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Thursday, February 19, 2009
Perdue on new transportation authority: No more reliance on ‘13 gerrymandered districts’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson in tow, Gov. Sonny Perdue this afternoon unveiled, not the details, but the theory behind his proposed creation of a State Transportation Authority.
Copies of the bill are still hard to come by, but here’s a copy of the flow chart. This time, because it’s authorized, we can provide a color version.
The membership of the authority has changed to 11 members, up from seven, with five appointments going to the governor, who also gets to name the Secretary of Transportation.
The constitutionally created state Department of Transportation would be reduced to a hand-servant.
The governor spoke for some 20 minutes, but two things quickly became apparent. First, Perdue felt personally burned by this experience with the DOT and his “Fast Forward” program meant to expedite backlogged road projects. Instead, the initiative went billions of dollars over budget and fell years behind schedule.
Said Perdue:
“There’s a long-held belief that the solution to that transportation need is simply to spend more money. And I probably fell into that trap early on…I believe we have been funneling money into a poorly devised system, process, with a broken delivery system.”
But the most provocative thing Perdue said touched on the divvying up of road cash. As stated before, the fight over this measure is likely to be based on geography — metro Atlanta versus every other part of Georgia.
The 13 members of the DOT board are chosen by congressional district, which guarantees some spreading of the sugar. Said Perdue:
“This [new] system is geared toward maximizing the transportation network as a whole, not divided up into 13 gerrymandered districts that change every 10 years.”
Here’s GPB’s “The Lawmakers” on Perdue’s press conference:
Not long afterwards, elections for three DOT board seats were held in the state Capitol. State Sen. Eric Johnson had this concise evaluation in a Twitter he posted this afternoon: “3 DOT elections (but will they matter?)”
Photo credit: Elissa Eubanks/AJC
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Sanford on the stimulus: ‘Being against it doesn’t preclude taking the money’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, is still bashing President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.
But now he’s saying he might accept at least some of the funds.
Sanford was on CBS’ “The Early Show” this morning:
“I think the problem that was created with too much debt will never be solved by adding yet more debt,” he said. “I think there are a number of wrinkles that have caused a number of us to say ‘Wait a minute, let’s take a look — a long look — at whether or not this really makes sense for our state.’”
That said…..
“Being against it doesn’t preclude taking the money,” Sanford explained. “So again, we’re going to look at it, but what you find when you actually begin to look under the hood is that some of those strings attached means you’ve got to go spend a lot more money that you don’t have to be able to eligible for the funds.”
Sanford was slightly more oblique about whether or not his state would accept the cash in a CNN interview 10 days or so ago, when he warned that we’re headed for a “savior-based” economy.
At a breakfast meeting in Atlanta attended by my AJC colleague Aaron Sheinin, U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), one of the architects of the stimulus package, said the language of the 1,000-page legislation was written to ensure that Republican governors of states — particularly in the South — didn’t hijack the funds for other purposes, or simply block the funds.
Title 1 funds, for instance, go toward K-12 programs.
“You won’t believe the fight we had with the other side of the aisle on how the funds will be distributed,” Bishop said. “Title 1, that was suggested as the guideline as the criteria for targeting many of the resources in the stimulus package so we wouldn’t have to trust state governments and governors to distribute those funds — make sure we had formulas in place that would ensure the funds got places where they are needed most.”
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Now for the conservative argument against the Georgia Power bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you are a Georgia Power lobbyist, or represent some other utility, you can often offset criticism of your cause by characterizing it as the carping of left-wing enviros or misguided consumer heroes.
Witness Clark Howard.
This mode of defense goes down well with a Republican-minded Legislature that is willing, often eager, to give business the benefit of the doubt.
But when your legislation is attacked from the right — that’s when you need to worry.
Late Wednesday, Erick Erickson of the Macon-based but nationally read Redstate.com sent out a missive, urging his Georgia followers to ring up their state lawmakers and shoot down S.B. 31, the Georgia Power bill that would permit the utility to bill ratepayers in advance of the construction of two new nuclear units.
Wrote Erickson:
“We should all be fans of nuclear energy. I am for sure.
“But I am deeply concerned that our state legislature is so committed to nuclear energy that they are willing to advance terrible legislation to make it happen.
“Right now, Senate Bill 31 is before the State House. The bill would destroy every incentive Georgia Power has to keep costs down on new nuclear power plant construction and would end all incentives to mitigate problems related to the construction.
“It would do this by requiring Georgia Power customers to pay for the plant now, instead of the company fronting the money. In effect, Georgia Power customers would be forced into buying a car we had no say in choosing before it’s even put together, and would have to pay all the extra charges for overruns too. ”
Erickson linked readers to a site on Human Events, the national conservative web site, and a ZIP code sorting program that will refer the curious to their proper state lawmaker.
The bill has passed the Senate and had its first House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.
Small tutorial on Erickson: He has ambitions of employing the Internet on the conservative side as the Daily Kos does for liberals — by urging his readers to put down their keyboards and pick up their telephones.
So S.B. 31 could make an interesting test case for the web site.
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Your morning jolt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On ajc.com this morning:
— U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, the Georgian with the closest connections to the stimulus package and President Barack Obama, will speak this evening at what once was known as the Soul Food Supper, but is no more.
— Republican state lawmakers propose stimulating tax cuts.
— For the love of peanuts — state Senate weakens a food testing bill.
— MARTA officials will keep them afloat, but no more.
— The Sunday sales fight begins its umpteenth round.
— New AG says Americans are cowards when it comes to talking about race.
And elsewhere:
— Politico: When it comes to stimulus, Florida’s Charlie Crist and S.C.’s Mark Sanford are two sides of the GOP coin.
— PeachPundit: Good post on the coming 2010 census and its impact.
— NYT: That Swiss bank account you opened isn’t so secret anymore.
— NYT: Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius emerging as President Obama’s choice for HHS.
— LAT: Senate not likely to oust Burriss anytime soon.
— WP: FBI was interested in whether top LBJ aide was gay
