Georgia’s ruling party still the GOB
Georgia faces serious modern challenges without serious modern leadership. In fact, the amateurish, seat-of-the-pants governance style of many leaders is better suited to high school student government than to the nation’s ninth-biggest state.
Take, for a small example, the case of Bobby Baker and the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities.
Baker, a longtime Republican, has served on the PSC since 1993. He is smart, honest and diligent. He takes his job seriously, which means he will dare to question and even challenge influential companies such as Georgia Power. He has also fought to make decision-making at the PSC more professional and more public.
That grates on people, including some of his colleagues on the PSC. They see him —- correctly —- as a challenge to the old-fashioned governing style in which power and backroom influence take precedence over facts and a public process.
So this week, a bit of petty revenge was arranged. State law calls for the PSC chairmanship to rotate among its members for one-year terms, and Baker’s turn was coming up. So PSC members Stan Wise, Lauren McDonald and Doug Everett —- not a lawyer among ‘em —- took it upon themselves to proclaim the state law unconstitutional. They then voted to give Wise a two-year term as chair, leaving Baker out in the cold.
Notably, the three refused pleas to seek a legal opinion from Attorney General Thurbert Baker on the issue. Seeking the cover of a legal opinion would have made it appear as if this was a question of law, and it wasn’t. It was a reminder about power —- who wields it, and, more important, who does not.
The incident also exposes the fallacy that Georgia was once run by Democrats and is now run by Republicans. All five PSC members are Republican, but in 1992, the year Baker became the first Republican to win a statewide office since Reconstruction, McDonald ran for governor as a Democrat.
Then as now, McDonald was a member of the party that has always been in charge —- not the GOP but the GOB, the good ol’ boys.
It’s often said that you can’t take politics out of politics, and it’s true. Rewarding friends and punishing enemies has always been part of the process, from town councils to Congress.
But here in Georgia, such considerations are not just part of the process; they constitute the process. We lack leaders who understand that some issues, such as transportation, require decision-making of a more professional and less political sort.
That is nowhere more apparent than in the bill on Gov. Sonny Perdue’s desk to “reform” the Department of Transportation.
Perdue likes to talk of running government like a business. Well, any CEO confronted by the failure of a major division —- which essentially describes the DOT —- would insist that a reorganization plan begin with a serious, professional analysis of the problem and a look at the “best practices” of successful competitors.
But that’s not how Georgia does things. The “reform” of a major, critically important state agency was hatched in secret discussions with a small group of people more interested in enlarging their own power than in solving the problem. And it shows.
Rather than create a streamlined, professional decision-making process, the DOT “reform” enhances the role of politics and tightens the GOB’s grip on transportation money, and thus on the lifeblood of Georgia. We can —- and must —- do a lot better.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Guides
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
82 comments Add your comment
Susan Myers
May 7th, 2009
7:39 am
Has anyone else noticed that since Republicans are nearing extinction, we are getting more rain?
I Report/ You Whine
May 7th, 2009
7:44 am
So this week, a bit of petty revenge was arranged.
Uh-huh:
Now you (Arlen Spectre) are the 79 year-old rookie senator on every committee the Democrats will consent to let you sit in on. Without that seniority, it is hard to see what you have to offer the voters of Pennsylvania to stay in office. It’s not like anybody in the Senate is rushing to do you favors right now.
Republicans, blah, blah, blah.
Mrs. Godzilla
May 7th, 2009
7:59 am
How different the world would be if G.O.B. stood for Great Old Babes!
Susan Myers
May 7th, 2009
8:01 am
If former Gov. Barnes and the Democrats run on a unified plan for education and transportation, they’re in.
jt
May 7th, 2009
8:10 am
“How different the world would be if G.O.B. stood for Great Old Babes!”
As long as they were past menopause.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
8:11 am
Susan, what’s that you say? Democrats? in GA? unified?
Were you around for the last Goobernatorial election?
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
8:13 am
Think of them as “Good Ol’ Ornery Boys” and you can call ‘em “Goobs.”
But then, that’s what I call them already.
Joey
May 7th, 2009
8:14 am
The AJC, including Jay, played a significant role in Barnes’ defeat by Purdue. They hit him over and over about the Northern Arc and the Teacher’s Union. I voted for Barnes twice, and will again. (Honestly, there is not much difference between Georgia’s Democrat Party and Georgia’s Republican Party.)
