Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections for March 19, 2013

Georgia General Assembly

The state legislature is in recess today and will convene again tomorrow, Wednesday, March 20, as they hurtle toward the home stretch. In the coming days, much of the legislative action will be in committees, where each chamber goes to work on the other’s bills. From Walter Jones,

Legislators will spend the their three days in session this week performing surgery of sorts on hundreds of bills as they “perfect” the work of colleagues from the other side of the Capitol.

Last week, the bills passed by the House got assigned to Senate committees and then to subcommittees, and the House did the same with Senate bills. Some committees have already acted on the new crop of crossover bills but most will do the heavy work this week.

That’s where the scalpel, needles and thread come in. Legislators and lobbyists who saw bills they supported fall by the wayside after missing the March 7 crossover deadline are urging committees to attach the wording of those bills as amendments to living bills. At the same time, other legislators are voting in committee to remove unwanted provisions from bills.

A more frequent feature in the floor sessions this week will be “the agrees and disagrees” as the authors of bills ask the whole House or Senate to either accept or reject the changes all that surgery created. Agreement sends the amended bill to Gov. Nathan Deal, where he’ll have until April 7 to sign or veto them.

A “disagree” gives the other chamber the opportunity to recede from its position and accept the original version after all or, more commonly, to insist, which sets up the need for a conference committee to negotiate the differences.

When conferees are appointed, conference committees start happening in committee rooms, private offices and even hallways all over the Capitol complex, with no meeting notices or announcements.

Although they will be open to the public, the trick is learning about them in time to get there before a deal is struck. Most are over in minutes.

With conference committees, it’s often important who gets appointed by each chamber, and the identities of the conferees can smooth the way to final passage or kill a bill quickly.

Senate Meeting Calendar for Today

9:00 AM	RULES Public Hearing on Ethics	450 CAP
11:00 AM	INS & LABOR Sub Com-Gen Gov	125 CAP
11:30 AM	INS & LABOR Sub Com-Labor	125 CAP
1:00 PM	HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES	450 CAP
2:00 PM	STATE & LOCAL GOV OPERATIONS	310 CLOB
2:00 PM	INSURANCE & LABOR	125 CAP
3:00 PM	FINANCE	450 CAP

 

House Meeting Calendar for Today

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM	MARTOC	406 CLOB
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM	PUBLIC SAFETY & HOMELAND SECURITY	415 CLOB

Note that today’s Senate Rules Subcommittee meeting on the Speaker’s ethics bills is scheduled for a hearing only, meaning no vote is expected to be taken.

Atlanta City Council Approves New Stadium

The Atlanta City Council voted 11-4 yesterday to approve funding for a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons. From the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

The council vote, which did not go through the normal multi-week committee process, was pushed through on a super fast track on Monday after a six-hour meeting of the whole council.

That approval followed Friday’s unanimous vote by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority that endorsed the new retractable roof stadium for the Atlanta Falcons.

Only one more governmental body is needed to approve the deal — the board of Invest Atlanta — which is scheduled to vote on the project at a meeting Tuesday morning — making it the third vote in as many business days.

Atlanta City Councilwoman Felicia Moore, who chairs the Finance/Executive Committee, argued for more time to analyze a deal of such magnitude. She said it was “unprecedented” for city council to act with such haste after only receiving a detailed copy of the agreement last Wednesday.

“We’re voting on something that will impact the city for 50 years or more,” Moore said. “We need to take our time.”

At-large Councilman Michael Julian Bond made the motion for the council to approve issuing $200 million in bonds that will be backed by hotel-motel taxes collected in the city as the public financing to build the stadium.

Moore made a substitute motion to defer the vote, which was defeated 10-5. The five council members who wanted to defer the vote were: Kwanza Hall, Natalyn Mosby Archibong, Alex Wan, Howard Shook and Moore.

Other speakers criticized the stadium as unnecessary considering the age and condition of the Georgia Dome. William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said a review of GWCCA projections shows the public would be on the hook for $882 million through 2050, including long-term financing costs, not the $200 million promised.

