Fresh Loaf

The Helping Marta Is Smarta Award

[One in a series of accolades doled out to the legislators who managed to do good -- or at least try to -- during this year's legislative session. View the other winners, as well as their more poor-minded colleagues, in this week's CL or online here.]

With lawmakers eyeing reelection in November, many were hesitant to pass any solution to Atlanta’s transportation mess that might remotely sound like a tax increase. So Sen. Curt Thompson, D-Norcross, had the clever idea that counties hugging MARTA’s service areas be allowed to contract for the transit agency’s services and live up to its connectivity potential in the auto-oriented region. His bill made it through the Senate and was struggling at press time to get to the House floor.

(Photo courtesy of the Senate Press Office)

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The 19th annual Golden Sleaze Awards, our annual serving of the knuckleheaded misdeeds of the state Legislature, has now gone live. The awards cross party lines and recognize our state’s politicos for a variety of offenses — be it pushing legislation whose benefactors contributed to your campaign, or just plain playing nasty politics.

Let us also not forget that there are saints among the sinners. Click here to view the recipients of the illustrious Arnie Awards.

If we missed someone, fret not — the General Assembly still has a couple of days left to hash out some mischief. But please also feel free to chime in and let us know who we overlooked.

Enjoy!

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That’s what That Other Paper’s Jim Galloway is reporting.

According to his report, legislators on the conference committee in charge of tying up the loose ends are now pulling back and establishing a framework that next year’s session — and perhaps an entirely new breed of politicians — can finalize.

In this week’s CL, we hand out Arnie Awards to two legislators who pushed the funding strategy that would allow regions to impose a local option sales tax on themselves to generate funding that would help get them out of this congestion mess. If this resolution gets pulled, don’t be surprised if we do the same to their award.

I’m sure that’s got them shaking in their boots.

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The Doing His Career No Favors Award

[One in a series of online awards for Georgia lawmakers. You'll find the rest in CL's Golden Sleaze issue Wednesday both in print and online.]

Rep. Robbie Mumford, R-Conyers, spends so much time outside the GOP fold that you wonder if it wouldn’t be easier on him simply to switch parties. Then again, he might not be as valuable a voice in challenging some of the really bad policy that his fellow lawmakers propose. Again this year, Mumford was one of a lonely few Republicans who spoke out against a bill to allow a divided jury to impose a death sentence. And he was the only GOP member of a House committee to sign on to a minority report on Rep. Jerry Keen’s reworked bill to establish residency restrictions for sex offenders. As such, Mumford offered not only his lawyerly opinion that the bill is unconstitutional, but he also criticized the House majority leader’s legislation on well-documented grounds that it actually could make Georgia’s children less safe from sexual abuse. He also introduced a bipartisan bill to strengthen rights for victims of sexual assault. Let’s hope Mumford isn’t shooting his political career in the foot.

(Photo: Courtesy of Georgia House)

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