Resolutions

We, the staff of The Political Vine (and all reporters, adjunct reporters, interns, and dog-walkers) do hereby resolve to work hard in Year 2005 on the following objectives:

1) We resolve to be nicer to members of the BullDawg community than we have been in the past.

2) We resolve to drop some personal grudges that have developed over the years with some folks in the political community. (Whether or not the opposing party drops his/her grudge against us is neither something we control nor something that is of concern to us as we will STILL monitor their activities.)

3) We resolve to take more of an objective view of the political world rather than a partisan view of the world. Terms like "liberal" and "conservative" have been too overused and abused to describe that which (usually) isn't either of them. For example, Mark Taylor's press secretary Rick Dent accusing Cathy Cox of being a "liberal" when not 2 months prior, Dent was promoting Denise Majette (a true liberal) for Senate. (We intend to have a LOT of fun with Dent in the next two years...)

4) We resolve to write the majority of our rumors from a more intellectually provocative standpoint. (Hey, but when someone deserves to have their ears boxed, they will get it...)

5) We resolve to still fight for both Constitutional rights and rights of fairness and justice in the world, whether the issues are politically-based, legal-based, religious-based, or any category that we cannot apply a term to here. In short, you never know what issue we might tackle.

So state the Political Vine and signed this ninth Day of January, 2005.

Remarks

2004 was an interesting year for elections, and 2005, both in our state legislature and the new Congress, is shaping-up to be even more interesting.

But, a few thanks are in order before 2005 begins in earnest:

- Our thanks to newly-minted Senator Johnny Isakson for representing the 6th District so well for the past 5 years.

- Our thanks to newly-minted 6th District Representative Tom Price for representing North Fulton in the state senate for many years and doing it so well.

- Our thanks to the legislative members who served Georgia under tough circumstances (i.e., under tyranny of the opposition party) for many years who will not be returning: Roger Hines, Robert Lamutt, and Chuck Clay (and others that we do not have in the forefront of our minds).

Personal Note to Chuck Clay: Sorry for our taking our personal animosity for Anthony Scott Hobbs out on you in a Vine a few weeks back; it was completely out of line and is an example of an act we hope to greatly reduce in number moving forward. You have an aggravating habit of being nice to people (like Anthony) who in no way deserve the accolades you give. But, this was entirely our fault, and we apologize to you.

Personal Note to Anthony Scott Hobbs: As long as you continue to not engage in truthfulness in all that you do in politics, our grudge with you remains firmly in place.

Remonstrations

Okay, time to take a preliminary look at a few of the upcoming issues in both the state legislature and Congress:

Prefiled State Senate Bill 3

A bill designed to alter how a malpractice complaint, for a variety of professional disciplines in Georgia, must be filed in court.

Two problems with the bill: 1) Why was the professional discipline of ENGINEERING left off the list of disciplines covered by these proposed new rules? We notice that lawyers (e.g., Preston Smith), architects (e.g., Eric Johnson), and nurses (e.g., Renee Unterman) are listed as species being protected by this new bill, but not engineers. Perhaps engineers need to hire a lobbyist to make sure they inform lawyers and architects that their occupation is of a professional nature as well...

Problem #2 (and, truly, the biggest one): The law calls for an affidavit from an expert witness to be filed with the initial complaint filed by the plaintiff. The affidavit must contain the following: "[it] shall set forth specifically at least one negligent act or omission claimed to exist and the factual basis for each such claim.".

"Factual basis?" From what we understand about the legal process, only after a complaint is filed can motions for discovery be made, and the discovery then obtained. So, if there is a "fact" about a diagnosis sitting on a doctor's computer that demonstrates he/she made the wrong diagnosis when other facts were known that indicated something completely different, with this law, that "fact" (i.e., proof of malpractice) cannot be obtained by the plaintiff and given to an expert witness to examine to determine the "factual basis for such claim."

This law requires circular logic to work, and, therefore, it won't work for the betterment of society. If you require an expert to provide concrete evidence that something was malpracticed without giving the plaintiff the means to file discovery for the evidence to be uncovered to provide to the expert witness (by way of a normal complaint filed now), only the most blatant acts will be filed against...and all those secrets of other screw-ups will remain buried. Uh-uhhhhhh...not fair to those who pay for services that result in harm to their lives or livelihood. Not fair at all.

