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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Cox: Taylor used prison labor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THE AD
The television ad opens with Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor and headlines saying he “fabricated� an attack on Democratic rival Cathy Cox by saying she voted against the lottery. It then switches to Cox saying she “has always supported the HOPE scholarship, always will.� HOPE is funded with lottery proceeds. It next shows a shot of Taylor and makes a new charge, saying the lieutenant governor used his influence to get “free prison labor for a company project, costing hard-working, law-abiding Georgians their jobs.� It finishes with the phrase, “Mark Taylor: he lies and just looks out for the other big guys. Georgia, we deserve better.�
SPONSOR
Cathy Cox for governor campaign
THE REALITY
To make its case, the Cox campaign cites a 1999 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about Taylor acting as an intermediary between the Georgia Department of Corrections and Crisp County officials to help out a struggling South Georgia recycling plant.
Workers hired off welfare were fired and replaced by free convict labor. The story does not say Taylor’s family trucking company was involved, as the ad states.
However, one of the family’s businesses — Trans Waste — had a contract to haul waste to the recycling plant. Taylor’s campaign said his family sold the business in September 1998, but Cox’s campaign said his family remained connected to the business.
Taylor’s father, Fred, was listed as secretary of Trans Waste Services Inc. in the company’s most recent corporate filing with the secretary of state’s office. Rick Dent, Taylor’s spokesman, said the listing is inaccurate.
The company that bought Trans Waste in 1998 issued common stock to the Taylor family’s MML Limited Partnership that year, according to documents obtained by Cox’s campaign. Dent said that the Taylor family did not benefit from the plant’s replacement of paid workers with inmate labor, although that move could have kept the plant in business and the hauling contract intact.
While Cox says she has always supported the HOPE scholarship, she doesn’t say in this ad that she backed the lottery. Taylor has accused her of voting against it as a private citizen, citing a newspaper article about a speech she made in 1993.
Cox said last week that she did vote for the lottery and the author of the article Taylor used for the attack ad on the lottery said this week that his quotes were taken out of context.
However, the Taylor campaign produced a letter from former Blakely City Councilman Benjamin Cawthon, a member of the audience at the Cox speech in 1993, who said Cox did, in fact, indicate that she voted against the lottery.
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