Next the Democrats hurt themselves by chosing Taylor. But if the AJC had given Barnes 80% of the positive stories and articles that they gave to Taylor, I doubt that Purdue would ever have been Governor.
Dave R
May 7th, 2009
8:15 am
Jay, I agree with you on the PSC move. Very wrong and very childish. However, I disagree with you regarding the substantive change at the DOT. I’d much rather have one person deciding on prioritization of transportation projects, rather than the committee/consensus approach. That got us great roads to nowhere in the hinterlands of GA, while real road issues in the Metro area received the same or lesser priority.
Redneck Convert
May 7th, 2009
8:16 am
Well, Bookman likes to throw it in the face of us GA Conservatives that we use to be Democrats. It’s just that we all seen the light at the same time. It didn’t have nothing to do with the Democrats being the party of these equal rights laws and such.
Anyhow, things sure do look better at the PSC now that Republicans are in charge. First they put Free Innerprize in the natural gas bills. Instead of just getting a bill from Atlanta Gas Light we get one from a co. that charges us for gas and then throws in a charge for what the co. does. Which seems to be sending out the bills. I’m sure that really lowered the gas bills. Hard to tell what the bills would be under the Democrats.
Then I can’t help but swell with pride every time I get a power bill. The PSC and the state house got together and made us all investers in GA Power by charging us for a power plant that ain’t been built yet. Only they forgot about the part where we get stock and such. But I know that many decades from now when the power plant has been built and I’m in the ground and little Sonny Zell George is a grown up man he’s think of me every time he gets a power bill. How I paid for the plant that’s making his power and such.
I ain’t got nothing to say about the road people. Except that we didn’t get no new roads under the old system and we won’t get none under the new system. So what diffrence does it make?
Well, I’m trying to stock up the bars so all the drunks on this blog will be able to slobber while they talk about Miller Time this p.m. Have a good day everybody.
Susan Myers
May 7th, 2009
8:17 am
DBG @ 8:11,
As long as there’s breath, there’s hope.
Susan Myers
May 7th, 2009
8:18 am
Go fish.
Night Train
May 7th, 2009
8:19 am
Democrats controlled Georgia for 150+ years and what did we get? Bottom of the class in Education.
Now that we are slowly moving up in the rankings, why would we want to go back to being last in every category?
I guess with the ‘touchy feely crowd, as long as we feel good about ourselves, all is good.
jt
May 7th, 2009
8:20 am
“Take, for a small example, the case of Bobby Baker and the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities.”
This commision also regulates household goods movers, limosine services, towing,etc…..That doesn’t seem like a utility to me.
All of the members bios show that they have spent their respective lives craving to REGULATE something.
Perfect example of how a Goverment agency, which might of seemed a good idea at one time, grows more powerful and more corrupt.
It will eventually do far more harm than good.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
8:22 am
Why doesn’t our Redneck Convert have a Pulitzer? Why?
No justice? No peace!
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
8:24 am
Night Train, did you read the piece? I’m thinking not.
Or do you really think that Sonny and the Goobs represent some kind of sea change from GA politics of the past?
Joey
May 7th, 2009
8:26 am
Has the Good Old Boy system come to Washington? The UAW co-owns or will soon co-own, with our Federal Government, large portions of GM and Chrysler. Democrats and Unions are old and close associates. Would that make a perfect GOB Poster?
Is it possible that Georgia is not the only place where People of the same mind, when in power (majority), reward one another for “loyality” and punish the opposition. Then when out of power, continue to lust after it, and work together to regain that power?
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
8:26 am
Ohhh. You’re using that definition of GOB. I had a more appropriate acronym but I’m sure it would not be appropriate language. Baker should do the right thing and change parties. After all, how could anyone want to be associated with the trash that owns that party label now.
jt
May 7th, 2009
8:27 am
Қазақша
Road Scholar
May 7th, 2009
8:30 am
DB: Good one! Goobernatorial! I wish i’d thought of that one. Unfortunately, it’s true.
Night Train: Yeah! we’ve gone from 48th or 49th to….48th or 49th! What an improvement! We have some of the brightest and dedicated students and teachers, but it is unfortunate that we have more of the dense, ungifted, undisiplined students and parents, which continue to drag down the achievement of others.
