Georgia is about to change. Significantly. And not for the better.
July 1 brings the effective date of two very different new state laws, each bearing witness to what can best be described as the “coarsening” of Georgia. These and other laws signal a changed state, one ripped from its recent past and historical roots.
The first is the much-discussed immigration law; the second the little-discussed law disbanding the public defender board. Together they reflect Georgia’s swerving away from that sanctuary of sensibility that Georgia has represented in many ways since its founding, particularly as compared to other Southern states. While a federal court order for now enjoins enforcement of some of the new immigration law, that law will still be on the books expressing the sense of the state’s officials toward immigrants, and more, in Georgia.
Regardless of what the immigration law’s supporters may claim, it is indisputable that it has made immigrants — documented as well as undocumented — feel unwelcomed in Georgia, as if a “price has been put on their heads.” The repercussions are driving immigrants and sojourners away from Georgia, fleeing the “trembling” which Latinos are experiencing, as reported in the Gainesville Times this week.
As the federal court order put it, the apparent legislative intent behind the law “is to create such a climate of hostility, fear, mistrust and insecurity that all illegal aliens will leave Georgia.” It is becoming clearer by the day that the effect is being felt beyond those here impermissibly. At a time when Georgia needs to be turning away from xenophobia and toward globalism if it is to flourish economically, it is doing just the opposite. The state’s “trade missions” abroad are set at naught by the louder signal of isolationism sent by the immigration bill. The economic consequences over the entire state are beyond question, including a wide array of nascent depressive effects upon business, labor availability and farming activity.
In like manner, the disbanding of the state’s public defender board — to be replaced by a new hand-picked slate that no doubt will be less protective of the right to counsel by those who cannot afford a lawyer in criminal cases — sends yet another cold wind against the unprivileged in the state. These new laws are of a piece with other recent Georgia legislation. Whether in the form of the ongoing effort toward a more regressive tax system in Georgia, reduced support for the HOPE scholarship, or antipathy against voters without traditional identification papers, the “tide in the affairs of” Georgia governments is palpably running against those “unfortunates” Georgia originally favored.
This attitude of government is so at odds with Georgia’s beginnings as a colony more than two and three-quarter centuries ago, led by the estimable James Oglethorpe, and as continued in many ways in the time since. As the late eminent Georgia historian Phinizy Spalding wrote, “Georgia was not created simply to be” like other Southern colonies. Rather, “Georgia was to be a refuge for [those] who suffered injustices at the hand of their overlords ... by providing unfortunates with ‘a comfortable subsistence’ in America.”
While Georgia may never have fully and consistently realized this utopian ideal — perhaps no state could — the state has often managed to escape some of the extremism of its nearby states. Blessed with both black and white leadership of a kind and wisdom not enjoyed by other Southern states, Georgia was spared the full brutality of segregation and racism, the closing of public schools, or the war over the state flag seen in other states. As Spalding’s stellar colleague, historian Numan Bartley, has recorded, “Georgia had less of this aimless violence than did numerous other states.”
In like manner, Georgia was the only Deep South state to join in the amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to recognize the right of all indigent defendants to counsel in the 1963 landmark case of Gideon v. Wainwright. In sum, Georgia made “moderation” not just part of its state motto, but a lodestar for its actions. And the nation and world noticed, rewarding Georgia’s humanity and civility with pro sports teams, Olympic games and monetary investment vaulting Georgia into the forefront of Southern economic growth.
But the new immigration and public defender laws, like others noted above, pull us away from that noble distinction and the good stead in which it stood us. As we approach Independence Day and its commemoration of “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” we should pause to consider: What kind of Georgia are we now building? How true to the Oglethorpe ideal are we today? Do we Georgians really want to associate ourselves in the annals of history with those governments and regimes which have ostracized some people and required them to carry “papers?” What are we doing to ourselves as a people?
E. Wycliffe Orr, a Gainesville attorney, is a former state legislator and a former member of the governing council of the public defender system.
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