“The council needs to take careful consideration and not decide this in three business days,” he said.

Residents of the surrounding neighborhoods said they weren’t given a chance for input into the deal.

“The community would simply like to slow down the train so they can engage in the democratic process,” Rodney Mullins said.

RNC Report on 2012 election released, Georgians react

Click here for links to read or download the report in its entirety.

I’m still digesting it, but we’ll be spending a lot of ink on the report and reactions to it in the coming days.

One of the overarching themes in the report is that while the GOP has lost two straight Presidential elections, our success can be found in gubernatorial races, where we have 30 Republican Governors. Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review doesn’t necessarily agree.

I’m going to concentrate on something else: the report’s core premise, which seems to me to be false.

Here’s how the report opens: “The GOP today is a tale of two parties. One of them, the gubernatorial wing, is growing and successful. The other, the federal wing, is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future.”

We have heard this a lot since the election. It’s much too optimistic. All Republican success at the gubernatorial level really tells us is that the party is doing fine in red states and did well in 2009–10.

[T]he fact that Republicans have 30 of the 50 governorships doesn’t tell us much, and the fact that the RNC report keeps returning to the claim that it does is not reassuring about its grasp of the party’s problem.

The American Conservative took away five points from the report:

1. Digital focus
   
2. Minority outreach
3. Liberty movement, though it’s not specifically mentioned
4. Fundraising
5. “Celebrity Task Force”

To which I would add:

7. Rethink the GOP Presidential and Debate Schedule
8. Immigration and Messaging to non-whites

It’s those last two points that seem to be causing a firestorm on the right.

On immigration, the Report states,

“Among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.”

But some Conservative disagree.

The Atlanta Tea Party was quick with a statement in reaction to the Report:

It has become apparent that the report RNC Chair Reince Priebus commissioned several months ago to find out what went wrong in 2012 was not a “fact finding” mission at all, but rather a “finger pointing” mission.

Atlanta Tea Party Co-Chairman Debbie Dooley states, “Allowing the persons responsible for the 2012 election “fiasco” to be the ones to actually assign blame was irresponsible and demonstrated Chairman Priebus was not serious about finding out the real cause for the GOP’s defeat in 2012. Can you imagine the public outcry if a surgeon, that lost a patient due to his incompetence, was the one the hospital assigned the task of finding out what went wrong?”

Atlanta Tea Party Co-Chairman Julianne Thompson states, “The problem has never been with the conservative message. The problems in 2012 were the messengers. The messengers could not effectively articulate the conservatism because they were not passionate about it.”

We are glad the RNC is addressing the need for a more effective ground and the need for more outreach. Dooley states, “Watching the differences in the RNC ground game in 2012 and the Obama Campaign ground game was like watching mall cops battle Navy SEALs.”

In 2010, the tea party drove the agenda and conservatives won historic victories. In 2012, the Romney Campaign and RNC shunned the tea party and led the agenda. They lost an election that should have been easily won.

The RNC let conservatives down with their ground game in 2012 and we can’t afford to rely on them any longer. 2014 and 2016 are just around the corner.

The Georgia Republican Assembly also weighed-in on the RNC Growth and Opportunity Report:

“The Georgia Republican Assembly agrees we need to change the way we message and we are focused on building strong coalitions among the various factions of grassroots conservatives. However we do not believe we need to change our values or distance the GOP from it’s conservative base in order to win elections…quite the contrary.”

“The problem with the forensics report from the RNC is that it was written by the very people that have lost the last two Presidential elections with their poor, reactionary messaging, and disconnect from the grassroots. Since when do we ask perpetrators to perform an autopsy on the victim?”

“We must lead on messaging and be pro-active, instead of reactive to the Democrats who clearly lead the message in 2012. Another example is the “War on Women”. We let the dems win this battle. While they brought out women to speak against us, we brought out men who said there is no war on women.”

