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Thursday, April 3, 2008
Bob Barr set to explore his presidential possibilities on Saturday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Peach Pundit has found this posting on the American Spectator blog, which says former Georgia congressman Bob Barr will launch his exploratory committee for the Libertarian presidential nomination on Saturday in Kanas City.
Says the AmSpec posting:
When former Rep. Bob Barr arrives in Kansas City on Saturday for the Heartland Libertarian Conference, organizers expect him to launch an exploratory committee for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. Barr is meeting with his political team on Friday to firm up plans. Right now, he’s expected to fly into the city at about noon Saturday and address the conference in the early afternoon.
The Barr launch is getting to be an open secret among conference-goers. Advocacy Ink, the firm that handles Barr’s public relations, is advertising the speech to local and national reporters. Mike Ferguson, the de jure organizer of the conference, is scrambling to deal with a crush of new media requests.
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The letter to Perdue, asking if he intends to step on the transportation sales tax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House and Senate conferees on the transportation sales tax met again Thursday afternoon. Incremental changes were announced, and everyone agreed that the two sides were coming ever closer to agreement.
House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) said he still wanted to hear from Sonny Perdue, and whether the governor would sign enabling legislation that the Senate insists be stripped from the proposed constitutional amendment.
Senate Transportation Chairman Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) said responses by Perdue staff members to his initial inquiries have been encouraging. The characterization was intentionally vague.
But here’s a copy of the letter that Mullis sent Perdue, inquiring whether the governor intended to block the deal.
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Richardson on Cagle: The lieutenant governor is the only man — currently in America — opposing his tax cut
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is late, but here’s a two-minute sound bite of House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s protest from the well on Wednesday, over the harsh treatment his tax-cut measure received at the hands of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
Negotiations, of course, continue.
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Why you soon may be allowed to carry concealed at Kennesaw Mountain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday is about to become a very big payday for gun rights advocates.
Here’s the deal:
Two bills will move, not one. H.B. 257, which now permits those with concealed weapons permits to carry in restaurants and on rail and bus systems, is but one chunk.
H.B. 89 will also move. This measure will carry the watered-down, guns-in-parking-lots language that the Senate, National Rifle Association and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce have wrestled with for two sessions, plus other goodies for the NRA.
Right now, chances of passage for both must be rated very good. Opposition is scarce. Joe Fleming, lobbyist for the Georgia chamber, says his group will be focused H.B. 89, to make sure the parking lots language doesn’t change.
Whether restaurant groups, MARTA and other transit systems raise objections — and raise them quickly enough — will determine whether H.B. 257 has tough sledding.
When it leaves a House-Senate conference committee tomorrow, H.B. 89 will be significantly changed. The parking-lot language, stripped out by the House, will be restored.
The language redefining “public gatherings” where firearms remain prohibited has been abandoned. You will not be permitted to carry a concealed weapon into church.
But the bill will:
— Require expedited treatment for concealed weapons permits by the probate court judges who issue them;
— Relax state restrictions on where firearms can be stored in vehicles;
— Make “straw” purchases of firearms illegal — a way of prohibiting lawsuits of the type filed by New York against gun dealers in Georgia, alleging they are sources for weapons that flow into states where buying a gun is much more difficult or time-consuming.
— And it will allow licensed concealed weapons to be carried in state parks and historical sites.
This last part is important, and here’s why:
U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has said his department would suggest new regulations by the end of this month that would amount to the biggest relaxation of gun-toting rules in federal parks in more than a century.
Basically, he said that concealed weapons would be permitted — if the U.S. parks are located in states that permit carrying in their parks. So passage of H.B. 89 would insure that, someday soon, visitors to Kennesaw National Battlefield Park and the federal Chattahoochee River park would also be able to carry concealed.
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A case of revenge that almost worked
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Wednesday, Democrats in the Senate very nearly pulled off an exquisite maneuver that would have killed the only gun bill Republicans have been able to pass this session.
State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) successfully added an amendment that would have required universities to develop plans for dealing with shooting incidents, like the one at Virginia Tech last year.
The amendment doubled the length of the bill, and Senate rules required the bill be placed on the next day’s calendar. Had Republicans not awarded themselves a generous mulligan, the amendment would have put the bill out of reach for the session.
It’s helpful to remember who’s done what to whom at the state Capitol. One of the originators of the plan to load up H.B. 257 with gun-toting baubles was state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica).
And it’s pretty widely known that Fort blames Bearden — and state Rep. David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) — for killing his bill to shut down no-knock warrants. The Fort measure passed the Senate, but is going nowhere in the House.
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