Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > February > 11
Monday, February 11, 2008
One state credit card, one heckuva shopping list
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Possibly you heard that federal agents on Monday searched the Marietta home of a former Georgia Tech employee who allegedly rang up more than $316,000 in personal charges on her state-issued credit card.
But for the entire list of items the feds were looking for — from an “Impulse Cordless Framing Nailer” to a “Ruler of the Plains” print in a mahogany frame, click here.
The “Ruler of the Plains” item? She had an inclination toward Auburn University. It’s a portrait of an Auburn tiger.
Thou shalt not lie, unless thou art in the General Assembly, in which case fibs will be overlooked
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Sen. Ed Tarver of Augusta, a Democrat, has produced a pair of bills with a bipartisan future — but it’s difficult to get one’s head around the revolutionary concept he has proposed.
Tarver thinks that it should be illegal for witnesses to lie in testimony they present during House and Senate hearings. S.B. 441 would require an oath from the presenter of “any oral evidence in support or opposition of any legislation or request for appropriation to a committee or subcommittee of the General Assembly.”
S.B. 442 would impose a maximum fibbing penalty of not more than $1,000 and five years in prison.
Both bills have the signatures of three Democrats and three Republicans. State Sen. Preston Smith (R-Rome) is the leading Republican on the bill.
From what we gather reading the legislation, the bill would apply to common citizens, lobbyists, and members of the governor’s staff. Even the governor himself.
But it specifically exempts 236 members of the General Assembly.
Republican lawmakers to Florida: Give us a Bulldog plate, or we’ll ditch the Gator tag
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s only one topic in the state Capitol that can unite Republican lawmakers.
And it’s not Hillary Clinton.
It’s the University of Florida.
On Monday, GOP lawmakers announced a united House-Senate effort to — let’s say it — blackmail the state of Florida into permitting vanity car tags that honor University of Georgia alumni.
Otherwise, lawmakers said, they’ll yank the Gator tags just won by an Atlanta group of University of Florida grads from the state Department of Revenue.
House Majority Whip Barry Fleming (R-Harlem), who just happens to be running for Congress and requires support from Athens, is pitching the bill.
Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) said he is eager to get hold of the legislation and ram it through his chamber.
“I don’t know that we could yank an existing tag, but we don’t have to renew it. I think that would be what would happen,” Johnson said. “If this bill passes and you can’t get a University of Georgia alumni tag in Florida, then they would not be able to renew [their] tag.”
Johnson said the bill would also apply to other states — including Alabama. For a small extra fee, Auburn University alums can buy a prestige plate in Georgia — but Bulldogs can’t buy a Georgia alumni plate in Alabama.
Johnson put up token opposition when the idea of a University of Florida vanity tag first surfaced — saying that cars on blocks didn’t need license plates.
“We’ve had some fun with them — a prestige tag and Florida tag are oxymorons,” Johnson said. But this time the Senate leader says he’s dead serious.
A war with Florida and Alabama would be timely, too. Georgia lawmakers have already picked a border fight with Tennessee. Napoleon might not advise it, but a three-front offensive would be exciting.
Reed, Sekulow in on Romney-as-face-of-conservatism meeting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, immediately after Mitt Romney pulled out of the Republican presidential race, we noted that his CPAC address sounded less like a concession speech and more like a bid to become the voice of the culture wing of the GOP.
Darn, we’re good.
Turns out that after the applause died, Romney huddled with “some 50 stalwarts of the political right” to discuss making the former Massachussetts governor “the face of conservatism, as Ronald Reagan became en route to his 1980 election win,” the Washington Times reported this weekend.
Participants at the meeting included Georgia’s Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, and Jay Sekulow of Alpharetta, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, who served as a kind of liaison to evangelicals for the Romney campaign.
“The movement needs someone of Ronald Reagan’s stature and Romney could fill that role,” the Times quoted Sekulow as saying.
The newspaper reported that American Conservative Union Chairman David A. Keene presided over the meeting, in the same hotel where the Conservative Political Action Conference was held.
Others at the meeting included radio talk show host Laura Ingraham; former Reagan White House official Donald J. Devine; Indiana Republican National Committee member James Bopp Jr.; Freedom Alliance President Tom Kilganon; former Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri; Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis; Human Events editor-in-chief Tom Winter; conservative activist Bay Buchanan; Ann Corkery, a Catholic activist; and Rabbi Nate Segal, a Rush Limbaugh associate. Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich listened in via phone.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
