More of the same at the Gold Dome
November 10, 2008 at 4:26 pm by Scott Henry in NewsIt hasn’t worked so far, but let’s try it again.
That seemed to be the thinking down at the state Capitol today, where House Republicans re-elected Glenn Richardson of Hiram as speaker and Jerry Keen of St. Simons as minority leader. The only real turnover was the election of Jan Jones of Alpharetta as majority whip, replacing Barry Fleming, who left the Legislature to get his clocked cleaned by Congressman Paul Broun in the 10th District race.
Granted, Richardson and Keen both had opposition – from GOP outsiders David Ralston of Blue Ridge and Tom Graves of Ranger, respectively – but, although caucus votes counts are kept secret, neither incumbent seemed to be in much danger.
Consider today’s votes more evidence of how far Georgia lags behind the political trends sweeping the rest of the nation. The last two sessions of the General Assembly were, generously speaking, poorly managed outings boasting few real accomplishments. By more objective standards, they were abysmal failures – and much of blame falls on Richardson’s ego-driven escapades. Much of his efforts this year were spent looking for ways to punish the many people who didn’t support his disastrous tax plan, or his DOT-board machinations, or a divisive English-only bill…
Keen, meanwhile, was so focused on building his own legislative resume with an unconstitutional sex-offender bill that he wasn’t able to keep the House car from careening into the ditch.
You’d have thought that Republicans – who give lip service to personal responsibility – would have given their leaders only one more chance after the debacle of 2007, when House and Senate bigwigs allowed the session to grind to a halt amid infighting and name-calling over the state budget. Instead, just as in the Bush White House, incompetence and non-performance have been rewarded with a re-up.
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