"Remember when Mitch McConnell said 'the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president'? You would never say inside a company that our intention is to make the CEO fail. No one would tolerate that on a board. You'd be booted off. The objective is to make the CEO and the company successful." --Jeff Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Ga. lawmaker pushes fetal pain abortion bill
AJC:
A Republican state lawmaker is pushing legislation that would restrict abortions in Georgia based on the argument that fetuses can feel pain after 20 weeks.Nebraska's law outlaws abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed claim that fetuses can feel pain after that point. It's a departure from the standard of viability, established by the 1973 landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. That ruling allows states to limit abortions in cases where there's a viable chance the fetus could survive outside of the womb, generally considered to be between 22 and 24 weeks.State Rep. Allen Peake of Macon said Monday that his bill — co-signed by some members of House leadership — was modeled on a new law in Nebraska.
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House Bill 89: www.legis.ga.gov
Libertarian Party of Georgia Legislative Update
2011 Libertarian Party of Georgia Legislative Update #4
Last week, the General Assembly was largely dominated with Committees getting underway and more bills being introduced. Because few working Committee meetings have been held so far, few bills have made it out of Committee, meaning Floor sessions were largely dominated by Morning Orders and Points of Personal Privilege, where Representatives and Senators speak on any issue they so desire.
This week, much will stay the same, though more Committees will begin their actual work. You can see the list House list here and the Senate list here. One meeting I particularly want to call your attention to is the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee meeting this Friday, Feb 4, at 9:30am in Room 132 of the State Capitol building. It is at this meeting that Rep Matt Ramsey's (R- Peachtree City) HB 87, the Illegal Immigration Reform Enforcement Act of 2011, will receive its first hearing. This is the single most troubling bill to the Libertarian Party of Georgia yet introduced, due to its infringements on Constitutional rights of due process, freedom of speech, freedom of asssembly, and freedom of religion. I would like as many of you as possible to be at this meeting and to voice your concerns over these infringements, if you are able. As of tonight, there are currently 294 bills and resolutions already introduced in the General Assembly this Session and working their way through the process. You'll be hearing more about HB 87 tomorrow in a press release to be posted on LPGeorgia.com and hopefully reported by your local media this week, but there were several other bills I'd like to mention. The Good Starting off with some good news, the only Independent legislator in all of the Georgia General Assembly, State Representative Rusty Kidd (I-Milledgeville), has introduced a bill to give ethics laws some teeth in Georgia. In addition to civil penalties for all elected officials, his HB 88 would allow for the censure or removal of Legislators who violate its provisions three or more times. Also worth commending is Rep Roger Williams' (R-Dalton) bill allowing for local control of Sunday Sales, HB 69, as well as Rep Doug McKillip's (R-Athens) HB 71, allowing local communities to allow for bicycles to be operated on sidewalks. On the Senate side, Senator David Shafer (R-Duluth) has had a great week, getting the Senate to override former Governor Sonny Perdue's veto of his Zero Based Budgeting bill from last year as well as introducing SB 26, which would prohibit additional prohibitions on carrying firearms during states of emergency, which is a current power of the Governor.The Bad Now for the bad news, and this really is a case of "where to start". The aforementioned HB 87 is at the top of the list, and again, I urge each of you to show up at the Committee meeting this Friday. Rep Allen Peake (R-Macon) has introduced a bill, HB 89, banning abortions after 20 weeks - which will surely have Georgia wind up in court, again. He has also proposed to grow government by creating special Tax Courts, HB 100. Rep Rahn Mayo (D-Decatur) has introduced HB 67, mandating hands-free device use for cell phones in cars. Rep Tim Bearden (R-Villa Ricca), Chairman of the House Public Safety Committee, has introduced HB 91, a bill mandating a special drivers' license for convicted felons.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Legislative Update from Rep. Brett Harrell
Capitol Update -- Week 3
as the State Director of Planning. I was also assigned to the Ports and Local Government Sub Committee.Monday, January 24 began our third week of the 2011 Session and committees began meeting to organize and start reviewing potential legislation. My first committee meeting was Thursday and it was a joint Senate / House Transportation Committeemeeting where I had the honor of voting to confirm an outstanding Georgia Department of Transportation employee, Georgia Tech grad, Gwinnett resident, and friend Todd Long
While passing a balanced state budget remains our primary duty, other vital issues will impact this year's legislative session. Everyday new legislation addressing those issues is drafted, introduced, and assigned to the various committees in the House for review. Among these are legislation addressing issues like illegal immigration, tax reform, and health insurance. With that in mind, I would like to make you aware of some important matters that will arise in the next few weeks of session.