Prefiled State Senate Bill 9

A bill designed to ban smoking in buildings controlled by the State of Georgia as well as buildings and facilities that might be visited by members of the general public.

Commentary: Talk about the overreaching arm of government, sheesh! If you click that link, you will see a lonnnng list of prohibitions on smoking, as well as prescribed punishments for violating this law.

Hey, we don't like cigarettes either, but let's stop the pretense, shall we? If, as Senator/Dr. Don Thomas (R) so writes in his bill, cigarettes do all of the detrimental things he says they do, then this product should be completely BANNED from sale within the confines of the State of Georgia, right?

Let's drop the pretense of needing the tax dollars from the tax levied on their sale (for the presumed "sin" of the act of buying them), and, for the health, safety, and general welfare of all things great and small, alive, or not yet alive, just ban the sale of them like we have banned the sale of those evil video poker games. After all, isn't someone's life and longevity more important than the tax dollars the state collects on the tax of their sin purchases? Sure it is! Stop tinkering with deciding where one might enjoy the use of it, just ban the entire sale of it! What a concept!

Oh...one mildly humorous note we find with Senator Thomas' bill: He provides for a few exemptions from his law, and one of the exemptions is "Corporate offices of tobacco manufacturers". Mighty kind of him to allow you folks in the tobacco manufacturing business to consume your own products on your own premises, eh?...

Prefiled State Senate Bill 20

A bill to criminalize both the consensual acts and the non-consensual acts of anyone who deliberately bejewels the clitoris of any woman under the age of 18.

Commentary: If it ain't one damn thing, it's another in this state. We cannot wait to hear the debates on this bill. Do note that Senator Gloria Butler (D) is attempting to codify what a woman under the age of 18 can and cannot do with their own labia, whether majoria or minoria. Oy vay!

Prefiled State Senate Bill 22

A bill designed to require insurance carriers of malpractice insurance to submit documentation of any claim they have paid out above $10,000 and certain pieces of information associated with those claims. Additionally, the insurer will have to submit annual reports to the Insurance Commissioner on what claims have been filed, what is pending, what has been settled, and related dollar amounts.

Commentary: One of the major problems we have with this bill is that Senator Mitch Seabaugh has seen fit to exempt the public from gaining access to these reports through the Open Records Act.

These reports, you see, would go a long way to proving/disproving the case for limiting jury awards on the basis of pain and suffering, but, apparently Seabaugh and Preston Smith, one of the co-authors, don't want the public to know what's really going on in the malpractice world because only they are omniscient enough to make such judgments.

We will be discussing the tort reform issue shortly, but, here's the brief point to be made with this bill if it passes as is: If these reports demonstrate that one or a few doctors or a type of medical practice are the ones who are experiencing a larger than expected rate of claims against them, and the medical board is ignoring the claims (because, like every other profession, it tends to be a good 'ole boy board where they find it difficult to punish their own), then only the insurance companies and the medical community will be allowed to run roughshod over the public while only facing the integrity of who the insurance commissioner is at the time.

The provision in this bill that excludes these reports from public examination via the Open Records Act should be struck. This appears to be a blatant case of legislators protecting the wishes of their campaign contributors more than the public good of the community they have been elected to represent.

Prefiled State House Bill 2

A bill designed to exempt museums operating as a non-profit from paying ad valorem taxes on property and buildings owned.

Commentary: After reading today's AJC section on the raises and the salaries of museum directors in Atlanta, we offer a resounding NO! to even the prospect of putting this on the ballot.

Look at this: the Director of the High Museum of Art received an increase of 67% in salary over three years, from $230,576 in 2000 to $385,444 in 2003. The President and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center makes $319,923 per year. The President of the Fernbank Museum of Natural History earns $225,000 per year.

Folks, the term "non-profit" doesn't mean the entity is on its' knees scraping the ground for funds. It just means there are no stockholders who collect dividends from the excess of revenues over expenses.

Sorry, but the state and the municipalities need that money that would be exempted to run their infrastructures. And, the rest of us who don't visit the museums (which, by the way, charge fees for the public to visit) don't have to shoulder the burden of giving more money through increased property taxes and other to support these outlandish salaries paid to these directors.

