In today's printed pages, you'll find a story scrutinizing Democrat Jason Carter's missed votes as he prepared to run for governor. Carter's allies added their own counterpunch late Sunday night.
The Democrat's campaign initially countered when contacted last week by pointing to the dozens of votes that Gov. Nathan Deal missed in Congress as he revved up his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, no-shows that became an issue in his campaign four years back. "Governors in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," said Carter spokesman Bryan Thomas.
But late Sunday evening a Democratic operative sent us over a spreadsheet of Deal's missed votes in 1991 and 1992 ahead of his first Congressional bid. In all, it found Deal, then a Democrat who was the chamber's pro tem, missed about 130 missed votes those two sessions.
Their review is a bit different than the analysis of Carter's past two sessions partly because of the logistics: Votes in the early 1990s weren't broken out in separate webpages, as they are today, but were instead logged in journals that were later scanned online, making it harder to track each proposal's intent and legislative journey.
Among the votes the Democratic review showed Deal missed was a decision on his chamber's version of House Bill 277, which would hold gun owners liable if a child under 12 uses their unlocked and loaded gun to injure or kill someone.
We sent the details over the Deal's camp last night and will update with their response.
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