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DEL.ICIO.USThe shove behind the resignation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Monday, Gov. Sonny Perdue announced a shake-up of his House floor leadership.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer today provides the back-story. The governor’s decision to dump state Rep. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) from his leadership team was an outgrowth of the fight over transportation — and money for that infantry museum near Fort Benning.
Writes the newspaper:
Ten days ago, Gov. Sonny Perdue called local Rep. Vance Smith, R-Pine Mountain, to Atlanta for a meeting.
Smith, one of the governor’s House floor leaders, didn’t know what the meeting was about, but it didn’t take him long to get the message.
“I saw where it was going,” said Smith, chairman of the powerful House Transportation Committee.
The end result was Smith agreed to step aside as assistant administration floor leader, a position he has held since 2005. On Monday, Perdue appointed Rep. Jimmy Pruett, R-Eastman, to replace Smith.
“We mutually agreed,” Smith said. “He agreed to find someone to spend 100 percent of their time as floor leader and I agreed to spend 100 percent of my time as Transportation Committee chairman.”
In the fight to make Gena Abraham commissioner of the state Department of Transportation last year, Smith was the rival candidate backed by House Speaker Glenn Richardson. Smith also put forward a plan to let regions such as metro Atlanta to tax themselves in order to spend more money on fighting congestion.
One senses that things went from bad to worse. According to the Ledger-Enquirer:
Last month, Perdue used the line-item veto to remove $3 million from the state budget that would have gone to the Infantry Museum and Soldier Center at Patriot Park. Smith had pushed to get the money in the state budget. He said he had not talked to the governor’s office prior to the veto.
Comments
By Political Foreskin
June 3, 2008 2:18 PM | Link to this
CNN just reported that a cycling bear was struck and killed on I-75 in Cobb County. Witnesses claim the bear refused to yield to larger, faster traffic and insisted on his right of way in the bicycle lane that wasn’t there.
The motorist didn’t stop.