18th Annual Golden Sleaze Awards

This was the legislative session the wheels fell off the GOP juggernaut in the General Assembly. Few significant bills advanced as party poo-bahs jockeyed for political advantage and House Republicans divided into competing camps headed by wounded Speaker Glenn Richardson, ambitious Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter and Jerry Keen, the insidious majority leader.

A game of budgetary chicken between new Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House leaders helped drag the torturous session well into April, contributing to an overall sense of sausage-making anarchy. And, puzzlingly, while Rome burned, Sonny fiddled, or, as the case was, went fishing.

We're not complaining, mind you. When these folks are busy fighting among themselves – or out to lunch, like the governor – they do much less damage.

Join us for some heapin' helpings of good-ol'-boy grandstanding, backbiting, bloviating and buffoonery under the Gold Dome. Together they make up the ...

The Gone Fishin' Award

To Gov. Sonny Perdue

The biggest mystery under the Gold Dome this year wasn't why the Legislature was still in session in mid-April, nor even who'd blink first over the state budget. Instead, it was: What happened to Sonny?

Here was a Republican governor coming off a landslide re-election in the reddest state in the Union, a politician with national aspirations, a guy hoping to carve out a reputation as a doer. So, imagine our shock when his top priority to kick off a second term turned out to be encouraging folks to spend more time down at the fishing hole.

Perdue has been the invisible man this session, poking his shiny head out of his office only long enough to ride a motorcycle around the Capitol with John Travolta and to anoint "Buster the Brown Trasher" as the state's official anti-litter mascot. Though his proudest achievement – the "Go Fish Georgia" initiative to build boat ramps for bass fishermen – was approved, much of his legislative agenda (such as it was) unraveled with scarcely a whimper. His highest visibility in recent weeks was a humiliating trip to Washington to beg the Democratic Congress for more PeachCare funding after having crowed that Georgia was awash in tax revenue. And there's no evidence that the slacker lifted a finger to help break the budget impasse.

This lamest of lame ducks makes lackadaisical Gov. Joe Frank Harris look like FDR on a crank binge. Even Republicans are mortified by their party leader's couch-potato idleness. The silver lining is that Sonny has demonstrated that the gubnership can be a part-time job. Now if only we could adjust his salary accordingly and rent out half of the Governor's Mansion ...

The Taking Away Tiny Tim's Crutch Award

To Speaker Glenn Richardson, R-Hiram

Where to begin? Mr. "Will it strengthen our traditional family structure?" started the year accused of laying pipe with a comely young gas lobbyist. And if you think that delicious nugget of innuendo originated with the Democrats, then we've got 19.5 acres of Florida swampland to sell you.

Joeff Davis FAMILY MAN — SORT OF: House Speaker Glenn Richardson

Instead of being humbled by his ordeal, the speaker went into full-blown Tom Delay mode, having Rep. Mack Crawford, R-Concord, perp-walked out of his own subcommittee because the GOP foot soldier hadn't contributed sufficiently to his caucus coffers.

Halfway through the session, Richardson took the unprecedented step of banning reporters from the House chamber in apparent retaliation to bad press and pesky questions. Yes, that'll win us over.

But the speaker's most churlish move came when he took the well to assault PeachCare, the mostly federally funded health-insurance program for children of working-class families. Richardson justified his bill to toss thousands of kids – mostly in rural areas – off the PeachCare rolls by implying that many of them are from South of the Border.

"The people of Georgia are tired of paying for health insurance for illegals," he said, ignoring the fact that the law already bars illegal immigrants from receiving state benefits. (At press time, his bill had been scuttled in the Senate.)

All told, Richardson displayed a reckless arrogance that seemed odd for someone expecting to return as House speaker. That alone may tell us something.

The Grandiose Inquisitor Award

To Sen. Eric Johnson, R-Savannah

We can sympathize with the president pro tem's angst at becoming Sen. Second Banana since Casey Cagle claimed the lieutenant governor's podium.

Joeff Davis Senate Majority Leader Eric Johnson wouldn’t dream of releasing a young man from prison early — even if under current law that young man couldn’t get such a harsh sentence.

However, Johnson tried to regain the spotlight this session by assuming the role of Torquemada in the case of Genarlow Wilson, a black Douglas County High athlete whose 10-year prison sentence for consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl has earned Georgia national scorn.

