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Thursday, March 20, 2008
The great Senate blue jean debate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tradition is taken seriously in the state Capitol. Lawmakers do not address themselves by name, the better to avoid fistfights. Governors may enter legislative chambers only by invitation, the better to avoid coups.
The place is also one of Atlanta’s last bastions of formal business attire, for both women and men.
Thursday saw a rare, public confrontation among lawmakers over this last point. Sen. John Bulloch, a farmer from Georgia’s southwest corner, had just taken the well to present H.B. 1027, a bill to require offenders to take certified anti-DUI courses, rather than dubious ones offered on the Internet and elsewhere.
Bulloch was dressed in a jacket, a tie, white shirt — and blue jeans with creases so sharp they could pare an apple.
State Sen. John Bulloch (R-Ochlocknee) in blue jeans on Thursday. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
Sen. Dan Moody, a Roswell engineer, got to his feet. Moody is quiet but intense. He read to Bulloch the Senate rule that requires members to act with dignity and decorum.
Listen to the entire three-minute exchange by clicking here.
But here’s a condensed version:
Moody: Senator, do we have casual day in the Senate?
Bulloch: No, sir. I think the decorum rule that you just read says that we shall be appropriately dressed.
Moody: Do you consider yourself appropriately dressed today with a pair of blue jeans on?
Bulloch: I sure do. There a hundred percent cotton, they’re clean, they’re pressed, they have a seam in ‘em, and I think they’re just as appropriate as anything else I may wear….
Moody: Senator, would you consider tabling this bill and bringing it back another day when you’re appropriately dressed?
Bulloch: No, sir, I feel that would be a waste of the great people’s time — of the state of Georgia — and especially my fellow senators in this chamber.
Moody: Senator, would you mind if I vote against this bill because of your inappropriate dress today?
H.B. 1027 passed by a vote of 36 to 12. Moody indeed voted against it. Lawmakers often go one another in tongue-in-cheek fashion from the floor, but — afterwards — the Roswell senator said this wasn’t one of those instances.
“I was very serious. We don’t let pages wear blue jeans,” Moody said. “I’m very protective of this chamber’s reputation.”
Bulloch noted that, in his part of Georgia, farmers grow cotton, not Dacron. And he’ll wear his pants whenever and wherever he sees fit.
Aside from the private — and in this case, public — condemnation by peers, enforcement of tradition at the Capitol is a chancy thing.
The late state Sen. Culver Kidd of Milledgeville was a famous, flamboyant inebriate. Zell Miller once said he could tell the time of day by the degree to which Kidd drifted from the perpendicular.
In 1992, Kidd went to the well to speak for a measure praising Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He wore a suit made from 160 cloth bags in which bottles of Crown Royal whisky were sold.
He’d had a tailor stitch the suit together. Presumably, Kidd emptied the bottles himself.
“Go get that S.O.B. off the floor,” Lt. Gov. Pierre Howard ordered Wayne Garner, then a senator but now mayor of Carrollton.
“I already looked,” Garner replied. “The rules say jacket and tie. They do not describe make or model.”
Kidd gave his speech in his Crown Royal suit. He later said he was going for irony.
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A note from Millielou, in defense of her daughter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Every now and again, we receive an e-mail from Millielou, who is short, wears a huge blossom on her chest, and runs the city of Atlanta.
Millielou is the nome de Internet of Mayor Shirley Franklin. Her latest message opened with a paragraph that smacked of weariness — followed by a torrent of frustration and familial outrage.
“From time to time I blog. Last night was such an occasion. It releases stress and allows me to return to my normal habits of opinionated discussion,” she wrote. “Oh, for the days, when I’m Shirley again. One of the papers has asked me to set up a regular blog. Of course, I declined.”
Wednesday’s e-mailed note was sent to those who had asked about her health, and that of her daughter Kai.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley “Millielou” Franklin. Louie Favorite/AJC
This week, Kai Franklin Graham was sentenced to three years probation, plus three months of home confinement, following a December guilty plea to a charge of illegally structuring a financial transaction — a charge that grew out of a federal investigation into her ex-husband’s drug operation.
Until you have one of your own, it’s nearly impossible to fathom the contradictions that come with acting as a parent to a grown child. Logic says you have no control. A lifelong instinct pushes you to accept responsibility for all — just as you did 20 years before. Factor in family loyalty and a high-profile job, and you can see the stress that might beg for an outlet.
In Atlanta, the weekly newspaper Creative Loafing has been particularly aggressive in covering the saga of Franklin’s daughter. After the St. Patrick’s Day sentencing of Kai Franklin, the mayor of Atlanta went to the CL web site to point out what she saw as an inaccuracy in the newspaper’s story by Mara Shalhoup.
(Franklin called the AJC as well, and a correction to the Associated Press report used was in the next day’s paper.)
Underneath the Creative Loafing story, Franklin posted the following note just after midnight Wednesday, and signed it “Shirley:”
”Check the facts. She plead[ed] guilty to structuring, which is clearly defined in the federal code. Her plea had absolutely nothing to do with any other criminal act. ANY OTHER representation by you or anyone else is FALSE. I’ve come to expect unfair, illogical and inaccurate reporting from CL. Mara, John [Suggs, a contributing columnist] and CL have slandered me and my daughter in headlines and articles and misrepresented the facts for years to sell papers. It’s call[ed] tabloid and yellow journalism.
The post was, as Franklin said, a stress-reliever. Scott Freeman, a CL editor, e-mailed her back, asking the mayor for specifics. (The newspaper’s side of the tale can be found here.)
It is the reply to Freeman that makes up the bulk of the message that Millielou sent to her friends on Wednesday afternoon:
”Don’t waste my time. As senior editor that’s your job — to check the facts, to monitor for slander and to manage your coverage to the fairness standard. I’ll leave it to u to do your job.
“Start with this - You have used my name, photo and references in a string of articles about criminal cases I’ve never been involved in and the court hearings, trials, facts as gathered and presented by the US Attorney and the government bear this out in their Press Release in December 2007.
“So if you didn’t know before, you’ve known since 12/07. Before that you had no evidence or facts to tie me to this string of cases. The US Attorney didn’t do me a favor by excluding me. They had no basis to include me and you, Mara and John have known that from your sources for years.
“Yet you have used my name, photograph and position and some would say high profile to sell your papers. Week after week and month after month u have chosen to describe rumors and fiction as fact.
“You’ve referred to Kai’s plea using scandalous words, not based on court documents. Yet your reporter has an inside source and could easily determine the facts or was sitting in the courtroom for the hearing. Since she’s writing a book about the subject she must know the difference between one federal code section and another.
“You’ve chosen to quote [assistant U.S. Attorney Mark] Moore without checking the facts, witness list or allegations. Most recently mixing his 2007 statements in a March 2008 article as if they applied.
“The list goes on. Since you, John and Mara have chosen to take this scandalous approach to a string of cases that never included me, to defaming my daughter, I will object publicly whenever I choose. That is the value of free speech in America. It applies to u, to me and to everyone else.
“S Franklin”
Consider a very small part of the mayor’s stress relieved.
