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March 2008
Behind the scenes: On the rising cost of credit freezes and funny accounting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Both the House and Senate have now passed legislation to let Georgians who fear ID theft to freeze their credit reports and block distribution of their credit histories.
Both chambers have voted to cap the fee for this service at $3.
But we’re hearing that, in conference committee, an attempt will be made to raise the fee to $5 — with the support of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and at the urging of Equifax, the credit reporting giant.
The Senate’s opening bid for the cost of a credit freeze — nixed by the House — was $10.
In the House, state Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta) is letting it be known that she’s tinkered with S.B. 300, which is up for a vote Tuesday.
Chambers said new language in the bill would requires all state authorities and the Board of Regents to submit their annual audits to the state auditor, who will check their math.
The audits would be made available via the Internet.
Chambers specifically cited adventures that state Sen. Jeff Chapman (R-Brunswick) has experienced with the Jekyll Island Authority over its finances. In its 2006 annual report, the Jekyll authority stated it was $210,575 in the red. But the authority actually turned a profit of $1,950,081 that year, according to the state auditor’s office.
The bill would also give the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House the authority to request assistance from the state attorney general when examining spending issues. Right now, only the governor can do that.
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Oh, those jokers in the House
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sonny Perdue was out of the country less than half a day before a certain lawmaker hung out a new shingle for the governor. Someone didn’t ask Neighborhood Watch to mind things while he was out of town.
A makeshift sign hung outside a certain governor’s office. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
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It looks like the end of the road for Brown’s modesty list
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A House committee has stalled the effort by state Sen. Robert Brown (D-Macon) to create a registry of people who don’t want any public building, road, or bridge named after them once they’re gone.
State Sen. Robert Brown (left) and Michael O’Sullivan, aide to Secretary of State Karen Handel. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
A House committee voted 4-0 to table S.B. 191 after a representative for Secretary of State Karen Handel spoke against it.
In essence, Georgia is too good for the legislation. Too modest. So many people might sign up that the list could become an unacceptable financial burden for the secretary of state, whose staff would have to maintain it.
“That could go on forever. You could have tens of thousands of people calling to have their names put on the list,” said Michael O’Sullivan, legislative affairs director for Handel.
There was also the issue of people who might change their minds, or the case of a bitter ex-spouse who nominates a former partner without permission — robbing said ex of a chance at immortality.
Brown likened the registry to a do-not-call list, and said the measure would help people avoid embarrassment when unwanted honors are heaped upon them. The Senate minority leader offered to add a $5 fee to the bill, to cover any unexpected costs that might arise from an outbreak of mass saintliness.
We might even make a profit, Brown said.
No dice. The committee tabled the legislation. It could come back, but it doesn’t look likely. Because the people of Georgia are just too darn swell.
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Meet Ralph Reed, novelist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So what, you ask, has Ralph Reed been doing since is unsuccessful ‘06 run for lieutenant governor? Aside from those appearances on Fox and CNN.
Apparently, he’s been at the word processor — moving in the same direction as Newt Gingrich, from large thoughts to fiction. I just got an announcement from the Atlanta Press Club, saying Reed will make a June 12 appearance there.
The communication includes this line:
“He will also sign his first novel, Dark Horse.”
The guess here is that it won’t be a bodice-ripper.
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Linder has a Democratic opponent
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrat Doug Heckman is using a 2 p.m. conference call with reporters today, to announce his candidacy for the Seventh District congressional seat now held by John Linder, the Republican incumbent.
Heckman, who describes himself as a conservative, is a graduate of West Point, and recently served as a senior advisor to the Iraqi army. So he fits the pro-military, Jim Marshall-style profile that Democrats have attempted to develop among their candidates.
Heckman’s web site can be found here.
The Seventh is still considered Republican territory, but Heckman’s candidacy is likely to fuel GOP speculation over whether the state’s two longest-serving Republican congressmen, Linder and Nathan Deal, will sign up for another term.
Qualifying is at the end of this month. But you can bet that Republicans in Washington don’t want to see any more open seats in the House than they already have.
(Got a call this afternoon from a staffer for Deal. The congressman is in fact running again — though he won’t raise any local money until he has opposition. So all of you ambitious Republicans in north Georgia, please stand down.)
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On the transportation sales tax and family connections
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday’s Marietta Daily Journal had an editorial noting the high wall faced by a referendum that would permit groups of counties - specifically metro Atlanta - to levy a one-cent sales tax for transportation.
Said the MDJ:
At a time when even Georgia’s vibrant economy is starting to wobble a bit, and in the absence of a clear plan for how to spend the revenues from a regional SPLOST for transportation, that measure’s proponents may find voters less than eager to climb behind the wheel.
As MDJ columnist Don McKee aptly put it in his Friday column, “Most citizens of Georgia are looking for tax relief - not more taxes.”
What makes this editorial worth noting is the fact that MDJ publisher Otis Brumby’s son-in-law is Heath Garrett, former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. Garrett is now a private citizen, and formulates media strategy.
Should the House and Senate vote this week to put the regional sales tax on the November ballot, Garrett will be one of those putting together the campaign for passage of the referendum.
Another prominent Mariettan, former state GOP chairman Chuck Clay, has been carrying much of the water at the state Capitol for those who want more cash pumped into transportation infrastructure.
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Buckle up your life belts. We’re in for a bumpy finish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We have entered the dangerous, final days of the Legislature’s winter session — a season of desperation in which innocent bills are forced into sudden, shotgun marriages with amendments they’ve never met.
Legislative dogs are wedded to feline decrees-to-be that streak through the Capitol. Often, the unions are conducted in such secrecy that even professional spectators remain ignorant — until, after several months’ gestation, the unpleasant results begin crawling around.
Lawmakers have until Friday, when the Legislature is to adjourn, for such last-minute mischief. Supervision is lax. Gov. Sonny Perdue is far away on a Chinese trade mission, struggling through the hell of chopsticks and endless toasts with sorghum-based paint-thinner.
But most of the funny stuff happens out of the schoolmaster’s line of vision anyway — unless the schoolmaster decides to join in.
An example of the shenanigans to come snuck up last week. The locale was a meeting of the House Motor Vehicles Committee, a small collection of part-time legislators whose life experiences have included real estate, law enforcement, personnel management, business and the pharmaceutical industry.
The topic at hand was S.B. 412, the epitome of do-good legislation.
Its sponsor, state Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) wants every reference to “seat belts” in the Georgia code changed to “life belts.” He wants “air bags” to become “life bags.”
Jones hatched the five-paragraph idea with Adam Goldfein, the fellow at V103 radio who specializes in advice for car buyers. “Parents explaining to their children to buckle up their life belts really has meaning,” Jones, a car dealer, told the committee.
S.B. 412 has already passed the Senate, and now must run the House gauntlet. But several days ago, Jones was informed that his bill had grown a sixth, 113-word paragraph. “House leaders told me it had been added — they don’t ask permission,” the senator said later.
Jones was philosophical. If the addition could speed House passage of his bill, he was for it. If it proved a barnacle that would slow it down, he was against it.
Now, about that sixth paragraph. Printing it would only put you to sleep. But it contained phrases like “the proximate cause” and “industry-wide liability” and “public nuisance.” All terms were covered on that bar exam you took.
But even a layman could see this was another shot fired in one of the state Capitol’s never ending wars, over who should be permitted to sue whom. This one had to do with product liability.
State Rep. Tom Rice of Norcross, the committee chairman, embraced the addition. “I’d favor anything that would reduce the opportunity for what I call nuisance suits,” he said.
But Matt Dollar of Cobb County, the vice chairman, was more suspicious. He didn’t know what had been promised to whom, but nobody had told him. And he wondered why the paragraph had magically appeared in front of a motor vehicles committee, instead of a lawyer-laden House Judiciary Committee.
Who’s your client? Dollar asked the attorneys from Powell Goldstein, the firm that authored the paragraph.
The Public Nuisance Fairness Coalition.
Who’s that?
The attorneys couldn’t say. The members were Fortune 500 firms whose names — because of attorney-client privilege — couldn’t be disclosed right then and there. The lawmakers could be told eventually, but the lawyers would have to get permission first. One attorney let slip that a chemical company was involved.
“We’re not talking just about air bags, are we?” asked state Rep. Alan Powell of Hartwell.
The committee summoned Bill Clark, a representative of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, the group that does battle against business in the lawsuit war. He’d only learned of the sixth paragraph a few hours ago. He didn’t know what the language did — or didn’t do.
“I’ll concede it may be little or no change. It may be a very significant change in Georgia law,” he said. Clark advised removing the language first, and investigating the implications over the weekend.
But he was countered by Joel Williams of Powell Goldstein, who assured the part-time lawmakers that they were capable of understanding the implications of those 113 words. “You have the ability, you have the brain power,” Williams assured them.
Flattery didn’t work. On Dollar’s motion, the sixth paragraph was stripped out, and the bill was put on hold.
“There’s a rat in there somewhere,” muttered committee member and pharmacist Bobby Parham of Milledgeville as he exited the hearing. “There’s a rat in that one.”
Welcome to the final hours of the 2008 Georgia General Assembly, a period in which a law degree isn’t nearly as important as a sharp nose for vermin.
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Not a gusher — just seepage at the Governor’s Mansion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A reader was driving down West Paces Ferry Road on Thursday, took one look at what looked like drilling equipment at Governor’s Mansion, and wondered if — when it came to rain — Sonny Perdue had given up on prayer and gone prospecting.
After all, God helps those who help themselves.
Stacy Shelton, one of the AJC’s water specialists gave a quick call to the governor’s office this afternoon.
Despite what it looks like, Perdue’s not drilling for water, says a spokesman. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
The monstrous piece of equipment at the mansion is not being used to drill for water, said Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley. Or oil.
He said the mansion’s basement needs waterproofing. Workers are digging a trench around the residence’s basement walls, which are then being sealed off.
Brantley said the basement, which contains a ballroom and kitchen for big events, has sustained some minor damage from the prayed-for rain.
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Cagle shows his backing from ACCG, GMA, and tax groups
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let the House-Senate fight over tax cuts begin.
The office of Lt. Gov. Casey this morning unloaded several serious endorsements of the Senate plan to trim the state income tax by 10 percent.
The House has pitched the elimination of the state car tax.
From the Association County Commissioners of Georgia: “The House-passed version of H.R. 1246 did not constitutionally guarantee full reimbursement to counties for the elimination of the personal vehicle ad valorem tax. In addition, it would have forced counties to raise millage rates just to keep up with inflationary increases in the cost of providing existing county services.”
The Senate version, the ACCG said, “provides significant tax relief to Georgia’s citizens without creating service delivery problems at the local level.”
From the Georgia Municipal Association: “Without getting into any of the economic or fiscal theories supporting an income tax cut, the proposal appears to be fair to every taxpayer in Georgia.”
From the Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform: “While tax cut plans being measured by both chambers are promising…the House plan, while providing about $760 million a year in tax relief once fully implemented, does not go as far as the tax cut plan put forth by Lieutenant Governor Cagle.”
From the Washington-based National Taxpayers Union: The Senate option “represents the largest, real-dollar tax reduction.”
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A lawsuit link between Bishop Paulk and Vernon Jones?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Only recently has WAGA-TV (Fox 5) posted on its web site this report that Dale Russell put together last week, theorizing that there’s a lawsuit link between disgraced Bishop Earl Paulk and Vernon Jones, the DeKalb County CEO and U.S. Senate candidate.
In February, Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott ordered a couple and their attorney suing Bishop Earl Paulk to pay more than $1 million in legal fees and court costs from a dismissed case.
Report posits a lawsuit link between Earl Paulk and Vernon Jones. WAGA-TV
Mona and Bobby Brewer dropped their years-old suit last July, but each filed a separate suit in state court later in 2007.
That led Scott to rule the first suit frivolous. The million-dollar award is to cover court costs and fees for Paulk’s lawyers.
Using footage of former DeKalb County prosecutor J. Tom Morgan, who calls the award “unheard of,” Russell points out that the Scott ruling had a side effect.
Says Russell:
“Judge Scott’s ruling delayed the second lawsuit, just six days before Judge’s friend and political supporter, DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones, was set to appear in court as a witness.
“Last October, Vernon Jones gave a deposition in the Paulk case. According to court records, Jones refused to answer questions about his personal relationship with Patty Battle. She was once a key member of Paulk’s church, and admitted under oath she had a sexual relationship with Earl Paulk.”
Morgan, who is no friend of Jones, represents Battle.
Russell is reporting that the second lawsuit is unlikely to resume until late this year.
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Inside dope: On transportation and two election contests
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Word is:
— That House Speaker Glenn Richardson has appointed former state lawmaker Stacey Reece to the state tollway authority board. Reece was Richardson’s candidate in the unsuccessful, House-backed attempt to dump state Department of Transportation board chairman Mike Evans.
Gov. Sonny Perdue, who backed Evans, is chair of the tollway authority board.
— Ann Wead Kimbrough, chief of staff for DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones, is considering a run for her boss’ job. He’s running for the U.S. Senate.
This won’t make state Rep. Stan Watson (D-Decatur) happy. Watson has already announced for the CEO job.
— State Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta) has picked up some November opposition. Democrat Chris Huttman wants her seat. (Whoops. It’s not his first campaign. As a 22-year-old, he ran against Republican state lawmaker Fran Millar of Dunwoody in 2002.) Huttman currently works for LUC Media, the time-buying firm of Bobby Kahn, former chairman of the state Democratic party.
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And now, the governor’s argument against a transportation sales tax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House debate over S.R. 845, which would permit regions to levy a sales tax for transportation, has begun.
This is the outline of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s arguments against the measure, placed on every House member’s desk over lunch.
On the jump is a copy of the “floor letter” that the Get Georgia Moving coalition placed on the desks of House members.
Dear Representative,
We are writing this letter as co-chairs of one of the broadest coalitions in Georgia’s history to ask you to vote “yes” on SR 845. The Get Georgia Moving coalition includes more than 50 organizations that cover the entire state. This unprecedented alliance - which includes local governments, the road and transit industries, chambers of commerce and environmental organizations - has worked hard over the past 10 months to come to a consensus on a way to provide connectivity and mobility for the third-fastest growing state in the nation.
We applaud the work of the Joint Transportation Funding Study Committee and the leadership that both the House and Senate have exhibited on the issue thus far this session. Get Georgia Moving feels strongly that proactive steps must be taken now to create a sustainable transportation funding system that will strengthen our economy, protect our environment and improve our quality of life. Current efforts to improve efficiency at GDOT are critical and commendable, but they alone will not allow us to overcome the funding shortfall.
A single “silver bullet” solution does not exist and all proposed solutions must be based on clearly identified needs and priorities and include measurable benchmarks that ensure progress and guarantee accountability. Get Georgia Moving funding recommendations include the dedication of the 4th percent of the motor fuel tax to all modes of transportation, a state infrastructure bank, public-private partnerships on transportation initiatives and increased rail infrastructure investments.
The coalition supports referendum-based sales tax funding that gives regions the ability to choose when and how they will invest their transportation dollars. SR 845 provides that choice, and combined with the proposal to change regional development centers to regional commissions, offers the best platform for the multi-county cooperation needed to develop and fund transportation solutions.
Enclosed with this letter for your reference is a list of Get Georgia Moving’s members, the coalition’s transportation investment principles, and a Georgia transportation funding fact sheet. We invite you to visit GetGeorgiaMoving.com to learn more about our organization. Thank you for all you do to serve the people of this great state.
List of Participating Organizations
Association County Commissioners of Georgia
American Council of Engineering Companies
Atlanta Regional Commission
BP
C.W. Matthews, Inc.
Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development
Central Atlanta Progress
Citizens for Progressive Transit
Civic League for Regional Atlanta
Clean Air Campaign
Community Improvement District Alliance
Council for Quality Growth
CSX
Cumberland Community Improvement District
Evermore Community Improvement District
Fulton County Government
Georgia Asphalt Pavement Association
Georgia Assn of Regional Development Centers
Georgia Budget and Policy Institute
Georgia Chamber of Commerce
Georgia Concrete Pavement Association
Georgia Concrete & Products Association
Georgia Conservancy
Georgia Construction Aggregates Association
Georgia Department of Transportation
Georgia Economic Developers Association
Georgia Electric Membership Cooperatives
Georgia Engineering Alliance
Georgia Highway Contractors Association
Georgia Municipal Association
Georgia Power Company
Georgia Railroad Association
Georgia Transit Association
Georgia Transit Coalition
Georgians for Better Transportation
Georgians for the Brain Train
Governor’s Office of Highway Safety
Georgia Regional Transportation Authority
Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce
Gwinnett County
Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District
Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District
Henry County Chamber of Commerce
HNTB
Liberty County Development Authority
Livable Communities Coalition
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce
Norfolk Southern
Perimeter Community Improvement District
Regional Business Coalition
Sierra Club
Southern Environmental Law Center
Southwest Georgia Business Coalition
State Road and Tollway Authority
Transit Planning Board
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Sonny Perdue’s argument against Sunday sales of beer, wine, and such
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue has just put out an op-ed style piece intended for use by Sunday newspapers across Georgia, on the topic of allowing local communities to decide whether the retail sale of beer, wine, and liquor on the Christian Sabbath should be permitted.
No mention of the governor’s support for the portion of the bill that would permit Sunday beer sales in a Gwinnett Braves minor league stadium, and no “You should plan ahead” argument. The governor emphasizes public safety this time. We hear Sunday sales proponents will argue that the New Mexico data cited by the governor is faulty.
Here’s what has come out of Perdue’s office:
Do no harm. It may sound like a simple concept, but it is one that I am afraid supporters of Sunday alcohol sales may have forgotten.
Above all else, I believe it is the responsibility of the Governor and the General Assembly to reject a piece of legislation that hurts more people than it helps.
Allowing the sale of alcohol in grocery stores as well as liquor stores on Sundays will do far more harm than good. In fact, other than those who profit from those sales, it will not help anyone.
In the 1990’s, the citizens of New Mexico debated the issue of Sunday alcohol sales. On July 1, 1995, most counties in New Mexico began allowing the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded a study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, to uncover the legislation’s long-term effects using data from the first five years that alcohol sales on Sunday were allowed.
The study found that legalizing Sunday packaged alcohol sales “exacts a significant price that is paid by crash victims and their loved ones, health care providers, insurers, law enforcement and the judicial systems.”
The sponsors of the New Mexico legislation hoped that allowing sales for off-premise consumption might encourage more people to buy alcohol and drink at home, thus reducing accidents and deaths. This argument was a tempting trap for the state’s legislators, and many of our own elected officials are chasing the same carrot without seeing the stick.
Now, I have always been a data-driven decision maker, so let me share the numbers with you. The study found that alcohol-related crashes increased by 29 percent on Sundays in counties that allowed sales.
Those additional crashes led to a 42 percent increase in alcohol-related fatalities on Sundays. If we apply these same percentages to Georgia’s highways, using 2006 data from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, we can expect approximate increases of 371 alcohol-related crashes and six alcohol-related fatalities per year.
No other day of the week saw a statistically significant change in the percentage of alcohol-related crashes and fatalities after the enacted legislation, according to the study. Counties that chose not to participate saw their Sunday accident and fatality statistics remain similar to before.
The Republican principle of individual freedom is just as important to me as it is to my colleagues in the legislature, but so is the principle of protecting innocent Georgians.
Click below to continue.
If you have ever comforted the parents or grandparents of a young person lost in a DUI crash, then you know that the cost of this proposal is too great and the damage it stands to inflict is too heavy a burden for innocent families to bear.
I know that Georgians expect me as their Governor to do all that I can to make the people of this state as safe as possible. That’s why I have made creating a Safe Georgia one of the cornerstones of my administration, and that’s why I will continue to argue against this legislation out of concern for the safety of every Georgian.
I urge the members of the General Assembly to heed the warning conveyed in the final sentence of the New Mexico study, “State legislators should consider [the] consequences when deciding on policy that is intended to serve the public well-being.”
We owe it to the citizens of this state to consider the cause-and-effect of our actions. There is no doubt that this legislation will make Georgia roads more dangerous. We cannot afford to jeopardize people’s lives, nor can we stick our heads in the sand pretending that our actions will have no consequences, even under the guise of letting the people choose.
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‘Life belt’ bill has new chrome — an amendment to discourage product liability lawsuits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re in the dangerous, final days of the Legislature’s winter session, during which bills get married to amendments of an entirely different species.
The Georgia Trial Lawyers Association has spotted one.
S.B. 412, sponsored by state Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur), a car dealer, began innocuously enough. This legislation would change “seat belts” to “life belts” in Georgia law books. “Air bags” would be known as “life bags.”
Jones’ measure is now sporting some very strange chrome. The amendment would severely restrict product liability lawsuits in Georgia. The entire bill goes before the House motor vehicles committee at 2 p.m. today.
To read the amendment, go to the jump:
“Any claim against a manufacturer for a defective product under this Code section shall require proof that the manufacturer made the actual product alleged to have caused the injury and that that the product was the proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiff. Proof that a manufacturer made or sold the same type or category of product alleged to be defective shall not satisfy the requirements of this Code section. A manufacturer shall not be held liable for the manufacture of a defective product based on theories of market share, enterprise, risk contribution, or other theories of industry-wide liability or on the basis that the product or its use constitutes a public nuisance.”
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Perdue says he’d campaign against a sales tax for transportation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue promised a group of rural lawmakers on Thursday that, should the November ballot include a referendum on regional sales taxes for transportation, he’ll campaign against it.
The House is scheduled to vote on S.R. 845 today.
News of the 4 p.m. meeting with the governor comes from a Republican lawmaker who was one of 30 or so members of the bipartisan rural caucus, invited to the session by Perdue.
Two Democrats, Charles Jenkins of Blairsville and Barbara Reece of Menlo, both attended the meeting and gave essentially the same account. Both continue to support S.R. 845.
“I don’t remember his exact words, but he did say he was going to campaign against it through November,” Reece recalled.
Remember that the governor has established a 527 organization called Perdue PAC, which would be able to act as a treasury for such a campaign. No doubt many organizations that support the sales tax for transportation also contributed to Perdue PAC.
S.R. 845 would permit the creation of regional alliances empowered to levy a one-cent sales tax for all forms of transportation, including rail. Read more detail about amendments to the current version here.
In the meeting, the governor reportedly cited several reasons for opposing the legislation. First, it would take transportation policy out of the hands of the state. Money would flow primarily to metro Atlanta.
According to this lawmaker, the governor also said it made no sense to vote for what he called a tax increase at the same time the House is calling for a tax cut.
Perdue isn’t the only one applying heat to House members. Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform has notified those who have signed a no-new-taxes pledge put out by the organization that voting in favor of S.R. 845 would be a violation of that oath.
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Bob Barr thinking ‘very serious’ thoughts about a presidential race, Iraq, and torture
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On an Internet site called Anti-War Radio, former Georgia congressman Bob Barr confirmed on Wednesday that he’s “very seriously” looking at joining the race for the White House as a Libertarian — and had harsh words for both the Iraq war and for the Bush Administration’s defense of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Many thanks to blogger Jason Pye for passing on word of the interview.
On a presidential run, Barr said:
“There’s been a tremendous expressed to me both directly and indirectly on the Internet. I take that support very seriously, and I think it also reflects a great deal of dissatisfaction with the current candidates and the current two-party system. So it is something, to be honest with you, that I’m looking very seriously at.”
Barr said a Libertarian candidacy would essentially be an extension of the Ron Paul campaign.
“Ron Paul tapped into a great deal of that dissatisfaction and that awareness. Unfortunately, working through the Republican party structure, it became impossible for him to really move forward with his movement. But we have to have ….a rallying point out there to harness that energy, that freedom in this election cycle,” Barr said.
On Iraq:
“What we’ve fallen into in recent years — not just since 9/11, but particularly since 9/11 — is this notion that, in order to protect ourselves, we have to preemptively go into and — in the case of Iraq — occupy another sovereign nation,” Barr said. “Simply saying, ‘Gee, it’s better to fight over in this other nation and destroy another nation, so we’re not potentially attacked here, is the height of arrogance.”
As for the Bush administration’s refusal to define waterboarding as torture, Barr referred to the practice as “sophistry of the worst and rankest order.”
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Perdue and his economists meet with senators to talk tax cuts and the economy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sonny Perdue and his team of economists went up to the fourth floor of the state Capitol on Wednesday afternoon to meet with members of the Senate. If the governor intended to talk that chamber out of pursuing a tax cut in the last six days of this session, it didn’t work.
The governor said he didn’t push the case himself. “Although the economists did indicate to them that they didn’t think — in a balanced-budget state environment — this was a good time to be cutting revenue when revenue was already on a downward trend,” Perdue said.
The governor said the economy continues to contract, but maintained that whether the word “recession” should be used is purely a matter for academics to debate.
The economy was the chief topic of discussion, but the governor’s revenue estimates were another. On Tuesday, Perdue sent this letter to House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, accusing the House of passing a 2009 budget that was $17 million out of balance — and threatening to lower his revenue estimate even further. He’s already done it once.
“Oftentimes, conspiracy theories develop around here,” Perdue said. “That the governor’s trying to play games with the revenue estimate, to give us heartburn during the appropriations — and really I just wanted to share the facts as I get them.
“I don’t make up the revenue estimate,” the governor said. “I rely on trusted professionals to look at all the factors — of employment and housing and all those things — and come to a point.”
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle invited the governor to speak with members of the Senate. Cagle said nice things about Perdue — but made it clear that he was still committed to a 10 percent cut in the state income tax.
“We still believe that that is good sound public policy. We need to make sure that we are able to put more money in each individual’s pocket,” Cagle said. “Whether we can get to an agreement with the house still has yet to be determined.”
Oh, and Cagle agreed with the governor on one thing. The alleged out-of-balance budget passed by the House.
“I firmly agree with the governor. The House obviously did not pass a balanced budget. It’s very unprecedented. For them to say contrary is somewhat perplexing,” Cagle said.
That ought to do wonders for House-Senate negotiations.
Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simons Island spoke for the House leadership. “We sent over there a very fiscally conservative budget,” he said.
As for a tax cut, Keen said, “We could argue that the best time to give tax relief is in fact when the economy is slowing. Even the Democrats in Washington get that.”
Obviously, Keen doesn’t expect any support from the governor’s office. “The only way that Georgians are going to see a tax cut out of this legislative session is if its voted on in a constitutional amendment,” he said. That way, no gubernatorial approval is needed.
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Head of Facility Group indicted by feds for ‘trying to influence’ Mississippi official
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is in today’s Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger:
Three Georgia businessmen face a 16-count federal indictment involving the defunct Mississippi Beef Processors Plant, including allegations that their company tried to influence a Mississippi public official through campaign contributions.
The indictment charges Robert Moultrie, 67, of Smyrna; Charles Morehead, 57, of Lilburn and Nixon Cawood, 58, of Woodstock with one count of conspiracy to corruptly influence a public official and 15 counts of mail fraud….
The processing plant opened in August 2004 but shut down three months later, costing the state about $55 million.
Robert Moultrie is chairman of The Facility Group of Smyrna, an architectural and engineering firm with deep political ties in Georgia. House Rules Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) is a senior vice president for the company.
The Associated Press had this:
Ehrhart said he was not involved in the federal probe.
“I’ve never been interviewed by any law enforcement about anything,” said the Republican from Powder Springs. “I haven’t done anything.”
Ehrhart referred additional questions to a company spokesman, Flip Spiceland, who said Ehrhart was not involved. Spiceland said he could not talk about the facts of the case, but he said business was proceeding as usual at the company.
Says the Clarion-Ledger:
The indictment said Moultrie and Cawood carried out a scheme to give more than the allowable $5,000 in campaign contributions to the re-election campaign of the unnamed public official, who is not indicted, intending to influence and reward him for the state selecting The Facility Group to manage the design and construction of the beef plant.
Federal officials would not identify the “public official,” but former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove’s 2003 re-election campaign finance records match the contributions listed in the indictment. Musgrove is now a candidate for U.S. Senate.
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Coastal bill supporters may let measure die rather than permit restriction to Jekyll Island development
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An amendment that challenges development plans for Jekyll Island could kill S.B. 367, a bill to avoid the automatic repeal of the Georgia Coastal Management Act.
Backers of the bill, who include state Sens. Ross Tolleson (R-Perry) and Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), are spreading the word that they’ll let the measure die rather than accept the provision a House committee attached last week, which would bar development of a huge parking lot on Jekyll that provides direct access to the beach.
The amendment was approved on a narrow 9-8 vote last Thursday. The House Natural Resources committee has yet to report the bill out to the House Rules committee, which in itself is unusual. Click here for the amendment offered by Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City). It’s not on the legislative web site yet.
As originally written, S.B. 367 is intended to extend the Georgia Coastal Management Act, which is set to expire July 1, 2009. The plan gives Georgia access to federal funds for coastal repair.
Supporters of S.B. 367 — and the Jekyll development plan currently in the works — say environmentalists and island enthusiasts are jeopardizing the $2.3 million in annual federal funding, all for the sake of a parking lot.
On the right is the photograph that’s being e-mailed around the state Capitol by those in favor of the current Jekyll plan, featuring the territory in dispute.
Environmentalists we’ve spoken to say that, with expiration of the coastal plan more than a year away, the Legislature would have another crack at extension next year.
And the parking lot, they say, is more than a parking lot. “Where else can you drive up to the edge of the dunes and go to the beach?” asked House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin).
Well, there’s Tybee Island, isn’t there?
But that’s built up, Porter said.
This may be the most significant development in regard to Jekyll politics. In the Senate, state Sen. Jeff Chapman (R-Brunswick) has been the champion of the less-is-more side of remaking the island.
But in the House, Democrats are the ones who have taken the lead, with a significant slice of the Republican caucus.
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The cat’s not away yet, but the mice are already breaking out the croquet mallets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The plan is for the Republican-controlled Legislature to conceive and execute a tax cut next week — by a two-thirds vote in each chamber — after Gov. Sonny Perdue takes a fast plane to China.
He’s not scheduled to return until April 5. Perhaps, legislators say, they’ll be gone by then.
The governor has opposed initiatives both in the House, which wants to eliminate the car-tag tax, and the Senate, which has proposed a slice in the state income tax. But Perdue has no say-so over proposed ballot initiatives, which is the form any tax cut would take.
One suspects that this is, at least in part, why governor on Tuesday threatened another reduction in state revenue predictions for ’09, to make it harder for the two chambers to come to terms. Here’s a copy of the letter Perdue sent to House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
But the Legislature’s serious about this one. How serious? Without waiting for the nicety of a measure to pass both chambers, the House and Senate have already named six conferees to negotiate a deal. Both sides have confirmed this.
Negotiators for the House are House Ways and Means Chairman Larry O’Neal (R-Perry), and state Reps. James Mills (R-Gainesville) and Greg Morris (R-Vidalia). On the Senate side, the trio consists of Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams (R-Lyons), and state Sens. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) and David Shafer (R-Duluth).
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Perdue signs city of Dunwoody into existence
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue just signed S.B. 82, creating the city of Dunwoody.
As of last week, state Rep. Fran Millar, who pressed the case for the new city over several years, said he wasn’t planning to run as its first mayor.
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Never mind those lasses deployed in enemy regions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Acronyms are tiny, helpless creatures that should be treated with respect. They ought not be tortured.