Co-Chaired by Representative Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City), the Special Committee on Immigration Reform worked throughout the summer and fall to study the economic impact of illegal immigration in Georgia. Currently, there are an estimated 400,000 plus illegal immigrants in our state. Though illegal immigrants do not pay state income taxes, they do utilize state resources that are funded by taxpayer dollars. As a result, classrooms are more crowded, our healthcare system is at its limits, transportation infrastructure is overburdened and our law enforcement community is working feverishly to do more with fewer resources. With this in mind, Rep. Ramsey took the findings from the immigration reform committee and sponsored House Bill 87, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011.
HB 87 strives to protect taxpayers from the unlawful burden of funding services for illegal immigrants. It includes measures to expand the use of the E-Verify system to private employers, requires secure and verifiable identification for official purposes, and helps local law enforcement agencies handle the various issues associated with illegal immigration. It is important to note that this legislation will not affect the legal migrant workers who come to Georgia through federal work programs.
HB 59 that I co-sponsored also addresses illegal immigration by requiring students attending publically funded colleges and universities are lawfully present to do so.
Healthcare will also receive a great deal of attention throughout this year's legislative session. House Bill 47 that I joined as a co-signer would allow insurance companies licensed in Georgia to sell health insurance products that are approved for sale in other states. By doing this, Georgia would create a more open insurance market with greater competition, which would ultimately result in less expensive health insurance for Georgians.
As these and other pieces of legislation begin to make their way through the legislative process, I will continue to send these updates to keep you apprised of the major legislation being considered at the state capitol. In return, I hope that you will alert me to any questions or concerns you may have about any issue that affects your family or community. You can reach me at my Capitol office at 404-656-7859 or email me at brett.harrell@house.ga.gov.
Thank you for allowing me to serve as your representative,
Brett Harrell
Egypt’s Class Conflict
Juan Cole:
The military regime in Egypt initially gained popular legitimacy in part by its pluck in facing down France, Britain and Israel in 1956-57 (with Ike Eisenhower’s help). After the Camp David accords, in contrast, Egypt largely sat out the big struggles in the Mideast, and made what has widely been called a separate peace. Egypt’s cooperation in the Israeli blockade of Gaza and its general quiet alliance with the US and Israel angered most young people politically, even as they racked up economic frustrations. Cairo’s behind the scenes help to the US, with Iraq and with torturing suspected al-Qaeda operatives, were well known. Very little is more distasteful to Egyptians than the Iraq War and torture. The Egyptian state went from being broadly based in the 1950s and 1960s to having been captured by a small elite. It went from being a symbol of the striving for dignity and independence after decades of British dominance to being seen as a lap dog of the West.
The failure of the regime to connect with the rapidly growing new urban working and middle classes, and its inability to provide jobs to the masses of college graduates it was creating, set the stage for last week’s events. Educated, white collar people need a rule of law as the framework for their economic activities, and Mubarak’s arbitrary rule is seen as a drag here. While the economy has been growing 5 and 6 percent in the past decade, what government impetus there was to this development remained relatively hidden– unlike its role in the land reform of the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover,the income gained from increased trade largely went to a small class of investors. For instance, from 1991 the government sold 150 of 314 state factories it put on the block, but the benefit of the sales went to a narrow sliver of people.
Voices for Georgia's Children blog posts...
This week's posts include:
1/29: Childhood memory: Picking parsley with grandpa. Why we need to teach our children positive food habits. Whenever I eat fresh parsley I’m immediately transported back in time to my nanny and grandpa’s mint green kitchen...
1/28: Right Now: 57% of Georgia’s kids are eligible for free and reduced lunches. Today I heard that more than 57% of Georgia’s kids are eligible for free and reduced lunches in public schools. According to statistics on the StateMaster website, Georgia places fifth in the nation in number of eligible kids...
1/28: Losing $2.9 Million from Children 1st is a Bad Idea. The Department of Community Health’s program, Children 1st, screens all newborns and children up to age 5 to identify those who are at risk for poor health and developmental outcomes...
1/28: Cutting Medicaid Hurts Kids – Especially Now! As advocates for children and families in Georgia, we are concerned about recent attempts within states to scale back vital health care programs for our most vulnerable citizens...
1/27: Business Lesson for State Government: Child Care. Why did three Georgia companies merit placement on Fortune magazine’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For? Because they support child care for their employees, including summer camps in some cases...
1/27: Where do you start to explain the dilemma our kids face? Looking at the fact that about one child out of five in Georgia lives at or below the poverty level, and that more than a third of Georgia’s kids live in a family where no parent has full-time, year-round employment, where do you start to explain the dilemma our kids face?
1/24: Federal Budget Proposals and Georgia’s Kids. Overall, Georgia House and Senate committees are just getting warmed up, having organizational meetings and starting to examine agency budgets in a little more detail than perhaps they did last week during the FY11/FY12 budget hearings...
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