Political circus rolls into town Monday
40-day legislative session is grueling for some
By JIM THARPE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Related:
• Complete guide to the 2004 General Assembly
State Sen. Bill Stephens walked down a vacant hallway at the Capitol last week, his footsteps echoing off the worn marble floors.
"It's quiet now," said the Canton Republican. "But if you listen hard enough, you can hear the circus coming to town."
The yearly spectacle arrives Monday, the opening day of the Georgia Legislature, a noisy, antiquated lawmaking machine peopled with enough politicians, lobbyists and assorted hangers-on to fill a small city. There are slick businessmen with millions on the line and Italian loafers on their feet. There are do-gooder little old ladies wearing tennis shoes. There are droves of day-tripping schoolchildren with runny noses and name tags, even a few bikers decked out in black leather and studs.
Think of it as the 40 days a year when Georgia comes to Atlanta.
"Because the Legislature here meets only for a short period, everyone tends to descend on the state Capitol at the same time, and that creates a somewhat frenzied environment," said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. "It really is a circus of sorts."
Laptop computers have replaced spittoons on legislators' desks, but some customs seem stuck in a time warp inside the circa 1889 gold-domed building, built on the site where Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's provost guard camped 140 years ago as "Uncle Billy" prepared to torch the city.
The Yankees won the war, but the Rebels plan to return Monday. The Southern Heritage Political Action Committee has scheduled a Rotunda press conference to blast lawmakers who took the Confederate cross off the state flag last year. The group plans to unveil its "Deck of Shame" playing cards.
"The deck identifies 52 of the most anti-Southern members of the Georgia Legislature and gives the reasons we believe they should be retired," said the group's spokesman, William Lathem.
And so it begins.
The General Assembly session is still a time of God and gluttony, serious business and occasional buffoonery -- last year one lawmaker tried to make it illegal for restaurants not to offer sweet tea. A guest minister begins each day with a mini-sermon and a prayer. Most nights end with a huge banquet at the old train depot near Underground Atlanta, affectionately dubbed "the Trough" by Capitol veterans. Victuals are supplied by cities, universities and associations across the state, which take turns feeding legislators, lobbyists and invited guests. Savannah brings a boatload of seafood, while Waycross serves venison and alligator at the "Okefenokee Occasion."
Beauty queens and championship football teams get standing ovations when they are paraded before the legislators. A group of NASCAR drivers showed up last year, unloaded a half-dozen race cars outside the Capitol, and fired up the engines. The windows of the nearby Supreme Court building shook as bewildered law clerks stared at the spectacle below.
Familiar faces
Kim Adams, 40, and leather-wearing members of her organization, ABATE (American Bikers Active Toward Education), show up every year trying to persuade legislators to change the law so that adult bikers can ride without helmets.
"Some of the people used to be intimidated by the way we dress, but we dress like this for protection, not intimidation," said Adams, who rides behind her husband on a 1976 Harley-Davidson Low Rider. "If you fall off, it's a layer that comes off before the skin does."
Every session the bikers appear on cue, lobby to change the helmet law, and dole out homemade chili to lawmakers on what used to be called Bike Day. And every year the idea is shot down.
"You get a little frustrated after all these years," Adams said. "But you just keep going back and trying to change things."
Rachel Fowler knows the feeling. The 77-year-old DeKalb County grandmother has become a fixture at the Capitol in her role as an unpaid lobbyist for the 14,000-member Garden Club of Georgia, which counts first lady Mary Perdue among its members.
Fowler has waged war against the proliferation of billboards, battled to save trees, and lobbied for cleaner water. She knows how to work a room full of legislators -- she once publicly scolded a state senator in front of his peers -- and recently mastered e-mail.
"You get very frustrated with how slow things move up there," Fowler said. "You get a lot of these lawmakers, and they won't commit. But we don't give up. We believe in what we're doing."
There is also plenty of big business being conducted in the hallways, filled with high-paid, well-dressed lobbyists representing the most powerful companies in the state and nation. The big phone companies are there. So are the soft drink and liquor industries. And the banks. The 236 lawmakers are buttonholed before they reach their desks most mornings, ambushed by polished professionals.
