Download the .mp3

Among the highlights:

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 . . . → Read More: Sam Olens Becomes First Attorney General Candidate To…]]> 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!

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 . . . → Read More: Mandate for 2010 Legislature: Sweeping Ethics Reform]]> 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.

The article addressed . . . → Read More: Do Teachers Not Deserve Equal Protection Under the Law?]]> 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,

Teachers across Georgia may legally engage in sexual relationships with students 16 or older if the sex is consensual.

That is what the state Supreme Court held last summer when it ruled, 5-2, in Chase v. The State, a case out of Richmond County. The decision has immediate effects in Cobb County, where at least two former high school teachers are charged with sexual assaults of students older than 16.

At issue is Georgia law 16-6-5.1, which defines sexual assault against persons in custody.

The statute has three subsections, and while one part of the law prohibits a “supervisor of another person” from having sexual contact with a person enrolled in a school, a different section, which addresses sexual contact between a supervisor and someone in legal custody or detained in an institution or hospital, includes this caveat: “Consent of the victim shall not be a defense to a prosecution under this subsection.”

The court’s majority found that the General Assembly, in writing the law, had not added that caveat to the other sections of the law, meaning they had not removed consent as a defense for those sections. In Georgia, the age of consent is 16.

A lawmaker from Gainesville has already drafted legislation for the 2010 session to crystallize the illegality. And a Cobb lawmaker, Rep. Rob Teilhet, says if that bill can’t be passed quickly, “I don’t know what we’ll do this year of any value.”
…
Although it will be up to juries to decide whether either man committed a crime, the state board that deals with educators’ ethics has already acted by revoking both men’s teaching certificates.

Kelly Henson, executive secretary of the Professional Standards Commission, said, “Consent has no bearing on the fact that we consider it completely and totally unethical. Educators who have sexual relations with students can be certain that we will take a severe sanction against their certificate.”
…
Teilhet, a Smyrna Democrat, also disputed the idea of consent in such cases.

“I’ve heard some people suggest that some cases of statutory rape or abuses of power like this are somehow victimless if there is consent. I think that’s flat wrong,” Teilhet said.

“The whole premise behind consent not being a defense … is that the victim is not in a position to resist, and is very vulnerable to be taken advantage of,” Teilhet said. “A 16-year-old who is taken advantage of by an adult suffers long-term consequences as a result. I don’t care if the victim consented or not. The older person has a higher responsibility. Consent isn’t good enough.”

Teilhet is the father of twin girls, and is seeking his party’s nomination for state Attorney General in 2010.

Meanwhile his colleague, state Rep. Doug Collins, a Gainesville Republican, is already working to rewrite the law. Within days of the Chase decision, he had new legislation drafted that would remove consent as a defense when a teacher or someone who works in a school is charged with having sex with a student enrolled in high school.

“The Supreme Court highlighted a problem with the law, and I want to correct that,” said Collins, who was first elected to the legislature in 2006. He is also an Air Force chaplain, assigned to the 94th Airlift Wing at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta.

“I don’t anticipate a great deal of opposition. I’m an attorney, and I do some criminal defense work,” said Collins, 43, who is himself the father of teenagers. “I just want to address what I consider a very narrow issue. I don’t think anybody would’ve expected that a teacher could get away with having sex with a student and it not be illegal. It’s a narrow window that needs to be closed.”

I’d like to make a few points, and as I do remember that we are talking about people of legal age to give consent in all cases who did, in fact, give such consent.

First, I can completely agree with the General Assembly in regards to the jailers and psychotherapists. With those professions, you are genuinely working with people you can easily manipulate with relative impunity, and those laws SHOULD therefore be more stringent.

That said, teachers should NOT fall under similar guidelines. Quite simply, a high school teacher MIGHT see a student for an hour and a half per day in class. In that hour and a half, teacher almost never have any one on one time at all with any student, particularly not in the environment of trying to help them with their mental illnesses.

Teilhet seems to think that 16-18 year old students are “not in a position to resist”. Clearly, he hasn’t been in a high school classroom in several years. Most of my students resisted when I told them to do their classwork! Yet Teilhet thinks that they would not resist an unwelcome advance from a teacher.

If “consent isn’t good enough” for under 18, why is it good enough for over 18? And if it isn’t good enough under 18, why is the legal age of consent 16? Should he not be attacking THAT law, rather than banning teachers from using consent as a defense to a charge of sexual assault of a person in custody?

I completely agree that teachers SHOULD NOT have intimate relationships with students. The whole reason I left that bit about the Professional Standards Committee in the blockquote was because I do not mind if a teacher loses their license to teach because of a sexual relationship with a student. That has long been a part of our ethical standards, and teachers know the risk when they make that decision.

All I’m saying is that IF they are caught having sex with a student and are charged under this statute, the fact that it was consensual sex SHOULD be a valid defense under the law for teachers, exactly the same as it is with virtually every other person out there charged with a similar crime.

After all, do teachers not deserve equal protection under the law?

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 . . . → Read More: Exposing GOP ‘pro-Constitution’ Hypocrisy]]> 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:

With the recent flooding in Atlanta, Gov. Purdue and John Oxendine ran straight to the federal government by asking that FEMA intervene in the cleanup. Ray McBerry takes another position. Believing that Georgia is quite capable of launching an internal system for cleanup and restoration after the damaging rains, he asserts that Georgians are the answer to Georgia’s problem.

Now, I personally don’t believe even the State of Georgia should be giving away our tax dollars for such “relief”. As I said last week, the American Way is not government assistance, but individuals helping individuals, families helping families, friends helping friends, and neighbors helping neighbors. Indeed, the backstory of Davey Crockett’s “Not Yours To Give” speech illustrates this perfectly in a situation that could well have been ripped from last week’s headlines – and yet happened nearly 200 years ago.

