Dear Georgia Senate: Drop the power struggle, get to work
It’s put up or shut up time in the Georgia Senate. As nothing new has been put up by the malcontents, you can see where I’m heading.
I refer to the 14-month-old dispute between Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and the GOP senators who stripped him of most of his powers. Ordinarily, such an intramural power play would interest only the true political junkies. But the Senate’s cold war is getting hot enough to matter to ordinary Georgians.
Some background: Days after Cagle was re-elected in 2010, Senate Republicans resolved to change the chamber’s rules to put two of their own, Tommie Williams of Lyons and Chip Rogers of Woodstock, in charge. Cagle argued, not without merit, that a majority of Georgia’s voters thought they’d just elected him to lead the Senate. But he lost that debate.
The 2011 session moved along fairly smoothly almost until the end, when an alliance of Democrats and pro-Cagle Republicans made a move to restore the old order. It failed, as has a series of GOP truces since then. The most recent cease-fire was brokered Monday night by none other than Gov. Nathan Deal, only to be rejected about 12 hours later by a majority of senators.
Now, re-read those last four words: “a majority of senators.” Those words explain why this mess has gone on long enough.
Regardless of whose side one takes — and none of the actors are angels — the basic facts on the ground haven’t changed in 14 months: 1) a majority is needed to change the rules; and 2) a majority favors the current rules.
Period, paragraph, end of story.
Cagle and his allies had upward of nine months to assemble a majority; goodness knows they tried. If they had a majority, they would have changed the rules by now. They don’t, so they haven’t. Deal with it.
I don’t say this as a partisan of the anti-Cagle faction. I have no grudge against the lieutenant governor, nor any loyalty to Williams or Rogers. All three support issues I support. This isn’t personal.
Well, it isn’t personal for me. But it quite clearly is personal for them. And that’s where the interests of ordinary Georgians come in.
Lawmakers like to say they’re performing “the people’s business.” As long as they’re feuding in this way, they aren’t. The leadership struggle colors every matter that comes before the Senate, even ones on which the two sides agree, because every matter is a potential tool for gaining or keeping leverage. Georgians deserve to have those issues considered on their own merits.
At the same time, I’m not bemoaning the perceived lack of efficiency in the Senate. In a state government controlled wholly by one political party, a little inefficiency is no bad thing. (Republicans said these kinds of things back when Democrats were that party.)
Government, on any level, is best when changes in the law are thoroughly vetted and debated. So it also behooves Georgians if the process is slowed down somewhere along the way.
I understand Speaker David Ralston’s frustration when he complains about not having a counterpart who speaks for the Senate and can deliver its members. “We can’t have 36 different leaders, or however many they have on any particular day,” he lamented last April.
But “speaks for” and “deliver” can be statehouse code for “lords over” and “bully” — not always, but often enough to give an outside observer pause. (Let’s also note that a tougher-to-please Senate arguably gains power at the expense of the more spoken-for House, which also might bug Ralston.)
Unless facts on the ground change, the two sides would do right by Georgians to put their spat aside until sine die. And primary season.
Let Cagle and his allies recruit fellow Republicans to run against the thorns in their side (though I’d like to see how successful they’d be with a pitch that amounts to, “Vote for this guy, because he’d help put us and, er, the Democrats in charge”). Let Williams and Rogers field challengers to the holdouts in their caucus.
May it be a long, nasty primary season. Then, after November, may the winners hold the reins of power.
Until then, may all of them simply get to work.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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176 comments Add your comment
Linda
January 12th, 2012
6:11 pm
Dusty@4:41, Noticeable cuts? Are you kidding me? You are aware that his 10-year budget he introduced a year ago was voted down in the Democratic senate by a vote of 97-0? Even the Democrats were appalled at the trillions more that he intended to add to the natl. debt!
In all sincerity, you need to:
1. familiarize yourself with community organizer Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals (formerly Rules for Revolution)(Hillary’s thesis subject),
2. understand that Obama was a community organizer, worked for an Alinsky team & taught Alinsky techniques to ACORN,
3. acknowledge that Obama’s Organizing for America in ‘10 organized high schoolers for his Nat. Intern Organizer Curriculum in which the introductory Training included suggestions to read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/01/atlas-exclusive-obama-organizing-for-communism-and-youth-corps-in-the-public-school-1.html
Maybe you can finish connecting all the dots that will lead you to the conclusion that Obama’s goal is to destroy America.
