Rep. Sam Moore has been on the job less than two weeks, and on Friday the Cherokee County Republican was essentially told that his GOP colleagues hope he isn’t there much longer.
Moore has authored House Bill 1033, which would eliminate the state’s laws against loitering but also strike down the edict that registered sex offenders may not linger near schools, day care centers or other places where children gather.
Moore, 37, said he is not pro-sex offender but instead is a defender of people’s Fifth Amendment rights. A great many fellow Republicans, including Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said Moore and his bill are “disgusting,” “irresponsible and egregious,” and “ill-conceived, callous.”
A remarkable parade of top House leaders — only Republicans — who took to the floor to harangue Moore showed both the members’ animus toward the legislation and a keen awareness that in an election year the GOP must be vigilant not to be seen as extremist.
To wit: Georgia Democrats seized on Moore’s bill and attempted to shackle him to his party.
“This is what the Georgia Republican Party has come to,” DuBose Porter, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a release. “And this is why they’re in trouble.”
Ralston said there is no correlation between Moore, his bill and the GOP.
“It’s disgusting, frankly,” Ralston told reporters. “The Republican majority in the House chose to stand with Georgia’s families and children. That bill stands with sex offenders and pedophiles.”
Chuck Clay, a former state senator and onetime chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, said House leaders’ reaction was necessary.
“The obviousness of the tone is a very good reason to I mean fire a salvo into somebody to say either get on board or get out,” said Clay, who is also a lawyer and lobbyist.
Those in power in the House needed to “inoculate” themselves against being cast with Moore, Clay said.
Ralston told reporters that Moore is not “representative of our party at all” and said voters in Moore’s district might reconsider their pick.
“It might be better for the voters of that House district up in Cherokee County to make a decision about that,” he said.
To that end, the candidate Moore defeated in the Feb. 4 special runoff on Friday announced that she is going to run again.
Meagan Biello, 32, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she had already decided she would run in the May 20 primary but had not announced it. News of Moore’s bill and the resulting backlash persuaded her to go public now.
“I wanted the people of Cherokee County to know I will stand up for what’s right for them,” said Biello, who teaches advanced placement microeconomics and honors U.S. history to high schoolers.
Moore and Biello fought for the District 22 seat that became vacant with the death of Rep. Calvin Hill, R-Canton. Moore won the seat with 1,520 votes. Biello got 1,113.
Ralston and 17 other sitting Republican lawmakers contributed more than $17,000 to Biello’s runoff campaign, in which she raised slightly more than $33,800. Ralston said Friday that the backlash against Moore had nothing to do with the fact that top House members backed Biello.
Moore, a Georgia Tech grad, is retired after a career in the computer industry. He is an exercise enthusiast who competes in endurance competitions and rides motorcycles.
He said he did not set out to enable child molesters. The point of HB 1033 was to eliminate what he says are discriminatory and vague laws against loitering. Those laws, he said, allow police officers to demand identification from someone without cause. That’s a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Moore said.
“You have a right to remain silent,” Moore said.
In drafting the bill, legislative counsel discovered that state law barring registered sex offenders from being near where children congregate was under the same code section as the loitering laws. To ban loitering laws, Moore found, he had to strike the sex-offender statute.
“I saw it there and said it’s political suicide,” Moore said. “I’m not backing away from that. It’s a conversation that needs to be had.”
Moore said he absolutely does not want to allow sex offenders to target children. But, he said, Georgia’s laws on who has to register as a sex offender should be examined.
Plus, he said, other state laws allow school administrators to force someone to leave school property. If someone refuses, they’re trespassing, he said.
“This doesn’t mean a registered sex offender can hang out with impunity,” Moore said.
Later Moore, who did not answer his colleagues’ criticisms in the House chamber, said other state laws offer protections against sex offenders.
“There are already laws on the books that handle everything I’ve heard thus far,” Moore told reporters before heading for ethics training required of freshman lawmakers. “There are already existing laws for that. I didn’t see a problem removing it.”
Moore said he was shocked by the reaction of his colleagues.
“It didn’t surprise me people wanted to distance themselves, but the vitriol that came out …” he said.
Terry Norris, executive director of the Georgia Sheriff’s Association, was not surprised by the response of House leaders.
“Somehow, legalizing or allowing sex offenders to enter schools or day cares or places where children congregate is absolutely nonsense, and the sheriffs of Georgia will stand with whomever else is opposing this bill,” Norris said.
Besides, he said, the law against loitering “is a very effective crime-fighting tool.”
“Those that loiter are generally violating private property rights,” Norris said, “and where those folks loiter, there are other types of offenses that occur.”
Moore has had quite a 10 days in office. Sworn in Feb. 11, he immediately became an object of ridicule as being one of two members to vote against nearly every bill, no matter how mundane or how important — such as the state budget. Along with Rep. Charles Gregory, R-Kennesaw, who counseled him Friday, Moore has set out on his own path.
In addition to HB 1033, he has also introduced legislation declaring Obamacare illegal, another that says no police officer may stop a person from filming or taking photos of them and, finally, a bill that makes it illegal for police to enter a home without identifying themselves.
That last one, HB 1046, would appear to allow a homeowner to shoot a police officer through the door if the officer does not “knock and announce their identity, authority and purpose before entry.” It also would make so-called “no knock” warrants illegal. Those warrants, signed by a judge, allow police to break down a suspect’s door without knocking or identifying themselves first.
But it was HB 1033 and Moore, himself, that the Cherokee County Republican’s colleagues blasted Friday.
“I’ve been fighting for liberty and individual rights for 15 years,” said Rep. Scot Turner, R-Holly Springs. “I promise you, the fight for liberty does not look like this.”
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