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Friday, January 18, 2008
GOP, especially Richardson, at high risk in the House
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Whether Glenn Richardson’s tenure as speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives is in its final year depends.
It depends on his pursuit of the GREAT tax swap — some property tax relief for a new tax on services in return.
It depends on his handling of the effort to oust the chairman of the Georgia Department of Transportation board, former state Rep. Mike Evans of Cumming.
And it depends on his handling of the effort to override Gov. Sonny Perdue’s vetoes of a dozen bills passed by the General Assembly last year. All dozen were overridden last week with just 12 to 15 dissenters, but Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle declared the Senate “will not be in a real big hurry” to get to the overrides anytime soon.
This is an important session for Republicans. People are beginning to notice how they run Georgia. A repeat of last session’s personality-driven vituperation might set the stage for an election-year disaster. The GOP won’t lose control of the House or Senate, but the result of another exhausting year of bickering does make it more likely that some incumbents will walk away — life’s too short — or that they’ll draw primary challenges.
The GREAT plan is ideal for cultivating potential challengers. For Republican legislators, it’s a loser either way. Vote in favor and the hordes of interest groups and individuals lined up in opposition will find the challengers. Vote against and the opponent will come from those who think their property taxes are too high and that illegal immigrants and others are escaping the fair-share taxation they’d get with an expanded sales tax. Either way, incumbents lose.
It’s not surprising that the speaker lacks the votes to pass it. The effort to oust Evans is another move that has the potential to ricochet. Evans was among those who supported Gena Abraham as the Department of Transportation commissioner last October.
He and Raybon Anderson of Statesboro, who represents the 12th Congressional District on the DOT board and who also supported Abraham, are up for re-election. Each member of the House and Senate who serves any portion of a congressional district has a vote. It’s ordinarily done by secret ballot. In the Evans race, Richardson wants open voting.
Strip away Richardson’s, Perdue’s and Cagle’s personalties — impossible to do, probably — but even without the pettiness and gamesmanship, there are reasonable disagreements about separation of power and about the roles and authority of the House, Senate and executive branch in both the veto-override attempts and in the DOT board contest.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Vance Smith Jr. of Pine Mountain was the other candidate for DOT commissioner.
Seventeen House members and seven senators from the 9th Congressional district (23 Republicans and one Democrat) will decide Evans’ fate. Since the House has the numbers, the DOT board is the one place where the House is supreme — in theory, at least. Abraham was the governor’s choice — thus bringing Georgia to this “Sopranos” storyline moment.
Evans is a solid fiscal conservative who, with a few others on the board, represents precisely the kind of fact-driven, results-oriented policy-makers that conservatives need to plant throughout state government.
The engineer-trained Abraham is too, the mold-breaker who shows great promise of being able to manage an agency in transition.
Turning the ship of state is a long process. Throwing out those with the ability to lead the change makes no sense.
Putting 17 House members on the line is a chance to “win,” but it is likely to be a pyrrhic victory. Besides, Richardson could lose.
The Senate certainly should, on principle, pick some issue and override the governor’s veto. But that really is something Cagle and Richardson should have worked out well before opening day.
The session is high-risk for all Republicans — but especially for Richardson.
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