Tealiban Party
January 12th, 2012
6:19 pm
td
January 12th, 2012
4:34 pm
Isn’t this what happens now? The bottom 48% of wage earners pay no Federal income tax at all while the top 1% pays 28% of all Federal income taxes paid.
By some estimates, the top 1% controls 42% of the wealth in this country. And based on 2010 IRS numbers, those top 1% (1.4 million households) bring in almost double what the bottom 50% make (70 million households).
http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/20/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_income/index.htm
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
January 12th, 2012
6:22 pm
Yeah, they’re acting like dummycrats.
geez
S. Naban
January 12th, 2012
6:29 pm
Linda
January 12th, 2012
6:11 pm
Maybe you can finish connecting all the dots that will lead you to the conclusion that Obama’s goal is to destroy America.
Nice to see you can cut and paste off a radical reich GOP nutjob website Linda. Especially cute that they are able to add “… of socialism” at the end of these deliberately misconstrued bullets. Is your aluminum foil deflector beanie getting a little tight? Time to fashion another….
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/build.html
Linda
January 12th, 2012
6:34 pm
All this class warfare envy is gobbley gook.
We don’t have classes in this country. We have income brackets. You either HAVE class or you don’t. If you participate in class warfare envy, you HAVE no class. It’s as unbecoming as acne & just as evident.
Who cares what people make? There will always be top earners unless Robin Hood Obama figures a way to take their wealth away. Then there will be no top earners to pay taxes & who will suffer the most? The needy.
Our constitution makes the US a republic, not a democracy nor a socialist country. Until recently, we have been free to participate in capitalism. Our rights included being free to succeed AND fail.
Get an education, get a job, work hard & quit complaining about how green your neighbor’s grass is.
Tealiban Party
January 12th, 2012
6:37 pm
Linda
January 12th, 2012
6:34 pm
Until recently, we have been free to participate in capitalism.
*****NOT INTENDED TO BE A FACTUAL STATEMENT*******
The One, The Only, The Amazing GodHatesTrash!
January 12th, 2012
6:42 pm
S. Naban, it’s a lonely empty dark and scary place under these teahadists’ tinfoil hats…
Linda
January 12th, 2012
6:43 pm
S. Naban@6:29, I have no idea what you are talking about. I made 3 points & you must have ignored the 1st two. If you don’t like the site that I cited, feel free to Google Organizing for America, National Intern Organizer Curriculum or anything close. Do you deny that Obama is STILL organizing our children for his campaign or that he included Rules for Radicals as suggested reading?
Furthermore the NEA also includes the same book as suggested reading.
Do you even know what the goals are of the progressive party?
S. Naban
January 12th, 2012
6:52 pm
Guess what Linda. The RNC also has internships. And guess what – they get passed out in schools also. These RNC interships must be John Boehner’s attempt to setup the GOP Version of the Nazi Youth Movement! Ohhhh the horror! On the GOP application, you have to identify your Republican role-model. What fascism!!!
S. Naban
January 12th, 2012
6:53 pm
Sign up for the GOP Youth Movement Linda!
http://www.gop.com/index.php/housekeeping/Internships/
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
January 12th, 2012
7:02 pm
I’m still waiting for the GOP to find a candidate to beat Obama.
———————
Your wait is over. We Americans have about a half dozen who would do a better job than Moron Obozo, with his 9% unemployment for three years, $1.5 trillion deficits every year, and record numbers of children going hungry and living in poverty.
Obozo: Fail.
Obozo receptacles: Parasites, losers, and criminals.
M. Romney
January 12th, 2012
7:08 pm
Lil’ Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
January 12th, 2012
7:02 pm
Your wait is over. We Americans have about a half dozen who would do a better job than Moron Obozo, with his 9% unemployment for three years, $1.5 trillion deficits every year, and record numbers of children going hungry and living in poverty.
And we know what cures this….. TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH!
Dusty
January 12th, 2012
7:10 pm
Linda,
I think you need to reread my post @ 4:41. I said, referring to Obama: “I can’t think of any big cuts he has made here.” See the word CAN’T, the contraction for can not.
As to Alinsky, I have no interest in reading about another community organizer type. I already know about one that is now president. Obama’s unsavory Chicago connections are well known and his rise to fame was through them.
