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Thursday, February 14, 2008
John Lewis says he’ll switch his vote to Obama?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The New York Times is quoting U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an icon of the Civil Rights movement and one of Hillary Clinton’s prime black supporters, as saying that the congresman is ready to cast his superdelegate vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
The story is here.
We’ve got a call into Lewis’ staff, but have not heard anything back.
This comes on the heels of an Associated Press story that says U.S. Rep. David Scott of Atlanta says he’ll vote for Obama.
Wrote the Associated Press:
“You’ve got to represent the wishes of your constituency,” Scott said in an interview Wednesday in the Capitol. “My proper position would be to vote the wishes of my constituents.” The third-term lawmaker represents a district that gave more than 80 percent of its vote to Obama in the Feb. 5 Georgia primary.
Ralph Reed’s advice for John McCain: ‘Build those bridges quick.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta, who had backed Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, was to announce today that he’s backing Sen. John McCain.
Not a surprise, since Romney himself endorsed the presumptive GOP nominee on Thursday.
But to truly understand the effort that many Republican conservatives are making to unify their fractured party, look no further than Ralph Reed.
If you know Georgia politics, then you recognize that there’s been something of a gulf between McCain and Reed, a former state GOP chairman and the former head of the Christian Coalition. We need not go into specifics here.
But twice this week, Reed offered the Arizona senator some public, constructive advice on courting the social and fiscal conservatives who feel shortchanged by his success.
The first venue was the influential Beltway blog operated by David Brody, the political correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network. In it, Reed called McCain’s CPAC speech last week “a good first step.”
Wrote Reed:
”There is still much work to do for McCain to win conservative hearts and minds. I talked to two nationally prominent social conservative leaders over the weekend who told me that right now they do not plan to vote for McCain….
“What can McCain do? First, he should choose a running mate with strong conservative credentials, both on social issues and economic issues. Then he should adopt a conservative platform at the convention, and run a general election campaign that sounds conservative themes on taxes, terrorism, and values.
“If he does those things, he should be able to unite the party. If not, it will be difficult to rally the grassroots and win a highly competitive, close race in November.”
Then there was the note that Reed sent to us this week:
“In the Virginia primary, self-identified evangelicals doubled from eight years ago to 4 out of every 10 voters, and Huckabee won them 62 percent to 30 percent.
“Huckabee also won the larger conservative vote 51 percent to 38 percent. It is imperative for McCain to build a bridge to these voters because he needs their enthusiasm to win in November.
“McCain’s campaign must recognize that there is no quick fix. Like any troubled relationship, McCain’s difficulties with conservatives and faith-based voters did not happen overnight, and will not be repaired overnight.
“It will require an ongoing effort by McCain to allay the concerns of conservatives and reassure them. Before he can turn to defining [Hillary] Clinton or [Barack] Obama in a general election campaign, building a bridge to conservatives and faith-based voters in his own party must be McCain’s highest priority.”
174 services on Richardson’s sales tax list; See if your business is one of them
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Speaker Glenn Richardson went before a House Ways and Means subcommittee on Thursday to give a three-hour defense of his plan to shift the state away from property taxes, beginning with the ones that pay for schools.
It’s no longer called “the GREAT plan,” by the way. The acronym has been dropped, and the new proper name is the Property Tax Reform Amendment, or H.B. 979.
Changes have been made to the bill that aren’t yet reflected online. We’re happy to be the first to bring you a list contained in the legislation — which could still change, obviously — of 174 different services that would be required to charge a sales tax, to replace the revenue generated by school property taxes.
Click here to see if you’re on it.
The list is 10 pages long — pardon the crude formatting. We had no neat way of converting the bill’s legal pages to the dictates of an 8-by-10-inch copier.
Ehrhart: Faulty ethics complaint demands criminal prosecution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earl Ehrhart is more than a little steamed at George Anderson.
The House Rules Committee chairman says he’s resolved to take Anderson to court for statements made in an ethics complaint that Anderson, a self-appointed government watchdog, filed this week with the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee.
Said Anderson: “Let him go for it.”
In his complaint, which can be read here, Anderson accused Ehrhart of having accompanied Richardson on a lobbyist-funded trip to Las Vegas.
On Wednesday, in this same space, Ehrhart called the accusation “garbage.” Today, he told our colleague Ben Smith that the words amoung to an act of felony false swearing, and are the makings of a possible slander suit.
“I haven’t been to Las Vegas in 15 years,” said Ehrhart. “I don’t know how I can not prove that. I also haven’t been to Timbuktu. I don’t know how I can not prove that either.”
