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Thursday, March 6, 2008
Want a bill out of committee? Offer your opponent a hearing — in another room
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Feb. 20, state Rep. Wendell Willard, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, brought H.B. 1200 to the House committee on state planning and community affairs.
His bill would permit the dozens and dozens of publicly created development authorities throughout Georgia to issue contracts without bids — as they’re now required.
Hospital authorities are already exempted, Willard argued. A lawyer supporting the bill testified that development authorities, while created by governments to encourage job growth and such, now simply act as conduits for private deals. And so need a less cumbersome method of doing business.
State Rep. Jill Chambers, committee vice chairman, presided over the meeting. Chambers is an advocate of open government. And can be cheerfully caustic in a way that doesn’t always go down well with members of the old guard.
You can see her antennae go up on the video of the meeting.
State Rep. Winfred Dukes (D-Albany) wondered about projects that used a mix of public and private funds. He was told his concerns could be addressed.
State Rep. Joe Heckstall (D-East Point), who is African-American, spoke of contractors who might be shut out of a chance to compete. “It’s a way, perhaps, that people would be excluded from sizeable contracts. It just disturbs me a bit,” he said.
At which point, Chambers jumped in to reinforce Heckstall’s suspicions. Development authorities wouldn’t have to advertise bids. There would be no public access to contracts, or to contract specifications, she pointed out — reading from the code section the bill seeks to augment.
The bill was tabled. Willard was upset that his bill, and his lawyer witness, were so roughly handled.
Chambers is the sponsor of H.B. 1342, an overhaul of the state Open Records Act, lodged in Willard’s judiciary committee.
On Wednesday, Willard told Chambers that he had scheduled a first hearing on her bill for today. “I fell for it — hook, line and sinker,” she admitted.
While Chambers expounded on her bill, which is going nowhere this year, Willard was at the House committee where his H.B. 1200 was stalled. And with a deadline looming — bills must pass one chamber or the other by Tuesday — he pried his bill loose.
“I don’t think she was set up,” Willard said Thursday.
Willard said he’s inserted language to open up public bidding on development authorities when any amount of public money is involved.
Chambers says that’s nice, but it doesn’t address the bill’s main flaw — that renders invisible the most important actions of dozens and dozens of government-created bodies. Similar rules in other states have resulted in much corruption, she said.
A few years back, the House attempted to permit local development authorities to shield their negotiations with private corporations from public view. “This is worse than [H.B.] 218,” she said.
At that Feb. 20 meeting, the one witness who spoke against H.B. 1200 was Mark Woodall, representing Associated General Contractors, a statewide trade group. He, too, gave a warning.
“Our industry is probably the most creative in getting special consideration. And they will get themselves in trouble, and they will get you in trouble, if we allow them to do that,” Woodall said. A dime of taxpayer money requires an open process, he said.
With audio: Kidd, Lowery require McCain to denounce his televangelist supporter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican presidential candidate John McCain is headed to Atlanta this evening for a fund-raiser.
So two Barack Obama supporters, state Democratic party chairman Jane Kidd and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, held a quick telephone conference call on Thursday to gig him about the support McCain has received from Texas televangelist John Hagee.
You’ve got to surmise this is an attempt to keep the issue alive from media market to media market.
Said McCain this week: “It’s simply not accurate to say that because someone endorses me that I therefore embrace their views.”
Most recent criticism of Hagee has come from his reference to the Catholic Church as “the great whore.”
But Kidd and Lowery were more upset that Hagee once held a “slave auction” at his church, and that the pastor has compared to women with PMS to Doberman pinschers and terrorists.
Kidd called on McCain “to renounce the racist, sexist, and divisive comments.”
Said Lowery: “I think it’s a shameful display of racism and bigotry.”
Click hear to listen to a sound clip of Lowery’s comments, plus a question from ex-Political Insider Tom Baxter on whether this kind of criticism might leave Obama open to a similar line of questioning.
With the GREAT plan gone, it’s time to talk roads
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was always said that any discussion of new funding for transportation funding couldn’t take place until House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s tax reform plan was off the table.
And just one day after Richardson’s efforts hit the wall, leaders of the House and Senate announced this morning that they’ve got their eyes on a compromise plan to inject more money into Georgia roads, bridges and, perhaps, other forms of transit.
The Senate plan, backed by Senate Transportation Chairman Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga), would permit individual counties to approve a one-percent special local option sales tax. But it would also take 20 percent of the proceeds and give that money to state government — for its transportation priorities.
That 20 percent is a big sticking point with local governments.
But it’s there because Gov. Sonny Perdue is suspicious of sales taxes, and thinks they rob have-not counties in favor of those with large retail centers.
House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) has abandoned his initial proposal that would have called for a statewide one-cent sales tax. His new plan calls for a regional approach, in which referendums for the tax would be held in community development districts.
“The bill I have, that will be introduced, will have 100 percent of the dollars going to a region. That’s where the compromise comes in,” Smith said.
Said Mullis: “The compromise is very flexible currently. We’re at the beginning of this phase. I suggest to you that the carrot approach would be to probably be to form regions, and that money will probably end up within those regions.”
The morning press conference was well-attended by the state’s business community, but lacked one prominent politician — the governor.
“He’s been kept well informed. We’ve not had anybody tell us ‘Don’t do it,’ so we’re moving ahead,” Smith said.
Earlier this year, Perdue had argued that the state Department of Transportation needs to get its act together before it’s permitted to handle more cash. But the business community disagrees.
“We need to make the most of our current revenue sources. But we have to be innovative in identifying new funding solutions,“ said Kessel Stelling, president and CEO of the Bank of North Georgia — and co-chairman of Get Georgia Moving, the business coalition behind the compromise.
Turns out there was a fly on the wall at those ex parte hearings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re a day late in drawing it to your attention, but the Fulton County Daily report had a terrific story Wednesday on an FBI admission that it had bugged the offices of Alapaha Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Brooks E. Blitch III.
That’s down in South Georgia, near Valdosta.
At 72, Blitch is one of the most powerful politicians in rural Clinch County, and has been a judge since 1980. He’s husband to former state senator Peg Blitch.
Last June, Clinch County commissioners discovered that the judge since 2001 had overseen $67,255 in payments to five county employees kept off the county books.
A few weeks later, FBI agents executed a search warrant on the judge’s office in Homerville, the county seat.
Last November, misconduct charges were filed against Blitch with the Judicial Qualifications Commission. The charges include ordering illegal payments to Clinch County employees and ordering the early release of imprisoned felons. Blitch has denied the charges.
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McCain extends his Georgia stay
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, who lands in Buckhead Thursday for a fund-raiser, is extending his stay in Georgia through Friday morning.
The McCain campaign said the newly crowned nominee would visit Chick-Fil-A headquarters at 5200 Buffington Road, Atlanta, Friday at 8:30 a.m. before leaving the state.
The event is billed as an “employee town hall meeting,” so don’t bother calling for tickets.
Tonight, McCain has a fund-raiser at the Westin Buckhead. D.A. King, an opponent of illegal immigration, has already announced his people will be demonstrating outside.
Now he’s gotten word that opponents of the Iraq war will be there as well. He plans a secure border between the two camps. “Anti-war protesters are not part of my group. I have permit, and will not allow them to mix and mingle,” he told us.
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