Note, the below posted news article was followed up by an editorial: Our view: Voters deserve to know – The Daily Citizen: Opinion.

Leaving no record

Charles Oliver

The Dalton Daily Citizen

October 21, 2015

Republicans have a supermajority in the state Senate, with 38 of 56 seats.

But that doesn’t mean that conservatives have a supermajority, says D.A. King, president of the Dustin Inman Society, which opposes illegal immigration.

King, who spoke to a meeting of the Dalton Tea Party Tuesday night, pointed to a bill introduced earlier this year by Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, which would have denied Georgia driver’s licenses to any illegal alien with a deportation waiver.

King noted that President Barack Obama’s executive order providing temporary protection from deportation for illegal aliens who entered the United States before their 16th birthday and before June 2007 provided them with Social Security numbers and work permits, which in turn allows them to get Georgia driver’s licenses or state IDs.

King said some 20,000 illegal aliens are eligible for Georgia licenses and that number would have increased by 170,000 if a federal court had not put a second administration deportation waiver on hold.
McKoon’s bill “was not allowed even a single committee hearing in the Republican supermajority Senate,” King told those attending the meeting.

McKoon then offered his bill as a floor amendment to a bill that had been passed by the state House of Representatives dealing with a separate driver’s license issue. McKoon called for a roll call vote on his amendment, which would put all votes on the record.

“He needed five other senators to support him. Only four did,” King said. “His amendment was then defeated by an unrecorded vote. There’s no record of how any senator voted.”

State Sen. Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, said in an interview on Wednesday he does not recall McKoon telling anyone in the Republican caucus meeting he would be offering the amendment.

“Generally, in our caucus meetings someone will announce ‘I have an amendment’ and talk about it. That didn’t happen or if it did I wasn’t there, and I’m usually there for caucus meetings,” he said. “I knew what bills we would be voting for, but I wasn’t aware that any amendment would be offered.”

Consequently, Bethel was not on the floor of the Senate when McKoon offered the amendment.

“That was the day that we had the vote on the autism bill (which mandated that insurance companies provide some coverage to children with autism), which I was the lead sponsor of. There were a number of media inquiries, so I stepped out to talk to reporters,” Bethel said.

Bethel said when he stepped back into the chamber the vote on McKoon’s amendment had already been taken.
“But what I heard from my colleagues and others is the same story (King told),” he said. “It apparently wasn’t a long debate because I only did a couple of interviews.”
Bethel said he generally supports recorded votes.

“Josh has always been good to me, and if he’d asked for a recorded vote on his issue, I expect I would have supported him,” Bethel said. “I didn’t run (for office) not to vote. It doesn’t bother me to have a recorded vote. But others may disagree. They may not want a record of their vote. But there could be other reasons. They may just want to keep things moving. They may believe the sponsor of the amendment or other issue has done something procedurally improper and they don’t want to reward that person. I’m not saying any of that happened because I wasn’t there.”

King said even those who aren’t passionate about immigration issues should be concerned that the Senate regularly conducts business through such unrecorded votes.

Dalton Tea Party member Ed Painter said only the threat of being replaced will motivate elected officials to do what voters want.

“Sometimes, it isn’t about who is the better person or better candidate. It’s about what this person has done or hasn’t done in office,” he said. “We need to be prepared to oppose someone who has been in there and hasn’t done what we wanted. That’s the only way we’ll send a message.”  HERE