2024 Georgia General Assembly Review

The Good, the Bad, and the BS

Thank goodness, the 2024 Georgia General Assembly is now over. We can stop holding our breath. During this session I wrote about two bills, the first being the Kemp-backed, “Green-New-Deal” bill, HB206, the second being legislation forwarded by Representatives Brad Thomas, Todd Jones and others, HB986, a bill I termed disaffectionally the “deep-fake-go-to-jail” bill. Earlier in the week, it appeared we might leave this session 100% victorious, defeating both of those bills. In the end, however, Governor Kemp prevailed on HB206, leaving us batting .500 on the season, good for baseball, bad for perpetuating American political institutions.

Regarding HB206, please refer to my February Substack entitled, Kemp's Failing Green Companies Seeking Taxpayer Funded Capital to Survive. This bill creates a governing authority in every Georgia county, municipality, etc. tasked with the duty of receiving requests from under-capitalized, struggling, green energy companies (UCSGEC’s) within their jurisdictions and packaging those companies’ requests for taxpayer assistance to go before their respective governing boards, ie., county commissions, city councils, etc. If those governing boards agree, the county or city taxpayers would back bonds issued by their local governing authority, ostensibly to be paid back by those same UCSGEC’s via agreed increased property tax assessments, over and above what would be normal, hopefully retiring each bond issue over time. What I describe here is potentially Governor Kemp’s Rivian deal metastasized into practically every political jurisdiction in the state.

The objections to this scheme are numerous, the most obvious being that taxpayers would be placed at risk to pay off said bonds should these UCSGEC’s fail to turn profits sufficient to satisfy both their investors, keeping investors in the game, while also paying back the bonds. Under a capitalist economic model, only the investors in a venture such as I describe would be at risk. That is what capitalism is. The job of a capital investor is to judge risk vs. reward and value a prospective investment according to a formula designed to price a stock accordingly. Under this bill, stock prices for UCSGEC’s will become wildly distorted.

HB206, blurs the capitalist economic model, effectively supplementing private investment capital with public-backed financing, a body of local taxpayers becoming a partner/investor in certain chosen UCSGEC’s, the only reward for doing so, however, being to break even on the retirement of public-backed bonds, to go with whatever positive or negative impact these UCSGEC’s might muster to aid their local economies. In other words, there is very little or no upside for the taxpayers in any of these deals. The best the taxpayers might do under this arrangement would be to break even should a UCSGEC stay in business long enough to retire a local bond issue. This is another reason why, year after year, Georgia wins the prize as the nation’s best state in which to do business. Only in Georgia, do taxpayers supplement corporate profits to this extent with deals like HB206.

Secondly, the Kemp-backed HB206 places government into the business of picking not only winners and losers in the selection of companies to participate in these ill-conceived public-private partnerships, but it also makes a winner out of an entire preferred industry, that being the green energy industry. That is not a proper role of government under capitalism. The system we are discussing is better understood as “corporatism,” where corporations increasingly influence public policy to the extent that corporate entities eventually dictate public policy, effectively transforming “capitalism” into “corporate fascism.” Corporate fascism is a necessary step, providing the economic power necessary to build a communist state. That is where all this goes. That is where China is and how it generates the economic power to support its communist control systems.

On Tuesday of this week, on the floor of the Georgia House the HB206 Senate substitute bill had been defeated, utterly, 91-72. It was dead, the only “Yea” vote from the Forsyth County delegation coming from Kemp’s “floor leader,” Representative Lauren McDonald. Voting against his boss’ instructions would put the representative in an unenviable position with the governor next year. Representative Carter Barrett, seemingly could not make up his mind, and abstained.