But it is election season, and U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens) has a tough primary ahead of him. The congressman has posted this idea on the Republican Study Committee web site:
“I am introducing the SOLDIER SUPPORT Act: Support Our Lads Deployed In Enemy Regions by Sending Useless Pet Projects Overseas to Reinforce our Troops.
“This legislation would authorize the President - as Commander in Chief - to transfer funding for any earmark listed in either the current FY08 Omnibus or the upcoming FY09 appropriations bills directly to war-related activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Lads? Are the British still over there?
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That Martin-Cardwell video on YouTube
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ron Marshall of the New Grady Coalition has copped to putting up that WSB-TV clip on YouTube last Saturday.
The video shows Jim Martin, then the head of the state Department of Human Resources, in a piece on the impact of a failed computer system on those who receive welfare checks. Dale Cardwell was the reporter.
Both Cardwell and Martin, of course, are Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate.
Responding to yesterday’s post on the topic, Marshall — who says he likes Cardwell in the race — wrote this morning:
“As chairman of the New Grady Coalition and a concerned citizen, I posted the story because I believe it catches Jim Martin in a hypocritical situation: How can he advocate for struggling families and their children, when he chose to harm them in 2003?
“…..Martin’s failure to repair the DFACS computers helped his Republican boss Sonny Perdue cut the budget, even before Perdue ordered the across the board 2.5% cuts. Who side is this guy on?”
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‘Close’ vote anticipated for transportation sales tax on Thursday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It looks like we’re headed for a dicey showdown in the House over transportation on Thursday — a rewrite of S.R. 845 is to come up for the required two-thirds floor vote.
This is the ballot initiative that would allow regions within Georgia to levy a penny sales tax to go toward transportation needs — including rail.
Three amendments to the House transportation committee substitute, engineered by chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain), have been added by the rules committee. Each is intended to enhance the measure’s chances of getting to the 121-vote mark.
One would make it easier for counties to opt out of the taxing regions. “I insisted on that,” said House Rules Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs). And so did members of the Senate.
A second would redirect a penny sales tax on gasoline, which now goes to the state general fund, to transportation programs that would benefit rural Georgia. This was required by House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin), whose Democratic votes are needed for passage.
A third provision would exempt — from any regional sales tax — non-road fuel purchases made by airlines, fishermen, construction workers, and those who use off-road vehicles.
I asked Ehrhart whether the votes for the measure were there. “I honestly don’t know,” he relied. “It’s going to be close.”
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Vintage video: CBS posts its original 1996 report on Hillary Clinton’s trip to Bosnia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is confessing that she “misspoke” when she described the dangers she faced on a 1996 trip to Bosnia she made as First Lady.
The CBS video that compares Clinton’s speech last week with actual footage from the trip has made it onto YouTube in several forms.
Hillary Clinton’s 1996 trip to Bosnia, posted by CBS
But the network has also taken taken the unusual step of posting on YouTube the original report from the trip, filed by reporter Sharyl Attkisson and the CBS crew that accompanied Clinton 12 years ago.
It contains references to dangers that U.S. troops in the area faced, and notes that Hillary Clinton was going deeper into Bosnia than Bill Clinton had two months earlier. But no sniper fire.
The report also notes Hillary Clinton’s greatest political worry at the time — that the trip wwould somehow provoke charges that she was engaged in an activity best left to her husband-president.
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Wanted: Hired gun to help topple Civil Rights icon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Attention, job-seekers. Blog for Democracy has found a fascinating opportunity on a political employment web site.
It seems as if an “oratorically gifted challenger” with a surging public personality — why, aren’t those the exact words that Markel Hutchins’ mother uses to describe her son? — is looking for an experienced campaign manager to help him unseat a veteran incumbent who has recently come under fire and may — or may not — be U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta.
No Republicans need apply. Applicants should note that this candidate appears to be highly efficient at delegating. Also, there is the possibility that the position has already been filled.
Hutchins announced his Democratic primary challenge about two weeks after the following want-ad was posted:
GEORGIA (D):Experienced Campaign Manager needed for Atlanta-area congressional district challenger. This unique and historic campaign is expected to pit an older, well-known and veteran incumbent who has recently come under political fire, against a young, charismatic and oratorically-gifted challenger whose public personality has surged in recent times. The campaign manager’s duties: developing and executing a campaign plan, fundraising, organizing/recruiting and managing volunteers, coordinating the mail program, representing the campaign at events, organizing voter contact events, and other administrative tasks. Please send a cover letter, resume and salary requirements as soon as possible to changeinga@gmail.com. Posted: 2/11/08.
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A departure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By now you’ll have noticed we are much reduced. Bob Kemper has departed the Political Insider blog and our AJC bureau in Washington to pursue other opportunities. Feel free to wish him Godspeed below, as his friends here do.
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China, Tibet, and two Georgia events
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue and some 60 tagalongs — state officials, business and academic types, and press — depart on Sunday for Shanghai and Beijing.
The trip marks the debut of Delta Airline’s non-stop Atlanta-to-Shanghai service, and the opening of a trade office in Beijing.
Both are big, much-anticipated events. Delta is in difficult straits, and Georgia’s economy is swooning. But diplomatically speaking, the trip couldn’t come at a worse time — in the midst of China’s largest spate of internal unrest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Thousands of Chinese troops have been roughly injected into Tibet and neighboring provinces. The authoritarian nation, already made nervous by the prospect of uncontrollable visitors to the Beijing Olympics this summer, has shut down borders and barred the international press from its western reaches.
A Chinese team will make its North American debut in next month’s Tour de Georgia. Chris Hunt/AJC
Expect Perdue & Co. to adopt a business-as-usual attitude throughout the six-day trip. President Bush set the tone late last week when he announced the unrest in Tibet would not affect his plans to make an appearance at the Olympics.
“We defer to the federal government on all foreign policy matters. We go to effect economic development, and we will stay away from diplomatic issues,” said Chris Young, Perdue’s chief of protocol.
Gary Black, who’ll be making the trip as president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said the briefing he received last week made no mention of Tibet. “This was a briefing that we would have gotten six months or six weeks ago,” he said.
In case the topic didn’t come up, members of the Georgia delegation might want to take heed of this “Olympics Fact Sheet” just put out by the U.S. State Department, which notes:
“All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times.”
The governor’s most careful moments are likely to come during the speech he’s scheduled to give in Beijing, apparently on the topic of economic gains that China might expect this summer — if all goes well. The title of Perdue’s address is “Open for Business: The International Spotlight of the Olympic Games.”
But when it comes to China and Tibet, state officials may be less worried about a slip of the tongue during a business trip, and more worried about what happens in Georgia next month.
The Tour de Georgia, now with Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle at its head, has snagged the first Chinese bicycle team ever to compete in North America. Like most modern bicycle squads, the make-up of the GE Marco Polo team is international, but it will be led by Olympic hopeful Li Fuyu of China.
The Chinese television network CCTV has committed to carrying the race, which runs April 21-27.
Bicycle races and protests have a long history, and it’s entirely possible that “Free Tibet” signs could pop up in the farthest reaches of rural Georgia. Attempting to shield a 600-mile event from demonstrators would be futile.
“The event is not a political event. That said, we can’t dictate to people where they can engage in demonstrations or messaging,” said Chris Aronhalt, the tour director. “But at this point, there’s no cause for alarm.”
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A U.S. Senate poll, and a not-so-mysterious YouTube clip
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dale Cardwell, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, called a couple times over the weekend — excited by a Rasmussen poll of 500 Georgia voters conducted on March 20 — and available by subscription only — that shows him doing better against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss than his other two Democratic rivals, Vernon Jones and Jim Martin.
You folks can debate whether the margin of error, probably at 4 to 5 percentage points, gives the following horse-race numbers any statistical significance:
— Chambliss vs. Cardwell, 52 to 36 percent;
— Chambliss vs. Jones, 56 to 30 percent;
— Chambliss vs. Martin, 51 to 33 percent.
Chambliss’ combined unfavorables were at 29 percent; Jones’ were at 58 percent; Martin’s at 33 percent; and Cardwell’s at 35 percent.
A Martin-Cardwell clip on YouTube
Cardwell, a former reporter for WSB-TV in Atlanta, is probably the Democratic candidate most overshadowed by last week’s entry of Jim Martin into the Senate race. Perhaps that’s why someone — we don’t know who — chose to post this WSB clip on YouTube on Saturday.
The undated video, labeled “Jim Martin’s Secret,” features Martin, while he was head of the state Department of Human Resources, trying to explain why many state workers were “twiddling their thumbs” because of a fractious computer system.
Oh, and the reporter was a fellow named Dale Cardwell.
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The slight upside to an examination of Obama and his pastor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Republican strategist in Georgia who was thinking deep thoughts on Sunday night came up with this:
Yes, last week’s tumult over Barack Obama was painful and messy for the Democratic presidential candidate.
But by debating Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ, his controversial, now former pastor, voters were required to set aside as false all those Internet-based rumors and insinuations that the candidate is a secret follower of Islam.
“No one is going into the booth in November thinking the guy is a Muslim,” our deep thinker said.
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There are back-door increases that must be stopped, and then there are back-door increases that just make sense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The gods of irony are working overtime at your state Capitol.
On one hand, we’ve got a proposed constitutional amendment to put a cap on property taxes levied by local governments. Last week, a Senate committee moved the measure closer to a floor vote by the chamber, minus a provision eliminating the car tag tax approved by the House.
Why cap property taxes? Lawmakers say they want to do away with the back-door tax hikes that come with ever-rising appraisals — never mind the current housing slump. “If local officials want to raise taxes, they should have to do it openly and honestly,” Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter said.
On the other hand, back-door increases in the amount people with large wallets can give to candidates for state office are perfectly fine. Republicans have discovered a neglected cost-of-living trigger in a state campaign finance law written by Democrats.
Adjusted for inflation, the amount a single donor can contribute to a candidate for statewide office has increased from $13,000 in 2006 to $15,300 in 2008. The amount candidates for the state Legislature can accept has increased from $5,000 to $5,800.
Go figure.
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Obama’s secret campaign strategy now available to you for only five C’s
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
David Plouffe, campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, is the headliner at an April 2 fund-raiser in Atlanta. It’ll cost you $500 to walk through the door for a “strategy briefing.”
Check out the sponsors listed on the invitation here. Two latecomers, U.S. Reps. John Barrow of Savannah and John Lewis of Atlanta, are among them.
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Huckabee on Obama, Wright: ‘Cut some slack to people who grew up on the back of the bus’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After a long, well-earned vacation, Mike Huckabee showed up on television this week.
He’s no longer a presidential candidate. But he remains the Republican of an unpredictable stripe. Huckabee appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.
Below is the generous analysis that Huckabee — remember that he’s done time as a Southern Baptist pastor — gave of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s speech on race.
And while he didn’t defend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s statements, Huckabee did try to put them in context.
But the former Arkansas governor, who carried Georgia in the February primary, also spoke as someone who grew up in the segregated South, and his observations at the very bottom of the transcript that follows are what might surprise you.
Mike Huckabee sits with the A.D. King family during the Martin Luther King, Jr. commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in January. Mikki K. Harris/AJC
Huckabee said:
”Obama has handled this about as well as anybody could. And I agree, it’s a very historic speech. I think that it was an important one, and one that he had to deliver. And he couldn’t wait. The sooner he made it, maybe the quicker that this becomes less of the issue. Otherwise, it was the only thing that was the issue in his entire campaign. And I thought he handled it very, very well.
“And he made the point, and I think it’s a valid one, that you can’t hold the candidate responsible for everything around him that people may say or do. You just can’t, whether it’s me, whether it’s Obama, or anybody else.
“But he did distance himself from the very vitriolic statements. Now, the second story — it’s interesting to me that there are some people on the left that are having to be very uncomfortable with what [Jeremiah] Wright said when they were all over a Jerry Falwell or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable years ago.
“Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. Sermons, after all, are rarely written word-for-word by pastors like Reverend Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you’d say, ‘Well, I probably didn’t mean to say it quite like that……’
“And one other thing I think we’ve got to remember.
“As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say ‘That’s a terrible statement’ — I grew up in a very segregated South.
“And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you — we’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie, you have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant, you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.
“And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment, and you have to just say, ‘I probably would, too.’”
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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.
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Not all frogs are green, not all cars are Fords, and not all African-Americans are Democrats
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’ll see a story on Thursday that says Democrat Jim Martin has been calling black legislators at the state Capitol, trying to persuade them to back his candidacy for the U.S. Senate.
Some African-Americans are uncomfortable challenging DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, who is also in the race. (Others may be working another game — withholding support as a means of pressuring strategists in Washington to ante up cash for the contest.)
On Wednesday, state Rep. Bob Holmes (D-Atlanta) was the only black lawmaker listed as a supporter in Martin’s announcement.
“Vernon has done a lot of good things over in DeKalb, but I haven’t seen indication of him having a statewide constituency,” Holmes said. “I would have expected to see his fund-raising and polling look better than what it looks to be.”
Melvin Everson, a two-term House member from Snellville, was one of many African-Americans who also have received calls from Martin.
Melvin Everson of Snellville, who is not a Democrat. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
“He told me, ‘I’m seriously considering entering the race against Saxby Chambliss,” Everson recounted.
Everson replied that this was nice, but he would be supporting Chambliss. “Before you go any further,” the lawmaker added, “I want you to know I’m a Republican.”
Oops.
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Democrat Jim Martin announces for U.S. Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democrat Jim Martin just announced that he’s joined the U.S. Senate race to unseat Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
“Today, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, it’s clear that the current administration is on the wrong track. We need a Senator in Washington who answers to Georgians and not to George Bush and Dick Cheney 92 percent of the time,” Martin said in a press release e-mailed at noon.
“Senator Chambliss’s uncritical advocacy of the Iraq war has been matched only by his disregard for the soldiers fighting it and their families. I believe we should respect our troops by using them more effectively and taking better care of them when they come home,” Martin said.
The Atlanta attorney and former legislator joins five other Democrats already in the race: Former TV journalist Dale Cardwell; DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones; ecologist Rand Knight; Statesboro businessman Josh Lanier; and Rockdale County teacher Maggie Martinez.
Martin claims endorsements from numerous political, civic, and business leaders across Georgia, including: former First Lady Rosalynn Carter; former Gov. Roy Barnes; Commissioner of Agriculture Tommy Irvin; House Minority Leader DuBose Porter; State Rep. Bob Holmes; and Steve Leeds, a close associate of former U.S. senator Max Cleland — whom Chambliss defeated in 2002.
Martin’s web site is here.
Chambliss, who reported $4.4 million on hand to defend his seat late last year, is to hold a 3:30 p.m. rally at the state Capitol today with Gov. Sonny Perdue.
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Jim Martin for Senate? He’s got a web site, but…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He hasn’t formally announced his candidacy, but Democrat Jim Martin has set up this web site, with this caption: “Today, I announced my candidacy for U.S. Senate. Please contribute to help us build the site!”
And it’s dated March 19. That’s today.
We’ve got a call into Martin’s daughter, who’s been acting as spokeswoman, to see if this is real — or an Internet snafu. But there’s no word around the Capitol of any imminent appearance by Martin here or anywhere else. So stay tuned.
In the meantime, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, who has $4.4 million to Martin’s zero, makes an appearance at the state Capitol this afternoon with Gov. Sonny Perdue and every Republican lawmaker he can muster.
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Correll on a Grady CEO: ‘It’s going to take an experienced executive’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, WABE (90.1 FM) broadcast a telling interview with Pete Correll, who on Monday was named chairman of Grady Memorial Hospital’s new non-profit governing board.