Moving on though, and using the “Not Yours to Give” speech as a segue, since it was first told to me by a friend from the extreme corner of NWGA, let’s talk about another incident from around his neck of the woods.

Friday afternoon, the Chattanooga NBC affiliate reported that cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Ogelthorpe High School in Fort Ogelthorpe, GA (in extreme North GA, not very far from the GA-TN border) had been banned from displaying the signs they spent all summer making for the football team to run through at the opening to games this season. The reason? Apparently, they all had “inspirational messages” – which turned out to be Bible verses – on them, and the school – correctly – said that this was a violation of the First Amendment guarantee of no government involvement in religion. Indeed, yesterday’s update on the report makes this case brilliantly, and I quote it here:

Catoosa County Public Schools has determined it is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution for signs with Bible verses to be displayed on the football field. Superintendent Denia Reese said, ‘I regret that we had to ask the LFO cheerleaders to change the signs used in the stadium prior to football games. Personally, I appreciate this expression of their Christian values; however, as Superintendent I have the responsibility of protecting the school district from legal action by groups who do not support their beliefs.’

“The 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids the enactment of any law or practice ‘respecting an establishment of religion.’ The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect the rights of the minority; for this reason, the stamp of approval of religion by the government is not a matter subject to majority vote.

“Regarding public education, families entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that school activities will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with their religious beliefs. As a result, the courts prohibit Rabbi-led prayers at school sporting events, Wiccan posters in gymnasiums, and reading the Koran over the school public announcement system.

“The U.S. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals have ruled that religious activities at high school football games create the ‘inescapable conclusion’ that the school endorses the religious activity. Violations of these rulings can lead to lawsuits resulting in injunctions, unnecessary legal costs and damages that have to be paid by the local taxpayers, and possibly the loss of federal funding.

Again, I was raised a Southern Baptist and still consider myself a Baptist. I have ZERO problems with prayer or reading the Bible, and actively encourage both practices – in private. I also acknowledge that others have different religious beliefs, and therefore a PUBLIC school should be strictly neutral on matters of religion, as should government in general.

You see, I actually believe in the ENTIRE Constitution, unlike some Facebook friends of mine, such as Don Hutelin, leader of the “Heritage Republicans” in that area, and Jeremy Jones, a candidate for the 9th District US House of Representatives seat. Both of these men like to purport to be lovers of the Constitution, yet clearly they mean only the parts they like.

No, the Catoosa County School System made the right call here, and they are the true lovers of the Constitution on this issue – not the GOP leaders and candidates who think the Constitution only applies when they like what is happening.

So here we see two instances of the GOP showing its hypocrisy on being ‘pro-Constitution’ in all of its ugly glory. As their record from 2002-2006 -when the GOP was in full control both at the State and National level- shows, all they care about is political posturing and grabbing more and more power for themselves, no matter what they say at the moment.

If you actually believe in the ENTIRE Constitution and giving the political power back to the People as the Founding Fathers envisioned it, I invite you to join me in the Libertarian Party – the TRUE ‘Party of Principle’.

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 . . . → Read More: Assorted Campaign Updates]]> 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.

Moving into the Attorney General race, Rob Teilhet also picked up Jones’ endorsement earlier this week. Also making the news in that particular race is that Erick Erickson’s friend, Max Wood, has filed to challenge current Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens in the GOP primary for that job. Erick’s endorsement will either be a stroke of genius for him or his death warrant, only time will tell which. Speaking of Olens, PeachPundit reported earlier today that a former US Attorney, Joe D. Whitley, has now endorsed Olens.

Moving into another race, I am hearing via Facebook that Roger Hines has announced that he will be jumping into the GOP primary for State School Superintendent with current officeholder Kathy Cox and SWGA’s Richard Woods.

Speaking of Mr. Woods, don’t forget that I am interviewing both him and Brian Westlake this weekend, and I’d like your input on some questions to ask both of them.

Finally, Kyle Constable has the story of John Oxendine proclaiming to take the 912Candidates Group pledge and receiving an endorsement from them. The problem, according to Kyle, is that Glenn Beck‘s official The 912 Project doesn’t do endorsements, this is a fringe group not affiliated with the official program, and Ox is trying to pass it off as an official endorsement.

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. Whitley said, “We need a . . . → Read More: Olens Sends Out His First Campaign Email]]> 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.

Whitley said, “We need a person of integrity, a proven leader and a lawyer with superb qualifications, to be our next Attorney General. For me, and I believe Georgians of all backgrounds, Sam Olens is that person.

“As a lawyer, Sam has amassed a record of excellence. As Chairman of the Cobb County Commission and Chair of the Atlanta Regional Commission, he has been a constant friend and avid supporter of law enforcement. Cobb County and the region is safer and a better place to live and work because of Sam Olens’ ability to get the job done in a way that respects citizen rights, but deals firmly with law breakers.”

Whitley served as the Acting Associate Attorney General, the third-ranking position in the Department of Justice. He was appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, respectively, to serve as U.S. Attorney in the Middle and Northern Federal Districts of Georgia. Throughout his career, Joe served under five United States Attorneys General in a number of key operational and policy positions.

In 2003, Whitley was appointed by President George W. Bush as the first General Counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS),

“I’m honored to be endorsed by a man with the distinguished service and career of Joe Whitley,” said Olens. “His support speaks to the kind of Attorney General I will be and what I will do if given the opportunity to serve the citizens of Georgia.” – Sam Olens

Figured we’ve given one of his competitors enough press on this site, and we should put up SOMETHING about him, so when this came in we decided to run it.