“It’s patently untrue, it’s malicious and I think it meets the standards [for a criminal case and a lawsuit],” he said.
Ehrhart says Anderson broke the law he when signed an oath at the end of the complaint. The oath states: “to the best of my knowledge and belief, the above information true, correct and complete and submitted of my own free will.”
Anderson said he lobbed the same accusation against Ehrhart in a separate ethics complaint he filed in 2006. He said he complaint was based on newspaper stories he’d read.
According to AJC archives, a Feb. 12, 2006, article states that a title loan executive “flew Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) to a legislative conference in Dallas and House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) to a conference in Las Vegas.”
In other words, the two legislators took separate trips to separate destinations.
“He makes this stuff up,” said Ehrhart. “Mr. Anderson has made crazy complaints about me for 15 years and every one has been tossed out, every single one.”
Said Anderson, “Earl Ehrhart has hated my guts for years, and if I make any allegation whatsoever against him, he threatens legal action.”
Because consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, we mentioned that the state Senate had refused to take up the issue of Sunday sales of beer and wine, didn’t we?
Things have changed since then. The Senate will take up a bill to permit the sale of alcohol on Sunday. But only in Gwinnett County. And only in a soon-to-be-built minor league baseball stadium.
Republican senators from Gwinnett have dropped S.B. 454, legislation designed to permit adult beverages to be served on the Christian Sabbath in the county-built, 10,000-seat stadium that will soon house the Braves minor league team now located in Richmond, Va.
Georgia municipalities already have the power to permit such sales in stadiums, but counties don’t.
The lead sponsor of S.B. 454 is Renee Unterman of Buford. But the second signature belongs to David Shafer of Duluth — whom supporters of a statewide Sunday sales bill blame for holding up the legislation last year.
Bottom line: Richardson says life-at-fertilization measure won’t move
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We weren’t at the Cobb County GOP luncheon held near the state Capitol on Tuesday.
So we didn’t hear House Speaker Glenn Richardson say that he will not let H.R. 536, the measure to declare that life — and the state’s interest in preserving it — begins at fertilization, come up for a vote this session.
But here’s a less-than-neutral account of Richardson’s reaction to a question about the bill, posted Wednesday on the web site of Georgia for Life, one of many anti-abortion groups that support the measure:
Glenn was fit to be tied. He got very red in the face and let the entire room know in no uncertain terms that he had no intentions of having H.B.1 and H.R. 536 on the House floor. There was a bit of a gasp in the room.
Mr. Richardson went on to say that his concern was for the living children, and so he had legislation for a tax break of $2,000 for parents who adopt a foster child. This rang rather hollow, and I’m sure he knew it.
We called Scott Johnson, chairman of the Cobb GOP, who emceed the event. Johnson said he couldn’t vouch for the theatrics described above. He didn’t see the speaker’s complexion change, and heard no gasps in the room.
But Johnson confirmed the bottom line: Richardson told the Republican group that H.R. 536 would not move this year. Johnson said the speaker expressed concern that the measure could have unintended consequences, and might even interfere with the state’s ability to apply the death penalty.
Richardson also noted, according to Johnson, the many anti-abortion measures the Legislature has already passed since Republicans completed their takeover in 2004 — including the “woman’s right to know” bill and a measure to require physicians to offer sonograms to women seeking abortions.
If a tree falls in the Capitol, and all the occupants have their ears plugged, does it still make a sound?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sometimes you have to be careful about what you don’t wish for. Take Georgia’s prohibition on Sunday sales of beer and wine.
“At this time, there simply has not been any kind of broad expression of support for a vote on Sunday sales this year from Senate members or from the citizens of our state, ” said the spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle this week.
And so this electronic petition has sprung up on the Internet. We don’t know much about it. We’re told a Republican businessman started it, but that doesn’t exactly narrow the field.
The petition is addressed to Cagle, Gov. Sonny Perdue and the General Assembly, and as of this morning had 234 signatures.
It’s drawn up in specific support of S.B. 138 sponsored by state Sen. Seth Harp (R-Midland).
The petition states in part:
[W]hereas religious objections are cited by members of the Georgia General Assembly, Georgia Lieutenant Governor and Senate President Casey Cagle, and Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue as the rationale for the continuation of existing “blue laws” in the State of Georgia,
And, whereas such blue laws were originally designed to enforce moral standards, particularly the observance of Sunday as a day of worship or rest, they were established in earlier eras of our history to enforce the religious beliefs and practices of some people on the entire population of the State of Georgia,
And, whereas the Undersigned clearly respect the right of all residents of the State of Georgia to exercise freedom of religion, freedom of belief, and freedom of worship….
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