Deal. Real. Crook.

For those that missed this story in the AJC over the weekend, I apologize for my tardiness on it. I had quite a busy weekend with meetings, and I didn’t get a chance to write about it. I don’t feel THAT bad about just now getting to it though, since Erick only got to it this morning himself – though has apparently heard rumors of it for quite some time.

Nathan Deal is currently the US Representative from the 9th District and is running for Governor of Georgia in 2010. He first came on to the legislative scene during the 1980 election cycle, where he ran for an won a State Senate race, remaining in that position until being elected to his current position in the 1992 elections. He worked his way up to second in command of the State Senate, the position known as President Pro Tempore – currently held by Tommie Williams (R-Lyons).

Way back in 1982, the State of Georgia passed a law that said that any wrecked car had to be inspected before being allowed to be sold or driven. Remember, Deal was already in the General Assembly at this point. Unfortunately, LEGIS, the site that I use to do my bill research, only goes back to 1995, meaning that I cannot find this particular bill and how Deal voted on it at the time. Regardless, in 1989 the State contracted with one site in Athens to do the inspections, and expanded the program a year later.

At the beginning of February, 1990, Deal partnered with Ken Cronan to open Recovery Services, Inc. Under a non-competitive selection process, this brand new business became one of the sites the inspections program was expanded to. No paperwork exists to explain what the selection process was, and Deal currently doesn’t “know there was much of an official thing”. But remember, this was a State program and Deal was then a powerful enough State Senator that he was about to become the President Pro Tem of the Senate.

Flash forward to 2008. Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham decides to look into this 20 year old program for inspecting wrecked vehicles. He started asking what sound to me to be some pretty good questions, such as this, from the article:

“How did they get assigned to doing this work?” Graham said. “How does it work? Is there a better way to do it? I thought it was interesting that you had dedicated businesses that had not been [competitively] bid.” … Graham also thought the locations of the inspection stations made little sense. The nearest one to Atlanta, for example, is Gainesville. The station nearest Savannah is in Hazlehurst, more than two hours away. The stations are essentially regional monopolies, Graham said.

Pretty soon after Graham starts looking at this matter, he gets a call into the Lt Governor’s office – fairly similar, I would imagine, to a student getting a call to come to the Assistant Principal’s office. He gets there, and he sees the Casey Cagle, Brad Alexander, Nathan Deal, Chris Riley, and Ken Cronan. Cagle is the Lt Governor, Alexander is Cagle’s right hand man (chief of staff), Riley is Deal’s right hand man (chief of staff), and Cronan is – you will remember – Deal’s business partner. Also note that Cagle, before becoming Lt Governor, served in the same State Senate district that Deal had once represented. Deal even gave Cagle $6,000 in the runup to the 2006 election where Cagle won the Lt Governor position. Gee… I wonder what could be the problem here?

Deal admits to requesting the meeting, but says he was doing it from a constituent services angle. If it was just a constituent service meeting, why did Deal AND his chief of staff need to be there?

Six months after that meeting, in June 2008, Graham gets another call to come to the Lt Governor’s office. For another meeting with Deal. Graham says this meeting didn’t influence his decision, but shortly thereafter he changes tactics and decides to work to privatize the system.

Apparently, the program costs the State nearly $2 million to operate, and Graham recommended that funding be cut from the Department of Revenue budget. Governor Perdue agreed, and the money wasn’t there in his budget proposal. When the House passed the budget bill, the money still wasn’t there.

And then Riley, Deal’s Chief of Staff, used his congressional email account – in apparent violation of House rules, but more on that in a minute – to email the deputy revenue commissioner about putting the money back in the budget. Cagle’s office was also contacted, and within days, the Senate Appropriations Committee – chaired by Jack Hill (R-Reidsville) – had put the money back in the budget. Just before this though, Graham was summoned to yet another meeting with Cagle, Deal, and Cronan, but this time insisted on a neutral site – which turned out to be Governor Perdue’s conference room. While Graham didn’t discuss what exactly happened there with the AJC, he does say that “without a doubt” it was clear that Deal and Cronan didn’t want the inspection system changed. Interesting to note here is the level of forgetfulness of the people involved. Deal can’t quite remember much of this, Cagle wouldn’t talk to the AJC about it, Hill couldn’t remember but thought a subcommittee that handles the Department of Revenue had handled it, and the subcommittee chair, Mitch Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg) doesn’t seem to remember either.

So here we have a man who is saying he wants to be our next Governor, yet has absolutely no problems abusing the power of his past and current offices to profit himself. Furthermore, the guy is an absolute hypocrite, hiding behind House rules when they allow him not to take a stand on the politically volatile Cash for Clunkers program but breaking them when it is convenient to make him more money.

While some would like to give him credit being very hands-on with this story, instead of relying on staffers like one of his competitors (who shall remain nameless, but goes around portraying himself as a sterile bull), the fact of the matter is he has been hands on throughout this process – including during most of the shady events themselves. Why should we then praise him for remaining hands-on during the spin attempt?