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By Jeff, on February 1st, 2011%
Per this AJC article, yesterday Bobby Franklin made his yearly hara kiri. As he has done at least one other time since I have been watching, in addition to at least once between 2004 and 2008, he made one of the most dangerous and least successful parliamentary moves available – he challenged the ruling of the Chair (Speaker Ralston).
GPB doesn’t have video archives yet this Session, but here’s what went down, so best as I have determined so far:
Last year, both the House and the Senate passed SB 1, Senator David Shafer’s Zero Based Budget Act. After the Session was over, Governor Perdue vetoed this bill.
Last week, in a VERY rare move, the Senate voted to override that veto, and did so unanimously, 52-0-6. They only needed a 2/3 majority, or 38 votes (there are currently 36 GOP Senators).
That same day, upon learning of the Senate’s veto override, Speaker Ralston let it be known that the House would not take the measure up, but would instead push its own ZBB measure, Rep Steven Allison’s HB 33.
Yesterday, the House got the veto override, and apparently th Speaker assigned it to the Rules Committee. I don’t know exactly what transpired next, but it ended with Rep Franklin making an EXTREMELY politically boneheaded move – the aforementioned challenging of the ruling of the Chair.
Here’s the problem:
Per Article III Section V Section XIII(d) of the Ga Constitution (emphases mine):
During sessions of the General Assembly, any vetoed bill or resolution may upon receipt be immediately considered by the house wherein it originated for the purpose of overriding the veto. If two-thirds of the members to which such house is entitled vote to override the veto of the Governor, the same shall be immediately transmitted to the other house where it shall be immediately considered. Upon the vote to override the veto by two-thirds of the members to which such other house is entitled, such bill or resolution shall become law. All bills and resolutions vetoed during the last three days of the session and not considered for the purpose of overriding the veto and all bills and resolutions vetoed after the General Assembly has adjourned sine die may be considered at the next session of the General Assembly for the purpose of overriding the veto in the manner herein provided. If either house shall fail to override the Governor’s veto, neither house shall again consider such bill or resolution for the purpose of overriding such veto.
In other words, per the Constitution of the State of Georgia, Rep Franklin was absolutely technically correct in challenging the rule of the Chair, if a political idiot.
And the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives has apparently violated the Constitution of the State of Georgia.
Like it or not, Bobby Franklin was (technically) absolutely correct.
By Jeff, on January 19th, 2010%
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?
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By Jeff, on January 12th, 2010%
I’ve been hearing some grumblings in Democratic circles over the past 36 hours or so about 10 Democrats who voted for David Ralston, the Republican nominee, for Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives instead of Calvin Smyre, the Democratic nominee.
The 10 were Ellis Black, Bob Bryant, Amy Carter, Mike Cheokas, Bubber Epps, Carol Fullerton, Gerald Greene, Bob Hanner, Kevin Levitas, and Alan Powell.
I wanted to look at it from a bit more clinical perspective, so I used the General Assembly Vote Tracker to do a basic mathematical analysis (I’m a computer geek and a former math teacher, sorry!) on these ten Representatives’ votes from 2009, as well as both Parties’ nominees for Speaker – David Ralston from the GOP and Calvin Smyre from the Dems.
My methodology was simple: I weighted all nay votes as -1, all yea votes as +1, and all no votes or excused votes as 0. I did one analysis with all 526 votes the House cast last year, and another round counting only those votes where there was at least one no vote from one of the 12 people in question. Under this analysis, a person who is present and votes no 100% of the time will have a score of -526 for the first round and -172 for the second round. Similarly, a person who is present and votes yea 100% of the time will have a score of 526 or 172. A person who is either present and whose yea/nay votes are exactly 50/50 or who is never present for any vote will have a score of zero. The results are below the jump.
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By Jeff, on December 15th, 2009%
Here’s what I’m hearing right now:
Larry O’Neal: Seen as the “Establishment” candidate due to his current position as Chair of Ways and Means, one of the top 3 Committees. Connected to a bill that allowed Governor Perdue to skip $100K in property taxes several years ago, currently Perdue’s personal lawyer. It is widely accepted that he could handle the Speakership effectively, but the fear is that he won’t be enough change to avoid the “culture of corruption” commercials that are sure to be shot if he wins.
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By Jeff, on December 9th, 2009%
Quite a few new developments came out yesterday in the continuing saga of the fallout of Glenn Richardson’s political collapse, and I want to get y’all caught up, for the moment, on where things currently stand – at least as best as possible, given the currently available information.
In the Speaker chase, several new names cropped up. Erick Erickson, in an endgame I knew had to exist, went forward endorsing Tom Graves for the job late last night. Earlier in the day, a Facebook group to get Barry Loudermilk the job was created, and Bill Greene, a recent candidate for Mayor of Braselton, GA, wrote an article on the Campaign For Liberty site about this. The Facebook group was created by Jenny Hodges, Ray McBerry’s campaign manager, and quite a few of its current 22 members are people associated with Ray McBerry’s campaign, including the man who openly called for war against the US Government a month ago, State Rep Bobby Franklin. Quite frankly, while Loudermilk is well regarded, he simply doesn’t have the influence to pull this move off, and it is a VAST over-reach, which we’ll talk about in a moment.
Also placing his name in the Speaker chase was Tommy Smith, whom AJC’s Political Insider Jim Galloway credits as being the first entrant. Smith, an unknown who had many questions of “Who??” and “What????” erupting (even though he has been in the House for 30 years, much of that time as a Democrat) is running for the job on the promise of ending the hawk system I still need to get a chance to write about, but which DuBose Porter has made some great points against.
Others who have been named as possible contenders include Larry O’Neal of Warner Robbins (currently the chairman of the very influential Ways and Means Committee) and David Ralston.
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By Jeff, on December 8th, 2009%
Much has been said over the last week or so about David Ralston running for Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives. The basic reasoning is because he challenged Glenn Richardson for the job last year and got about a quarter of the House Republican Caucus to side with him, he should now be Speaker.
The problem is, he simply doesn’t have the influence right now to pull off that play. Too many members of the Caucus -specifically current Chairmen – are worried about keeping their jobs if he is Speaker. The thinking here is that he will have too many debts to repay, and may have to move sooner rather than later to repay them.
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