According to Tyler, Peach Pundit’s newest front page author, the former 216 Policy Group is officially reforming this session.
Under the former Speaker, this group was marginalized and heavily punished, thus they disbanded in 2008 under the purported theory that they would be harder to target individually than as a group.
I came around to Georgia politics after 216 had disbanded, but everything I have seen and heard about them tells me that, for the most part, it was a very good group that aligns fairly closely with my own beliefs – not as close as the LP, but certainly much closer than the majority of Republican leadership. That said, it DOES have some crazies among its members, including Bobby Franklin among them.
I said once it became clear that there would be a new Speaker that the new Speaker probably shouldn’t rock the boat too much, as he would face re-election in just under a year, as opposed to the 2 year window that Speakers generally have. Apparently, David Ralston, the new Speaker, plays a bit more aggressively than I – which is arguably a good thing to have in one of the three most powerful positions in State politics.
Why do I say that he has played (relatively) aggressively and that 216 is gaining power?
Number one, Speaker Ralston himself is a former core member of 216. Many of the other core members of 216 were the ones that voted for him in his first bid for the Speakership.
That loyalty is already being repaid.
Let’s look at last year’s committee assignments compared to this year’s with respect to the names I have been given as “core” 216 members as well as names “affiliated” with 216 – and please remember, this is FAR from an official list, simply names I have been given from various sources, both inside 216 and out.
This year, “core” 216 members picked up the Speakership as well as three Committee Chairmanships – Rules, Special Committee on Small Business Development and Job Creation, and Governmental Affairs. Furthermore, “core” members also picked up one Vice Chairmanship (Governmental Affairs), one Secretary post (Judicial), one Deputy Whip position (Stephen Allison), and had two Secretaries move to more prominent committees (Appropriations and Health and Human Services). 216 effectively controls the Special Committee on Small Business Development and Job Creation, having its Chairman, Vice Chairman, and 5 other members (7 members of the 13 member committee) as “core” members of 216.
“Leaning 216″ Representatives picked up one Chairmanship (Insurance), two Vice Chairmanships (Retirement and Games, Fish, and Parks), and had one Chairman move to a more prominent committee (Higher Education) as well as one Vice Chairman move to a more prominent committee (Appropriations, whose Vice Chairmen have many of the same privileges as Chairmen).
Inside the Appropriations committee (one of the larger and most politically powerful committees), “core” and “leaning” 216 members are on all but one subcommittee – Health. In particular, while not a “controlling interest”, 216 has more of its members inside Appropriations placed on the Economic Development and Education subcommittees, with a few on other subcommittees such as Higher Education and General Government.
Ways and Means and Rules, the other two of the three most powerful committees in the House, also got a bit of attention from Speaker Ralston when adding more 216 members to their rolls as well, including placing Bill Hembree, a challenger of Ralston’s for the Speakership and a 216 “core” member, as Chairman of Rules.
