Rumors have it that yesterday, 13 Georgia State Senators “joined” Democrats to attempt to allow a “coup” to revert power back to Lt. Governor Casey Cagle.

Nine of these State Senators were called-out by Erick Erickson on the blog known as PeachPundit.com. Erickson listed the following as “Republican turncoats” in his mind: Jim Butterworth, Bill Hamrick, Frank Ginn, Steve Gooch, Butch Miller, Jeff Mullis, Jack Murphy, David Shafer, and Renee Untermann. (again, this is from his PeachPundit.com blog…which, by the time this story hits him and he’ll be seeking to erase it and rename it, I will have already captured his stupidity here in this PDF snapshot of his post).

Erick wasn’t at the Gold Dome yesterday…he got his “story” from looking at a story written by Jim Galloway of the AJC. And, by looking at a voting record publicized by Galloway about the votes taken on a motion to engross SR 526.

Jim Galloway may or may not have been at the Gold Dome today. And, he may or may not have been at the actual Senate Chamber when this vote came down.

But, one thing I know that Galloway got dead wrong is his assertion in this story he wrote at 3:17 PM yesterday that 14 state senators, all but one being Republican (that means 13 Republicans and 1 Democrat) actively engaged in the following, mutually-arrived at decision: They “declined to vote.”

“declined to vote” are Galloway’s words. “Declined to vote” directly implies these 14 state senators were in the senate chamber and they decided they were not going to vote on the measure. That’s what “declined to vote” means. Galloway imputed what their thoughts were as though they were all in the room when the votes for or against the measure Senator Chip Rogers proposed to engross SR 526.

BUT…a funny thing I discovered tonight by having a casual conversation with at least two of this group of infamous 14 state senators who “declined to vote.” They were NOT in the Senate chamber when this vote took place. They were nowhere near the chamber.

Ohhhh…GASPPPP! Where were they? What “mischief” were they up to if they were not sitting in the Senate chamber when this Senate Resolution came up? Oh, hark! Is the State of Georgia going to die if all state senators are not in their seats hitting their “Vote” buttons? Were these state senators busy planting cherry bombs in the Gold Dome toilets?

No. Well, I’m not sure what the other 12 senators were doing (well, maybe Butterworth was planting cherry bombs in the Speaker’s special gold-plated toilet), but the two state senators I personally talked to last night were kinda…sorta…busy in House Committee and House Sub-Committee meetings trying to shepherd their bills through the legislative maze of committee meetings.

These two state senators were doing their job as representing their districts trying to get legislation through before Sine Die.

In short, it’s quite possible that all 14 of these senators were NOT physically present in the Senate Chamber for really GOOD, sound reasons when SR 526 came up for a vote. I kinda suspect that perhaps the other dastardly absent state senators were also, perhaps, in other House Committee and Sub-Committee meetings trying to get their legislation through. You know, ’cause, after all, the rest of the world really doesn’t revolve around “senate coups” and senate resolutions.

Sorry…I didn’t have time last night to call all of the infamous “13”. Had I called Renee Unterman at 12:00 AM, I probably would have gotten an earful of Renee yelling at me “Do you know what ———– time it is???”

As far as the idiot named Erick Erickson, who termed these MIA-from-the-Senate-Chamber-during- the-vote-as “Republican turncoats”, ummmm…well, I’m not sure I actually need to say anything more. He’s a moron. Plain and simple.

Oh…by the way…SR 526 was later killed in Senate Rules. Now, everyone can return to their peaceful lives where morons like Erickson cannot invade the peace and spread stupid, idiotic, moronic falsehoods. At least, you know, until the Tricia Pridemore team invents yet another new lie about Sue Everhart and spreads that rot around. (Say, Tricia? What’s going to be the new lie of the weekend? Y’all are working pretty hard on that I hear. Don’t cramp your brain too much.)

This entry was posted by Bill Simon, on Friday, April 1st, 2011 at 7:57 am and is filed under Odds and Ends, Political Boxers, Rumors and Tagged: AJC, Bill Hamrick, David Shafer, declined to vote, Erick Erickson, Frank Ginn, Georgia State Senate, Jack Murphy, Jeff Mullis, Jim Butterworth, Jim Galloway, Renee Unterman, Republican turncoats, Steve Gooch
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.