Atlanta Forward / Another View: At Capitol, it's business as usual

The rule of politics is still those who are in charge rule.

Two state senators learned that lesson the hard way last Monday when they voted against a measure that state Senate leadership wanted passed — a tax on hospitals that is expected to generate $175 million. For the moment, the merit of the tax — and it is a tax, no matter how its supporters want to cloak it — is not the consideration. What is the consideration is the political system under the Gold Dome that penalizes legislators who don’t toe the party line.

Sen. Preston Smith, R-Rome, was summarily stripped of his chairmanship of the prominent Judiciary Committee for voting against the tax. Sen. Mitch Seabaugh of Sharpsburg resigned as majority whip last week before Senate leadership stripped him of the position for voting no.

To be sure, things are tense in the final days of the legislature as lawmakers deal with a troublesome fiscal year 2011 budget. But when an honest disagreement over legislation leads to punitive action, you have to admit the fairness of democracy has lost its place at the political table.

Some Georgians are still under the mistaken impression that they can send a representative or senator to Atlanta and that lawmaker is free to vote as he or she believes those constituents want. The truth is, it doesn’t work like that, and it hasn’t for a long time, not in Atlanta and not in Washington, D.C. Lawmakers are free to vote their convictions ... as long as those convictions don’t run afoul of positions the ruling party has a real interest in.

Some thought when Republicans took over the state Legislature they would change that. On a national level, many thought giving Democrats control of Congress and the White House would signal the dawn of a new day on the way government was conducted. In each case, the wild-eyed optimism was unwarranted.