"Sometimes you feel like a cow being herded down a lane when you have to walk between all those folks," said Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton). "I go up the back stairs most of the time to avoid them."
Running the lobbyist gantlet is only one of the challenges faced by the Legislature's junior members, said Scott, now in his fourth two-year term.
Powerful committee chairmen and senior lawmakers get wined and dined. For two years, Scott said, he slept on a relative's couch when the Legislature was in session, since he lives three hours away. He now pays for lodging but struggles to balance a full-time life back home with a part-time gig at the Capitol.
"Nobody in their right mind likes living out of a motel," Scott said. "You don't see your family. You can't take care of your business back home. And those are things you have to deal with to have a life."
Change afoot
Just a few decades ago the Legislature was overwhelmingly rural, male and white and solely controlled by the Democratic Party. Today it is more suburban, younger, more diverse and more Republican. The GOP controls the Senate and the governor's office and is nipping at the Democrats' remaining power base: the House.
State government has become big business. The state collects and spends a staggering $16 billion a year, and the governor and lawmakers must decide how it will be spent to run schools, house prisoners and build roads.
Fading fast are the days of politicians like former House Speaker Tom Murphy, who wore a white Stetson hat and held sway over the unruly chamber for three decades until his 2002 defeat.
A Roosevelt Democrat from Bremen who made no secret of his disdain for Republicans, Murphy chomped on unlit cigars, sang Hank Williams songs late at night, and altered state law so he didn't have to wear a seat belt in his pickup.
His successor is a rural Democrat like Murphy, but Rep. Terry Coleman of Eastman can get downright friendly with Republicans when the need arises. Coleman gets around town in an SUV, spends a lot of time talking on a cellphone, and carries a beeper. Murphy's office looked like a well-lived-in pawnshop, Coleman's like an accountant's office.
"There are fewer of the colorful characters left," Abramowitz said. "It's harder for them to survive politically. Once, back when the Democrats ran everything, if you were in, you were in. This is a much more competitive and complex political arena."
40-day legislative session is grueling for some
By JIM THARPE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Related:
• Complete guide to the 2004 General Assembly
State Sen. Bill Stephens walked down a vacant hallway at the Capitol last week, his footsteps echoing off the worn marble floors.
"It's quiet now," said the Canton Republican. "But if you listen hard enough, you can hear the circus coming to town."
The yearly spectacle arrives Monday, the opening day of the Georgia Legislature, a noisy, antiquated lawmaking machine peopled with enough politicians, lobbyists and assorted hangers-on to fill a small city. There are slick businessmen with millions on the line and Italian loafers on their feet. There are do-gooder little old ladies wearing tennis shoes. There are droves of day-tripping schoolchildren with runny noses and name tags, even a few bikers decked out in black leather and studs.
Think of it as the 40 days a year when Georgia comes to Atlanta.
"Because the Legislature here meets only for a short period, everyone tends to descend on the state Capitol at the same time, and that creates a somewhat frenzied environment," said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. "It really is a circus of sorts."
Laptop computers have replaced spittoons on legislators' desks, but some customs seem stuck in a time warp inside the circa 1889 gold-domed building, built on the site where Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's provost guard camped 140 years ago as "Uncle Billy" prepared to torch the city.
The Yankees won the war, but the Rebels plan to return Monday. The Southern Heritage Political Action Committee has scheduled a Rotunda press conference to blast lawmakers who took the Confederate cross off the state flag last year. The group plans to unveil its "Deck of Shame" playing cards.
"The deck identifies 52 of the most anti-Southern members of the Georgia Legislature and gives the reasons we believe they should be retired," said the group's spokesman, William Lathem.
And so it begins.
The General Assembly session is still a time of God and gluttony, serious business and occasional buffoonery -- last year one lawmaker tried to make it illegal for restaurants not to offer sweet tea. A guest minister begins each day with a mini-sermon and a prayer. Most nights end with a huge banquet at the old train depot near Underground Atlanta, affectionately dubbed "the Trough" by Capitol veterans. Victuals are supplied by cities, universities and associations across the state, which take turns feeding legislators, lobbyists and invited guests. Savannah brings a boatload of seafood, while Waycross serves venison and alligator at the "Okefenokee Occasion."
