A Powder Keg Waiting To Explode

There are plenty of issues on the new legislative agenda. And 2008 is a presidential election year.

By Walter C. Jones

December 1, 2007

The insiders at the Capitol have a technical description for the kind of legislative session that begins January 14: a doozy.

Other terms include humdinger, lulu, crackerjack and maybe train wreck. Atlanta business executives have a few items they'd like to see accomplished, such as they adoption of a statewide water plan; passage of at least one of several pending taxing methods to speed transportation construction; reorganizing and funding of Grady Hospital; and empowering employers to keep guns out of workers' cars while parked in company lots.

Both the Atlanta and Georgia chambers of commerce support the water plan.

While the news media continues to show images of boat docks and lawn sprinklers, water resources are more critical to job-producing industries from power generation to carpet production, not to mention poultry, beer and soft drink bottling.

For two years, the corporate community has been warning that failure to solve the transportation problem is the greatest threat to the state's economic growth. Now the drought has made the same case about the water plan.

The parking-lot gun bill snagged last session when the National Rifle Association made its defeat the No. 1 priority, spooking nervous legislators. But Joe Fleming, lobbyist for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, will push it again.

The Grady problem has become more acute since the last session to the point where people have talked about closing it unless buckets of money are supplied. State Republican leaders have refused an investment until the hospital reorganizes.

As the issues pile up, business leaders want the accomplishments they enjoyed in 2005 when the state passed tort reform and the single-sales factor tax structure.

Transferring two or three of the pending issues from the to-do list to the done list would rank the session among the most ambitious in years. But with a long inventory of major issues, it's likely most will bog down in election-year politics and possibly the whole session could explode. Complicating the matter is the number of other large issues competing for attention, many championed by sponsors difficult to ignore.

Topping that list is Gov. Sonny Perdue. While he usually slowly unveils his complete legislative agenda, he's already made three goals clear. He wants a statewide water plan, and has been talking up the draft that's on the table, perhaps motivated in part by the authority it gives his appointee at the head of the Environmental Protection Division, Carol Couch. Lawmakers on both sides are considering voting against it for various reasons, all hoping they will somehow gain leverage themselves in a revision.

Perdue's second goal is to pass a health plan that would use funds saved from Medicaid's switch to managed care and instead channel the money into subsidies for small-business premiums paid to private insurers. And his third known target is a campaign promise, stalled last session, that would grant a tax cut for senior citizens.

Another heavyweight has a bigger tax change he's pushing, namely House Speaker Glenn Richardson and his elimination of state and local property taxes.

Rank-and-file legislators feel trapped on a canoe headed toward the waterfalls because of Perdue and Richardson. Privately, they aren't sold on the men's proposals or the stress they feel to pass them.

But those aren't the only big issues threatening the 2008 session. Consider these holdovers from last session – a slavery apology; certificate-of-need changes and opening the door to the Cancer Centers of America; and possibly another go at PeachCare for Kids if the eligibility level Congress eventually passes differs from Georgia's. And two new issues ripe for grandstanding are the probe into state employee credit-card abuses and the possible impeachment of the judge in the courthouse shooting trial, Hilton Fuller.

Add to the fun a presidential primary in the middle of the session, and you'll see all the many sparks that could ignite the powder keg. It only takes one.