Reading between the sound bites, it sounds like state Rep. Pam Stephenson (D-Atlanta), a lawyer who is currently serving as the CEO of Grady hospital, might not have the $600,000-a-year job for long.
The Atlanta public radio station has posted the audio here.
Pete Correll, the new chairman of the non-profit Grady Hospital board. Jenni Girtman / AJC
But here’s a partial transcript:
Morning Edition host Steve Goss: We see that Pam Stephenson has been named vice chair of the board. Will she continue as CEO of Grady hospital?
Pete Correll: She will certainly continue as CEO, as I understand it, through the time that the lease commences. Of course, that’s a decision of the Grady hospital authority board, not the new board.
The new board has not discussed what we’re going to do for a CEO going forward. And if Pam wants to be a candidate, she clearly would be, but this is a big job, and it’s going to take an experienced executive who’s done it before to lead this hospital through the magnitude of the financial transformation we’ve got to go through.
Goss: Do you feel she’s qualified to run Grady hospital?
Correll:You know, I honestly do not have any opinion on that. I’ve not studied Pam’s resume and what she’s done. She’s dealt very credibly with me. I have a lot of respect for her. This has been a difficult six months, but in terms of whether she’s qualified to run the hospital, I just don’t know enough to have an opinion.
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Kingston on Obama: Despite the speech, the Democrat’s former pastor ‘disturbs’ voters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the same day that Barack Obama gave his speech on race in Philadelphia, who should visit the state Capitol on Tuesday but U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, the Savannah Republican who — in the last few weeks — has made a small career of talking about Obama’s refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin.
Kingston, of course, didn’t have a flag pin on his suit.
The congressman has taken some heat for his televised shots at Obama, and we asked if he considered them a mistake. Clearly, Kingston did not.
“My view is as long as the left, the Obama people, are attacking me about Obama not wearing a lapel pin, I think they’re choosing the debate topic — and we’re solid on that all day long,” Kingston said. “People in my district know that I will and have worn American flag lapel buttons. They did not know that Obama refuses to.”
Kingston said he didn’t watch Obama deliver his address on race — but nonetheless was willing to predict a result.
“It could have the impact that [Republican Mitt] Romney’s speech had on being a Mormon — that it was great for those who already support Obama,” Kingston said. “But you still have a long relationship with Jeremiah Wright and a guy who’s very divisive. And it disturbs people.”
He continued: “I think that the think that’s happened with Obama is that the primary — up until Ohio — has been a powderpuff contest, where you just couldn’t attack him. And now that boundary’s been broken — people have to answer questions. He’s answering. But you were forbidden to ask questions until about a month ago.”
The full text of Barack Obama’s speech on race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The following is the text of Barack Obama’s remarks on race in Philadelphia, as prepared for delivery Tuesday, sent to us by his campaign:
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild.”
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicia ns, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
Whoops. Looks like Cagle will call for a cut in income taxes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Judging from an errant e-mail sent out by state Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson’s office, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is about to enter the tax cut sweepstakes with a cut in income taxes.
Johnson sent out a statement — which his staff quickly tried to recall — congratulating the lieutenant governor on his decision, hours before it was announced.
Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
This was said, then not said, by the Senate president pro tem:
“By reducing income taxes, we will encourage productivity, reward work and savings, and create wealth. This will grow the economy and create jobs. John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan proved it. It will also allow families to keep more of their own money to pay for gas, health care and education. It’s good policy.”
An income tax would be the final limb in a three-legged race to the end of the session. The House has backed the elimination of the property tax on vehicles, and Gov. Sonny Perdue is calling for an income tax exemption for wealthier seniors.
A south Georgia ear, bent to hear what Barack Obama says today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will speak in Philadelphia today, asking that everyone tone down the racial rhetoric.
But it’s also assumed that Obama will try to distance himself from “stupid statements”: made by his longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
One of those who will be listening intently is Democratic blogger Sid Cottingham, a white Coffee County attorney who is an Obama supporter. But the “cracker squire,” as Cottingham calls himself, sounds as if he needs some reassurance.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama on Capitol Hill in Washington last week. Alex Brandon/AP
The south Georgian compared Obama’s upcoming speech to John F. Kennedy’s address on his Catholicism:
”If he is to be our president, it is incumbent on him to show us what kind of America he believes in, and yes, what kind of America Michelle Obama believes in — if, somehow in her adult life, she truly has never been proud of her country until her husband’s recent successes.
“And we must know for sure, not just words, but for sure, that his view of America differs from that of Rev. Wright and that Rev. Wright does not speak for Obama and Michelle Obama.”
As a warm-up, Obama made an appearance Monday night on PBS’ “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”
Read the entire transcript here, but this is the meat:
GWEN IFILL:The distinction between you and Senator Clinton that’s been drawn by both of you over the last several weeks has been judgment versus experience, so let me ask you about your judgment on some issues, not only Reverend Wright and your association with him over the years, but also Tony Rezko, who you’ve talked a lot about recently, the Chicago developer who is now on trial on federal charges.
Do you think that your association with those two people or people we don’t know about would raise questions about your judgment?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, no. Look, all of us have people in our lives who we meet, we get to know, and in some cases form friendships with who end up getting themselves into trouble or say things that we don’t agree with.
And, you know, probably what’s true is, because I haven’t been in Washington as long as Senator Clinton or others, that, you know, I have not distanced myself from these people for as long of a period of time as somebody, you know, more steeped in Washington politics might have.
But keep in mind, on all these issues, there’s no allegations that I’ve done anything wrong. Just as in the situation with Reverend Wright, there’s no allegation that I said something that was inappropriate.
And so I think the American people recognize that all of us have friends or associates or people who we meet along the way who are not ideal or perfect, but that’s part of — you know, part of what life is about.
Broun’s own poll says he’s in great shape, and Majette makes her choice for U.S. Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A few things worth noting this morning:
— A polling firm hired by U.S. Rep. Paul Broun — the phrase constitutes a warning to take what follows with a grain of salt — says the Republican incumbent has nothing to fear from a primary challenge.
The survey was conducted March 11-12, and included 400 likely Republican voters in the 10th congressional district.
Download the entire memo here, but this is the gist:
”Paul Broun is perhaps one of the safer incumbents now in Congress - at least in terms of a potential primary threat. Despite having been elected in a special election less than one year ago, Congressman Broun enjoys strong support (71%) in a three-way contest for the Republican nomination. Broun is well-liked by the Republican electorate and they approve of his performance at an even stronger level.”
— Rand Knight, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, says he’s pocketed an endorsement from Denise Majette, the former congresswoman who challenged Johnny Isakson for his Senate seat in ’04.
Majette won 40 percent of the vote.
In his press release, Knight declares himself “humbled” by Majette’s decision, and Majette praises Knight’s “intelligence, enthusiasm and commitment.”
— Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent in this year’s U.S. Senate race, announced his bid for re-election on Monday. He’s got a 3 p.m. Wednesday appearance scheduled at the state Capitol.
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Baited, then switched: Internet contract to cut the lines of hunting, tackle shops
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For years, Georgia’s smallest newspapers have been battling a push in the Legislature to shift legal ads — the bread and butter of many local publications — to the Internet.
But while eyes were glued to that fight, another time-honored group has found itself sandbagged by Web-based progress. The victims: the 1,000 or so bait, tackle and hunting shops across the state.
Gov. Sonny Perdue has signed a contract with a Missouri-based firm to offer hunting and other sportsmen’s fees on-line, over the phone — and at “a few major licensing outlets like Wal-Mart,” according to the Rome News-Tribune.
The good news is that the contract eliminated the need for a new licensing system that would have cost the state $8 million. The bad news is that smaller enterprises — which have used license sales as a lure for purchases of beer, snacks and gear — will be out of luck.
Oh, and fees will go up.
S.B. 382, sponsored by Sens. Bill Heath (R-Bremen) and Ross Tolleson (R-Perry) and now in the House, is intended to soften the financial blow to hunters and fisherpeople.
Nothing like an over-active neural synapse to turn an election on its head
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Drew Westen, the Emory University professor of psychology/psychiatry turned political consultant, has a piece in the New Republic in which he says Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are handing John McCain a gift beyond measure.
Says Westen:
“With their nomination process in suspended animation, the Democrats are in danger of employing the best strategy for losing in November: Waiting until the Democratic primary contest is over to start a full-fledged branding campaign against the presumptive Republican nominee.
Not only is this stupid on a strategic level, but it makes no sense neurologically, he says. Really. Westen writes:
”Much of our brain consists of networks of associations — thoughts, images, ideas, memories, and emotions — that become connected with each other over time, so that activating one part of a network activates the rest (including the gut-level feelings associated with a candidate that ‘summarize’ voters’ judgments about the candidate and are among the best predictors in the voting booth). The more times a network is activated, the harder it is to change, for reasons both physiological and psychological….
“That means that the more times voters hear John McCain described as a war hero and a strong potential commander-in-chief — instead of, for example, a man with such poor judgment on national security that he would support an endless continuation of an ill-fated war much like the one he suffered through despite his own personal experience — the harder it will be to deactivate that network and inhibit those neural links.”
Westen calls on Democrats to unleash their 527s while Obama and Clinton mop things up.
Don’t think of them as lobbyists. Think of them as matchmakers with an agenda
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Love was in the air this Valentine’s Day at the state Capitol. But not just between lawmakers and their spouses. Political relationships are more complicated that that. This was a kind of affection shared by lawmakers, their spouses — and their lobbyist friends.
More than a dozen lawmakers went out for dinner with their wives last Feb. 14 on a lobbyist’s tab, according to our AJC colleague James Salzer. The monthly reports of spending filed by lobbyists only recently came due.
Roger Lane, longtime lobbyist for the Georgia Oilmen’s Association, declared he spent a little over $1,000 taking out state Reps. Jay Shaw (D-Lakeland), Johnny Floyd (R-Cordele), Carl Rogers (R-Gainesville), Mark Williams (R-Jesup) and Larry O’Neal (R-Bonaire) and their significant others.
Car dealer lobbyist William Morie spent about $600 to wine and dine state Reps. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain), Donna Sheldon (R-Dacula) and Katie Dempsey (R-Rome) and their spouses.
Lobbyists representing Georgia Power and Georgia Natural Gas picked up a dinner bill of almost $600 for Reps. Gene Maddox (R-Cairo), Jim Cole (R-Forsyth), Jimmy Pruett (R-Eastman), Butch Parrish (R-Swainsboro) and Mickey Channell (R-Greensboro) and their wives.
Another Georgia Power lobbyist paid $143.98 on Valentine’s Day to take out Rep. Tom McCall (R-Elberton) and his wife.
Others lobbyists gave lawmakers and staffers a group hug on Valentine’s Day. Salzer reports that the lobbying firm run by former secretary of state Lewis Massey and GOP activist Bruce Bowers doled out about $950 to pay for meals of lawmakers and legislative staffers on Valentine’s Day.
Steven Neff, who lobbies for libraries and assisted living facilities, among others, spent almost $900 on lunches for the secretaries of senators.
Chuck McMullen, who represents the people who make Budweiser, Grady Memorial Hospital and private prisons, came through with more than $900 for meals for the Senate Republican Caucus and the Senate Appropriations Committee — plus their staff.
Private prisons and Grady have tens of millions of dollars at stake in the budget.
But there’s always a cheap date or two on Valentine’s Day, and poultry lobbyist Abit Massey, father of Lewis, found one. He spent a grand total of $3.51 to buy lunch for Rep. Bob Lane (R-Statesboro). Alas, Lane apparently dined alone. Except for the lobbyist.
Porter: Democrats will insist on cash for mass transit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Democrats will insist that a measure to allow residents of metro Atlanta and offer regions to vote on a penny sales tax for transportation permit some of the cash to be used for rail.
That’s what House Minority Leader DuBose Porter said Monday at a rally for mass transit proponents at the state Capitol.
“We cannot pave our way out of gridlock. This is someone from rural Georgia talking,” Porter said. “If people are going to vote to tax themselves, we’re going to make sure they have the option of mass transit.”
House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin) at Monday’s rally
As a constitutional amendment, S.R. 845 would require a two-thirds majority, which should Democrats in the House and Senate a say in the final shape of the legislation — especially if Republicans split on the taxation aspects of the bill.
In metro Atlanta, a penny sales tax would raise an estimated $632 million a year. But in less populated areas of the state, the cash that could be gained by a sales tax might not be worth the trouble of counties banding together to apply it.
Porter also acknowledged the measure will have a tough time passing the House — unless it includes some incentives for rural Georgia.
Porter advocates taking a one percent sales tax that sends about $150 million into the state’s general fund, and putting it toward transportation projects for areas outside metro Atlanta. (Another three pennies on every dollar of gasoline already go toward transportation.)
Neill Herring, a Sierra Club lobbyist and longtime Capitol observer, agrees that some inducements must be dangled before rural lawmakers will buy into S.R. 845. “This is an Atlanta bill, and it looks like an Atlanta bill,” Herring said.
Tornado blowback puts the brakes on budget talks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Our AJC colleague James Salzer says the Friday night tornado that raked downtown Atlanta has stalled budget negotiations in the state Capitol — because lawmakers aren’t sure what the state will need to fix the Georgia World Congress Center.
“We’re going to have to change things because of the storm,” said House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans).
Gov. Sonny Perdue inspects damage at the Georgia World Congress Center. Jessica McGowan/AJC
The storms made worse a set of already unpleasant budget discussions.
Lawmakers were thrown a curve last week by Gov. Sonny Perdue, who — citing hard economic times and falling tax revenue — lowered the revenue estimate and forced an additional $310 million in spending cuts in the mid-year and fiscal 2009 budgets.
And House and Senate negotiators haven’t been able to agree on a $300 million mid-year spending plan to tide the state over through June 30.
Harbin said legislative leaders hope to find out by the end of the day how much money the state will have to come up with to fix the damaged convention facility and as well as for other tornado-related expenses.
Chambliss announces, and Martin has yet to join the race — but he may be looking for work
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s Monday, St. Patrick’s Day, and Saxby Chambliss is down in Moultrie as we tap this out, formally announcing his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate. As if he intended to spend his $4.4 million anywhere else.
But contrary to what we suggested might happen, Atlanta attorney Jim Martin will not jump into the U.S. Senate race today and join the five other Democratic candidates. He’s still mulling things over, we’re told.
On the other hand, Martin has quit his day job. When we called him at his office, we were told that last Friday was his final day at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
Why a Gwinnett stadium might become a giant restaurant. With one heckuva floor show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the debate over Sunday sales of alcohol, they’re close to fisticuffs.
The governor has threatened a veto. The House speaker has promised an override.
One insider at the state Capitol declared it might be time to issue rubber bracelets stamped with “WWJD.” As in, “Where Would Jesus Drink?”
Gov. Sonny Perdue is now leader of the Republican faction that says Sunday consumption of beer at a yet-to-be-built, minor league baseball stadium in Gwinnett County is a matter of economic development.
However, buying the same substance at a grocery or convenience store on the same day — that would be social policy, and thus unacceptable, the governor argues. God made refrigerators for a reason.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson, representing the business-libertarian side of the GOP, has declared the governor’s logic to be a kind of ethical quicksand. “Once you say you’re OK with Sunday sales at a Braves game or Sunday sales in limousines…I don’t know how you have a moral ground,” Richardson argued.
For those of you who have waited until the third inning to find your seats, a brief review is in order.
Your state Senate has passed a bill to permit the sale of Sunday beer at a new stadium Gwinnett County is building for a Braves minor league team. It is a small, technical patch in the state code.
Currently, only cities may permit stadiums in their jurisdictions to sell beer on Sunday. But the Gwinnett stadium will be in unincorporated territory ruled by the county.
A House committee last week tacked on a provision that would allow local communities throughout Georgia to hold referendums on whether to permit Sunday sales of beer and wine. A House floor vote is all but certain, and chances of passage are good.
