legislature an idea of where the money is being spent now.
“I don’t know what we’re going to find,” Richardson said.
But the House speaker did know who the first two targets of the audits would be: the Department of Revenue and the Department of Human Resources. Both are on Richardson’s black list.
Some lawmakers have long disliked Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham, who has been aggressive in going after tax cheats. But Graham really got on their bad side over suggestions that he helped Gov. Sonny Perdue cook the books earlier this year to help justify the governor’s veto of a $142 million tax cut that Richardson championed.
(The state auditor later said there was no evidence that Graham did so.)
DHR ran afoul of Richardson because, the speaker said, the agency didn’t provide him answers to questions he had about some shifts lawmakers approved in the agency’s funding several months ago.
House members in particular are sensitive to agencies not providing budget information. Richardson said Perdue’s office has directed agencies not to cooperate with in-depth investigations of their budgets, and the governor vetoed a bill on the issue this year.
Richardson said he will demand agencies cooperate with the audit process and zero-based budgeting, a concept Senate leaders support as well.
“I haven’t spent a lot of effort asking if there is going to be any cooperation. I am just trying to do my job,” he said. “If they refuse to cooperate … they will have a budget of zero. This is not a request. You are going to have a zero in your budget if you don’t come forward with information.”
Kingston: ‘Would take a serious look’ at U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Move over, Lynn Westmoreland.
The Savannah Morning News is quoting a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston as saying the coastal congressman would “certainly take a serious look’ at running for the U.S. Senate in 2010 if Republican incumbent Johnny Isakson decided to run for governor.
Kingston has passed on a Senate contest before. But spokesman Rob Asbell said that the fact that the Republican congressman’s four kids are nearly grown has changed Kingston’s domestic calculations. Kingston’s youngest is now a junior in high school.
“By 2010, there won’t be any kids in the house,” Asbell said.
Then again, if Kingston thinks he can get shed of his offspring that easily, he might not have the grasp on reality he needs to be a U.S. senator.
Price’s swing at Democrats hits Marshall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican, battled with Democrats’ fiercest defender, U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, on CBS’ “The Early Show” Wednesday morning over funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP.
And that wasn’t good news for U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon, the only Georgia Democrat to vote against the SCHIP bill, much to the ire of many members of his state party.
Emanuel fumed that Price’s vote against a bill that would add $35 billion to the program, known in Georgia as PeachCare, showed he was “isolated from the real concerns that are facing working parents.”
“The Republican governor of Georgia has endorsed what we are doing here,” Emanuel said. “And the reason is because we’re solving a big problem in Georgia.”
Price countered Emanuel’s wielding of Gov. Sonny Predue’s name by tossing out Marshall.
“I know [Emanuel] doesn’t think that his colleague on the Democrats side, Jim Marshall, doesn’t care about kids, and Jim Marshall voted with us on this,” Price said.
Price said later that he wasn’t fanning the flames of Democratic anger with Marshall, one of the most vulnerable incumbent Democrats in the country. He’d just grown tired of what he called Democrats’ hypocritical claims.
“I’m sure he voted in the interest of his district,” Price said of Marshall. But the Democratic portrayal of Republicans as the enemy of poor kids, he said, “ignores there also are Democrats who believe that the posture of the Democratic leadership is wrong.”
Why we’ll need a House appropriations subcommittee on sousaphones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Up in Athens today, House Speaker Glenn Richardson will make a sales pitch to Georgia’s district school superintendents — on his proposal to end property taxes in the state.
It will be a hostile crowd. Spitballs are expected. Already this morning, state School Superintendent Kathy Cox expressed skepticism in an interview with political talk radio host Tim Bryant of WGAU (1340AM).
Here’s the sound clip. And here’s the meat of what she said:
“We’re analyzing that and looking at the impact it could potentially have on revenue for schools, and what it could do in terms of local discretion and programming.
“I think there is some real, legitimate concern that taking away that ability of local folks to raise revenue could really hurt things. Like, for instance, music programs and things that are heavily locally funded. There would really need to be a shift in terms of who pays for things like the band and the chorus and all of that.
“Also, even in elementary school the state only pays for an art, music or P.E. teacher currently. If you have all three at your local elementary school, that’s local dollars….So there’s quite a bit of ramification of taking away the locals’ ability to tax themselves.”
ICYMI: McKinney now registered to vote in California
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is the detailed follow-up to yesterday’s post.
But here’s the key paragraph:
[Cynthia] McKinney, who served five, often provocative terms as a U.S. congresswoman representing voters in DeKalb County and roughly the southeast section of metro Atlanta, has been registered to vote in Marin County, Calif., since May 4, 2007, according to records at the Marin County Registrar of Voters. Marin is a county north of San Francisco.
Not to worry: We’ve got a voter ID law now
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This news out of the city of Chickamauga up in north Georgia, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press:
Officials with Georgia’s secretary of state office confirmed they are looking into a claim that a man was offering money to tenants of Chestnut Hills Trailer Park if they would register and vote on behalf of candidate Steve Tarvin.
Fighting poverty is fabulous, darling!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When we ponder glamour and fashion we can’t help thinking of U.S. Reps. Phil Gingrey and John Linder. We’re sure you do, too.
The two Georgia Republicans are among 90 members of the House and Senate listed as honorary hosts of an event dubbed “Wine, Women & Shoes” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C. Wednesday night.
No one told us so, but we suspect it’s all about Gingrey shaving his mustache.
WW&S is comprised of “Washington’s most prominent women,” according to the group’s PR folks, who dubbed the fete “Glam meets a good cause.” WW&S raises money each year to benefit just one advocacy group. This year’s beneficiary is ONE: The campaign to Make Poverty History, which focuses on making clean water and education available to the poor.
And what better way to “make poverty history” then with high-heeled ladies, finger food and Gingrey and Linder dodging the paparazzi?
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