Forsyth County House Delegation

HB206 was dead. It had taken its last breath and was about to be thrown on the ash heap of bad ideas, when in an orchestrated maneuver the bill’s sponsor stood recognized in time to make a “motion to reconsider.” That is when a most curious vote took place. All those NO votes, including the votes of every Forsyth County house member, Brent Cox, Carter Barrett, Todd Jones and Rick Jasperse, became YES votes. All four had just voted to KILL HB206, or at least abstained from supporting it. Then all four voted to let HB206 live for one more day. They let HB206 up off the mat, giving the governor and every green energy lobbyist one more opportunity to make backroom deals to save the bill. And that is what happened. Yesterday, on the last day of the session, the governor received one more chance to pass the bill, and the House passed HB206 by an overwhelming margin, 142-22, Representatives Brent Cox, Carter Barret and Todd Jones once again voting NO, despite their votes to reconsider, leaving Rick Jasperse the only original Forsyth County NO vote to switch in supporting the governor’s bill.

Why did they let HB206 up off the mat? Why did our legislators not vote to drive a stake in the heart of HB206 when it was completely defeated, lying on the floor, helpless, with no chance of victory? The only explanation I received from any of them was that voting to reconsider the bill demonstrated collegiality. In other words, voting to reconsider the bill was a nice way to let the bill sponsor down. “It’s just what you do.”

Bullshit.

Now, I am glad to have good relationships with legislators. I am glad to be friends. And I am glad to have honest disagreements on policy. If we see things differently, I can accept that. And I can separate the “friend” from the “politician.” But do not bullshit me. I do not care if I have one “friend/politician” left, I will not endure bullshit. And politicians should not expect that I won’t see BS for what it is. I see it. I smell it. I see it rounding the corner. If a legislator screws up, fine. Admit it, TO EVERYONE. Nobody is perfect. But I warn them all, the minute any politician starts down the road speaking bullshit to defend his or her actions in the role of representing the public, that becomes a very long, dark road, one he or she will never be able to exit and remain in public life. That is what happens to good people thinking they want to go into public service. It’s almost like it happens to ALL of them, eventually. I see it. I warn everyone hoping to become a public servant against it. Yet, there it is, over and over. For what it’s worth, here is my standard speech to every new legislator I come in contact with:

“Do not trust anyone. Do not trust the legislator who shares your office. Do not trust the smiling faces walking in the door to speak with you. Do not trust the system. Your friends in public life are not your friends. They will turn on you at a moment’s notice. You have one job, and one job only. And that is to keep your head down and represent the interests of the people in your district to the best of your ability. That’s it. That is the job. If you do not like that job, quit. The job is not to represent yourself, special interests or the interests of people in other districts. It is not to have a bigger picture of the world than anyone else. The job is not to do what you think might be good for the state as a whole, unless it is in the interests of the people of your district. You are a REPRESENTATIVE. You REPRESENT. That’s all you do. And if you do that, you will be well-regarded when you walk down the street where you live. If you do not, you will not.”

Here endeth the sermon on HB206.

Now, we did win one on HB986, the “deep-fake-go-to-jail” bill I wrote about, sponsored by Representatives Todd Jones and Brad Thomas. That bill passed the House, but died in the Senate, thankfully. Because this is the second and final year of this legislature, that bill would have to be reintroduced in a new legislature after the November elections. I thank everyone who had your voices heard on HB986. They were heard, and the result was a total victory for the 1st Amendment.

Finally, I want to tip my hat, perhaps uncustomarily, to Representative Todd Jones, a Forsyth County legislator with whom my disagreements are widely known. Along with Rep’s. John LaHood, Victor Anderson, Rob Leverett, Shaw Blackmon, James Burchett and Sen. Max Burns, Representative Jones sponsored meaningful legislation, HB976 by Senate substitute, which if signed by Governor Kemp would require “watermarks” on all Georgia ballots, making it much more difficult, albeit not impossible, for flawed or fraudulent ballots to be counted. HB976, as passed by both houses, would also add needed security to handling and chain-of-custody procedures in managing ballots once counted, and provide for public access to both low resolution, but also also high resolution images of those ballots. On the negative side, none of those very meaningful changes will come into affect until AFTER the 2024 presidential election. It will be another five years before any of those provisions might positively affect a presidential election. And one candidate we know will not be on the ballot that year is Donald Trump. I’m not sure why those provisions could not have included the most important election in our nation’s history, an election which if fraud prevails again could set America on a path toward irrevocable destruction. Perhaps there is a worldwide shortage of watermarked paper on which to print ballots.