State Sen. Renee Unterman (R-Buford) protests House committee decision to attach a provision permitting referendums for Sunday beer and wine sales to her Braves stadium legislation. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
If the Senate should fail to agree, or if it does and Perdue vetoes the measure, the Gwinnett Braves could be blocked from offering alcohol on Sunday.
Gwinnett officials say the legislation isn’t critical to their negotiations with the Braves. But their angst belies this. Even the most conservative math says that, over a 30-year contract, Sunday sales of alcohol would be worth several million dollars to the club.
But back to those charges of hypocrisy, now flying back and forth in hordes at the Capitol, numerous as winged monkeys in Oz and just as ugly.
In fact, some inconsistencies are worth noting.
Only last year, Richardson was a no-Sabbath-beer loyalist. “As a general rule, most people go to church of whatever faith on Sunday. And we don’t sell beer on Sundays. It’s just one of those traditions,” the House speaker said in 2007.
But Richardson’s chamber just approved a November ballot measure asking voters to eliminate property taxes on vehicles. It’s difficult to argue that you trust the average Georgian to rewrite the state budget, but not to decide what day of the week he or she might buy a six-pack.
For his part, Perdue has declared this government-by-referendum to be an abandonment of responsibility by the Legislature.
“We live in a republic, and the people of Georgia send us here to make decisions,” the governor said last week. “Do we want to let the people vote to choose to allow prostitution and those kinds of things?”
This from the same fellow who proposed a referendum on the state flag, and stood behind the 2004 popular vote to insert a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution.
The difference is that a decision to weaken Georgia’s biggest blue law might anger the state GOP’s conservative Christian base — at a time when a national Democratic surge in November already threatens several state House and Senate seats held by Republican incumbents.
At a Senate Republican caucus meeting last week, President pro tem Eric Johnson of Savannah picked out polling conducted in Republican-held districts judged to be most vulnerable.
The Sunday sale of beer and wine is a loser in each of those districts, Johnson privately told his colleagues. And the intensity is on the side of the opposition.
In political terms, this means that Sabbath sales of beer and wine could become, like John McCain, a reason for some Republican voters to sit at home.
We understand that the impasse has set some Gwinnett officials to wondering. Restaurants in unincorporated Gwinnett are permitted to sell alcohol, as long as food sales outweigh liquid ones.
This minor league stadium, that thinking goes, could be declared a giant restaurant. With a spacious floor show.
Gingrich: ‘Ferraro’s remark was silly, childish — and true’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich is saying that Geraldine Ferraro’s comment about Barack Obama was “childish” and “silly” — and “something that probably was true.”
This line of thought started Thursday with a Gingrich appearance on the Fox radio program “Brian and the Judge,” picked up by a Human Events blog.
But the former Georgia congressman and House speaker repeated himself this morning on WSB (750AM) radio in Atlanta, in an exchange with Neal Boortz. Click here for the sound bite.
“I thought it kind of strange that she had to resign for telling the truth,” Gingrich said.
To back up a bit: Ferraro withdrew from the Hillary Clinton campaign after saying the following one week ago, to a local California newspaper:
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman [of any color] he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
Here’s the gist of the Gingrich/Human Events post:
“Senator Obama has made every African American proud. There’s nothing wrong with that,” said Gingrich.
“Under other circumstances, what are the odds that Oprah Winfrey would have decided…to recommend [him] to the entire country and…what are the odds that Oprah Winfrey would have for the first time in her career, gone around the country campaigning for him?”
Gingrich ridiculed the controversy over Ferraro’s comments as part of “the politically correct left” and asked, “Are we now going to say that nobody is allowed to notice that Senator Clinton is female and nobody is allowed to notice that Senator Obama is African American…are we not allowed to be honest?”
Gingrich also added about Senator Clinton, “Does anyone seriously believe that Senator Clinton is not running better among women because she is a woman?”
Blogwatch: ‘An ethics panel can be abused. I know. I’ve done it.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is what happens when blogging and politics mix.
Erick Erickson, founder of PeachPundit and a newly elected city councilman, is taking after Mayor Robert Reichert plan to make Macon a “city of ethics.”
Specifically, Erickson, a Republican, doesn’t like the proposal for a panel that would review accusations of impropriety.
Such an ethics board would be abused, Erikson said. He knows, because he’s done it.
Erickson wrote this in his local, lesser-known Blog Macon:
“Look, I’m a political consultant by trade. When I run political campaigns, I routinely encourage, at the mere hint of any impropriety, a third party friendly to my candidate’s campaign to file a complaint with the State Ethics Commission….
“Every campaign would be hurling ethics complaints at every other campaign through surrogates not viewed as connected with any campaign. And the media would sit back and cover every single one of the complaints as if it was genuine and true.”
But if an ethics panel must be formed, Erickson said he’d insist that it be peopled only with “college educated men and women who have full time jobs outside the home.”
“In my experience, politically active housewives and househusbands and blue-haired retirees are the most troublesome, meddlesome politically active people who will view every complaint filed as probable cause for an investigation,” Erickson wrote. “Professionals with full-time jobs don’t have time for that nonsense. They’d be more likely to weed out the frivolous complaints rapidly.”
The sounds of Sonny: On Sunday beer sales, on killing car taxes — and maybe on a transportation tax, too.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue cut loose on members of the House on Thursday, for raising the issue of retail sales of Sunday beer and wine — and for a hefty tax cut that he called “irresponsible.”
A House committee on Wednesday took a bill to permit the Sunday sales of beer at the new minor league Braves stadium in Gwinnett, and attached language to permit local referendums on the Sunday sale of beer and wine in grocery and convenience stores.
Here’s where the governor explains why Sunday sales are a bad thing.
Perdue said the House action “jeopardizes” what he called an economic development matter for Gwinnett.
But there’s more. Listen to this clip.
Says the governor:
“We live in a republic, and the people of Georgia send us here to make decisions. I’m very concerned about a lot of the efforts I hear this year, about ‘Well, we’ll just let people vote on it.’ I mean, do we want to let the people vote to choose to allow prostitution and those kinds of things? Where are we going to draw the line?”
If you’re a supporter of the Legislature’s effort to create a sales tax for transportation — through regional referendums — that kind of thinking from the governor must give you pause.
As for the ad valorem tax on vehicles, which the House voted to eliminate, Perdue said this:
“People love to vote for tax cuts. It’s much tougher to balance a budget, and talk about where those tax cuts come from. I think the people of Georgia get the joke. They want infrastructure, they want education. They want government to work for them,” the governor said. “I kind of liken it to the Wright brothers jumping off of Kitty Hawk and designing an airplane on the way down.”
For the record, we’ve been to Kitty Hawk. It’s not a cliff. You can’t jump off it. Unless the governor was talking about the aircraft carrier. In which case the entire metaphor collapses.
Many thanks to Dick Pettys of InsiderAdvantage for helping us out on the audio.
Chambliss, Martin may start U.S. Senate campaigns on the same day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss announces his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate on Monday. U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson will be at Chambliss’ side in Moultrie.
A statewide fly-around is to follow.
Atlanta attorney Jim Martin may be trying to steal some of Chambliss’ thunder — we’re hearing the Democrat has picked the same day for his entrance into the race.
Fight over Michigan, Florida delegates moves to Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Democratic fight over convention delegates from Michigan and Florida is moving to Atlanta on Monday.
Oral arguments for a lawsuit filed by Tampa political consultant Victor DiMaio against the Democratic National Committee will be heard before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The St. Pete Times quotes DiMaio’s attorney, Michael Steinberg, as saying this:
“This was not fair to ordinary average Florida citizens. They had no say-so over when the election was scheduled,” Steinberg said. “What the Democratic Party is saying is that the rights of citizens of four states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina) are paramount to the rights of the citizens of the state of Florida.”
Minor league baseball: Where the shameless offender can mingle with shameless promoters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s the humiliation of standing before a bank of national TV cameras, with your chagrined wife at your side. And then there’s the real stuff.
The middle Georgia minor league baseball team known as the Macon Music has announced that June 13 will be “Elliot Spitzer” night, in honor of the disgraced governor of New York who resigned on Wednesday after he was caught on a wiretap arranging for high-priced call girls.
According to the Macon Telegraph, Spitzer will be invited to throw out the first pitch. Other alleged inducements for fans:
- The Music will give away a trip to New York and a one-night stay at the Mayflower Hotel.
The ninth fan - or Client No. 9, as Spitzer was known in the prostitution ring - into the ballpark will receive a free Music prize pack.
Fans with the name Eliot, Spitzer or Kristen, along with any fan from New York, will receive $1 off admission. Any fan who has ever resigned a position will also receive $1 off admission.
From what we can tell, this is kind of like being awarded an honorary coat of tar and feathers.
Pressed to support Martin for Senate, Democratic lawmakers have one demand: ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Democratic candidacy of Jim Martin for the U.S. Senate is rapidly moving from a possibility to a virtual certainty.
But there is a certain tug-and-pull with Washington that must be settled before Martin takes the final step.
Martin has been up to D.C. to chat with Chuck Schumer, senator from New York, and Harry Reid of Nevada, the senate majority leader. They’re the two top recruiters for the chamber’s 2008 Democratic field.
There have been negotiations over what how much funding the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee would be willing to provide Martin, should he make it out of a Democratic primary that already features five candidates.
The SDCC is now applying pressure to Democratic leaders in the state Legislature, demanding that they be at Martin’s side when he announces.
In the House, that includes Calvin Smyre of Columbus and Dubose Porter of Dublin. In the Senate, Robert Brown of Macon, Tim Golden of Valdosta, and Kasim Reed in Atlanta are among those being approached.
These legislators have an interest in seeing a strong U.S. Senate candidate come out of the July primary. Momentum at the top of a Democratic ticket is likely to boost candidates for the House and Senate in November — particularly if Barack Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee.
A meeting was held at the state Capitol this morning, to discuss the issue. And this is where things get sticky.
Martin’s candidacy would be a direct challenge to that of DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, who is African-American. Martin is white. And the entire state has just seen black voters strip the bark off U.S. Rep. John Lewis for his initial decision to back Hillary Clinton over Obama.
That puts some African-American legislators at the Capitol in a difficult position. State Rep. Stan Watson (D-Decatur), for instance, is running to succeed Jones as DeKalb CEO.
At Wednesday’s meeting, some black legislators said they would be willing to step out on a limb — but only if Martin promises to run a hard-hitting, aggressive campaign. In the primary and, if things go well, in the general election.
In 2006, when he thought his Republican opponent in the race for lieutenant governor would be Ralph Reed, Martin conceived a nice-guy, above-the-fray strategy that won him 42 percent of the November vote.
And Martin is, by all accounts, a nice fellow.
That’s not what Democrats in the Capitol are looking for this time around.
Martin battled polio as a child and yet still chose to serve in Vietnam. That’s a story line that many Dems would like to see used to hammer Chambliss, who didn’t serve in Vietnam — and won his seat in 2002 by defeating Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in that war.
A particular TV ad comes up over and over again in conversations.
At least in the state Capitol, Democrats are looking for a candidate who’s willing to get down and dirty.
Voter ID from a Democratic perspective
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In Washington, the Senate rules committee on Wednesday held a hearing on whether or not the state-by-state movement toward requiring a photo ID to vote is part of a Republican effort to dampen minority turnout in elections.
The point of view was reflected in the title: “In-Person Voter Fraud: Myth and Trigger for Disenfranchisement?”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited a former Republican political operative who claimed voter ID laws gave the GOP a 3 percent edge in elections.
Georgia had two players in the hearing, both defending voter ID laws.
One was Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a committee member. “If have somebody who is deceased, who is found to have voted, it’s pretty easy to see that a photo identification at the ballot box would have prevented that type of thing from happening,” he said.
Rob Simms, deputy secretary of state, was the other. Read his complete testimony here. You can try the Senate on-line video here, but we couldn’t get it to work all that well.
Simms testified that the high turnout in the Feb. 5 presidential primary was evidence that Georgia’s voter ID law doesn’t discourage minorities from casting ballots.
Here’s a taste of what Simms said:
“Opponents of the law are eager to argue that even one vote lost because of the law is one too many, but they never have any proof of why the voter failed to return with an acceptable ID. It is important to consider that there are potentially many reasons why a voter may not return to verify his or her identity, not the least of which is the voter may not have been who he or she claimed to be.
“Furthermore, as neither of the outcomes of the primaries was in dispute, these voters have have decided to not return because their votes were not going to change the outcome of the election.
“In short, the predictions of mass disenfranchisement simply did not come to fruition. A very small number of voters showed up at the polls without a photo ID and an even fewer number chose not to return with one in order to have their provisional votes cast, a decision for which no one knows the reason.”
Southern Gothic: South Georgia judge admits he’s target of a federal investigation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
From time to time, we’ve tried to keep you up-to-date on the travails of Brooks E. Blitch III, chief superior court judge of Alapaha Judicial Circuit. That’s near Valdosta.
Charges of corruption against the judge have raised memories of the courthouse power structures that dominated Georgia decades ago.
Last week, we told you that the FBI had copped to bugging the judge’s chambers as part of an investigation. Blitch, whose wife Peg is a former state senator, also faces an inquiry from the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the state authority that oversees judicial conduct.
Blitch’s attorney, former Gov. Roy Barnes of Marietta, had asked to postpone Blitch’s deposition before the JQC, to avoid violating the judge’s Fifth Amendment rights in the federal case. In his request, Blitch asked that proceedings be delayed “until….resolution of the federal investigation[,] of which he is a target.”
This week, the attorney’s acting as prosecutors in the JQC case — one happens to be former state attorney general Michael Bowers — issued a blistering rebuttal, declaring that the judge had already waived his right against self-incrimination. Read the entire document here.
Here’s just a portion of the response to Blitch’s request:
Judge Blitch fails to acknowledge, however, that the Notice contains numerous paragraphs detailing a pattern of conduct that demonstrates at best his professional incompetence and at worst his utter disregard for the law applicable to the function of his court and his own actions.
Moreover, deposition testimony in this matter shows that Judge Blitch manipulated various monetary funds over which he had control, imposed an illegal “tax” on criminal defendants, used his title to garner influence for both his and his family’s personal gain, exploited judicial resources provided to him by the state to serve his personal interest and his wife’s gain, employed the prestige of his judicial office to intimidate others, and wielded the power associated with his position to make appointments, to file false documents prematurely releasing inmates, to deny criminal defendants basic due process rights by issuing blank arrest warrants and to acquire further control within Clinch County specifically and the Alapaha Judicial Circuit generally.
There’s a strong hint in the document that prosecutors want Blitch to go back to every case since the 1980s to determine how many illegal fines he imposed. They want him to give the money back.
Shut-off valve activated on a bill that might have created water rival for Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Certain people at Atlanta City Hall are smiling today.
Shortly before the House adjourned at 10:30 p.m. or so on Tuesday, a bill to make it easier for local governments to build water and sewer systems was yanked from the floor, without a vote.
Atlanta had lobbied heavily against the measure, charging that H.B. 1145, sponsored by state Rep. Wendell Willard (R-Sandy Springs), was designed to rob the city of revenue generated by its water system, which serves north Fulton County.
Atlanta officials said the bill jeopardized the city’s $3 billion, court-mandated plan to repair its aging sewer system.
“This bill is a positive opportunity for your local areas to come together and work together where there are needs addressing their water systems and sewer systems,” Willard said.
State Rep. Bob Holmes (D-Atlanta) was one of many who lined up to speak against the legislation.
“You’re going to take hundreds of thousands of customers, and hundreds of millions of dollars from the bonds that must be paid in order to clean it up,” Holmes said. “We will have chaos in this state.”