In an overheated speech, Johnson used a litany of half-truths and outright fibs in arguing that Wilson should not be freed – even though the law that put the 17-year-old behind bars for child molestation has since been changed. As a CNN piece later noted, Johnson falsely claimed that the minor with whom Wilson had sex at a party was given alcohol and drugs until she passed out and then was raped, despite the fact that a jury cleared Wilson of rape charges. Nonetheless, Johnson got the vote he wanted.

Perhaps most appallingly, Johnson has shown fellow legislators the sex-party videotape of Wilson and other teens – including the minor in question. Shouldn't there be a law against that?

The That's Mighty White of You Award

To Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga

Guess these guys will have to quit calling themselves the party of Lincoln.

Mullis' response to the NAACP's demand that Georgia lawmakers issue an apology for slavery was a deeply embarrassing bill to establish a monthlong celebration of the heyday of the Confederacy. Most astonishing was a patronizing nod to political correctness in recognizing "citizens of various races ... who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause of Southern Independence." Presumably, those sundry contributions by people of other races included picking cotton under threat of the lash.

Mullis even aims a spitball at Yankees by pegging the end of the Civil War to the obscure retirement of a CSA battleship rather than to Lee's surrender at Appomattox. We can almost hear the bill's co-sponsors giggling at their own cleverness.

The bill, which didn't reach a vote but got Georgia some dandy headlines around the country, also would have passed the torch of racial insensitivity to a new generation by encouraging schools to host activities celebrating Confederate history. OK, kiddies, who wants to dress up as Simon Legree?

The God's Fool Award

To Rep. Ben Bridges, R-Cleveland

The voters move in mysterious ways; that's the inescapable conclusion when one considers the continued re-election of yokels such as Bridges, an especially inarticulate and retrograde bumpkin of the type who makes Georgia look like a bad summer stock production of Tobacco Road.

Two years ago, Bridges' bill to let creationism be taught in public schools was quietly scuttled in committee, along with his companion measure to allow teachers to quote Bible passages.

This year, he got more attention than he bargained for when a memo under his name surfaced describing "evolution science" as a Jewish conspiracy that should be outlawed in the schools. The memo included links to FixedEarth.com, a website purporting that the sun revolves around us, not the other way around. And you thought we exaggerate when we call these people flat-Earthers.

It seems the memo was authored by a Bridges supporter who said he received the lawmaker's blessing to send it to similarly reality-challenged legislators in other states. Although Bridges claimed he had nothing to do with the memo, he nonetheless told the AJC it made more sense to him than that "Darwin theory."

The Going Postal Award

To Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock

If you determined that not enough disgruntled working stiffs were blowing away their bosses and co-workers, how would you remedy this shortfall? Why, you'd pass a law barring businesses from telling employees they couldn't stash shootin' irons in their cars while parked on company property.

We're not sure if Rogers had a specific body count in mind when he floated his bill, but Georgia businesses – via the Georgia Chamber of Commerce – argued that tragedy would ensue if workers were allowed to have Messrs. Smith & Wesson nearby to solve office disputes and deliver instant payback for firings.

Although the bill intially was junked by the Senate, at press time it had been tacked to a House bill. It was unclear how this week's Virginia Tech shooting might affect its chances.

Either way, it's worth noting the ability of silver-tongued NRA lobbyists to make so many GOP backers of Rogers' legislation forget their party's professed commitment to private-property rights. If a company can tell employees they can't smoke in their cubicles, why shouldn't it be able to tell them they can't pack heat in the parking lot?

The Ralph Reed Christian Slickster Award

To Rep. Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons

Joeff Davis Don’t judge a lawmaker by his moderate clothing. House Majority Leader Jerry Keen is the mild-looking religious fanatic behind the most radical elements of the GOP agenda.

It's easy to forget Keen is the former state head of the Christian Coalition because the oily House majority leader doesn't wear his fundamentalism on his sleeve the way many less-polished pols do. Last year, he guided a draconian and constitutionally shaky sex-offender bill into law without a single episode of Elmer Gantry-ish Bible-thumping.

This session, Keen sponsored no significant legislation under his own name. But rumor held him to be the string puller behind some of the House's more partisan and extremist shenanigans. His stealth and polish only make him more dangerous as a right-wing culture warrior.

