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GOVERNMENT of LAWS, MOT MEN'
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6 FLAGPOLE.COM JUNE 6,2012
This is one of those times in Georgia
politics when people realize that the legisla
tive process has gotten a little off track and
needs to be straightened out. Republicans and
Democrats alike are calling for ethics reform,
particularly that loophole in state law that
allows lobbyists to spend whatever they want
to entertain lawmakers. This has resulted in
such spectacles as a speaker of the House tak
ing his family on a $17,000 junket to Europe
with the expenses paid by a lobbyist
There was a similar move for ethics reform
in the General Assembly 20 years ago that
ended successfully when legislators passed a
law that for the first time required lobbyists
to register and disclose what they spent in
the course of their business. The same
arguments we hear today from veteran
legislators—"You can't buy my vote
for the price of a meal!"—were
the same arguments made in
1992 against that ethics bill.
The lawmaker at the center
of that storm was McCracken
Poston, a young attorney from
Northwest Georgia, who defied
one of the most powerful men in
politics. House Speaker Tom Murphy,
to get his bill passed.
Poston left the Legislature more than 15
years ago but still lives in Ringgold, where he
practices criminal law and serves as a juvenile
court judge.
He agrees that the current House speaker,
David Ralston, is making the same mistake
that Murphy did 20 years ago in trying to
block the passage of ethics reform legislation.
"In my day with Speaker Murphy, it was not
a battle of good versus evil," Poston said. "We
do a disservice when we make this into a good
versus evil issue. Tom Murphy, individually,
was a very ethical person."
Poston said that Murphy, like Ralston,
understood that lobbyists helped the House
leadership maintain control over the 180 indi
viduals who make up that chamber through
the money spent to entertain legislators.
"I realized X was challenging a very insti
tutionalized lever he could use on commit
tee chairmen," Poston recalled, "By knowing
which chairmen liked to eat at the Capitol City
Club, and which ones liked to play golf, he
could keep controt of the place a lot better."
"The lobbyists were the lever," Poston said.
"He could use lobbyists to persuade and pres
sure House members. Otherwise, you had to
actually get down and argue the merits of the
issue—that's hard to do with 180 people. That
is going to make his job of leadership a lot
harder."
Poston persevered against Murphy's oppo
sition and secured passage of a bill that
required lobbyists to-start revealing them
selves to the public through the registra
tion and disclosure process: When he
undertook that struggle 20 years
ago, Georgia was one of only two
states that did not require lobby
ists to disclose the money they
spent on lawmakers.
Legislators like Sen. Josh
McKoon (R-Columbus) and outgo
ing Rep. Tommy Smith (R-Nicholls)
are the ones who sponsored the lat
ent round of ethics bills. They have
tried to bring lobbyists under tighter
control by putting a cap of $100, or some
similar limitation, on what they ran spend on
each legislator.
Today, Georgia is one of only three states ,
that does not place any limitation on the
amount of money that lobbyists can spend
for the purpose of influencing the passage of
legislation.
"It would be unheard of for a lawyer to
show up in court with a gift for the judge
that is hearing his case," Poston noted. "Ift a
violation of the judicial canon of ethics. It's a
criminal offense, in some circumstances. Why
should one branch of government be allowed
to do that? It makes no sense. I am a true
believer that we have to change."
* Tom Crawford tcrawford@gareport.com
I've been mulling over T-SPLOST for awhile
now. I've tried to find a good side in it, from
the claims of new construction jobs to new
bike lanes and bus service, but all I really see
is a new, regressive subsidy for sprawl. While
the strategy involved in crafting the project
list was to provide something for eveiyone in
order to build the most support possible, it
seems likely that the net effect on traffic in
the Classic City won't be that great.
The widening of rural highways like
Lexington and Winterville roads will do
little to solve urban gridlock, and will likely
exacerbate it by encouraging more driving
in from rural areas, without addressing the
congestion on the narrow urban streets that
actually connect those rural roads to employ
ment centers like hospitals and the university.