But Willard was getting tough questions from Republicans as well. He consulted with Speaker pro tem Mark Burkhalter, who is from Alpharetta. And Burkhalter moved to postpone action on the bill indefinitely.
Letting Democrats off the hook: The resurrection of the GOP plan to kill the car tax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, when Democrats blocked what was left of Speaker Glenn Richardson’s tax reform plan, Republicans in charge of the House chortled that they had the minority party right where they wanted them — voting against the elimination of property taxes on automobiles.
On Tuesday, crossover day, House Republicans changed course.
They put up H.R. 1246, which — if fully implemented — would save drivers $672 million. Democrats voted for it in droves.
Why let Democrats off the hook? Other than good government, we mean.
Because:
— It’s an election year, Republicans liked the idea of eliminating the tax, and they recognized that you can’t win by losing. Minutes after the Tuesday vote, state Rep. Barry Fleming of Harlem, a 10th District congressional candidate, put out a press release touting “the largest tax cut in Georgia history.”
— Truthfully, there aren’t that many contested House races in the offing this November, where last week’s vote against a tax cut could be used to topple Democrats. Benefits to Republican candidates outweighed the first vote’s value as a propaganda tool.
— House Republicans recognized that a $10 fee to help Grady Memorial Hospital — and establish a statewide trauma network — was important. But they were unwilling to approve the fee without the elimination of the ad valorem tax on vehicles.
— Outside the Speaker’s office, we heard talk that the reversal was the result of spite. Gov. Sonny Perdue, one day earlier, pointed to reduced tax collections and reduced the amount of money available for spending over the next 18 months by $310 million.
According to this theory, House Republicans took the news personally — for it threw six weeks of budget work into a cocked hat, and guarantees the session will extend well into April. Plus, the governor’s announcement was viewed as unstated opposition to the elimination of the car tax.
We asked about this — and were reliably informed that a mass thumbing of noses at the governor was a bonus, but not a motivation for the House action.
A tale of two Forts and the no-knock warrant bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just before the Senate ended its crucial crossover day, the chamber passed S.B. 259 by a lopsided vote of 44-8.
This is a Democratic bill to virtually eliminate no-knock warrants — hardly on any Republican priority list.
Particularly when the sponsor is state Sen. Vincent Fort, a known opponent of most things GOP. The bill would put tough limitations on the kind of police activity that resulted in the shooting death of Kathryn Johnston in her Vine City home, by three undercover Atlanta cops.
So how did the bill come up for a vote? The answer is Fort McPherson, and it may have been the biggest deal of the day.
After 125 years, the U.S. Army is giving up 488-acre Fort McPherson on Atlanta’s southern side. Gov. Sonny Perdue tried last year to pass legislation establishing a state authority that would oversee redevelopment of the prime real estate.
Do not fool yourself. Much, much money is involved.
H.B. 817 made it through the House in 2007. But in the Senate, Fort and his allies blocked it. Fort Mac is contained entirely within his senate district, and Fort was worried about the impact of “gentrification within a sea of unemployment.”
Negotiations began this summer. Fort won a provision in the legislation for a jobs program, and another program for housing rehabilitation in the area — to help residents keep up with increased land values and the taxes that come with them.
The governor preferred to keep the Fort Mac bill as local legislation, which allowed it to move faster — and, incidentally, without recorded votes — so long as the Fulton County delegation agreed on it. A general bill, held in reserve in case the deal went sour, was placed on the Tuesday calendar for a floor vote.
Republicans also placed S.B. 259, Fort’s no-knock bill, at the end of the calendar as a sweetener. And, perhaps, a guarantee of good behavior.
The Fort Mac bill was passed without a hitch, with Fort’s changes. The House quickly agreed to the improvements, and the deal was done. The state now has a firm hand on the base’s redevelopment.
And the Atlanta senator got his ban on no-knock warrants through the Senate. “It was a good day for the home team,” Fort said.
Fort McPherson and foreign affairs in the state Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, the Senate quietly passed H.B. 817, which establishes an authority to oversee the remaking of historic Fort McPherson on Atlanta’s south side, which is being abandoned by the U.S. Army as part of a reorganization effort. Word we have is that Gov. Sonny Perdue was behind the final version.
But on the business day of the session so far, an hour was devoted to dabbling in foreign affairs — specifically S.B. 451, which would require public retirement funds to identify investments in companies that do business with Iran.
This has been a tough bill to get out of committee — without loading it with other causes such as Dafur or China or any other causes. “This case is very specific to a country that is killing our troops,” said the bill’s lead sponsor, state Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville).
The bill passed easily, 45 to 6. But the bill’s opponents are worth noting. They included one of the most conservative members of the Senate, Bill Heath (R-Bremen) and one of its most liberal, Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta).
“This is symbolism. It’s not going to have an impact,” Orrock said.
Said Heath: “I think foreign policy is a matter best left to the U.S. Congress.”
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Blogwatch: Lewis phones in a town hall meeting — literally
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Politics Unfiltered has U.S. Rep. John Lewis, publicly chastised for his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, reaching out to his 5th Congressional District in a manner we haven’t seen before.
The blog says “40,000 randomly selected individuals will receive a call asking them to stay on the line. Then Lewis will come on, talk about his work in Washington and take questions about issues concerning the district. The telephone town hall meeting is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m.”
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s possible that we won’t be invited to listen to what the congressman has to say. If one of you 40,000 would be so kind as to record it — perfectly legal under Georgia law — and send us the MP3, we’d be much obliged.
Bob Barr and Jimmy Carter on the topic of torture
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Washington Monthly has put together a series of essays arguing against the use of torture — or “enhanced interrogation techniques” — by the United States.
Two of the contributors, coming from opposite sides of the political spectrum, are former Georgia congressman Bob Barr and former President Jimmy Carter.
Writes Barr, in part:
”While the extreme sophistry and word gamesmanship practiced to a fine art by this administration might make a high school debating coach proud, it does great disservice to the notion that we exist in a society in which there are rules and norms of behavior with clarity and definitiveness and in which government agents as well as the citizenry are held to standards of behavior.
“This is not something of which we as Americans should be proud, and the use of torture will come back to haunt us in ways this administration apparently either doesn’t realize or simply doesn’t care about.”
And Carter writes, in part:
”Many courageous human rights defenders who document and report human rights violations throughout the world say that these actions by the United States rob them of the tool that has been central to their success: the ability to name and shame human rights violations.
“Abusive governments now believe that the rules have changed, and they too easily make excuses that sound a lot like the U.S. government’s arguments to legitimize its own conduct.”
The (oil) spot where business and politics intersect
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A frustrated Richard Anderson, top dog at Delta Air Lines, may just have served up the quote of the day.
With oil oozing past the $108-a-barrel mark, Anderson on Monday condemned the Bush administration for its failure to restrain fuel costs.
“We don’t have an energy policy in this country, and we need one,” Anderson said. “Jawboning OPEC is not an energy policy.”
Another B-grade plot line: ‘He must join us. He can’t resist us. He must become one with us’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Now that John Lewis has caved and joined their family, Barack Obama supporters are casting about for their next superdelegate victim from Georgia.
It looks like it might be state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, vice-chairman of the state Democratic party. Jane Kidd, chairman of the Democratic party, has already joined the Obama team.
But Thurmond is different. Like Lewis, Thurmond is African-American.
An e-mail making the rounds notes that Thurmond “continues to endorse [Hillary] Clinton even after the voters of this great state, who elected him, voted overwhelmingly for Obama on Super Tuesday. This e-mail campaign is to ask Commissioner Thurmond to change his support to Obama, and support the people of this state, who voted for him….
“We understand his loyalty to the Clinton’s, but we are sure his loyalty lies more with the voters … who elected him to office,” the letter says.
The message helpfully includes Thurmond’s office number and e-mail address.
Cheney’s talking: ‘Saxby’s courageous. He hunts with me.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue just introduced Vice President Dick Cheney as “the friend and confidante of George Bush.”
Cheney thanked him for the kind words. “A welcome like that is almost enough to make me want to run for office. Almost,” the vice president said.
U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss weren’t there. But Cheney praised Chambliss’ bravery.
“Saxby’s a very courageous man. I know that because he’s one of my hunting buddies,” the vice president said.
But seriously, folks.
Cheney laid out the Bush legacy. “The absence of another 9/11 is not an accident. It’s an achievement,” the vice president said. He condemned Congress for failing to extend Bush’s warrantless wiretap legislation, but has not yet mentioned the president’s veto of a bill to ban waterboarding.
The vice president also emphasized the need to extend the Bush tax cuts soon set to expire, which Cheney said would cost 116 million Americans an average $1,800. “And they wouldn’t have to move a muscle to do it, because the tax cuts would simply expire,” he said.
The audience, nibbling on its salad, has been polite — but their enthusiasm isn’t out of control. Not the shouting and screaming we saw at the parallel event that Democrats held in late January.
Cheney blogging: That primary race for ag commissioner is already over
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dinner’s finally underway. Many lobbyists, plus a full turnout by state elected officials. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is in sight, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson just passed by.
State GOP chairman Sue Everhart gave the welcome. “I think I look great behind this vice presidential podium,” she said.
Gary Black, who ran in ’06 against Democratic incumbent Tommy Irvin for commissioner of agriculture, was introduced by Everhart to lead 750 diners in the singing of the national anthem.
“He’ll be the next agriculture commissioner of Georgia,” Everhart announced. That’s known as clearing the field of any primary opposition.
Blogging for Cheney: Brace yourself for a nasty rush-hour
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s 4:25 p.m., and Vice President Dick Cheney still isn’t on the ground in Atlanta. Which is bad news for any of you commuting southward from downtown.
“I’m sure the Secret Service is doing everything they can to make this as painless as possible,” said Ben Fry, the spokesman for the state GOP. You’ll recall that on Cheney’s last trip to Atlanta, to Kennesaw Mountain for a gathering of descendants of Union soldiers, the vice president locked up rush-hour traffic on the northside.
About 750 diners are expected here. Tickets are a minimum of $750, but their are no caps on how much donors can give.
Fry said he didn’t know what the vice president will be talking about. We’re betting Cheney’s speechwriters are thanking their stars for Elliot Spitzer.
FYI, reporters at the Cheney event have now been assigned an embarrassed young man whose duty it will be to escort journalists — including those faces you see on local TV — to and from the hotel facilities. Yes, TMI. We know.
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Blogging from the Cheney bash. Three hours early.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Vice President Dick Cheney shows up here at the Atlanta Hilton somewhere in the six o’clock hour, just in time for rush hour.
Which is why members of the press — and everyone else — were required to be here, and patted down, three hours early.
That’s a longer lead time for security than President Bush required on his last trip through here.
The event is the annual Presidents’ Day fund-raiser for the state Republican party.
Ran into one GOP strategist downstairs, who wondered whether anyone other than the retired or the very rich could afford to spend 180 minutes cooling his heels in security limbo.
That’s his thought. We in the press corps are more worried about the health of diners. Waiters are putting out pads of butter and the dessert. And dinner’s not for a long, long time.
Added at 4 p.m.: Security just announced that reporters with bathroom needs need to be escorted from their pen now, or hold it until after 7 p.m. These are the details that make a career in journalism so glamorous.
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Truth and euphemism at the Capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hardly a day goes by that the people who inhabit the state Capitol don’t prove their ways to be dark and mysterious.
The Republican-controlled Senate Rules Committee just put together its calendar for tomorrow’s crucial 30th day of the legislative session. Any bill that hasn’t passed at least one chamber by Tuesday midnight will be considered, for the most part, dead.
The standards used to create the list are unclear.
Let’s take the case of two sets of Democratic bills.
S.B. 441 and S.B. 442, sponsored by state Sen. Ed Tarver of Augusta, would make it illegal to lie when testifying before a Senate or House committee — punishable by fines or hard time.
That’s right. Currently, it’s quite legal to spout the most bald-faced falsehood in the Capitol. And it will be legal to do so next year, too. Tarver’s bills were given no place on the Tuesday calendar, and are thus dead for the session.
The official line is that Republican lawmakers feared that asking lobbyists and members of the executive branch to tell the truth would curtail free speech. And Lord knows, lying is the most liberated kind of speech there is, ranking right up there next to proposals of marriage.
However, we were quietly informed that primary problem lay with the bills’ fiscal note, which indicated the legislation would force a vast and costly overhaul of the state prison system.
Nevertheless, there is news for those interested in good government. While the Senate may not have a stomach for the truth, it does have an appetite for euphemism.
The Rules Committee voted to permit senators to debate the merits S.R. 809.
This legislation would encourage the renaming of “seat belts” to “life belts.” And “air bags” would be known as “life bags.”
Chief sponsor of S.R. 809 is Emmanuel Jones of Decatur, owner of a car dealership.
Do not scoff. There’s opportunity here. If this measure passes, then “seat belt” and “air bag” would cleansed of their current meanings — and thus would be open for new business.
We suggest an amendment:
Henceforth, an “air bag” will designate a Georgia politician, preferably one who enjoys being lied to at every turn. And “seat belt” will be defined as the slug of whiskey that an air bag enjoys, from his armchair, at the end of a long day.
Isakson: Grandpa, yes. Governor, maybe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sen. Johnny Isakson was racing to the hospital to see his newly born eighth grandchild today when we finally caught up with him to ask if he knew anything about a website promoting him as a candidate for Georgia governor - in 2010.
The website, Draftjohnny.com, gives 10 reasons Isakson, now a first-term U.S. senator, should be Georgia’s next chief executive, including Isakson’s “steady hand,” his business experience, his ability to unite the Republican Party and his status as “a proven conservative.”
“I’ve never seen it,” Isakson said of the site and the Facebook page to which it links. “Don’t know anything about it, and that’s all there is.”
Isakson himself has hinted at the possibility of running for governor in 2010 rather than seek reelection, by saying only that he’ll be on the 2010 ballot without specifying which office.
Efforts to reach people who may have created the site were not immediately successful.
“I’m not a Facebook kind of guy, so I’m not signed up,” Isakson said. “I just learned how to send e-mail.”
The senator and his newest grandchild, William, were both doing fine last we heard.
Refocusing the Legislature on a sales tax for traffic congestion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The remainder of this session of the Legislature will be steeped in philosophy. Specifically, 236 state lawmakers will ponder over which is the greater evil — traffic congestion, or a tax to cure it.
Last week, before the dust had settled on the collapsed tax reform effort pushed by House Speaker Glenn Richardson, the top layer of Georgia’s business class assembled at the State Capitol to back a budding compromise that could ultimately inject billions of dollars into traffic relief.
Details are scarce, but the measure — built around a penny sales tax — would be revolutionary on two counts.
First is the lack of active involvement by the governor’s office. House and Senate lawmakers were there, but Sonny Perdue was noticeably absent from the Thursday photo op with business leaders.
“He’s been kept well informed. We’ve not had anybody tell us ‘Don’t do it,’ so we’re moving ahead,” said Vance Smith, chairman of the House transportation committee.
The transportation deal will be cast in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment, which will require a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate — but no approval by the governor before it is placed on the November ballot. It’s possible that Perdue will be on a trade mission to China when the final details are hammered out late this month.
Secondly, the measure would put the formation of transportation policy and a great deal of cash — as much as $1.3 billion a year, though probably much less — in the hands of regional bureaucracies rather than state government. For those areas that could afford it, spending could go toward rail — whether for passengers or freight.
Voters would be asked to approve the concept in November. Only if that measure passed would voters be approached again, in specific regions, to approve a transportation tax of up to a penny on the dollar.
How those regional votes are tallied — whether county-by-county or as a whole — is at the crux of current negotiations.