Keen did, however, make a self-serving diatribe from the well, blaming the recent molestation and murder of 6-year-old Christopher Barrios at a Brunswick trailer park on a judge's refusal to enforce the bus-stop provision of his sex-offender law. Keen didn't mention that the boy only lived next door to his alleged killers – two convicted child molesters – thanks to the new law's strict residency provisions, since Barrios' father is also a registered sex offender.

Is someone keeping track of the collateral damage from Keen's ambition?

The DINO Award

To Rep. Mike Jacobs, D-Atlanta

Joeff Davis Less than six months after Rep. Mike Jacobs was elected as a Democrat in a Democrat-leaning district, he told CL he’s considering switching parties.

It's one thing when a rural Democrat swings right or switches parties to keep pace with changing political winds in his district. But Jacobs hails from mid-DeKalb, the most liberal county in Georgia. Did the folks who returned the onetime Democratic up-and-comer to the House by a 2-1 margin over his GOP opponent really intend for young Mike to cross the aisle to support kicking kids off PeachCare, reviving payday lending and relaxing legal standards for imposing the death penalty?

Lest you think Jacobs' votes simply reflected ideological differences with party mates, he also voted to return the tarnished Richardson to the speaker's seat and to reinstate the despotic House rules – clear tips he's kowtowing to GOP leaders.

Jacobs comfirmed to CL that he is thinking about adding an "R" behind his name. With the way he's voted this session, however, that would be an unnecessary waste of letterhead.

The Taxation Without Representation Award

To Sens. Steve Thompson, D-Powder Springs, and Ed Harbison, D-Columbus

The development industry is thriving in Georgia, as a short drive in nearly any direction through our ever-expanding exurbs will confirm. Clearly, no additional incentives or giveaways are needed to spur home builders to throw up more McMansions and gated communities.

Needs don't always precede wants. And Georgia developers want a so-called "private cities" bill real bad because it basically gives them the taxing and bonding authority usually reserved for governments elected by and for, you know, the people.

Under the bill, developers can gain approval for such projects after a single public hearing – a thumb in the eye of neighborhoods and the zoning process. And they're free to increase levies on homeowners as they see fit. One lawmaker calls it "predatory lending for middle-class people."

Seen by many as corporate welfare of the kind usually championed by the GOP, the bill would have gone down in flames for the second year in a row had it not been for the co-sponsorship of Thompson, toiling on behalf of Cobb builder John Williams, and the pliant spine of Harbison, whose vote-flipping pulled it from the brink of defeat. Now it seems likely to become law.

The Heart of Asphalt Award

To Rep. Steve Davis, R-McDonough

We're guessing that, during some dark moment of Davis' childhood, a bully stomped on the future lawmaker's model train set. As a result, Davis grew up not wanting anyone else to have trains, either.

Sadly, Davis is living proof of how much influence a novice, backbench legislator can have – even a widely disliked one – if he focuses all his efforts on a single issue and serves as the proxy for well-heeled lobbyists.

Davis has become a broken record on the subject of commuter rail (hint: he don't like it) and hasn't missed an opportunity to try to derail the already-approved Atlanta-Lovejoy line, even with $86 million in federal funds earmarked for it.

This session, the blacktop enthusiast tried unsuccessfully to engineer yet another roadblock to trains with a bill mandating voter approval in every county crossed by a proposed commuter rail line and yet another to dissolve the entire Georgia Rail Passenger Authority.

(Davis is also the lunkhead who blogged about his disgust with gay couples who had the gall to show up at the Legislature's "Family Day" to "try to prove they are families too by exposing our young children to them kissing and holding hands.")

Twenty years from now, when a new 12-lane Atlanta-to-Athens double-decker tollway is christened in honor of Davis, you'll know why.

The Preaching to the Converted Award

To Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth

Last year, Shafer took lumps aplenty for a stem-cell bill that would have outlawed research on human embryos – considered by Nancy Reagan and others to be the most promising avenue of study.

Joeff Davis Sen. David Shafer blames the early 20th century eugenics movement on “so-called progressive scientists.” He took prophylactic action this session against embryonic research.

Apparently he enjoyed the praise he got from right-wing Christians, so he came back with a version that left out his ill-considered ban, but included plenty of rhetorical sops to fundamentalists, such as gratuitous implications that embryonic stem-cell research destroys human life.

