Dalton Daily Citizen

Opinion

November 5, 2015

No more unrecorded votes.

As a Georgian seeking accountability and transparency in government, I send my gratitude for The Daily Citizen’s focus on the fact that the super-majority Republican Georgia state Senate has — and uses — a system of unrecorded votes.

Also, most Georgians are still unaware that Georgia has been issuing driver’s licenses, official state photo ID cards and public benefits — including unemployment compensation eligibility — to a group of illegal aliens since July of 2012.

Thirty-eight of the 56 members of the state senate are Republicans and they all ran as “conservatives.” State Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, introduced a bill (SB 6) last November to refine existing law intended to end the above lunacy, but it only drew 12 co-sponsors. When SB 6 was not allowed so much as an initial hearing by GOP leadership, McKoon’s floor amendment to stop rewarding illegals with a driver’s licenses was defeated 27-16 — with an unrecorded hand vote.

As this newspaper noted, only four co-sponsors supported McKoon’s motion for a machine-counted, permanently recorded vote. On the unrecorded vote, one co-sponsor of SB 6 actually voted against the floor amendment while I watched from the gallery.

In the state Capitol, it is correctly taken as a matter of course that most people don’t know how their government works. And that fact is wielded as a very effective tool. As a reluctant and self-funded denizen of the Gold Dome for more than a decade, this pro-enforcement immigration activist sadly reports that many legislators’ contempt level for constituents is at an all-time high.

It should also be noted that to get to a final vote on the nearly $1 billion transportation tax increase, senate leadership used the unrecorded vote rule. By contrast, Gov. Nathan Deal has told us illegal immigration costs the state $2.4 billion every year. Guess which side of these issues the Georgia Chamber of Commerce takes.

No Democrats supported a recorded vote on the McKoon amendment because they understood that because of the danger of voter memory, it would have likely resulted in Republican approval. We submit this can easily be called “bipartisanship.”

McKoon has pledged that no driver’s license–related bill from the House will go through the Senate without another floor amendment aimed at ending the practice of giving any illegal aliens a driver’s license. And he has made it clear that he will introduce a resolution to alter Senate rules to eliminate the unrecorded vote process.

There is no legislation in the GOP-majority state House to address illegal aliens being encouraged to remain in Georgia with the de facto national ID — a driver’s license.

Currently, unrecorded votes are winning, “We the People” are losing.

Voters should be asking which side their own legislators are on.

D.A. King
Marietta

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