Beauty queens and championship football teams get standing ovations when they are paraded before the legislators. A group of NASCAR drivers showed up last year, unloaded a half-dozen race cars outside the Capitol, and fired up the engines. The windows of the nearby Supreme Court building shook as bewildered law clerks stared at the spectacle below.
Familiar faces
Kim Adams, 40, and leather-wearing members of her organization, ABATE (American Bikers Active Toward Education), show up every year trying to persuade legislators to change the law so that adult bikers can ride without helmets.
"Some of the people used to be intimidated by the way we dress, but we dress like this for protection, not intimidation," said Adams, who rides behind her husband on a 1976 Harley-Davidson Low Rider. "If you fall off, it's a layer that comes off before the skin does."
Every session the bikers appear on cue, lobby to change the helmet law, and dole out homemade chili to lawmakers on what used to be called Bike Day. And every year the idea is shot down.
"You get a little frustrated after all these years," Adams said. "But you just keep going back and trying to change things."
Rachel Fowler knows the feeling. The 77-year-old DeKalb County grandmother has become a fixture at the Capitol in her role as an unpaid lobbyist for the 14,000-member Garden Club of Georgia, which counts first lady Mary Perdue among its members.
Fowler has waged war against the proliferation of billboards, battled to save trees, and lobbied for cleaner water. She knows how to work a room full of legislators -- she once publicly scolded a state senator in front of his peers -- and recently mastered e-mail.
"You get very frustrated with how slow things move up there," Fowler said. "You get a lot of these lawmakers, and they won't commit. But we don't give up. We believe in what we're doing."
There is also plenty of big business being conducted in the hallways, filled with high-paid, well-dressed lobbyists representing the most powerful companies in the state and nation. The big phone companies are there. So are the soft drink and liquor industries. And the banks. The 236 lawmakers are buttonholed before they reach their desks most mornings, ambushed by polished professionals.
"Sometimes you feel like a cow being herded down a lane when you have to walk between all those folks," said Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton). "I go up the back stairs most of the time to avoid them."
Running the lobbyist gantlet is only one of the challenges faced by the Legislature's junior members, said Scott, now in his fourth two-year term.
Powerful committee chairmen and senior lawmakers get wined and dined. For two years, Scott said, he slept on a relative's couch when the Legislature was in session, since he lives three hours away. He now pays for lodging but struggles to balance a full-time life back home with a part-time gig at the Capitol.
"Nobody in their right mind likes living out of a motel," Scott said. "You don't see your family. You can't take care of your business back home. And those are things you have to deal with to have a life."
Change afoot
Just a few decades ago the Legislature was overwhelmingly rural, male and white and solely controlled by the Democratic Party. Today it is more suburban, younger, more diverse and more Republican. The GOP controls the Senate and the governor's office and is nipping at the Democrats' remaining power base: the House.
State government has become big business. The state collects and spends a staggering $16 billion a year, and the governor and lawmakers must decide how it will be spent to run schools, house prisoners and build roads.
Fading fast are the days of politicians like former House Speaker Tom Murphy, who wore a white Stetson hat and held sway over the unruly chamber for three decades until his 2002 defeat.
A Roosevelt Democrat from Bremen who made no secret of his disdain for Republicans, Murphy chomped on unlit cigars, sang Hank Williams songs late at night, and altered state law so he didn't have to wear a seat belt in his pickup.
His successor is a rural Democrat like Murphy, but Rep. Terry Coleman of Eastman can get downright friendly with Republicans when the need arises. Coleman gets around town in an SUV, spends a lot of time talking on a cellphone, and carries a beeper. Murphy's office looked like a well-lived-in pawnshop, Coleman's like an accountant's office.
"There are fewer of the colorful characters left," Abramowitz said. "It's harder for them to survive politically. Once, back when the Democrats ran everything, if you were in, you were in. This is a much more competitive and complex political arena."