Having whet his appetite for grandstanding, Shafer authored a nastily politicized rewrite of a resolution by Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, expressing "regret at Georgia's participation in the eugenics movement" in the early 20th century. Shafer's version adds swipes at Darwin, the old Atlanta Constitution and "so-called progressive scientists." The same senators who threw a fit at a suggestion the state apologize for slavery had no trouble voting to apologize for an obscure social outrage such as eugenics.

Shafer's not stupid, though. As the committee chairman who held the Sunday alcohol bill a year "for further study," he'll likely spend the summer cashing campaign checks from booze distributors eager to be his new friend.

The Eminent Domain Ain't So Bad After All Award

To Sen. John Bulloch, R-Ochlocknee

You've got to admire the ideological flexibility of legislators who, only last year, were pledging to rein in the authority of local governments to condemn private property. Now they're falling all over each other to expand the eminent-domain power of foreign-owned pipeline companies and strip away existing property-owner protections.

Current law mandates a state approval process, complete with public hearings, before a new underground gas pipeline can be built. Under a bill pushed behind the scenes by Bulloch and backed by a bipartisan cabal of senators, the Colonial and Plantation pipeline companies would've been free to dig up front yards across a wide swath of the state without seeking anyone's permission.

This wasn't a hypothetical threat – Colonial is banking on laying new pipe between Union City and its storage facility in Powder Springs. Good thing the House killed it.

The Kill 'Em All, Let God Sort 'Em Out Award

To Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem

At a time when other red states are announcing moratoria on executions and DNA evidence is being used left and right to spring people from death row, Barry "Widowmaker" Fleming wants to grease the path to Georgia's electric chair.

Joeff Davis Although DNA evidence shows that Georgia’s judicial system makes plenty of mistakes, Rep. Barry Fleming to make it a whole lot easier to execute people.

The majority whip offered a bill to scrap one of the fundamental tenants of American criminal justice – unanimous juries – in order to allow folks to be put to death even if not one, not two, but three jurors were opposed. The Headsman of Harlem made it obvious that his bill was tailored to soothe his discontent with the recent case of convicted murderer Wesley Harris, who received a life sentence instead of a date with Old Sparky because of two holdout jurors.

Eventually, Fleming's bill was amended to condemn killers on a 10-2 vote and passed by an increasingly loopy House. Shouldn't it have set off alarm bells that lawmakers arguing most forcefully against the bill were Republican ex-prosecutors?

The Intellectual Dishonesty Award

To Rep. Tom Rice, R-Norcross

Rice was shocked – shocked! – to learn that many of the men and women who devote their lives to the calling of higher education are of a liberal bent. So he carefully crafted a bill to compel Georgia's state-funded universities to promote "intellectual diversity" and put an end to "political viewpoint discrimination."

Just kidding about the "crafted" part. Actually, Rice pulled a shopworn right-wing playbook bill off the shelf that's being used in other states to try to scare schools into hiring more conservatives and browbeat lefty professors into a don't-ask-don't-tell dilemma. So nutty was the bill that even conservative lawmakers buried it in committee.

If he truly were aiming for intellectual diversity, Rice would pen companion bills demanding the ROTC recruit more vegans, Bolsheviks be represented in small-town Fourth of July parades and that professor Newt Gingrich be forced to teach history of feminist theory at Spelman.

The Happiness Is a Concealed Weapon Award

To Rep. Tim Bearden, R-Villa Rica

Bearden authored the session's other firearm fetishist's bill, one that would allow folks to keep guns tucked under their car seats or hidden behind the dashboard. Even though Georgia police chiefs testified the measure would lead to more patrolman shootings at traffic stops, Bearden – an ex-cop, of all things – decided the current law requiring gun owners to secure their gats in the glove compartment was too onerous a restriction on personal freedom. Bearden's bill won House approval, and last we heard, the NRA was working the Senate hard.

Bearden also filed a xenophobic bit of nonsense to prohibit state and local government entities from printing official documents and forms in any language other than English. As one House colleague asked, "Would that mean your city has to change its name to 'Rich Mansion?'"

The Something About You Is Different Award

To Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford

No, senator, I wasn't asking if you've gotten work done. I was asking if you've had work done.

This year, Unterman returned with a surprisingly glamorous new look that prompted double takes from lobbyists and lawmakers alike. It would be irresponsible for us to speculate whether she'd visited a cosmetic surgeon. Let us merely say we hope she availed herself of the services of one of CL's many fine advertisers in this growing industry.