Though no one is saying so publicly, this sales tax proposal is aimed primarily at one geographic area. In the 10 counties of the Atlanta Regional Commission, a one-penny tax would raise $632 million a year, according to the calculations of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
But beyond metro Atlanta, the cash a sales tax could raise may not be incentive enough for counties to band together and divvy the proceeds.
Even so, this is an election year. And House Republican leaders expect Grover Norquist, the anti-tax guru of Washington, to condemn this invitation for voters to tax themselves.
Norquist could pry away the Republican right wing, and make Democrats even more essential to the end result. Look for the minority party to demand a deal sweetener. They want a one-cent sales tax on motor fuel, already in place and worth about $160 million a year, to be re-directed from the state’s general fund toward road projects for those parts of rural Georgia where a sales tax does no good.
Despite an anti-tax debate likely to split Republicans, those pushing the sales tax have reasons for optimism.
Since last September, Richardson, the House speaker, has expressed impatience at the lack of action on transportation — and has promised that something will pass the Legislature this session.
With his tax plan in tatters, keeping that vow now takes on more importance.
The transportation committee chairmen leading this effort — Smith in the House and Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga in the Senate — are among many Republicans who think that traffic congestion is the one cause for which taxpayers would be willing to shell out a little extra.
It’s the one issue, say both, that passes the government-gun-to-the-head rule so often cited by anti-tax enthusiasts.
State Sen. Doug Stoner, a Democrat from Smyrna, is likely to be one of the six lawmakers involved in the final deal-cutting. He put it this way:
“We can’t go back to voters in the fall and say, ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do. We’ve decided you’ve got to sit in traffic.’”
But Stoner predicted Democrats will back the end result. “If this fails, it will be because the majority party couldn’t get its act together,” he said.
Ex-Cleland aide pleads to trespassing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The one-time chief of staff to former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia pled guilty Friday to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing after being accused with breaking into a coast guard station on Martha’s Vineyard last August.
Michael Duga Jr., 32, had also been accused of crashing a fundraiser for then-presidential candidate John Edwards, a Democrat, though Duga produced e-mails from an exchange with Edwards’ campaign that showed Duga was supposed to be there even though he was not recognized by event volunteers working for Edwards.
Charges of larceny and possession of marijuana were dropped, Duga’s lawyer, Al Daniels, told the Associated Press.
Duga declared himself “satisfied and grateful.” Cleland, who suspended Duga immediately after the incident and later fired him, told the Associated Press he considered Duga a “loyal, dedicated friend.”
The good news is that Kingston was wearing his flag lapel pin at the time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This article in Friday’s The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, sounds like a private conversation gone awry:
A House Republican leading efforts to reform the earmarking process has come under fire from House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) for privately telling him he supports earmarks.
Obey said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who has sponsored legislation that would ban earmarks this year, privately told him he was in favor of earmarks.
“You know, David, I am really for earmarks,” Obey said Kingston told him.
“I said, ‘Yes, Jack, I do know,’” said Obey, who added that Kingston made numerous requests for earmarks last year to the appropriations panel.
Kingston confirmed the conversation, but said it reflected his beliefs about reforming the appropriations process.
“What I have told David privately and what I have said publicly is the same thing. I have been very upfront,” said Kingston in a phone interview with The Hill.
Those mayoral letters of praise for the anti-tax vote aren’t a coincidence
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So why did House Democrats bite the bullet last week and vote to kill the repeal of the car tax contained in House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s tax reform bill?
Because it included a cap on property tax levies on local governments — which county commissions and cities insisted would wreck their finances. And the Georgia Municipal Association and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia couldn’t get a firm commitment from Republican Senate leaders to remove the cap once the bill moved to that chamber.
In return for their votes, the GMA and the ACCG promised to give House Democrats as possible. As soon as the vote went down, mayors and county commission chairmen across the state began sending out letters to local newspapers, praising the Democratic position.
We’ve already seen the one from Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.
Those letters will be pulled out again in the fall, should they be necessary to fend off Republican attacks.
Schaefer on Broun: ‘Democrats wouldn’t have voted for me’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nancy Schaefer, the North Georgia state senator who just jumped into the Republican race for the 10th District congressional seat, was on WGAU (1340AM) in Athens on Friday, talking to Tim Bryant.
Listen to the sound clip here.
Schaefer criticized Republican incumbent Paul Broun for relying on Democrats last summer to win the special election for the seat.
“Paul Broun had the votes from the Democrats to get him elected, and to raise his support. And I’m a conservative Republican, so I don’t think that would be happening to me,” she said.
Schaefer also criticized Broun’s vote to permit states to allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
House Majority Whip Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) is also in the GOP primary race. For details, see this article by the fellow on the left on Broun’s dilemma.
The Chick-fil-a question that prompted a McCain flash of temper
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Revised at 1:50 p.m. Saturday: We said that somewhere around here was a student who was wondering how the small question he tossed at John McCain became an actual political incident.
Turns out he is 21-year-old George Argyris of Murrieta, Calif.
During the Republican presidential nominee’s appearance at the Buffington Road headquarters of Chick-fil-a, Argyris asked McCain if he might select Democrat John Kerry to share the ticket.
Kerry had talked to McCain about becoming his running mate in his ill-fated 2004 bid against Republican George Bush.
Shannon McCaffrey of the Associated Press picked it up from there:
“No,” McCain said immediately.
“John Kerry is a friend of mind and a close associate. We are fellow veterans but we have very vastly different philosophical, fundamental political views,” McCain said. “I respect those views. I just totally disagree with them.”
After the wheels went up out of Atlanta, a New York Times reporter sought more details of that conversation between McCain and Kerry. And McCain grew rather testy — making it clear this wasn’t a topic he wanted to explore just now.
Here’s the link to the video captured by MSNBC.
“I asked this question because of curiosity of what this issue back in ‘04. I had no idea it was going to turn out this way,” said Argyris, currently of Pine Mountain, Ga. He’s a student at Impact 360, a “gap year” Christian program.
National Journal: Three of the seven most conservative members of Congress are from Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Three Georgia Republicans have been ranked by the National Journal among the seven most conservative members of the U.S. House: Phil Gingrey of Cobb County, John Linder of Gwinnett County, and Lynn Westmoreland of Coweta County.
In its annual rating by ideology, the National Journal gave identical scores to all seven Republicans.
U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon was named the most conservative Democrat in the annual rating. U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Savannah was ranked the third most conservative Democrat.
Earlier, we wrote that John Lewis was the top-ranked liberal in the Georgia delegation — but we overlooked Hank Johnson of DeKalb County, who ranked 16th. Lewis was next at 65th.
Monsters, Hillary Clinton and the (gasp!) Atlanta connection
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So, in a Scottish newspaper, Barack Obama’s Harvard-educated foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, calls Hillary Clinton a “monster.” And she has just resigned.
What, you ask, is the Atlanta angle?
The Irish-born Power spent the summer of ’89 in Atlanta as an over-qualified sports intern for WAGA-TV. Former state senator Bill Stephens, who was press secretary to Gov. Zell Miller during that period, recognized the name and face.
Jeff Hullinger, who watched over Power, confirmed the fact. “She seemed to be a fish out of water. Oh, my God, was she bright,” remembered Hullinger, who now works at WSB radio. “Acerbic, lightning-witted, and the depth of the Mariana Trench.”
And to think, Hullinger said, that if she’d just learned to settle for a little less, she could be reading hockey scores in Tampa. This afternoon, that probably looks inviting.
Read Power’s bio here. Logging Pete Rose video and fetching coffee in Atlanta apparently didn’t rate a mention on her resume.
Not necessarily good news for Republican congressional candidates
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The New York Times has this today:
Hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen from the chief fund-raising arm of House Republicans, according to party officials who described the findings of emergency internal audits.
The financial records of the group, the National Republican Congressional Committee, may also have been falsified for several years, Republican officials said. The campaign committees of several Republican lawmakers may also have been victims of a scam that is now under criminal investigation by the F.B.I.
The NRCC raises money for U.S. House races, and it’s already short on cash. No doubt this will make fund-raising even tougher.
If you’re Rick Goddard in Perry or John Stone in Augusta — the two are running against U.S. Reps. Jim Marshall and John Barrow, respectively — you hate to see this.
Stone just wrote us: “I’m looking at the bright side of this. At least I don’t have to keep checking the P.O. box for that NRCC check.”
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.
That third-party opportunity has vanished, but Hamilton Jordan has not
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For Hamilton Jordan, the 63-year-old, one-time boy wonder of Georgia politics, who gave us Jimmy Carter and Ross Perot, this is the ninth inning.
That was the phrasing used by one close friend. And yet there was Jordan this afternoon, frail, bewigged and with an oxygen tube that dripped from his nostrils, holding forth before the Atlanta Press Club on the topic that he loves best — the chess game of presidential politics.
Some of his best friends crowded the event, as well as his family. Tom Johnson, the former president of CNN, made sure the room was filled. Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn and his wife Colleen were there. So was Howard “Bo” Callaway, anchoring the Republican contingent.
If you closed your eyes, Jordan was brimming with health. His voice was full and strong, except for the few times it cracked with emotion.
Jordan took his audience through his 20-year battle with six different kinds of cancer. Beginning with lymphoma, followed by another and another. Cancers have piled up like the Georgia defense on a loose ball. And Jordan has been the ball.
We saw flashes of the funny, ribald South Georgian who, as a president’s chief of staff, scandalized an uptight Washington in the 1970s when he glanced at the wife of the Egyptian ambassador — and marveled that he’d always wanted to see the Pyramids.
Jordan took his Press Club friends into the doctor’s office where the physician warned him, and his wife Dorothy, that surgery for prostate cancer could result in sexual impotence. “That would not be a change from his current condition,” replied Dorothy, according to her dead-panning husband.
Jordan also confessed that he had fibbed when he chose the title on the book he wrote about his first encounter with cancer: “No Such Thing As a Bad Day.”
He’s battled depression and hopelessness. He’s worried about his family and his finances. He has had not bad just days, but bad years. One hundred and fifty documented trips to Piedmont Hospital will do that.
“I’ve been to the edge of life. I’ve had to face my own mortality,” Jordan said — that strong voice breaking. “But I’m here to tell you today I’m not through yet.”
Fortunately, the topic could shift to Tuesday’s presidential primary votes — and to Jordan’s role, this year and last, in fomenting a third-party revolution, perhaps with Michael Bloomberg at the top of the ticket.
Said Jordan:
“I thought there was going to be the opportunity this year for a third-party candidate. I saw a perfect storm of events — both parties preoccupied with discussions of social issues, not the real issues, and the prospect that both parties were going to nominate people from both extremes, and leave a huge territory in the middle for a third party.
“Instead, what happened in both parties, particularly with [Barack] Obama in the Democratic party and [John] McCain in the Republican party, this sense of frustration with the establishment and this focus on these narrow issues, gave expression….
“So I think the oxygen for an independent candidacy or third-party movement basically is gone now.”
“If the nominees of the two parties today were…[Rudy] Giuliani and [Hillary] Clinton, I believe that [New York Mayor] Mike Bloomberg would be running — and I think he’d have a helluva chance.”
Perot and his curious running mate, Admiral James Stockdale, got 20 percent of the vote in 1992, Jordan pointed out.
He continued:
“Suppose a guy like Mike Bloomberg had been smart enough to run against Giuliani and Clinton, and had been smart enough to have Sam Nunn or Chuck Hagel on the ticket with him. I believe, with his resources, with a team like that, with the frustration of the American people at both parties — which I feel myself — I believe there was really the possibility.
“But I think that possibility is gone now that McCain and Obama are on the playing field.”
No doubt, you’ve noticed that the 2008 presidential race has brought true suspense back into politics. But to hear Jordan speak, you can’t miss the sense that the contest is more important than a never-ending plot line. It has given this particular man one more reason to get up each morning, when reasons might be in short supply.
Sleeper clause on school property tax moves House speaker’s tax plan back to the shop for adjustments
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s attempt to quietly add a provision in his latest, greatest GREAT plan — to make it easier to eliminate school property taxes in the future — is holding up passage of the measure today.
Richardson’s provision would allow the General Assembly to eliminate school property taxes next year by passing a bill. In other words, by majority vote.
Currently, it would take a constitutional amendment, or a two-thirds of both chambers. And that can be blocked by the minority party.
School officials freaked over the provision and began putting out the word on it last night.
This morning, our AJC colleague James Salzer was told Richardson’s bill would be heading back to the House Rules Committee to remove that provision, delaying a House vote on the plan formerly known as GREAT.
Christian Coalition: Supports guns-in-churches bill, neutral on Sunday stadium sales of beer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At one and the same time, Jim Beck has been a busy — and not so busy fellow.
Beck is leader of the Georgia Christian Coalition. (Not the Georgia Christian Alliance — that’s Sadie Fields.)
Beck’s group has taken two intriguing positions on legislation making its way through the state Capitol. The Christian Coalition supports H.B. 89, the gun bill that would expand the places where you can carry concealed. Churches, for instance.
At the same time, Beck has declared his group’s neutrality on S.B. 454, the measure to permit the Sunday sales of beer and such at a new Braves minor league stadium in Gwinnett County.
Let’s take the gun bill first. Beck points out that the legislation has an opt-out provision — churches, like other private property owners, can still ban firearms from their premises if they want.
But the Christian Coalition leader also said that many of the state’s megachurches would like the option of using their congregants as an informal security force.
“The limit, frankly, on a lot of this will be the church’s insurance policy,” Beck said.
The legislation could also have a deterrent effect. Houses of worship — synagogues in particular — have been targeted in part, he said, because ne’er-do-wells conceive of them as unarmed havens of passivity.
“We think the good [in H.B. 89] outweighs the bad,” Beck said.
What the Christian Coalition leader thinks on that particular bill may be moot. The measure, sponsored by state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica), is locked in a House-Senate conference committee, as a result of an ongoing feud between the state Senate and the National Rifle Association.
But S.B. 454 is guaranteed to move — given that it carries the signature of Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour (R-Snellville).
Beck’s logic for not opposing the Sunday sales bill in Gwinnett is twofold. First, it’s a matter of realpolitik.
As Clint Eastwood once said, a lobbyist has got to know his limitations. And Beck realizes he’s got no chance of stopping this one.
The Senate has passed the bill. The House is likely to send it back with a provision that permits grocery and convenience stores to sell beer and wine on the Christian Sabbath. Which means the final version will be the result of a deal cut by Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
“I’m realistic about the weight the Christian Coalition has when it comes to influencing the three most powerful people in the state,” Beck said.
Secondly, while admitting that drinking on Sunday is “problematic” from a religious viewpoint, Beck draws a public policy distinction between Sunday alcohol consumption in a stadium and buying a case of wine or beer from a grocery store.
Public operations such as stadiums or restaurants have an legal interest in making sure their customers don’t get drunk, Beck said.
“The Braves will be very interested in your behavior. They’re going to be interested in not overserving you,” he noted.
All that said, Beck said the Christian Coalition would have to rethink its position if a broader Sunday sales provision were included in the final version.
Join the Clinton press corps and see the world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s a CNN shot of Tuesday’s working quarters for the press traveling with Hillary Clinton in Austin, Texas.
The Clintons have always had a complicated relationship with members of the Fourth Estate.
Hat tip to Blog for Democracy for searching this one out.
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The sleeper provision in Richardson’s newest idea
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So you’d think, now that House Speaker Glenn Richardson has put out the Revised Standard Version of his GREAT plan — this one ditching his efforts to abolish school property taxes, that boards of education would be doing sock-hops in gyms across Georgia.
Trouble is, they read the fine print.
First, the RSV of the Richardson plan caps the money that cities, counties and school districts can take in at the rate of government inflation.
That rate doesn’t always cover teacher pay raises because many educators get two hikes each year: a cost-of-living raise approved by the General Assembly and a longevity raise built into the state’s “career ladder.”
