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DEFENDERS OF FAMILY VALUES
Shortly after Republicans won control
of the Legislature in 2004, Rep. Glenn
Richardson met with his GOP colleagues and
told them he would stress "common-sense
family values" when he became speaker of the
House. "Georgians stand by their protection of
the traditional family," Richardson said. "And
we stand with them!"
It's been more than three years since
Richardson promised to protect the values of
"the traditional family," and we now know a
little more about what Republican leaders con
sider those values to be. In January of 2007,
an ethics complaint was filed against
Richardson accusing him of having an
"inappropriate relationship" with
a lobbyist who had been work
ing the previous session to get a
gas pipeline bill adopted. While
Richardson denounced the per
son who drafted the complaint,
he never denied the details in
that document. Several months
after the complaint was publicized,
Richardson and his wife filed for a
divorce.
During the months since Richardson's
remarks about protecting "traditional fam
ily values," we have also seen an influential
Republican senator file for divorce from his
wife, the mother of his four young children.
We have seen another Republican senator
from a suburban district be accused of firing a
pistol in the midst of a domestic dispute that
ended in a divorce. We have seen a power
ful Republican House member be nabbed by
Atlanta police and charged with drunk driving
after he allegedly knocked over a utility pole
in the wee hours of a weekend morning.
The latest controversy involved the
sensational disclosure that Mike Evans, a
Republican who was chairman of the State
Transportation Board, had been involved in a
personal "relationship" with Gena Abraham,
the Department of Transportation commis
sioner. This was a violation of DOT policy, so
Evans resigned from the board.
Abraham was elected commissioner last fall
after Gov. Sonny Perdue, another Republican,
urged Transportation Board members to pick
her. Evans was part of the majority that
voted 7-6 to appoint Abraham. Now that
Evans has resigned, the Governor said he still
wants Abraham to stay on as DOT commis
sioner. Perdue has his own ethical history to
answer for—his personal attorney amended
a bill in the Legislature a few years ago to
give the governor a special tax exemption
worth S 100,000 on a real estate deal. Perdue
promptly signed the bill into law.
Someone who was overly cynical about
all this might conclude that the
Republican definition of "family
values" includes graft, public drink
ing, divorce, gunplay and a smat
tering of hypocrisy.
"Voters have figured out that
the Republicans' pious rhetoric
about the sanctity of marriage
and family values is just a cover-
up for hanky-panky and greed," said
former Democratic Party chairman
Bobby Kahn, the person who filed that
ethics complaint against Richardson.
This is not to imply that the other party is
blameless. When the Democrats ran state gov
ernment for all those years, there were many
reports of drinking and feuding and general
misbehaving as well. Republicans always said
they would run things differently if they ever
took control of state government away from
those immoral Democrats. Now that the GOP
is in charge, however, it looks like they're just
as prone to temptation as the guys across the
aisle.
There are no great lessons to learn here,
just the observation that party labels don't
give anyone a monopoly on morality.
Tom Crawford
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact s Georgia
Report, an Internet news site at www gareport.com
that covers government and politics in Georgia.
THIS H9IIIN VtILI
by TOM TOMORROW
SO IT TURNS OUT THAT THE ABUSE Of OETAlNEES
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AS WATERBOARDING--AND THEN GAVE THE
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AND HE
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