SWGA Politics

Attorney General Candidate Ignores Basic Principles of Justice[ December 31, 2009 – 6:51 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

In the American judicial system, we have a presumption of innocence until a prosecutor successfully proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of our peers. We have things like due process, probable cause, and warrants. We have a Constitutional protection AGAINST illegal search and seizure. Heck, we even have a basic right to privacy.

Rob Teilhet wants to do away with all of this though, in an attempt to keep us “safer”. He wants you to be forced to provide your DNA to cops when they arrest you, with no warrant and no probable cause. It is scary when ANYONE does this – but an Attorney General candidate???
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SWGAPolitics.com Talks to Attorney General Candidate Sam Olens[ December 24, 2009 – 6:25 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

In our latest interview, I had the chance to talk to GOP Attorney General candidate Sam Olens last week. The audio is 17 minutes long, and because of its brevity I didn’t cut it up.

Download the .mp3

Among the highlights:

• Lawyer who has worked in the same firm for more than 2 decades, is now a partner there. Graduate of Emory School of Law.
• Started as a member of his local homeowner’s association board, rose through the ranks by various appointments and campaigns, has been an elected official for 12 years now.
• Likes the idea of statewide grand juries as part of an ethics reform package
• Likes the Attorney General job because “you get the best of both worlds” with law and public service
• Thinks more needs to be done through the AG’s office regarding water, Public Private Partnerships, and legal framework for deals to bring more jobs to GA
• “Transparency goes with accountability. You don’t have one without the other.”
• Believes fines for violations of open government laws should be raised from maximum of $100 per occurrence to $1,000
• Believes that state and local officials who violate the Statutory Code of Ethics should face penalties, possibly up to and including removal from office
• Believes all ballot referenda should be written in plain English so that the average voter know what he is voting on and which way a particular vote acts.
• Believes recommendations by the State Ethics Board to the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee should be made public, and that the State Ethics Board should have subpoena powers
• “You have to respect everyone’s religion, ['moral', from the quote at the end of his ethics press release] is not meant in that regard.”

It was a genuine pleasure to talk to Chairman Olens, and I look forward to seeing him in SWGA as the campaign progresses.

Sam Olens Becomes First Attorney General Candidate To…[ December 23, 2009 – 6:15 pm]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

call for an examination of Obamacare’s constitutionality.

He joins Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and others in calling for an examination of Obamacare’s constitutionality in light of a deal made with a Nebraska US Senator to exempt that State from having to bear Obamacare’s financial burden.

Here’s the press release:

SAM OLENS MAKES OFFICIAL REQUEST TO GEORGIA AG TO REVIEW CONSTITUTIONALITY OF H.R. 3590

For Immediate Release : Cobb County/December 23, 2009 – Cobb County Commission Chair and candidate for Attorney General Sam Olens has submitted a letter to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker requesting that he join with the Attorney Generals of South Carolina and at least six other States, to review the constitutionality of H.R. 3590, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

With the final deal assuring Senator Ben Nelson’s vote, all newly eligible Medicaid enrollees from Nebraska would be permanently treated differently than those from the other 49 States. While Medicaid is a joint federal-state program, the Nebraska Compromise provides for a permanent exemption to his State alone. Said provision appears to violate the U.S. Constitution as all states would not be uniformly treated the same with this new tax.

“It is a felony to buy votes in this country. That same prohibition must apply to our legislators. All legal options must be considered and applied to stop this outrage.

“Georgians cannot afford the many new taxes associated with this bill, let alone a special provision that lets us pay for citizens of another state, stated Olens.

Also look for the interview Jeff did with Chairman Olens last week tomorrow morning on SWGAPolitics.com!

Mandate for 2010 Legislature: Sweeping Ethics Reform[ December 19, 2009 – 6:26 am]by Publius Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

The following is written by Rob Teilhet, a Democratic Candidate for Attorney General, about his ethics proposal.

The scandal among the House Republican leadership that unfolded at the state capitol over the last several weeks has crystallized a mandate for the 2010 Georgia General Assembly.

We must pass sweeping ethics reform during the 2010 legislative session, and restore the public’s trust in state government.

Currently the legislature polices itself on ethics charges. Allowing this is like letting a criminal preside over his own court hearing. The resignation of Speaker Richardson and election of new officers to the majority party are not enough. We must address the underlying culture of corruption that allowed self-dealing and conflicts of interest to run rampant at our state house.

Georgia needs an Attorney General who will make restoring the public’s trust in government a top priority. When citizens think their elected officials are ripping them off, and stealing, and acting for all the wrong reasons, they will never trust government to do the things that are hard and complicated that we have to do together. If people think the government is full of crooks, why on earth would they trust them with health care, or water or transportation?

Sadly, as I write this op ed, public officials are meeting in secret across Georgia. Regular citizens have not been invited to this meeting. In these secret meetings public policies are being planed. These policies are designed not to advance the public interest, but instead the public officials’ own private financial interests, or those of their special interest contributors.

That’s why I will sponsor legislation in January to overhaul Georgia’s conflict of interest laws for the General Assembly. My bill will place the enforcement responsibility for conflict of interest complaints with the State Ethics Commission, rather than the legislature.

