H.B. 194, a bill to further trim early voting and regularize weekend balloting in Georgia, passed out of committee a week ago and is now cooling its heels in the House Rules Committee – which has so far declined to take it up.
Democrats see
, sponsored by Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, as an attempt at voter suppression.
We haven’t found anyone willing to own up to it, but two possibilities suggest themselves:
1) We have a straight-up, quid pro quo to forestall the H.B. 194 in exchange for Democratic support on H.B. 170, the transportation bill; or 2) Republicans simply understand that passage of H.B. 194 would so upset House Democrats that payback would be certain.
The question is whether the freeze continues through the debate over Gov. Nathan Deal’s school-rescue program is completed. Democrats are needed in that fight, too.
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Over at Redstate.com, Southern Baptist lobbyist Mike Griffin is calling on supporters to flood the phones of three GOP state senators who voted on Thursday to table S.B. 129, the "religious liberty" bill authored by state Sen. Josh McKoon. Griffin reserved most of his ire for Senate Majority Leader Bill Cowsert:
Unfortunately, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, Bill Cowsert, joined Democrats yesterday to table the legislation in committee. According to two sources, Cowsert offered a poison pill amendment.
Essentially, Cowsert embraced leftwing activists' arguments that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act sanctions child abuse and discrimination and sought then to undermine the law. Keep in mind that the legislation adopts the federal language that Bill Clinton signed into law. Please call Senator Cowsert. Tell him to support the legislation and stop trying to add poison pills to it…
Bill Cowsert is engaged in a typical legislative trick. Undermine the legislation in committee, then claim to support it and vote for it.
From our AJC colleague Kristina Torres' story on Thursday's action:
Cowsert, the second-most-powerful Republican in the Senate, made no apology. "There's been a lot of misconceptions over the last few months that this was in some way a vehicle that would allow discrimination against anyone," he said. "I wanted to make that clear that the government does have a compelling state interest to prevent discrimination and to protect our children."
The bill was tabled after a motion by state Sen. Vincent Fort that was seconded, to general shock, by Cowsert. The fate of the measure is now in his hands.
Democratic Party of Georgia chief DuBose Porter praised the move.
"Hopefully, this move by the Senate Judiciary Committee is the death knell for legislation that is essentially a license to discriminate. Georgia Democrats are fine by adhering to the Great Commandment—love thy neighbor.”
***
We're reliably informed that H.B. 122, a bill to kill the $5,000 tax credit on purchases of electric vehicles in Georgia, died in a House Ways and Means subcommittee on Thursday. The bill is the work of state Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta.
Among those testifying against it: Retired Gen. James Conway, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and now co-chair of the group Securing America’s Energy Future.
***
Whoops.
The Georgia Emergency Management Administration's text alerts, one of the results of last year's gridlockolypse, had a major misfire last night.
Winter weather isn't quite a "civil emergency" on the order of, say, a blown natural gas line.
The explanation, apparently, was a "technical glitch."
***
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed issued a reply to the Georgia Republican congressmen who wrote him demanding the reinstatement of fire chief Kelvin Cochran. Reed's response, as reported by our AJC colleague Katie Leslie, mostly mirrors his public statements, contending that Cochran was not ousted for expressing his religious views as a private citizen.
***
has a
in the U.S. Senate chamber this morning. Perdue took the spot from his predecessor, Saxby Chambliss, but several more Georgians have held desk No. 32.
It's tradition for each occupier of a Senate desk to scrawl his or her name on the inside of the drawer, and the signatures include former Georgia Sens. Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, Sam Nunn and Zell Miller. Quite the power quartet, there.
***
Your daily reminder not to put something in writing that you don't want made public, Florida edition. From Politico:
The proposal to Orlando trial lawyer John Morgan was straightforward: retract critical statements he made to a reporter in return for Wasserman Schultz publicly backing his cannabis initiative that she had trashed just months earlier. Morgan declined the offer with a sharp email reply sent to a go-between, who described the congresswoman as being in a "tizzy."
"No," Morgan responded. "She is a bully. I beat bullies up for a living."
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