Actually , I do not think the president is out to destory America. I think he is doing it out of incompetence and lack of experience tied with a mighty ego determined to show success no matter the cost to the country. I will not vote to continue his failing term which has worked against sound American principles. .. .
Linda
January 12th, 2012
7:13 pm
S. Naban@6:52, You still have not addressed my point, which is Obama’s & the progressives’ goal.
The problem nor the point is internships (spelled internships). The problem is destroying America.
Dusty
January 12th, 2012
7:14 pm
Well, hi, SOMEWHERE OVER THERE
I don’t recognize you by your ID here. NIce to think that I am missed at Bookman’s but I doubt that. Not those crazy cutups!! Anyway, it is more peaceful here (sometimes). Stop by and stay awhile.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
January 12th, 2012
7:14 pm
M. Romney: And we know what cures this….. RETURNING CONTROL OF THE WHITE HOUSE TO SOMEONE WHO LOVES AMERICA!
————————–
Fixed.
The One, The Only, The Amazing GodHatesTrash!
January 12th, 2012
7:28 pm
It’s the pathetic, ugly, priggish, mean-spirited whiner so-called conservatives that are destroying America.
What a bunch of disgusting half-wits.
Linda
January 12th, 2012
7:31 pm
Dusty@7:10, You are making a huge mistake. You need to understand Alinsky & Obama’s & the progressives’ ties to him & their shared goals.
Obama is highly intelligent & educated. He & the progressives know exactly what they are doing. I initially thought the same as you, incompetence & lack of experience, but after 3 years, repeating the same actions with the same results, I believe it’s much more than that. I didn’t even know what a progressive was 3 years ago & unfortunately, most of the Democrats still don’t know who they are & what they are up to.
I could give you many more dots. One is Van Jones, a self-described Communist, that was one of Obama’s czars. Look what he’s up to today.
Why do you think Obama said that “under my plan, utility rates would necessarily skyrocket?” He’s getting rid of the coal industry.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
January 12th, 2012
7:41 pm
In case you lost track, for two years the dummycrats had total control of the government and were more than welcome to fix things, but, gosh, it seems to have gotten much worse with all of their “help.”
If sticking your thumb in your mouth and blubbering about Conservatives helps with your understandable misery, than have at it, bozos.
ODD OWL
January 12th, 2012
7:42 pm
Mitt Romney might not be an American citizen… His Father George who practiced polygamy, was born in Mexico. When George Romney ran for President, he was disqualitified because he was not a natural born American citizen. Mittens Romney claim that he was born in Illinois but he refuse to show his birth certificate. Where are the “birthers” ??? Why aren’t the tea party birthers outraged over the fact that Mitt Romney could very well be a foreign born Chihuahuan candidate ??? I guess the rich, elite Romney Family believe that “class” place them beyond the reach of scrutiny. What’s good for the birthers is good for the Democrats…
Occupunks on Kyle's blog
January 12th, 2012
8:08 pm
I’ll have whatever my Obama brotha 99%’ers on this blog be smoking.
Gewt Gangrene
January 12th, 2012
8:17 pm
Why don’t you occupunks follow in my footsteps, take a bath, get a hair cut, find a lifetime of government jobs to milk, marry three times, become a soiled conservative and run against capitalism!
Hillbilly D
January 12th, 2012
8:30 pm
Lawmakers like to say they’re performing “the people’s business.” As long as they’re feuding in this way, they aren’t.
It’s when they are doing “the people’s business” that they put the screws to us. Let ‘em feud all they want to. As long as they are feuding with each other, they can’t connive against us.
independent thinker
January 12th, 2012
8:57 pm
Kyle- I thought your favorite party is the do nothing party- so what is your problem?
@@
January 13th, 2012
7:27 am
Probably too late, but…
Dusty:
That would be an insult to the ones who are truly disabled.
And that’s the thing. The newly “disabled” care not a whit that they’re insulting AND robbing from the truly disabled. When it comes to entitlement fraud in this country, it’s no different. I’ve often wondered if the fraudsters vote GOP? Doubtful….since the fraudsters are dependent on exploiting opportunity.
Somewhere over there:
And your name from “over there”? Not that it would make a difference. The only one who spoke up and defended my right to free speech was a conservative poster. If you’re not THAT individual, you’re of no consequence to me.
brigitta
January 15th, 2012
1:15 am
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