If the museums didn't charge fees OR charged nominal fees, that'd be one thing. But, to exempt them and allow them to give that money to themselves is not fair to the rest of us who don't earn that much and still have to pay our own property taxes.

How about this instead: Cap the salaries of the directors to $125,000 per year, and we'll consider exempting the poor museums from paying ad valorem taxes.

Prefiled State House Bill 4

Designated as the Baby's Right to Know Act, this is a bill designed to require that when an un-wedded mother has a baby, the father's name is applied to the birth certificate as well.

Commentary: Good law, except, in some cases the birth certificates are going to look mighty strange with just "Bubba" or "Blackie" or "John whats-his-name" written on them...

Perhaps a side law should be proposed that requires everyone to exchange a form of "Sex ID" whereby both males and females have to show their name to the other party before engaging in sex.

Note: The House members prefiled a boatload of bills that would take more space and time than we have right now. We will examine more of them as the session continues...along with finding out why "Mary Margaret Oliver" has taken to referring to herself in bill-author-circles as "Mary Oliver" now...

Target Issues

The Ten Commandments

The latest story we hear is that the Republican supporters of a bill allowing the Ten Commandments to be posted in government buildings want this law in place so as to require that the state attorney general's office is the state financed entity charged with defending the rights of those municipalities who choose to post their version of The Ten Commandments (and ignore the U.S. Constitution).

Commentary: Gotta hand it to those neo-Republicans. Instead of seeing to the expenditure of less government dollars, and MORE personal responsibility, they seek to pass laws that they know are unconstitutional, but will allow the resources of the state attorney general's office to be expended in defense of those actions rather than the municipalities paying to defend their own violations of law.

Gosh...these folks are so (not!) clever.

Tort Reform

Here are some questions that need to be answered before ramming through a bill that was not well-thought out, both in the state legislature and in the Congress:

1) Where does the magic figure of $250,000 cap on non-economic damages comes from?

2) If a doctor negligently ignores the warnings of a nurse who tells him that he is supposed to remove the gall bladder and not the prostate of an anethesized patient, and he removes the healthy prostate, thus not allowing the man to enjoy sexual relations and produce offspring in a normal manner for the next 35 years, is the doctor's fine for causing a lifetime of pain and suffering to the man and his spouse who wanted lots of babies worth only $250,000?

3) If the 12-year-old son of a Congressman ends-up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life due to acts of negligence from the doctor(s) charged with correctly diagnosing and treating an allergic reaction to a drug which they fail to do properly, and no "economic damages" will be awarded as the child wasn't a working member of society then, will a $250,000 award an acceptable result to thta Congressman and his sife? Especially if the only "fine" the doctor has to pay is an increase on his malpractice insurance and he/she continues practicing?

4) We hear a lot from the medical community (i.e., practitioners of medicine and managers of medical practices) about how their malpractice rates won't go up as fast if we impose limits on pain and suffering damages. How about if we get sworn testimony from the insurance companies that "Yes, we promise to hold the rate of increase in premiums to the rate of inflation if these limits are enacted?" Oh...what's that we hear? Ah. Nothing, actually. Not a word from insurers like MAG Mutual. They're smugly keeping their cards, and their actuaries, from the legislative spotlight.

5) Just how does MAG Mutual and other insurers operate? Is it like other mutual insurance companies where the payors-in receive a financial benefit at the end of the premium year if payouts and claims were kept at a certain level?

6) Is it possible that the pain and suffering award claims are a red herring offered by the insurance companies? That is, the real story is that they are no longer making a pile of money in the capital markets (something about a dot-com implosion and low-return on bonds) and are instead raising malpractice rates to astronomical levels BECAUSE they have to make-up for money lost in other areas of their business?

In short, the members of all houses of legislation in this country need to focus on FACTS, not conjecture, emotional or otherwise before setting forth legislation that calls for caps on awards for what amounts to be personal liability for a tort against another human being.

And, they will not have facts if all they listen to are paid lobbyists/consultants (i.e., people who have been paid to slant a story a certain way and omit facts that would harm their slant) from hospital associations, insurance companies, personal injury lawyers, defense attorneys, etc.