Hers was even more stunning a transformation than the previously dweeby Eric Johnson's metrosexual makeover of aught-six. Makes you wonder what the "Queer Eye" guys could do with Rep. Barry Fleming's celebrated combover or Sen. Chip Pearson's Dirty Sanchez-style 'stache.

The Only a Tool Award

To Sen. Nancy Schaefer, R-Turnerville

Joeff Davis CLOSER TO GOD THAN THEE: Sen. Nancy Schaefer

You've heard of televangelists. Now meet a legevangelist: Schaefer tries to use laws to promote her edge-of-the-world conservative religious views. And, for a crackpot of her advanced years, she's been busy.

One of her bills would have allowed home-schooled kids to join the football team or the chess club of whatever local school they do not attend. Another underscored her puzzling allegiance with the Church of Scientology in seeking to ban school-ordered psychological screenings for children.

But Schaefer stayed true to her right-to-life roots with a measure mandating that a sonogram be taken before an abortion can be performed, and that the pregnant woman be offered the chance to view the pictures. When a Senate committee decided to exempt victims of rape and incest from being further traumatized by offers of sonograms, Schaefer made an odd concession. She was willing to make sonograms noncompulsory if only there was no exception for rape and incest, although abortion providers would still have to offer pictures if available.

While her bill failed, lawmakers are hammering out differences over similar legislation passed by both chambers. Since many abortion doctors perform ultrasounds as a matter of course, she may yet achieve her goal of stocking Georgia with more unwanted children.

The Womb Raider Award

To Martin Scott, R-Rossville

Just who does this North Georgia nutter think he is – Bobby Franklin? For a change, the year's kookiest legislation wasn't proposed by east Cobb wingnut Franklin. Scott penned a constitutional amendment redefining the word "person" to include "unborn children at every state of development, including fertilization."

That may sound like a meaningless bit of fundamentalist blather, but had it been adopted, it could effectively outlaw abortion, allow zygote tort claims and wreak other social havoc.

Later, Scott held up a budget vote in an effort to de-fund public health centers that offer condoms to teens. Watch your back, Bobby.

The When Will They Learn Award

To Rep. Steve Tumlin, R-Marietta

You'd think everyone would know by now that, no matter how politely he asks, it's just not a good idea to tote legislative water for Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, winner of CL's coveted Tom Delay Lifetime Achievement in Sleaze award.

Joeff Davis Rep. Steve Tumlin pushed to bring sky-high-interest payday lending back to Georgia.

Most observers agree that ol' Thunder, as Tumlin is known, was already seized by flop sweat and visible regret by the time he took the well to plead halfheartedly for bringing back payday lending – only three years after it was finally outlawed in Georgia.

Then he had to listen as fellow Republicans lambasted his proposal as an affront to biblical edicts against usury and a soulless attack on Georgia's poor and downtrodden. Even Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine – notorious for serving his own corporate contributors – pointed out the craven cynicism of a bill that would protect military families from payday lenders while offering the rest of us as chum for loan sharks.

The bill failed to pass the House. Twice. Tumlin's only solace came in the support his outrageous bill received from such strange bedfellows as Reps. "Able" Mable Thomas, Bobby Franklin and – apparently suffering a major legislative brain fart – Tyrone Brooks.

The Stinginess As an Art Award

To AT&T

Having swallowed up BellSouth, San Antonio-based AT&T is back with a bill making it easier to get into Georgia's lucrative cable-TV business. Fair enough; Comcast could use the competition. The only hitch was a suggestion that the company pay a 6 percent franchise fee, rather than 5 percent, with the extra point going to fund arts education in public schools.

Even though AT&T has agreed to the 6 percent fee in other states, and even though the final percentage represents a mere $12 million of a projected $500 million windfall, the telephone giant fought the amendment with all its well-heeled might. One observer estimated that the corporate behemoth flooded the Capitol with a lobbyist for every senator. The gambit seems to have worked.

C'mon AT&T – you're outsourcing enough jobs to Texas; do you really need to screw Georgia out of the last penny?

Correction: We mistakenly reported that Rep. Mike Jacobs voted in favor of a bill to relax legal standards for imposing the death penalty. Jacobs voted against that measure. We had intended to point out that Jacobs voted for a bill to allow workers to store guns in their cars while parked on company property.

See also

Kudos where kudos are due: The Arnie Awards.