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Runoffs Getting Nasty

By Jeff, on July 28th, 2010%

While Nathan Deal and Karen Handel fight over abortion and teh gayz, there is another battle getting very nasty that you may not be aware of:

The Hudgens/Sheffield battle for Insurance Commissioner.

Both Hudgens and Sheffield are trying to put the noose of The Ox around the other’s neck. Both have been tied to him at various points – Sheffield as a lawyer and lobbyist for the Insurance Department, Hudgens as the Chair of the Senate Insurance Committee, where Ox was a frequent speaker.

Both have donors who have supported Ox in both his Insurance Commissioner and Governor races, though Hudgens has the support of Ox’s Assistant Commissioner and was the only candidate of these two to receive money from John Oxendine himself. The money in question here was $500 to Hudgens’ State Senate account in 2008, a year before Hudgens filed to run to replace Ox, from Ox’s Better Georgia PAC.
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[UPDATED] Preston Smith and the 2010 Campaigns

By Jeff, on April 13th, 2010%

Over the last 18 hours or so, Preston Smith, the State Senator representing the 52nd District (which includes Rome and parts of my native Bartow County), has become the talk of Georgia politics. Over 100 people have already joined the effort to draft him to challenge Lt Governor Casey Cagle, and virtually every major political blog in the State, as well as many of the newspapers I read daily, have discussed his speech yesterday – many of the blogs re-posting the text of the speech in its entirety.

But one thing has not come out yet, and I think it needs to be discussed.

You see, this whole battle rages in and around one certain bill in the Georgia General Assembly – HB 307. The fact that this is a House bill that has now passed the Senate means that every single member of the General Assembly who is running for Statewide office has had some degree of say on this bill, and I want to run down the list briefly:
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Austin Scott Introduces Bill Making John Oxendine a Felon

By Jeff, on February 11th, 2010%

In this country, we have protection from ex post facto laws – laws that make an action a crime after the action has been done. So the bill Austin Scott introduced yesterday, HB 1166, wouldn’t apply to the thousands of dollars John Oxendine has already raked in from insurance companies – but it would apply to any future contributions to Ox, so long as he is the Commissioner of Insurance.

The bill would also make State Senators Ralph Hudgens (the Chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee who is running for Commissioner of Insurance) and Seth Harp (who is also running for Commissioner of Insurance) felons, and possibly a few others in their race.

This bill is a complete political stunt by Scott to make a point both in his campaign for Governor as well as the allegations flying in the Insurance Commissioner’s race, and because Hudgens in particular would be caught up in it, it has absolutely no chance of becoming law in its current form. IF it actually manages to become law, it will be heavily modified and a shell of its current version.
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