Suddenly, No More Niceties In The 6th....
Rumors have it that in the pre-final stretch of the race for Georgia's new 6th District congressman, the gloves are officially off, and all safety-locks have been removed from the missiles that have been warming-up in their political tubes for the past 12 months.
Chuck Clay has fired the first shot, launching a TV commercial that attacks two of his opponents,
Tom Price of Fulton County and
Robert Lamutt, an associate of Clay's in Cobb County.
The ad accuses Price and Lamutt of casting a vote that would have allowed illegal residents to obtain driver's licenses, a big no-no in conservative circles.
PV Provides The Background: On Monday, April 14, 2003,
HB 191 was introduced in the state senate. The original purpose of the bill was to standardize the registration of certain vehicles to provide for insurance coverage, and to provide for extra fees/fines to be paid to county tag offices for the event that an owner's insurance coverage of a vehicle lapsed and had to be reinstated within a certain time period.
After the bill was introduced, a slew of amendments were introduced, debated, voted-on, reconsidered, and some were withdrawn.
The amendment that Clay is referring to was introduced by
Senator Sam Zamarippa (D-Atlanta). If you wish to read the entire text of the amendment, click
Zamarippa Amendment. Or, save yourself a massive headache and just read our excerpt and analysis:
"(b) Any person who is a citizen of any nation included in the Free Trade Area of the Americas or who is a citizen of another country who provides to the department a driverīs license issued from his or her country of origin or general residency to the extent that such driversī licenses are acceptable under subsection (c) of Code Section 40-5-25, a federal tax identification number, a valid passport, or a certified citizenship or birth documents issued by a consulate or embassy in the United States, and who satisfies all applicable eligibility requirements for a noncommercial class of driverīs license other than United States citizenship or proof of legal authorization from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service may be issued a driverīs license for such class under this Code section."The Price campaign has issued a statement as follows:
"
Let me set one thing straight, I do not support, nor have I ever supported, allowing illegal aliens the privilege of obtaining a Georgia driver's license," said Price. "Clay has alleged that I voted in the State Senate for illegal aliens to get the chance to do just that. That is absolutely false. In fact, Ms. Jennifer Ammons, General Counsel for the Department of Motor Vehicle Safety, has confirmed that the 'amendment would not have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain Georgia driver's licenses.'"The PV spoke with the Lamutt campaign for their side. According to Lamutt, their explanation is that Senator Lamutt voted for the amendment on the basis that the GOP senate leadership indicated that the amendment was "okay." Shortly after casting his vote [and the amendment passing], Lamutt realized his mistake and immediately asked for reconsideration of the bill, and that motion passed. Lamutt then talked to Zamarripa and in the interim between the first vote and the reconsidered vote, Zamarripa agreed to withdraw the amendment entirely.
PV's Analysis: Ouch! Looks like Clay may have a valid point. Clay voted "Nay" on this while Price and Lamutt voted "Yay" on it.
This amendment
appears to provide (if it had become a permanent part of the bill) an opportunity for certain citizens who are not legal citizens of the United States to obtain driver's licenses.
The other senators who voted with Clay on the amendment (i.e., voted against it) were
Don Balfour, Casey Cagle, Ginger Collins, Mike Crotts, Bill Hamrick, Ralph Hudgens, Carol Jackson, Rene Kemp, Dan Lee, Dan Moody, Jeff Mullis, Mitch Seabaugh, David Shafer, Preston Smith, Charlie Tanksley, Don Thomas, and Renee Unterman.
Now, we're not exactly sure why the legal counsel of the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles was tapped for a response, but, it appears evident (of course, we will stipulate that we are not lawyers here) that Ms. Ammons did not precisely read the Zamarripa amendment very carefully, or, more possibly, at all. Because, once you remove the big sections of "or's", "whereas's", and "hereuntofore's", it's pretty clear that the amendment is intended to precisely allow for SOME people who are not citizens of this country to obtain driver's licenses. And, specifically, people from certain countries who are considered part of the Free Trade of the Americas (which, if you look at the amendment, all of these countries are specified by Zamarripa).
Now, perhaps all of these senators who voted against the amendment carefully read it and figured out for themselves that it was bad news. Or, perhaps they figured out early on that EVERYTHING Zamarripa introduces will
always have something to do with legalizing something in the United States that is currently a significantly illegal item.
It's similar to the propensity of
Senator Joey Brush (R-Augusta) to always introduce a bill or amendment that repeals the Georgia law requiring people to wear helmets when riding a motorcycle; a senate session just isn't a senate session without each of these characters introducing their pet legislations.
PV's Final Point: We have no idea if Clay's offensive will have any impact on the race. There is less than a week to go before Primary Day, and early voting is this week. The people voting this week will be unaffected by this news.
If, however, Clay is currently in the top 1st or 2nd slot, this might provide him with a huge advantage in a runoff. If he doesn't get into the runoff, then this was a missed opportunity to hit his opponents a week or two earlier. Just our opinion...
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