Do you really want more political advertising - most likely negative without you knowing who is sending it - in your mailbox or in your newspaper, radio and TV?

It's time for a legislator who pays attention and represents you!

HB 1112 became law in Georgia on July 1st, 2008. The bill was originally intended to implement minor changes in campaign law. Incredibly, the version of the bill that passed deleted the requirement for political candidates and special interest groups to include
“Paid for by ________” on all campaign material.

It is apparent the legislators allowed money to take an increased role in political campaigns - some "reform."

As you read the various documents associated with this terribly irresponsible legislation, ask yourself this simple question:

• If your legislation from your committee left the House with 17 pages and came back from the Senate with 22 pages, wouldn't you at least want to know what was in the five new pages?

Decide for yourself what happened.

Here are the facts:

• HB 1112 was written by the Secretary of State's office to "clean up some election law issues." The bill originated in the House Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep. Austin Scott, who was also a co-sponsor. The lead sponsor was Scott’s Vice Chair, Rep. Geisinger.

HB 1112 passed the House 165-3.

• In the Senate, the State and Local Affairs Committee Chairman, Sen. John Wiles, made changes to the legislation, most notably striking the requirement in the existing law for political candidates and special interest groups to include “Paid for by _____” on all campaign material. According to Wiles, he believed he is correcting unconstitutional language. [Tifton Gazette editorial]

The bill passed in the Senate 50-1.

• The Senate substitute version of the bill was then sent back to the House, now 22 pages instead of the original 17 long. The deleted language from existing campaign law was a full page long and so not easily missed.

  Because the Senate changed the legislation, the House had to vote on the new version.

  The House passed the Senate version of the legislation 143-1.

• On August 1st, 2008, our Representative told the Atlanta Journal Constitution "he didn’t know about the change."

  On August 8th, he told the Tifton Gazette he was surprised and didn’t like the change, “I think the chairman of the committee in the senate took extreme liberties with his position.”

  The Gazette was also told, "the intent of the [Senate] substitute was originally to move the language from the elections code to the ethics section.” (See Wiles's editorial)

• The Atlanta Journal Constitution called the action by the Legislature "Shameless...shenanigans"
  

   

John Tibbetts believes that either the representative didn't know or wasn't paying attention. (see Gazette article).