If my proposal sounds familiar, it should. It was a centerpiece of Governor Sonny Perdue’s ethics proposals in 2005. Eventually an ethics bill passed in the waning hours of the 2005 session, but the conflict of interest provisions were removed at the insistence of the Georgia House Republican leadership.

Governor Perdue was right in 2005. But his legislation was gutted, and the result was an ethics bill with no teeth on conflict of interest. The conflict of interest scandal we’ve endured over the last several weeks is a direct result of the lack of any meaningful action by the General Assembly on ethics.

I believe Georgia needs stronger ethics laws and a government as good and honest as its people. It is high time we strengthen Georgia’s ethics laws and get our public officials back to the business of serving constituents, rather than themselves.

###

Rob Teilhet (pronounced tuh-lay) is a candidate for Attorney Genera in Georgia. He has represented Smyrna and Marietta in the Georgia House of Representatives since his election in 2002 at the age of 28. He is the Chief Deputy Whip of the House Democratic Caucus and serves on the Judiciary, Education, and Industrial Relations Committees. He is a partner in the Marietta law firm of Rogers, Strimban & Teilhet. More information about his campaign can be found at his website, www.robforgeorgia.com.

SpeakerSaga Fallout: Ethics and 2010 Campaigns[ December 10, 2009 – 6:34 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

First off, let me just admit that the SpeakerSaga – the fallout from Glenn Richardson being accused of threatening to beat his wife and abuse his political power – is simply too much for me to track while still working a full time job. To that end, for SpeakerSaga updates, I recommend the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Gold Dome Live and Political Insider, as well as Jason Pye and yes, Peach Pundit. I’ve already said my piece on it, which is essentially that the members of the House need to be extremely careful not to play their hands too early and cost them down the road.

That said, there has been one issue that has arisen out of it that I want to spend more time looking at: ethics, and specifically how the issue affects the various 2010 statewide races.

This post will be a more shotgun style introduction, with future pieces to examine each candidate’s positions in more detail. If any candidate I don’t point out here has a proposal out, PLEASE let me know about it! (Facebook, Twitter, Email)
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Do Teachers Not Deserve Equal Protection Under the Law?[ November 27, 2009 – 11:00 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

This past Sunday, the Marietta Daily Journal had an article about a Supreme Court decision that came down over the summer than I’ve already written about a couple of times – the decision that said that consent WAS a defense for teachers accused of sexual assault of a person in custody.

The article addressed both a local case up there potentially impacted by the decision as well as two State Representatives’ efforts to change the law – one of whom is Rob Teilhet, who is running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Attorney General.

Per the article,
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Exposing GOP ‘pro-Constitution’ Hypocrisy[ September 29, 2009 – 6:37 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns, State

Over the last week or so, two events have really hit home in exposing the hypocrisy of the GOP when it comes to being ‘pro-Constitution’.

The first was the Atlanta Flood. A multitude of things could be said about it, but the most glaring thing to me is that many area (and statewide) GOP candidates and leaders were clamoring for MORE government involvement via FEMA and “disaster relief funds” – all the while claiming that government should stay OUT of healthcare and return to its Constitutional basis. Of these, Attorney General Candidate Sam Olens – also the Chair of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners – was probably the most blatant when, per AJC’s Jim Galloway, he “said the entire region growing impatient waiting for President Barack Obama to sign a declaration of emergency that would unleash federal resources for the area.” Why weren’t these ‘leaders’ instead pointing out the unconstitutionality of FEMA and these funds?

Indeed, the ONLY GOP candidate who publicly decried FEMA and “federal disaster relief funds” as the unconstitutional mess it is was Ray McBerry, who said via press release last Thursday:
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Assorted Campaign Updates[ August 6, 2009 – 6:30 pm]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

I’ve gotten a few campaign updates over the past week that I really haven’t had time to do a detailed post on, so here’s a shotgun-style update on them:

Tom Knox has indeed filed to run for State Insurance Commissioner, as I reported would happen more than a month ago. I didn’t get any campaign emails, and I don’t know if he has a website or any other contact information (facebook, twitter, email, heck, even a phone number) available. No quick Google search turns up any site, but in related news the post where I first reported this would happen is the second result in Google on a search of ‘Tom Knox insurance’. Pretty cool!

Speaking of the Insurance Commissioner race, Mary Squires’ campaign found that post and emailed me earlier this week this link to a press release they issued late last week with a list of legislative endorsements. Just from a quick glance, it appears that all named are Democrats – which is reasonable, since she is a Democrat. Two SWGA area names are on that list – State Rep Gerald Greene (D-Cuthbert) and State Senator Freddie Sims (D-Albany). Probably the most politically significant name on the list is State Sen Emmanuel Jones (D-Savannah), the head of the Legislative Black Caucus.
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Olens Sends Out His First Campaign Email[ July 22, 2009 – 7:13 pm]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

Sam Olens, the only Republican currently running for Attorney General, has just sent out the following email:

I am pleased to announce that I have received the endorsement of Joe D. Whitley, former U.S. Attorney in the Middle and Northern Federal Districts of Georgia during two presidential administrations.
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