Where is
Georgia Headed Under
Perdue?
In the 1970 Georgia
Governor’s race, Carl Sanders was considered liberal and Jimmy Carter was considered conservative.
Carter won, but shortly after he took office, many suspected they had elected the kind of Governor they thought they voted
against.
The 2002 election was revolutionary, but what direction will Sonny
Perdue take Georgia? Will it be revolutionary, evolutionary, or status quo?
Governor Perdue takes office with control of the State Senate, a very
strong position in the House of Representatives, and veto power over anything the legislature does.
That’s a strong hand, as he tackles immediate issues and implementation of long-term plans.
However, the greatest influence on Governor Perdue’s administration
will be the George Bush re-election campaign and White House efforts to reshape the
republican party away from its conservative populist positions. Ralph Reed crowed in
December that Perdue will “lead the Bush team in Georgia”. Well, Ralph Reed will
really lead the Bush Team in Georgia. But Bush operatives occupy high places in
Perdue’s administration—including “assistant Governor” Tanenblatt. A Multitude
of policy and other decisions are likely to be made to please the Bush campaign and further the Bush agenda.
Roy Barnes followed the dictates of the Atlanta Chamber and Downtown
Establishment to an unprecedented degree. Republicans have an affinity, too, for
corporate fatcats. Perdue has promised to seek corporate personnel to fill his
administration. Added to this natural inclination is Bush ties to Blank and
Marcus—former heads of Home Depot who now promote the Downtown Agenda—who heavily supported Roy Barnes. It’s hard to imagine Perdue’s administration will be much
different than Barnes’ in dealing with the establishment and its agenda. Even though
he was elected in part because of growing public opposition to downtown Atlanta’s agenda.
In education, Roy Barnes continued a pattern of more centralization
of education policy in the state, and an increase in Gubernatorial power in educational matters.
Again, partly reflecting the influence of “the corporate way” in government. Perdue’s
statements indicate a return to the more traditional, less centralized educational
structure of the past. Indeed, it appears his policies will be much closer to
those of Linda Schrenko, the previous State School Superintendent, than to either Barnes or Zell Miller.
Whatever his policies are, he will have support from the State Superintendent, Kathy Cox, who is also a republican.
He has also echoed the Bush White House “no child left behind” mantra.
Like most governors of the past couple of decades, Perdue is likely
to play up religiosity. In his case, however, the record is pretty clear that he’s a
devoted Baptist, complete with a minister son. He is openly anti-abortion.
The agenda of the religious right pretty plainly will resonate with Perdue. He
has endorsed the Bush White House plans for breaching the separation of Church and State: Perdue
wants to hire religious groups to administer state governmental programs. Georgia
voters will likely face the issue in the form of a constitutional amendment in 2004. Expect not only the Christian right wing, but any church salivating for public money to mount a campaign to get
voters to support it.
Roy Barnes chased minorities to the point of ignoring average
Georgians and their views. But the Bush White House has engaged in the same pattern of
behaviour since it was the Texas Governor’s Mansion. Ralph Reed, the Bush
Campaign’s Viceroy in Georgia, is an incessant promoter of “diversity”.
He really ought to be a liberal democrat, except for abortion and church-and-state togetherness.
So you can expect Governor Perdue to follow the line also.
The fight over the Georgia flag was one of the most significant
reasons Perdue was elected Governor. Roy Barnes changed the flag against the
wishes of most Georgians. Sonny Perdue
voted against that change, and early in the campaign promised a referendum on the flag
if elected. However, the Bush White House is as opposed to the Confederacy and its
emblems as the NAACP’s leadership.
As Governor of Texas,
Bush took the confederate flag out of the state capitol, the rebel emblem off the Texas
Supreme Court Building, enacted “Juneteenth” as a state holiday, and replaced the confederate flag on Texas welcome centers with
the non-confederate “first national” flag the confederacy rejected (it’s the official logo of the United Daughters of the Confederacy). Bush eliminated the Civil War years from being taught in history classes in
Texas public schools. Bush
campaign leaders in South Carolina worked to take the confederate flag off South Carolina’s Capitol in 2000, and in Georgia they
were active in Barnes’s efforts to change the flag in Georgia. One of them is now a
federal judge, and a number of them hold high positions in Perdue’s administration.
Despite his promise, Perdue’s campaign made it clear from the first
it wanted no confederate nor old Georgia flags and t-shirts at his appearances and rallies.
The moment he claimed victory November 5, Perdue stepped off the stage and was interviewed by Fox
5 reporter Morris Diggs. Diggs asked him about the flags waving in the audience,
and Perdue immediately said “These people do not represent me. I’m not part of
them.” It seems abundantly clear that Sonny Perdue
does not want a return to the flag so many people expected him to favor.
On the state flag, Perdue may prove to be
essentially a Roy Barnes and George Bush, dedicated to erasing the confederate emblem from governmental recognition and approval.
Here’s betting Sonny Perdue does what the Bush White House wants him to do on the flag.
If the media is to be believed,
Georgia has some of the weakest ethics and conflict-of-interest laws in the U.S. Sonny
Perdue promised as part of his “new Georgia” to clean up the state. We’ll see
what he plans to do. One measure of the
depth of dedication he brings to this issue will be whether he addresses
perhaps the single most glaring conflict-of-interest issue.
Georgia is now the tenth largest state, and we have a number of huge
corporations headquartered in Atlanta. The companies
are highly political, they represent the major players in the Downtown Atlanta Establishment, and they all have boards of
directors. Governors Harris, Miller, and Barnes were all highly favorable to the
establishment with facilities, funds, and policies .
Harris and Miller were given seats on the boards of a number of these
companies—like The Southern Company, Coca Cola, The Law Companies, AFLAC (Columbus based), etc.
Zell Miller, on leaving office, said he would accept positions on “only half a dozen” such boards.
We’ll have to see how many Barnes collects.
The point is, any governor of Georgia knows that if he makes these
corporations happy, a fat position and check may await him when he leaves office.
It’s a powerful incentive, and as of now a perfectly legal one. If Perdue is serious about ethics legislation, he will close
this major loophole, and require Governors, Lt. Governors, and other office holders to be out of office at least a couple
(preferably 4) years before being eligible to take one of these positions, or for the corporations to award them. Yes, it can be done legally.
Of course, since Perdue does not control the Georgia House of
Representatives, his initiatives may be stymied in that body, leaving current policies in effect.
In short, the Perdue administration may very well be, de
facto, much like the Roy Barnes administration, modified by requirements from the
George Bush Re-election campaign in Washington D.C. I don’t think that is what
the voters of Georgia thought they chose on November 5, 2002.
campaign
georgia 2002 is owned, published, and edited by Randy Phillips, email rphillips303@charter.net.
It’s published
at campaigngeorgia2002.org,
Mailing address P.O. Box 764, Shiloh, GA
31826
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