When the president of Georgia Auctioneers Association wanted the state code changed for his profession, he went to his mother, Rep. Katie Dempsey, for help.
Dempsey, whose family are third-generation auctioneers, sponsored and voted for legislation that could have forced cities, counties, sheriffs and businesses to hire licensed auctioneers when they sold inventory or property. Or at least that’s what cities, counties, sheriffs and businesses feared.
Those groups said the bill would penalize taxpayers, although Dempsey, a Rome Republican, disagreed with that interpretation and insisted on Wednesday that her measure was “totally pure in intent.”
Good government groups and some statehouse lobbyists, however, argue that Dempsey’s bill is an example of an all-too-common practice: lawmakers pushing legislation on behalf of their industry or the family business. But this is a Legislature in which insurance agents commonly serve on insurance committees and file insurance legislation. Bankers serve on banking committees and propose or stall loan legislation. Lawyers write bills that regulate their profession. Pharmacists vote for measures that bring their industry more business.
House Bill 1042, which passed the House 158-8 earlier this month, met a different fate in the Senate on Wednesday. The Senate Regulated Industries Committee voted to gut the bill after the committee heard protests from a host of opponents.
Dempsey, whose husband does real estate auctions and is a member of the Auctioneers Association’s Hall of Fame, said the bill was never intended to be anything more than a “cleanup” of nearly 40-year-old state code to better define auctions and auctioneers.
“I don’t profit from this,” she said. “What I wanted to see is the ability of someone to realize when they are dealing with this type of auctioneer, they are dealing with a licensed professional. It was totally pure in intent.”
Senate Industry Committee Vice Chairman Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, said after Wednesday’s meeting that he didn’t know Dempsey’s family was in the auctioneering business. But it also didn’t particularly bother him.
“We’re part-time legislators and the issue about what they do (for a living), it didn’t effect the bill at all,” said Ginn, a former county manager in Franklin County. “I did not know what her occupation was. The bill is a good bill, the bill stands on its own merit.”
William Perry of Common Cause Georgia said it is one thing for a lawmaker to offer professional expertise in legislative testimony. It’s another to sponsor and vote for legislation that could affect your family’s business.
“If it is clearly financially benefiting a family member, that makes it a conflict of intertest,” he said, “so she should stay as far away from it as she can.”
Dempsey disagreed with the interpretation of the bill offered by local government officials, saying it wasn’t aimed at pumping up auctioneers’ business. She said auctioneers were concerned about out-of-state companies packaging and auctioning property without getting a state license.
But after the bill passed the House, Todd Edwards, a lobbyist for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, called it “an unfunded mandate to benefit a few on the backs of Georgia taxpayers.”
Governments across the state sell millions of dollars worth of excess property — cars, furniture, etc. They feared the measure would make them hire licensed auctioneers to sell the property rather than, for instance, using eBay or soliciting sealed bids. Some businesses worried that they would have to hire auctioneers to sell real estate.
They contacted senators about the bill, and the language that the governments opposed was removed from the measure.
Dempsey said the version of the bill passed by the Senate committee Wednesday “does almost nothing.”
But she added, “It was a start. It opened the door for all the opposition to come out.”
She expects auctioneers to work with legislative staff over the interim between sessions to continue “modernizing” the industry’s legal code.
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