Infrastructure like roads, sewer and schools
drives growth as much as zoning, and the
widening of these rural
corridors will simply
encourage more scat
tered development in
the greenbelt, where
public services from
education to fire and
police prQtection are
more expensive to
provide.
Four-laned Jeffe
Highway has been
the recipient of many
proposals for big com
mercial developments
along it recently, par
ticularly major shopping
centers in the Moss
Side and Oak Grove
neighborhoods. The
construction of a host of wide, new roads in
Oconee County centered on the Epps Bridge
interchange was conducted specifically with
the intention of spurring commercial growth.
It's hard to imagine any local road with that
four- or five-lane profile that hasn't ultimately
been lined with apartments and commercial
strips. Consider the evolution of Barnett
Shoals Road over the past decade or so, and
the acres and acres turned over for new apart
ments. Could T-SPLOST be the road to the
Gwinnettiffcation of Athens? It se^ms fairly
likely. •
Big suburban arterials like these are the
backbone of sprawl landscape across the coun
try, and we're quite delusional if we expect
anything different to happen here. The new
interchanges and roads on either side of the
Atlanta Highway will likely have the same
effect, creating the familiar grid of super
blocks that characterizes places like Phoenix.
A lot of other progressive things will have to
happen for roads like Jennings Mill to become
anything other than suburban commercial
strips, so expect the status quo.
Traffic abhors a vacuum, and will, as it
does everywhere else, swell to meet capac
ity. As the 16-lane highways of Atlanta show,
we can't pave our way out of congestion.
Thankfully, there are a few token bike lanes
thrown into this T-SPLOST package to calm
noisy alternative transportation advocates,
but those would seem to be a wash, too. Bike
lanes on Lexington are not likely to make
much of a difference until the character of
that road changes fundamentally. Few are
likely to take up cycling when cars.are whiz
zing by their elbows at 60 miles an hour.
North Avenue, with its huge hill and canyon of
retaining walls, seems another unlikely site for
a cycling revolution.
Prince Avenue is the one place where Mice
lanes could actually make a tangible dif
ference, with heavy ridership already linking .
major employment centers on a flat corridor.
Unfortunately, the corridor is highly con
stricted by street-fronting commercial build
ings, tight sidewalks and street trees, and
on-street parking. Will the Georgia Department
of Transportation, which has the ultimate say
in how that project is carried out, carefully
weave all these uses together, maintaining
the corridor's existing ambience, or plow
through, wiping out on-street parking, beauti
ful shade-giving dogwoods and any chance
at a true urban boulevard? Trees and parking
down, and if it's handled poorly,
jad that's less safe for
a little
There’s already gridlock on the urban portion of US-78. Why widen the less-trav
eled rural stretches east of town without addressing these intown issues first?
asphalt especially for them. It's a big gamble,
and one of the reasons why commissioners
took Miltedge Avenue off the list of potential
projects.
Are these projects on the whole really as
essential as claimed, or are they more likely
just nice-to-haves favored by GDOTs engineers
in Atlanta? Our share of the project money
is roughly proportional to the population, or
perhaps a little less, with smaller and more
urban counties subsidizing large rural coun
ties like Madison. Minus that subsidy, this is
functionally a local SPLOST, with projects like
a $25 million interchange at Mitchell Bridge,
$18 million to widen Tallassee Road and $15
million to widen portions of Olympic Drive
and Winterville Road. Viewed as such, would
it pass? Unlikely. Some smaller projects, like
the intersection of Whitehead and Tallassee
roads, might indeed be seen more favorably,
but the reality is that the list was drafted
primarily by out-of-town engineers and politi
cians, with a touch of input from our mayor
and one county commissioner.
This 10-year tax, if passed, will affect our
region for a generation. Unfortunately, its ori
gins—both in the Legislature, where T-SPLOST
was devised, and at the local roundtable,
where the project list was hammered out—are
less than visionary, and so seem unlikely to
produce any real results. T-SPLOST is a Band-
Aid on the state's transportation problems,
and the roundtable's list is a list of Band-Aid
projects. Real and comprehensive transporta
tion solutions for the region aren't coming
from this program, no matter how much we
may like a few particular projects.
Kevan Williams athensrising@flagpole.com