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Monday, September 22, 2008
More NRA stuff: The gun group has endorsed Marshall, too
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Turns out that the National Rifle Association didn’t just endorse U.S. Rep. John Barrow.
The gun group is also backing that other embattled white Democrat, Jim Marshall of Macon. Marshall’s office just shipped us the letter.
John Stone, who’s running against Barrow in the 12th District race, disagrees with the assessment below, which characterized the NRA endorsement as “a significant blow” to the Republican’s campaign.
Stone wrote the following this afternoon:
”’A significant blow’? Hardly. Everyone involved in this race fully expected the NRA to endorse Barrow from the start, as they search for token Democrats to counter charges the organization favors Republicans.
“Gun rights supporters know full well that a vote for Barrow is a vote for Nancy Pelosi’s anti-gun agenda, and for Barack Obama’s plan to overturn the recent landmark Hellar decision with far-left Supreme Court appointments. Barrow publicly supports both Pelosi and Obama.
“Real Second Amendment voters see this as a “significant blow” against the NRA’s political credibility.”
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One more time: Gingrich says fight over president’s Wall Street package will be ‘much bigger than he expected’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich, the former Georgia congressman, has again put himself out front as an opponent of the $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street proposed by President Bush.
On Saturday, it was in the Washington Post. Now, this is in a just-posted New York Times piece:
But Mr. Bush may find that members of his own party are among the holdouts. Some conservative Republicans criticized the plan, raising the stakes for Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who has been trying to persuade lawmakers and an increasingly frustrated American public that the rescue package was needed.
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, said he expected Republican lawmakers to oppose the plan in increasing numbers. “I think this is going to be a much bigger fight than he expected,” Mr. Gingrich said, referring to President Bush, who called again for swift action on Monday morning. “I think this bill is a long way from done,” Mr. Gingrich added.
Here’s the question: Gingrich was spot on when he identified this spring’s rising gasoline prices as an entry point for a pro-consumer, GOP comeback. “Drill here, drill now,” etc.
But regardless of the point of free-market principle involved, would it be smart for Republicans to align themselves against a raft of consumer/voters who see their pensions and 401(k)s at risk?
Just asking.
Photo credit: Associated Press
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Cagle: Consider passing T-SPLOST as a bill, with Perdue’s support
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle met with the membership of Get Georgia Moving, a business-oriented group devoted to moving public officials off the dime when it comes to transportation.
The locale was just as important: downtown Atlanta, at the headquarters of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
Last spring, both the Metro Chamber and Get Georgia Moving lined up behind legislation to permit regions (such as greater Atlanta) to levy a penny sales tax on themselves to relieve traffic congestion.
The measure, a proposed constitutional amendment that was to appear on the ballot this November, passed the House but fell three votes short of the required two-thirds majority in the Senate.
Today was about getting past that debacle, which ticked off the business community mightily, and making sure it doesn’t happen again.
After his meeting with transportation enthusiasts, Cagle walked across the street to hold a press conference in Centennial Park to declare that transportation and traffic congestion, which costs jobs and time, “is a very high priority of mine.”
“The reality is that in Georgia we’re going need about an additional 4,000 new [lane miles] that’s going to cost about $50 billion,” the lieutenant governor said.
Now, how to get there in the middle of a budget crisis. “We are behind the eight ball to some degree,” Cagle admitted.
Two bits of news could be dug out of Cagle’s press conference:
First, the lieutenant governor mentioned that the State Road and Tollway Authority could be used as a clearinghouse for private/public ventures — such as tolled HOV lanes. Cagle cited the authority’s bonding capacity, but also pointed out that Gov. Sonny Perdue, House Speaker Glenn Richardson, and himself all have seats on the authority. Gena Evans, the Department of Transportation commissioner, serves as executive secretary.
In other words, the tollway authority could act as a place where the giants can hash out their differences without involving the entire Legislature.
Cagle also had some suggestions about a special local option sales tax for transportation, which he also supports — in some form.
“One option, obviously, is whether to continue down the path with a constitutional amendment,” Cagle said, “or to do it with a general bill through intergovernmental agreement.”
Because a proposed constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers, all kinds of people need to be cut in on the deal. Democrats, for instance.
It also wouldn’t go into effect until after November 2010, the next opportunity to put it on a general election ballot.