“We should have showcased as many conservative women we had available and saturated the networks stating that it was the Democrats who are sexist, belittling women by insinuating our issues are based on birth control and abortion. Women care about jobs, the economy, opportunity, and the future of our children. The very people that authored this report missed the mark election after election!”

Seth Harp, candidate for Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party sent out an email addressing what he considers to be an attack on the Conservative grassroots.

It is clear, should these recommendations become RNC policy, that the grassroots activists, who are the heart and soul of the Republican Party, will have their voices diminished – if not eliminated. This is wrong and will lead to even greater electoral defeats in 2014 and 2016.

Regardless of the intentions, this report is dead on arrival with the grassroots. Many in the grassroots see it as an effort by establishment donors to control the nominating process. This report is a validation of the very charges the report purports to correct.

The ideas contained in this report appear to be a declaration of war on the conservative, grassroots, coalition partners of the Republican Party. The current RNC might not understand it, but Seth Harp does. I stand with the Rand Paul Republicans, the Tea Party, Georgia Conservatives in Action, Georgia Right to Life, Georgia Carry, the National Rifle Association, Americans for Prosperity, and all true grassroots coalitions in opposing this attempt by the establishment to destroy the voice of grassroots activist and leaders.

Rachel Dodsworth, recently elected First Vice Chair of the Chatham County Republican Party has written a post on GaPundit.com called ”5 Messaging and Demographic Points to Grow the GOP: A Young, Female Republican View of the Growth and Opportunity Platform,” which presents some practical steps the GOP can take to appeal to part of the demographics we need in order to chalk up some wins at the national level. Here’s a taste, after which you can read the rest online.

1) Conservative Temperature Overestimated – One thing the “Growth and Opportunity Platform” report overlooks is the political perception of the country during the last election cycle. I believe the conservative temperature was overestimated due to our primary cycle. With only Republicans participating in the presidential primary this cycle, it made everyone think the country was more conservative than it actually was.

ProEnglish issues Action Alert opposing HB 475

ProEnglish.com released an action alert on House Bill 475 by Rep. BJ Pak and others asking Georgia proponents of English as the official language to contact their state Senators.

HB 475, sponsored by Rep. BJ Pak (who you may recall single-handedly killed the 2011 effort to require mandatory English for GA driver’s license exams), would require the state of GA to recognize driver’s licenses issued by foreign territories in a reciprocity agreement.  This means that foreigners residing in GA will not be required to take any driver’s license exam in order to obtain a Georgia-issued driver’s license.

TAKE ACTION!

Not only is this bill an outrage, but it is a serious threat to the safety of Georgia motorists!  The UK has already made a push to require mandatory English for driver’s exams.  In the past few years, record-high traffic fatalities resulted in the UK after a rapid increase in non-English speaking immigrants began taking to the roads.  Georgia is now posturing to replicate this fatal mistake!

Any thoughts on how they might feel about the RNC Report?

Compare your bracket to Gov. Deal, Senator Isakson

Governor Deal and Senator Isakson have contributed their picks in the NCAA tournament to the AJC.com, where you can compare your picks to theirs, as well as other VIPs.

Sugar Hill to SugarDaddie.com “No, thanks”

Sugar Hill Mayor Gary Pirkle told SugarDaddie.com “you can all just kiss off,” rejecting the cheesy dating site’s offer of $3.75 million if the city would change its name to match the site.

SugarDaddie.com, a website known for matching men with money with young women who want some of it, offered Sugar Hill the money in exchange for the city changing its name to SugarDaddie.com for the next 10 years. The city would also be required to add the company’s name to Sugar Hill City Hall, a city park and a golf course – and erect a statue of Hugh Hefner, or “another public figure that best represents the sugar daddy lifestyle.”

The Gwinnett reports that Mayor Pirkle is typically “quite stoic” when it comes to matters of his town.

On Monday, however, Pirkle broke form by sending a tongue-in-cheek counter offer, the paper said. The city will name the Sugar Daddy its official candy bar for $2 million, Pirkle replied.

Steven Pasternack, CEO of Sugardaddie.com, said in a press release the company isn’t joking.