Just 16% Believe Senate Bill Will Reduce Illegal Immigration

Today at Marietta Kiwanis, Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens,
Madison Forum Member, spoke. He said that illegal immigration and the
increasing crime caused by illegal immigrant gangs takes more of his
time than any other item on his daily agenda…

M.O.
Cobb County, Ga.

Another video of the rally….

RNC fires phone solicitors

Washington Times May 31, 2007 Read it here

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations.

“The phone-bank employees were terminated,” RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail in response to questions sent by The Times. “This was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable.”

Fired employees acknowledged that the committee’s phone equipment was outdated, but said a sharp drop-off in donations “probably” hastened the end of the RNC’s in-house phone-bank operation.

“Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007,” said one fired phone bank solicitor who asked not to be identified.

There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, another fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call “amnesty” for illegal aliens.

“Everyone donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue,” said the former employee.

The RNC spokeswoman denied that the committee has seen any drop-off in contributions.
“Any assertion that overall donations have gone down is patently false,” Miss Schmitt said. “We continue to out raise our Democrat counterpart by a substantive amount (nearly double).”

Sonny did…now we can… OVERRIDE SONNY’S VETO OF SB 15!

The Florida Times-Union
June 1, 2007

Vetoes irk immigrant activists

By Vicky Eckenrode,
The Times-Union

A day after Gov. Sonny Perdue vetoed more than 40 legislative bills, two of his strikes prompted strong reaction from activists on both sides of Georgia’s illegal immigration debate. ————————————————–

Perdue disagreed with Senate Bills 15 and 100, citing technical problems with certain provisions in the measures that dealt with increasing penalties for driving without Georgia licenses and making fake documents.

Anti-illegal immigration groups said they were disappointed.

“I was astonished the governor vetoed this,” said D.A. King, president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Marietta-based anti-illegal immigration group. “I honestly thought this never would have happened.”

King lobbied heavily for last year’s Senate Bill 529, a sweeping reform aimed at illegal immigrants by denying many state tax-funded benefits and increasing rules on checking the legal status of workers.

That bill, signed by Perdue last year, takes effect July 1.

This year’s measures were much smaller in scope but prompted complaints from immigrant-rights advocates that lawmakers were continuing attacks on illegal residents in Georgia.

SB 15 would have upped the penalties for anyone driving without a valid license, with the first offense counting as a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to 12 days in jail and a fine between $500 and $1,000. Four convictions could be considered a felony.

The bill also would have required authorities to check the nationality of anyone driving without a license or jailed for driving under the influence.

Perdue said he vetoed the bill because it could punish drivers who moved to the state but did not get a Georgia license within 30 days as required. Though judges would have leeway to suspend jail time in those cases, Perdue said he still had a problem with them having to be booked and fingerprinted.

King said he planned to push lawmakers next year to override Perdue’s veto.

Read the rest here.

Short video of yesterday’s rally…with a story about Governor Perdue’s veto of SB 15 – here..

Please call your state Representatives and ask them to vote to overturn Sonny’s veto!