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
8:32 am
jt,
you’re just showing off your new-found skills.
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
8:37 am
Our school system is not getting better. In my little ole county, the high school does not have a teacher qualified to teach Calculus. I told my daughter not to worry — I’ll teach her. Of course, what good are math and science to the GOP faithful. Hence, the glaring lack of effort from this state’s ‘leadership’. What a joke, a really sick joke, on we the people.
Night Train
May 7th, 2009
8:44 am
Taxpayer, did your school system have a Calculus certified teacher when the Democrats controlled Georgia and Georgia’s educational system? Do you really expect to change, in 4 to 6 years, what took 150+ years to build or not build?
RW-(the original)
May 7th, 2009
8:44 am
I was just certain that today’s blog would be about the liberal outrage of Hawaii proclaiming a statewide Islam Day but I guess since it wasn’t a Christianity Day it’s no biggie.
I think I’ll head to the forest and catch y’all later.
jt
May 7th, 2009
8:45 am
This shows our public service commisioners at work and one brave man who tried to stop it. Remember this on election day.
http://books.google.com/books?id=GyPbVNMZcq0C&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=georgia+public+service+commission&source=bl&ots=wVQrfj4Yvb&sig=-Aw1rAws4IiGfKjVT8i-aFNuToA&hl=en&ei=2dYCSv6ACZbItgea_aT7Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA160,M1
Ray
May 7th, 2009
8:46 am
Hell, we were also 48th or 49th when the Democrats were in the drivers seat….. what’s the difference. How many of the ousted Clayton county school board were Democrats? All of them. Influence peddling, power hungry jerks….. and who suffered? The student. Reminds me of Chicago. No Republicans there either and observe how they have become a beacon of hope and change in the educational community. Give a government employee a special hat and a rubber stamp and watch how this power thing goes to their head….. and it doesn’t make a damn what political party they belong to.
Kamchak
May 7th, 2009
8:46 am
Obviously Night Train isn’t familiar with the word “Dixiecrats”–you know, the ones that became Republicans in the 80’s and 90’s.
jt
May 7th, 2009
8:47 am
What was the PSC’s involvement in Gov. Barnes “Toll-Gate”?
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
8:48 am
Night Train,
The school system in the Georgia County that I graduated from did indeed have a qualified Calculus teacher. They also had a program for students to get a jump start into college as early as the 11th grade, as I recall. Of course, that’s been a few years. And, no, I did not expect the Republicans to destroy things, regardless of the number of years.
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
8:49 am
The UAW co-owns or will soon co-own, with our Federal Government, large portions of GM and Chrysler.
This is necessarily a bad thing, why? Workers have been known to own businesses before; they do today. If Chrysler winds up being a productive quasi-co-op, generating tax revenue for this nation along with products used by all kinds of gov’t departments (including the DoD, I assume) that’s win-win, no?
(Granted, it’s a lock to work, to maintain any semblance of viability.)
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
8:50 am
And by “it’s a lock to work” of course I meant @ 8.49 it’s NOT a lock to work… sorry.
Shawny
May 7th, 2009
8:51 am
I guess GA is ruled a bit like the U.S. Power corrupts (like within the US Senate), and money is king (like anything within the gargantuan budget). It isnt different here. It is just more visible since it is local. They are all crooks.
RW-(the original)
May 7th, 2009
8:52 am
Oh and the new President has decided to ignore the national day of prayer which is fine by me except that he tells us how important prayer should be to us. Maybe TOTUS told him to say that.
Big celebration at the White House for Cinco de Mayo though, or as PresBO calls it, Cinco de Cuatro.
Ray
May 7th, 2009
8:56 am
DB,
The UAW is the organization that is killing the American auto industry as we speak. The Toyota, Honda, Kia and Nissan plants are not going under. They pay their employees a non union rate which is about $52/hr compared to close to $70/hr in a UAW controlled plant. Do you think that union control of the Chrysler Corp will thrive under those conditions? If you do, I have some waterfront property in Arizona you might be interested in.
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
8:56 am
Maybe Obama does not want to come off looking like Perdue in his infamous Let us prey speech. As if we need to be reminded that we are nothing more than sheep in their blood-crazed eyes. Sheep for the slaughter.