If school districts want more money, they’ll have to ask voters. That may wind up happening every time the state grants teachers a big pay raise.
But more worrisome to school officials, according to our colleague James Salzer, is a sleeper provision that would allow the General Assembly to eliminate school property taxes — at a later date — through a simple majority vote.
The previous version of the GREAT plan that eliminated school property taxes — let’s call it the King James Version rather than RSV — required 120 votes to pass the 180-member chamber. So does this one.
But if the Senate agrees, and voters approve in November, the General Assembly could then come back and eliminate school property taxes next year. And in the House, only 91 votes would be required.
“In some ways, this is more dangerous to us than the original version,” said Angela Palm of the Georgia School Boards Association. “By majority vote, he’s doing what he’s been trying to do for months that everybody opposed.”
It was the best of plans, and the worst of plans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The newest incarnation of House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s tax reform plan — whittled down to elimination of the car tax, property tax freeze and such — picked up the immediate endorsement of the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity.
And condemnation from another budget-oriented group — one that has advocated increased spending for social programs.
Praise first.
“Making government live within its means is the first step toward delivering meaningful, long-lasting tax relief,” said Jared Thomas, director of the group’s Georgia chapter. “Our members are excited about this opportunity to roll back the punitive car tag tax, prevent backdoor property tax hikes with assessment caps, and secure that tax relief by putting caps on local government growth.”
Grover Norquist, head of Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform, last week provided the killing blow to the previous version of Richardson’s plan. Like the AFP, Norquist is expected to approve this one.
Now the slap, from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
GBPI executive director Alan Essig said the speaker’s package would lead to a $329 million hole in the state’s 2010 budget, and a $672 million hole the year after that.
“It will be impossible to balance the state budget without deep cuts to education, health care and criminal justice,” he said. “Such a major tax cut at the same time as a slowing economy and revenue growth is perhaps the most fiscally irresponsible policy proposal of the past 30 years.”
Vanity car tag bill again delayed — amid signs of pushback from transplanted alumni
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Senate Public Safety Committee had been scheduled to take up H.B. 1165, the measure that could bar vanity car tags for those who attended of out-of-state universities.
A meeting had been scheduled for 1 p.m. today, but now it’s been canceled — for a second time. Possibly, we’re seeing the result of an effective lobbying campaign conducted by an impromptu consortium of alumni associations.
Several House members, both Republican and Democrat, have recanted. We’re trying to get a count. Below is one exchange between Thomas Chapman, the retired chairman of Equifax, and state Rep. Ed Lindsey, who now calls his vote for H.B. 1165 a mistake:
Dear Representative Lindsey:
As a Georgia native and tax payer, and former CEO of an S&P 500 company, I resent the Legislature wasting it’s time on a bill dealing with college logos on consumer paid license plates.
Surely, issues like water, education, healthcare, roadways, etc, are more important than worrying about which state allows a schools logo to appear on license plates.
Vote no on HR 1165, and please direct your energies, Rep. Lindsey, on matters of importance. I appreciate your support and action.
Thomas F. Chapman
Chairman and CEO
Equifax, Inc Retired
Nothing like a harsh note one of Atlanta’s former business giants to make an impression. Here’s Lindsey’s reply:
Thomas,
Sometimes under the Gold Dome, we make a mistake. This bill appears to be one of those times.
We focused too much on assisting alumni from our state institutions living in neighboring states and not enough on our own citizens.
After listening to your and others concerns, I believe that this bill should be defeated or seriously amended.
I have asked my senate colleagues to defeat this bill in their chamber and have transmitted your concerns to them.
I thank you for your input on this issue and please contact me on any other issues that you may have.
Sincerely,
Rep. Edward Lindsey (R-Atlanta)
Schaefer joins the 10th District congressional race against Broun
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Life just got more complicated for U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens.
State Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) just told us that she’s decided to become the second challenger to enter the 10th District congressional primary against Broun.
House Majority Whip Barry Fleming, a Republican from the Augusta area, is already in the race. Right now, Bobby Saxon is the only Democrat in the contest.
Apparently, Schaefer’s not sure that Broun, who won a surprise victory in last year’s special election, can hang onto the seat.
“We feel it’s a good opportunity for me to represent North Georgia. Most North Georgians want change right now,” she told us in the Senate chamber. “They’d like it to be a North Georgia seat — not a seat from Augusta.”
Ouch.
Schaefer’s entry into the congressional race, of course, means an open seat for the state Senate. Pass the word.
But remember that this is Buckhead. Bring your passports.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
D.A. King, whose Dustin Inman Society opposed last year’s effort at immigration reform in Washington, is calling on members to rally at the Thursday fund-raiser for Republican presidential presumptive John McCain.
The protest will be held outside the Westin Buckhead Hotel, we presume.
An e-mail from King says his group will “rally in a demand for secure American borders and to oppose any repeat of the three John McCain/ Teddy Kennedy led attempts at a repeat of the failed1986 amnesty for illegal aliens and their employers.”
Smith: Votes aren’t there for House plan for statewide, one-penny transportation tax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
InsiderAdvantage is reporting this morning that House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith has counted his supporters, and they’re not enough.
His plan for a statewide sales tax increase to address the state’s massive backlog of transportation needs can’t reach the 120 votes it needs to pass the 180-member House as a proposed constitutional amendment.
“I haven’t dropped the idea, but I’ve come up with another concept,” he said.
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Ramping up the GOP counterinsurgency
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After reading Monday’s post on Democratic plans to take advantage of a Barack Obama bump in Georgia, we got a call from James Sibold, chairman of the DeKalb County GOP.
He was getting ready to hop a plane to Texas to help John McCain.
But when he got back, Sibold said his county operation was prepared to launch a massive voter registration drive to offset an Obama presence on the Democratic ticket.
The north DeKalb and Dunwoody areas, home to a number of endangered Republican lawmakers, will be one focus.
Sibold said he’s hoping GOP leaders in Cobb, Gwinnett and Fulton are thinking likewise.
An election-year heckle from the Jekyll Island contingent
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With their legislation tromped on and their senator sponsor dubbed a liar in a Senate hearing last week, supporters of a more cautious approach to rebuilding Jekyll Island have decided to redirect their anger toward the November ballot box.
This ad will be appearing in the AJC and other newspapers across the state sometime this week, lamenting the defeat of three bills by state Sen. Jeff Chapman (R-Brunswick) that would have “prohibited development along the park’s remaining beachfront and promoted Jekyll Island’s affordability for average citizens.”
The ad offers up names and phone numbers of the Senate Economic Development Committee, whose members voted down the legislation last Thursday.
Continues the ad: “If you are among the thousands of Georgians who are angry because their wishes for Jekyll were discounted by Sen. [Chip] Pearson’s committee, hold on to that anger for 244 days.”
David Egan, leader of Initiative to Protect Jekyll Island, said the group will be churning out bumper-stickers, too — “Remember in November Who Killed the Jekyll Bills.”
Perdue: VP post = eviction notice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue was in Washington today to announce his endorsement of Sen. John McCain, the all-but-official Republican nominee for president.
Perdue was among six governors to announce their new allegiance with the Arizona senator, who never got along with conservatives in his party and who may be considering a running mate a little further right to balance the ticket.
When asked, though, Perdue down played the chance that that conservative could be him.
The only ones talking to him about the possibility of a VP slot, he said, are “the media - and they’re just trying to get rid of me in Georgia.”
Kasim Reed takes first step toward Atlanta mayoral bid
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s another sign that the post-Shirley Franklin era has begun.
State Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) will announce today the formation of an exploratory committee — the first step in his anticipated campaign for mayor of Atlanta in 2009.
Reed, a partner at Holland & Knight law firm, is calling his group ONE Atlanta, and has already signed up 33 member-supporters, many of them close to Mayor Franklin. (Reed acted as her strategist in two campaigns.)
So who is Reed? Despite his status as a Democrat, Reed is one of the better deal-makers at the state Capitol. He’s the fellow who cut the deal with Republicans in the Senate back in 2003 to keep the old state banner — the one with the Confederate battle emblem — off Gov. Sonny Perdue’s flag referendum.
Though a Barack Obama supporter, Reed says he’ll hold a Hillary Clinton-style “listening tour” of Atlanta over the next few weeks.
So far as we know, Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders remains the only formally declared candidate who has announced her intention of accepting campaign contributions for the ’09 contest. Others interested in the spot include city council members Mary Norwood and Ceasar Mitchell. (Norwood and her minions have phoned and e-mailed us to say that she, too, has formed an exploratory committee. Her list of member/supporters can be found here.)
The three chairmen of Reed’s exploratory committee are consultant Peter Aman, DeKalb County District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming, and Daniel Halpern, president of Jackmont Hospitality.
The entire list is on the jump, but a few more names are worth noting: Stephen R. Leeds, a major force within the state Democratic Party; Billy Linville, vice president for public affairs with AT&T, who helped push through Atlanta’s sewer referendums; and Robert Highsmith, a partner with Reed at Holland & Knight.
Highsmith is one of the most well-connected Republicans in Atlanta, and is the attorney for Gov. Sonny Perdue’s personal political action committee, Perdue PAC. His support of Reed is kosher, because — at least technically — municipal races are non-partisan.
This is also the first time we can remember seeing the son of former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, Andrew “Bo” Young III, taking a prominent role in a political campaign.
In addition to the three co-chairs, the members of the ONE Atlanta Exploratory Committee include:
Elaine Alexander, Civic Leader
Hon. Kathy Ashe, Georgia State Representative
Constance Barkley-Lewis, Partner, Constance Change, LLC
Justin Berman, Vice President, Goldman Sachs
Phillipa B. Brown, Senior Managing Partner, MobilizingPeople.Org
Jan P. Bryson, Managing Partner, BenchMark Management, LLC
Lawrence E. Cooper, M.D., President and CEO, Bentley Investments, Inc.
Brenda Cornelius, Principal, The Cornelius Group, Inc.
Rhudine Crawford, Civic Leader
Hon. Karla Drenner, Georgia State Representative
Eugene Duffy, Partner, Paradigm Asset Management Company
Susan E. Edlein, Partner, Holland & Knight LLP
Cabral Franklin, Partner, CK Franklin LLC
Jerry L. Gray, Director, Chitwood & Harley LLP
Virginia Hepner, President, GHL, LLC
Robert S. Highsmith, Jr., Partner, Holland & Knight LLP
Stephen R. Leeds, Partner, Rogers & Hardin LLP
Billy Linville, Vice President Public Affairs, AT&T
Amol S. Naik, Associate, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP
Larry Pellegrini, Executive Director, Georgia Rural Urban Summit
Amy Phuong, Operations Manager, McMaster-Carr Supply Co.
Nancy Rafuse, Partner, Ashe, Rafuse, & Hill, LLP
H. Jerome Russell, President, Russell New Urban Development
Shelley A. Senterfitt, Partner, Senterfitt & Knight, LLC
Sachin Shailendra, Project Manager, The Shailendra Group
Shakir Stewart, Senior Vice President, Island/Def Jam Records, Inc.
Lovette Stovall, Civic Leader
Andrew “Bo” Young, III, President, Young Solutions, Inc.
Joseph D. Young, Partner, DLA Piper LLP
William K. Whitner, Partner, Paul Hastings LLP
The Obama bump in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The votes in Texas and Ohio haven’t been cast yet. Hillary Clinton could still pull it out.
But already Democratic strategists are salivating at the nomination of Barack Obama, and the effect a black presidential candidate might have on the balance of power in the South.
A surge of voters in states with the highest African-American populations in the nation could send a rippling wave down ballots from Louisiana to North Carolina, reversing a four-decade decline in Democratic clout.
Nowhere is this more true than in Georgia, where Democrats cast 97,310 more votes in the Feb. 5 presidential primary than Republicans — a 10 percent advantage.
Randy Evans, a Republican member of the State Election Board, is predicting an impressive statewide turnout of 60 percent for the November election that could overwhelm polling sites. “We’ll have some precincts that break 70 percent. I’m willing to stick my neck out that far,” he said.
Evans contends that, by November, Georgia Republicans will match the intensity of Democrats and provide their usual proportion of votes.
Democrats have every intention of putting that theory to the test. Already, plans are afoot to expand the number of state House and Senate seats in which they’ll challenge Republican incumbents.
County operatives are recruiting more candidates for school board and county commission races. Significant gains could come in Cobb and Gwinnett counties, traditional Republican bastions where Democrats made up 48 and 46 percent of the presidential primary vote, respectively.
For Democrats, the only obstacle to this downballot momentum may be a clunker of a U.S. Senate race. Five candidates are in the Democratic race: Former TV journalist Dale Cardwell; DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones; ecologist Rand Knight; Statesboro businessman Josh Lanier; and Rockdale County teacher Maggie Martinez.
According to the Federal Election Commission, as of Dec. 31, Democratic candidates reported a total $296,201 in cash on hand for the Senate race. Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss reported $4.4 million. And Chambliss has no primary challenge.
But an Obama bump could change even the dynamics of Georgia’s Senate race.
Since Super Tuesday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington has gone back to a number of Senate races that had been written off as unwinnable. The race in Georgia is among them.
On Feb. 24, the DSCC completed a four-day poll of 600 likely Georgia voters that measured Chambliss’ vulnerabilities. The survey found:
— The Republican incumbent led when pitted against a generic Democrat, but only by 42 to 37 percent;
— Only 38 percent of those surveyed rated Chambliss’ performance in office as good or excellent. Forty percent rated it fair or poor — perhaps a result of the Republican senator’s involvement in an attempt at immigration reform last summer;
— And only 37 percent of voters would commit to re-electing Chambliss.
Both Democrats and Republicans have told us these weaknesses are not particularly news, but have been overshadowed by Chambliss’ fund-raising efforts, and by the weakness of the Democratic field.
The significance is that such polls are often produced when national parties have a potential candidate — or multiple candidates — they’d like to lure into a particular race. This may be the case when it comes to the Georgia contest.
“There are people who are still considering this race,” said state Democratic party chairman Jane Kidd on Friday. “If anyone else does decide to get in, it probably will happen in the next 10 days to two weeks.”
Just who, Kidd wouldn’t say. But we have heard the name of Jim Martin mentioned on several fronts.
Our attempts to reach the Atlanta attorney and former state representative were unsuccessful. But Martin ran a credible campaign for lieutenant governor in 2006, winning more votes than Mark Taylor, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor.
Jones, the DeKalb CEO, must be considered the strongest Democrat currently in the Senate race.
But Martin also has demonstrated strong support in metro Atlanta, and so could challenge Jones for that spot — perhaps easing fears, privately expressed by some Democrats, that Jones’ controversial personal life could dampen the downticket effect of an Obama-generated uplift.
Cardwell to Jones: Just you and me — name the time and place
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We weren’t there, but it seems as if Dale Cardwell is out to turn the Democratic race for U.S. Senate into a two-man race, between him and DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones.
At Saturday night’s DeKalb County Democratic party banquet, Cardwell challenged Jones to a series of one-on-one debates. Mano a mano. Never mind those three other candidates.
The first question Cardwell would have Jones explain? Why the Democrat voted twice for George W. Bush. In his press release, Cardwell included as evidence this interview of Jones on the “Kudzu Vine” podcast of July 22, 2007.
Cardwell says the relevant portion is at the 39:45 minute mark. (We checked. Jones said he didn’t like Al Gore in 2000 because Gore “ran away from Bill Clinton” and ignored the South. In 2004, Jones said he voted for Bush because “John Kerry was a blue-blood and he didn’t understand Georgia.”)
“Jones’ record is full of secrecy, backroom deals, personal profit and favors to politically connected insiders,” Cardwell said. Given an attack of that nature, you have to consider the DeKalb County executive the man to beat. So far.
More on Democrats and the U.S. Senate race this evening.
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