Here is what we recommend legislators collect and examine as facts:

- Collect a certified statement from the CEOs of malpractice insurance companies of how many claims have been made, how many have been dismissed, how many have gone to trial and lost, how many have gone to trial and won (i.e., damages were paid), what the frequency of claims were expected on an actuarial basis, and what was the actual frequency experienced.

- Have expert actuaries from the insurance companies testify before the legislature about the true nature of the expected claims and the nature of actual claims that have resulted in payments. Have opposing experts from non-insurance companies testify on the validity of the insurance companies' claims about malpractice rates.

- Find out how much money the insurer pays to defend cases as opposed to just paying the claims. Maybe the insurers are making bad decisions on which cases they fight and are just looking to limit the effect of their bad business decisions by raising rates to offset those bad decisions.

- When "expert" consultants claim that the reason some doctors are exiting the practice of medicine is due to "high malpractice premiums due to outlandish jury awards," rather than rely on their tainted (i.e., bought and paid-to-influence) opinion, get affidavits OR get the doctors who left the field to come down and answer a few questions under oath about their decision to leave. Don't assume that because "A" happens (e.g., a doctor leaves the profession) and "B" happens (e.g., insurance malpractice rates increase) that both occured as a result of "C" happening (e.g., a jury awarded $3.5 million in pain and suffering to the butchered-for-life patient because of some fool doctor who claimed he knew exactly how to perform the lipo-suction procedure he had just taken a correspondence course on) without having all of the FACTS present prior to your conclusions.

In closing, it would help this state greatly if the new majority chose to do the state's business based NOT on who is filling their campaign coffers but which is the best possible solution for all parties concerned, including the people who cannot afford to pay for lobbyists to stuff Varsity fried pies down your gullet and entertain you for 30 minutes with their side of a story. That is, the rest of us little people who have to live in this world with your laws that you write, amend, vote on, and sign into law.

Rumors

Rumors have it that the entire structure of the senate's administrative floor leader positions was dismantled to hide the senate leadership's, and the Governor's, disgust with the antics of Senator David Shafer and they were looking for a cordial way to fire him as such.

Rumor has it that Shafer, at the behest of some high muckety-muck resident of soon-to-be City of Sandy Springs attempted to pull a fast one on the the House legislators who were working on the legislation for the new City of Sandy Springs. Shafer contacted and encouraged Senator Scudson Hill to resurrect a bill that excluded a certain section of Fulton County where the muckety-muck lived so that the muckety-muck's home, and a few other of his neighbors' homes, would be excluded from the city limits of the new Sandy Springs.

Scudson couldn't figure out that what Shafer wanted him to do was to be sneaky and underhanded about pre-filing the bill. So, when Hill had a question about the bill he was supposed to pre-file, he didn't call Shafer for the answer, he called Representative Joe Wilkinson to ask him a question. That tipped-off Wilkinson that something was quite amiss in the land of Sandy Springs, and that Master Shafer was up to his old tricks again.

Somehow this event reached the upper echelons of the senate and a decision was made to cut Shafer off at the knees. But, how to do that without raising a political stink inside the party? Ah, come out with a cover story that "We've decided we don't need any of the administrative floor leadership positions, so we will eliminate all of the positions. Thank you for your service, guys."

We have heard that the high muckety-muck sought the help of Shafer in this endeavor because he was concerned that his property tax bill will increase as a result of paying taxes to support a new city and paying to the county as well. So, if that was the only reason, then perhaps a better addressing of the issue should be in the form of the charter for the City of Sandy Springs shall not be allowed to levy property taxes that result in a higher rate being paid than were being paid before the city was formed. Or, something like that.

Rumors have it that Senator David Shafer has had his name put forward by some toadie as a possible candidate for Insurance Commissioner to replace John Oxendine who is currently raising funds for a run for Lt. Governor in 2006.

PV Comments: Puh-leeze. The only viable candidate that we see in terms of being QUALIFIED to run for Insurance Commissioner is State Representative Ben Harbin of Augusta.

Harbin has spent the better part of at least the past 8 years (maybe more?) quietly and diligently working in the House with no eye out for anyone but his own constituents. Plus, he actually works in the insurance industry as an agent, so the experience he would bring to the position far surpasses anyone that we see on the horizon. Harbin has an integrity and a work ethic unmatched by just about anyone and Ben would serve with honor in that position.