Cagle launches new transportation push

Georgia's No. 2 Republican is launching a fresh push for a transportation funding deal. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle says he is hopeful that after last year's plan fell just short of passage that an agreement can be reached in the 2009 legislative session. Cagle says he remains supportive of a plan allowing local communities to band together to levy a one-cent sales tax for transportation projects. Gov. Sonny Perdue is working on his own transportation plan and has said he doesn't like the sales tax plan. Cagle says Georgia needs 4,000 new lanes at a cost of $50 billion.

Perdue, Riley to meet with Interior Sec'y., White House adviser

Water Wars, Water Woes from Dave Bender on Vimeo.
YouTube version: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nASTHXpvyz8

Governor Sonny Perdue plans to meet with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, and Jim Connaughton, environmental quality adviser to President George Bush, on Friday to discuss the drought, according to a report citing a Governor's Office official.

The two Administration officials, in an effort to head off more acrimony between Georgia, Alabama, Florida and the Army Corps of Engineers over water usage, are to meet later in the day with Alabama Governor Bob Riley.

Riley told The Birmingham News:

''We're going to tell him that the only way all of us get through this is through a concept of shared pain."

Perdue, at a press conference on the fast-drying shores of West Point Lake on Wednesday, Oct. 24, lashed out at both the Army Corps of Engineers and Riley (see video).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated Chattahoochee, Dooly, Marion, Muscogee, and Talbot counties as primary natural disaster areas, due to drought-incurred losses. Crisp, Macon, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, and Taylor counties were named contiguous disaster areas.

The decision allows farmers in both areas to apply for low-interest emergency loans from the Farm Service Agency (FSA).

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the drought.

Perdue takes poll on special session

Instead of setting a date for a special session Governor Sonny Perdue is letting lawmakers give their preference. His office sent out e-mails to all legislators this afternoon asking whether they want a session to begin on Monday, May 7th, May 14th, or May 21st.

Perdue says once they come to Atlanta he wants them to be prepared.
"I don't want to take any longer from member's life's than is necessary," he said.

To do so, the governor says he wants to have an agreement about the mid-year budget ahead of the special session. The hang-up is a property tax cut proposed by state house leaders.

It caused the governor to veto the mid-year budget and house speaker Glenn Richardson(R-Dallas) has not yet said whether he's willing to compromise. Perdue says that's why it is taking so long to call for a special session.

"I don't want to get here and have a stalemate and have people get more hung up," Perdue said.

The special session would last at least 5 days.

Governor questions budget compromise

The state legislature is expected to vote Friday on a midyear budget that contains $100 tax rebates for the typical homeowner, thanks to a late compromise between leaders of the Georgia House and Senate.

Senior GOP lawmakers couldn’t agree how best to use about $142 million in the state’s midyear budget, so they decided to spend it on the tax credits, which had never been mentioned before.

Gov. Sonny Perdue says it may not be a good idea.

“It came about in a strange fashion,” Perdue said. “I’m not sure the budget negotiations conference table is the place to really discuss and talk about tax strategy and fiscal policy decisions such as occurred.”

Perdue says he’ll consider the midyear budget carefully. There are several reasons why he could veto it. He reminded reporters that he had made a campaign promise to give seniors a new tax break, but lawmakers failed to act on his pledge. Secondly, there’s no money in this new version for some things Perdue wanted, including his “Go Fish” tourism initiative and a land conservation program.

In response, House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St Simons) says the budget negotiators—all senior GOP legislators—should be the ones directing tax policy. Besides, he says, there’s not enough time to follow through on Perdue’s promise of tax relief for seniors.

“It’s too late in the session to pass another bill,” says Keen. “The only avenue we had to return the money to the taxpayers was to take something in budget, and that was our only option.”

Keen says the House supports many of Governor Perdue’s projects, and may try to fund them in next year’s budget.

Without a budget, lawmakers would have to return to the Capitol for a special session.

The House appropriations committee plans to approve the 2008 budget Thursday.

Perdue says Peachcare is safe

Gov. Sonny Perdue says Republican state leaders’ spat over the midyear budget will not affect Peachcare’s bottom line, even though the child health program is running out of money.

“I think all of us are committed on that,” Perdue said. “If it takes fiscal affairs transfers, then we’ll make that happen.”

Such a transfer would not require legislative action. Lawmakers would prefer, however, to temporarily shifting Medicaid dollars into Peachcare through the midyear budget. But the Georgia House and Senate’s dispute over other budget items has delayed a final vote on the legislation.

Meanwhile, federal funding for Peachcare has been postponed too. Congress is set to appropriate money as part of a giant Iraq war spending bill. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) predicts controversy over the war will delay action on that measure until May.

Odds and ends from "Crossover Day" in the Senate

Today is "Crossover Day," although it could be called "Make-or-Break Day". According to Senate rules, it's the last day that a bill can pass one chamber and go to the other.

The Senate passed Gov. Sonny Perdue's "HOPE Chest" resolution. It stops lawmakers from spending lottery revenue on anything but the HOPE college scholarship program and pre-kindergarten.

The chamber also approved a bill creating a “Do-Not-Honor” registry to discourage governments from naming buildings or roads after people who don’t want that honor. Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon) sponsored the bill because he doesn’t want to see his name on public property. He admits he may be the only lawmaker who feels that way.

But the Senate headed home before debating several bills. One would have allowed people to keep handguns in their cars while they were at work. Another would have set a height limit on billboards, but allowed their owners to cut down neighboring trees. Senate President ProTem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) says the measures could be revived.

“No bill is dead until the gavel comes down on day 40,” he says.

Lawmakers could add failed proposals as amendments to bills that are further along in the process.

Senate passes bill to cash in on speeders

Super-speeders beware: Drivers caught going faster than 85 miles per hour on the interstate would have to shell out an extra $200, under a bill passed by the Georgia Senate.

“We obviously have a speeding problem in Georgia, with over 1750 people killed on our highways in 2005,” says Sen. Ronnie Chance (R-Tyrone). “At the same time, we need to do everything we can to fund the trauma care network.”

The bill does not guarantee that the money raised from fines would be spent on trauma care, however. Setting aside revenue for a specific program requires a constitutional amendment.

The measure is part of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s legislative agenda.

The legislation now goes to the Georgia House.