Legislators distracted from state’s true needs

The building on Hemphill Street that once housed Gov. Lester Maddox’s Pickrick restaurant, where he infamously refused to serve African-American customers in the 1960s, might soon face the wrecking ball. I have no dog in that particular fight, but the debate over whether the building should stand or fall reminded me of a bad time in our history — a time when an obsession with divisive social issues hindered our entire state’s economic progress.

It also reminded me that when Maddox was waving ax handles and mugging for the cameras, Mayor Ivan Allen and many business leaders were working hard to demonstrate that Atlanta was a “city too busy to hate.” The business community stood up and said we needed to focus on social progress if we wanted economic progress. The result was an economic boom that lasted from the 1970s through the 1990s and helped everyone in Georgia.

Today, our state’s economy faces grave dangers. Certainly, we face the same economic conditions that plague the entire nation. But if we want to be among the first to come back, we need a unified focus on how to stabilize business and economic conditions in our state.

Instead, our political leaders are wasting time on partisan social issues, and our business leaders are mostly on the sidelines.

One ridiculous example is state Sen. Mitch Seabaugh’s idea that last year’s rollback of concealed weapons laws just wasn’t enough — and that we need to let people carry guns in churches and on college campuses, too. Make no mistake: I own several guns, I hunt and I don’t want to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. But in times like these, our business community should stand up and say that it’s just a waste of time to debate narrow ideological issues of any stripe. Georgians are far more worried about how to keep their jobs and build our economy for the future.

When we set our state’s agenda based on divisive social issues, everyone loses. But when we focus on economic and social progress, everyone benefits.

Our state followed that path for three decades, and it worked. Governors from Carl Sanders to Roy Barnes worked with visionary business leaders to drive economic activity in Atlanta that ultimately benefited all of Georgia.

In the 1960s, while Alabama Gov. George Wallace was standing in the schoolhouse door defying desegregation, Sanders was working with civic and business leaders to bring professional major league sports teams to Atlanta, which made Georgia the setting for historic events, such as Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record in 1974.

State political leaders worked with the federal government and local business leaders to turn Atlanta into a mecca for public-health professionals. They capitalized on the presence of the Centers of Disease Control to attract the headquarters of the American Cancer Society here in 1987, followed by CARE’s relocation to downtown Atlanta in 1993.

Billy Payne’s Herculean efforts to bring the Olympic Games here in 1996, aided by political leaders who were willing to put aside ideological bias for the public good, proved that Atlanta could serve as a global center for all types of commerce.

And while government and business leaders worked to bring new economic activity to Georgia, civic-minded developers like John Portman, Tom Cousins and Herman Russell were building commercial and residential projects that sent international businesses a clear message about Atlanta and Georgia: We can build the places where people from all over the world can work and be productive — and we can build the neighborhoods where those same talented people can live and raise their families.

Today, with the state mired in recession, Georgia’s political leaders are getting mired in a narrow social and ideological agenda.

We have recently begun to see a newer generation of business leaders — such as the Bank of North Georgia’s Kessel D. Stelling Jr. and Sandersville Railroad Co.’s Charles K. Tarbutton — serve as leaders on real issues, such as transportation and water resources. And longtime leaders like former Georgia-Pacific Chairman Pete Correll have bravely stepped in on critical issues like saving Grady Hospital. But sadly, too many leaders of Atlanta’s and Georgia’s most prominent businesses are on the sidelines — or concerned only with their corporate agendas.

I believe it’s time for a new generation of business leaders — regardless of party affiliation — to stand up and say that we have a choice:

We can focus on divisive social issues that drop the same kind of roadblocks in front of Georgia’s economic growth that Maddox’s antics brought us 40 years ago. Or we can focus on creating the infrastructure and social climate to make Georgia a better place to live, work and play.

It’s time for business leaders once again to remind the folks under the Gold Dome that public service isn’t about the pursuit of ideology; it’s about making progress for working Georgians. And if our current political leaders don’t get the message, we should work to elect some new ones.

The record shows that when Georgia rises above social issues and focuses on economic progress, everyone prospers.

• Keith W. Mason, a partner at McKenna Long & Aldridge, served as deputy assistant to President Clinton and chief of staff to Gov. Zell Miller.