Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle's latest ad requires a lot of unpacking.
The 30-second spot features heart-tugging images of teary-eyed children clutching at teddy bears and solemnly looking out a window as rain gushes down. The voice-over from the GOP frontrunner for governor highlights one of the more contentious legislative fights over the last two years.
“When a single mom is struggling with an addiction or a life-threatening illness and needs a safe place for her child while she recovers, there’s a better way to help than state foster care,” he said.
“That’s why I led the fight to pass the Strengthening Families Act to give parents the right to place their children with a trusted friend or church member so they’re cared for by those who loved him – not just government.”
He’s talking about legislation long sought by foster care advocates that would allow parents to transfer power of attorney over their children to a family member or an outside agency for a year without going through the courts.
That was vetoed by Gov. Nathan Deal last year over his concerns it would create a system with no oversight that overlaps with the state's child welfare agency. But that provision made it into a broader update of Georgia's adoption rules that the governor signed into law last month.
The broader rewrite, too, has a fraught history.
That legislation got held up last year after Cagle and other Senate leaders pushed for a controversial provision that would allow some adoption agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex children.
In the final days of the session, Deal repeatedly said he wanted a "clean" adoption bill without the religious liberty addition, and he threatened to veto the measure if not. House Speaker David Ralston echoed his concerns. It failed in the last hours of the last legislative session.
Given a fresh start, lawmakers stripped the same-sex restrictions from this year's measure. And at the signing ceremony in March it was clear there are still sore feelings.
State Rep. Bert Reeves, the measure’s sponsor, gave Cagle a nod but then thanked the “two giants” who powered the legislation – Deal and Ralston. And pointedly, Ralston noted his chamber voted overwhelmingly three separate times to support the measure.
“This House never wavered,” Ralston said.
About the Author
