Marietta Daily Journal

February 22, 2015

GOP listening to big biz, not voters

“If we continue to allow illegal immigrants access to all these services, we will be flooded.” — Future Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle on driver’s licenses and other public benefits going to illegal aliens in Georgia, at a March 2004 Georgia Chamber of Commerce “Eggs and Issues” Breakfast speech.

Welcome to the Establishment Republicans’ “New Georgia” — brought to us by what can only be described as “party uber alles” sycophants who would rather ensure a welcome at the next GOP barbecue, breakfast or produce boil than risk being ostracized for noting the obvious.

Not for the first time — or the last — we note that control of the Georgia government has been sold to Big Business led by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Big Ag with the complicit news suppression of Big Media. Anyone who doubts that fact needs to actually spend some time under the Gold Dome during the legislative session.

Far too many modern-day Republican faithful need to look up the term “useful idiots.”

The GOP has now had control of the Peach State for more than a decade since Cagle — who plans on being Gov. Cagle — offered his “trust me, I’m a conservative” quote on being “flooded.” In that time several state laws intended to deter illegal immigration have been implemented and then ignored by Georgia’s elected leaders — with the lack of enforcement then ignored by the “watchdog” press.

These days, only the bravest in government voluntarily mention the crime of illegal immigration or protecting our jobs, driver’s licenses and other public benefits from illegal aliens.

While the Dunwoody-based Atlanta newspaper and the NPR/GPTV crowd (apologies for my repetition) have done a stunningly efficient job of keeping a lid on “too much information,” Georgia has issued driver’s licenses and public benefits to about 15,000 “victims of borders” since 2012.

The bold effort from Attorney General Sam Olens’ office in joining the Texas-originated, 26-state lawsuit challenging Obama’s latest executive amnesty decree offers the chance to stop at least 170,000 more illegals from legally getting in the “me too” benefit line.

More? In November, when Obama announced his latest amnesty, GOP Gov. Nathan Deal remarked for the record that he had “reservations.” It is up to the reader to decide if that language is stronger that being “miffed.”

By now, many readers may have heard about Columbus state Sen. Josh McKoon’s legislation (SB 6) that would at least stop all illegals from accessing a Georgia driver’s license. On orders from the real bosses in Georgia, the game of “kill this bill — and do it quietly!” by GOP Senate leadership goes like this: either smother the bill in the Public Safety Committee or bottle it up in the GOP-led Rules Committee until after Day 30 so that it cannot possibly see a floor vote by the full Senate this year.

When asked about his bill by McKoon, the Cagle-appointed GOP Chairman of the Public Service Committee, where Cagle assigned SB 6, reportedly explained that its future didn’t look too good. It seems many of his south Georgia campaign funders are growers who have illegal aliens working as foremen — and they need driver’s licenses to get to their illegally obtained jobs. Get it?

Because of the danger of voter memory of the exercise, a public, recorded, full-Senate vote on SB 6 would result in passage by a large margin. As president of the Senate, Cagle will not allow that to happen unless he is forced into submission by public pressure and seeing more than half the Republican caucus publicly support the bill by actually signing on as co-sponsors.

And that is as close as we are likely to get to seeing which Republican state Senators are really pro-enforcement and which are more worried about the Chamber of Commerce donors than the voters they swore to protect.

As I write this, the 12 co-signers on McKoon’s bill are Sens. Mike Crane, Steve Gooch, William Ligon, Bill Heath, PK Martin, Greg Kirk, Bruce Thompson, Marty Harbin, Frank Ginn, Michael Williams, Judson Hill and Hunter Hill (the latter two of Cobb). There are 38 Republican state Senators.

For the curious: There are no bills to stop illegal aliens from getting a driver’s license in the GOP-majority state House.

D.A. King is president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society. He is not member of any political party. Twitter: @DAKDIS

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