Brad Steel
May 7th, 2009
8:57 am
With the level of education in Georgia and the provincial redneck world-views, we should expect nothing less than exactly what we are getting in Gerogia state government.
jt
May 7th, 2009
8:58 am
DB-you asked “This is necessarily a bad thing, why?”
If the goverment, using our tax money, buys overpriced and substandard equipment, then it is a bad thing. I’m not saying that will happen, but there is a history there.
Bosch
May 7th, 2009
8:58 am
RW,
Thanks for the present!
RW-(the original)
May 7th, 2009
9:00 am
DB,
The UAW owning Chrysler isn’t a bad thing as a standalone proposition but our federal government stiffing senior and supposedly secured debt holders in favor of giving the company to the UAW turns our whole economic system on it’s head. Not to mention that they “we” forgave the billions in “loans” we just gave Chrysler so the UAW isn’t on the hook for them.
Fascism? I would say we’re getting close to the textbook definition.
Later!
jt
May 7th, 2009
9:00 am
Taxcheat- Think what you want, it rained after Perdues prayer. I’m just saying. (I cringed too).
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
9:00 am
They pay their employees a non union rate which is about $52/hr compared to close to $70/hr in a UAW controlled plant.
Jeez, not this stupid crap again.
williebkind
May 7th, 2009
9:03 am
Last night I had revelation! I was watching Fox News and discovered from the fair, balance and accurate reporting news service that 12 CNN reporters are now part of King Obama’s administration.
Now, that is alarming! NO, not really! We all knew we could not get the big medias to report the news but rather they were eagerly shaping the news prosletyzing the viewing public.
Ahh give me liberty, my guns and bullets, a normal marriage, and honest news reporting! Yep I am a product of public schools.
RW-(the original)
May 7th, 2009
9:03 am
Bosch,
You’re welcome. It doesn’t have the menacing little timer, but it seems like it can fill the void of the AJC cutback.
Now about that forest…….
RW out!
the evil rich
May 7th, 2009
9:03 am
GOB, the dem party is still filled with that, Tommy Irvine – Ag Commish? Nice hitting, indepth article. And, where’s the story on NObama and Biden wasting taxpayer money for a VA burger run, that an intern could have done, hold the mayo, Monica?
Taxpayer
May 7th, 2009
9:05 am
jt,
did you notice whether that so-called ‘rain’ was clear and cold or warm and yellow. Trickle-down is the promise that the GOP intends to keep on delivering on.
Kamchak
May 7th, 2009
9:07 am
The corporate spin machine. Vilifying unions since Ronnie and PATCO.
Mrs. Godzilla
May 7th, 2009
9:07 am
Actually RW,
President Obama did not select the “ignore” button on the National Day of Prayer. You’re misleading again.
“”It is true that Obama is deviating from the way President George W. Bush marked the day. The past president made it more of an event inviting religious leaders to the White House and having a full-out ceremony during his eight years.
Obama is recognizing the day like most other presidents have — with a proclamation. Although President Reagan held a Rose Garden event in 1982 and President George H.W. Bush hosted a breakfast in 1989.”"
From The Christian Science Monitor
Here:
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/05/06/obama-asserting-authoritarian-control-on-prayer-day-says-limbaugh/
RW-(the original)
May 7th, 2009
9:07 am
Ray and DB,
Here’s some fodder for both sides of your debate.
RW-(the original)
May 7th, 2009
9:09 am
Mrs G,
We all know how you hate “misleading”…….right Newsie?
*gag*
Smooches!
Bye
DB, Gwinnettian
May 7th, 2009
9:10 am
our federal government stiffing senior and supposedly secured debt holders in favor of giving the company to the UAW turns our whole economic system on it’s head
That is a rather spectacularly presumptuous framing of this deal, RW. I actually mean that in a good way. Really. I wish I could pack as much punch in as few words.
I doubt you or I have the time this morning to get into the weeds (and I don’t claim to know all the details of the proposed deal) but
a) debt holders get stiffed in a bankruptcy. It’s kind of why one avoids allowing bankruptcy in the first place but some folks are going to get stiffed. Yes, Halliburton and Melinda Gates alike.
b) what’s being referred to simplistically as “the UAW” is, of course, something more specific than that–it’s a separate entity that the automakers agreed to have manage legacy costs during good faith contract negotiations. Moreover, they don’t get to run the company even though they supposedly own 55% of it under the deal.