A general bill permitting regions to levy a TSPLOST would require a simple majority vote in each chamber. And it could go into effect immediately, winning back the time lost in last year’s meltdown.
But a general bill would also demand the signature of the governor, who has expressed his opposition to a transportation sales tax.
Persuading Perdue would be someone else’s problem, Cagle said. “That’s the coalition’s desire, to get the governor on board. They will have to make that case,” the lieutenant governor said.
Asked which approach he preferred, Cagle said, “It makes no difference to me. Either process gets you to the end that you’re looking for.”
But the lieutenant governor urged the business community to have a largely agreed-upon plan before the Legislature convenes in January.
One sticking point he expects to be discussed in great detail: Say a group of counties vote to levy a tax, and it receives a majority vote in favor. But in one county, or two, the sales tax fails.
Are the citizens in the counties that disapproved the tax still obligated to pay it?
Photo credit: John Spink/AJC
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The NRA endorses Barrow over Republican challenger in the 12th District race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My Washington colleague Julia Malone sends word that the National Rifle Association has just endorsed the re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. John Barrow, the Savannah Democrat.
Read this as a significant blow to Barrow’s Republican challenger, John Stone.
It’ll be next week before the influential gun group posts all of its endorsements.
Meanwhile, Barrow’s campaign is touting the contents of a letter from the NRA Political Victory Fund that says this:
During your tenure in Congress, you have consistently supported the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen, demonstrating a strong commitment to our Second Amendment rights and hunting heritage… We urge our members and other gun owners and sportsmen in the 12th Congressional District of Georgia to vote for you on November 4th.
Certainly not by coincidence, Barrow was a co-sponsor of legislation to overturn the District of Columbia’s restrictions on gun ownership. The bill passed the House last week.
By the way — U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, the Democrat from Macon, was also a co-sponsor of the D.C. gun bill.
Photo credit: Associated Press
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Charles Walker sent to Mississippi to help with Facility Group investigation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the weekend, the Augusta Chronicle had an excellent piece on the role of a prominent local boy, former state lawmaker Robin Williams, in the federal pursuit of three executives with the Smyrna-based Facility Group.
Williams is now in prison.
But the real news was the fact that the Chronicle also pinned down the rumor that former Senate majority leader Charles Walker, another Augustan public official behind bars, had also been moved to an Oxford, Miss., jail to help with the investigation.
Williams was convicted in 2005 of bilking $2 million from a mental health center. Walker was convicted the same year on tax evasion, mail fraud and conspiracy charges.
Facility Group chairman Robert Moultrie, who has resigned his position with the company, has pleaded guilty for giving an illegal gratiuity to a public official — presumed to be then-Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. Two other executives did the same.
Wrote the Chronicle:
In his grand jury testimony, Mr. Williams was asked by a juror whether the official knew Mr. Moultrie was holding a fundraiser for him before the contract was signed. Mr. Williams said “they had done their deal.”
“On the phone this is what was told,” Mr. Williams’ testimony reads. “We got the contract. I’ve (Moultrie) got to do a fundraiser for the (public official). I’ve got to raise $100,000 .
“He said we’re going to be in Smyrna at my home. I need you to bring some money,” Mr. Williams continued.
At a July fundraiser, Facility Group employees were told to donate $1,000 each, then were reimbursed $1,500 by the company. They raised $25,000, and Mr. Williams provided a check for $25,000 to the Democratic Governors Association, court documents say.
The company created a political action committee and gave two more contributions of $20,000 and $25,000, for a total of $95,000. Later, The Facility Group billed the state for false labor expenses, trying to recoup the campaign donations and the money spent reimbursing employees, documents say. It also submitted invoices for Mr. Moultrie’s travel and dinner at the meeting arranged by Mr. Williams.
The newspaper was less sure about Walker’s value to prosecutors:
Mr. Walker’s name doesn’t come up in case filings, but campaign disclosures say Mr. Moultrie donated $1,000 to his filed Senate campaign in 2002 and $1,000 the same year to the failed congressional campaign of his son, Charles “Champ” Walker Jr.
Champ Walker said he doesn’t know what his father had to do with the Mississippi prosecutions, nor does he know Mr. Moultrie.
Both Walker and Williams are back in a federal prison in Estill, S.C.
