I have been a harsh critic of Senator David Shafer for several of the votes he cast during the last session of the General Assembly. He recently reached out to me, and after talking with him and doing some independent research of my own, I believe that some of my criticism of him was unfair, and in the interest of fairness, I would like to set the record straight.
With regard to Sunday sales, I said that the senator refused to hold hearings or allow votes on the issue. That does not appear to be true or fair. When the bill was first introduced in the 2007, he held committee hearings and put the bill to a vote and Sunday Sales in fact DID pass out of his committee. It then died in the Senate Rules Committee when that committee refused to schedule it for a floor vote. In 2009, when the bill was re-introduced as SB 16, Senator Shafer’s committee again held hearings and was prepared to vote on it when Senator Harp – its sponsor – suddenly withdrew it. I don’t know why Senator Harp withdrew the bill, especially since he tried to attach it to another bill as an amendment, but it is not fair to blame the chairman for failing to vote on a bill when the sponsor withdraws the bill – and I do plan on attempting to contact Senator Harp on the issue.
I strongly opposed SB 31, the Nuclear Power Financing Act, as a consumer rip off – in fact, my comment was that it ‘may as well have been written by a lobbyist for nuclear power in general or Georgia Power in particular’. Senator Shafer told me that he supported the bill because he believed in encouraging the building of energy infrastructure within Georgia to assure our self sufficiency. I agree with him about self sufficiency but do not believe that asking to customers to pay in advance is the way to achieve it – nor do I believe government should be involved in attaining such sufficiency. I acknowledge, however, that Senator Shafer played a role in stripping one of the most egregious provisions out of the bill that would have allowed Georgia Power to exclude the advance payments from the nuclear power plant in setting its overall rates. The final version of the bill allows the PSC to consider the advance payments in setting rates. That the PSC is widely known to be in the pocket of Ga Power is irrelevant for the purposes of this post.
With regard to HB 614, dealing with prescription drugs, Senator Shafer told me that, with the benefit of hindsight, he would not have supported the bill. He said he had many of the same concerns that were expressed in the blogosphere but was lulled into supporting it because the doctor, pharmacist and patients groups that had opposed electronic prescription monitoring in the past supported HB 614, which was represented to him as a compromise. The senator also pointed out that he had authored an amendment in committee designed to beef up privacy protection of the database. As someone with a background in government operations and IT, I know how easily electronic databases can be abused, even with privacy protections. HB 614 is a horrible idea, and I appreciate the senator’s candor and open mindedness.
I also give credit where it is due, and I do support Senator Shafer’s SB 1, the Zero Based Budget Act, which will help lawmakers identify and eliminate wasteful spending by requiring the entire budget to be periodically re-justified. I am also intrigued by his SB 291, which re-writes the state’s firearms laws in a very pro-Second Amendment fashion. Senator Shafer introduced this bill, with a very strong list of bipartisan sponsors – including SWGA’s Senator Freddie Sims, on the last day of the session. I’ll talk more about those bills in later posts.
Senator Shafer also said something else with which I wholeheartedly agree. He said it was important that we keep the heat on him and our other elected representatives. He said the scrutiny and criticisms, however uncomfortable, made him and his fellow colleagues better legislators. And I assured him that here at SWGA Politics, we would do just that.
[...] From his blog: I have been a harsh critic of Senator David Shafer for several of the votes he cast during the last session of the General Assembly. He recently reached out to me, and after talking with him and doing some independent research of my own, I believe that some of my criticism of him was unfair, and in the interest of fairness, I would like to set the record straight. [...]