Radical Georgia Moderate: Had enough?
Mar 28, 2006    Georgia Daily Digest   

Had enough?
Rusty Tanton | www.radicalgeorgiamoderate.com | bio

A few weeks prior to my brother's wedding last year, our parents threw a wedding shower for him and his bride-to-be, where aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and their respective spouses offered gifts to the happy couple.

It was a pretty typical family gathering. You might be surprised to learn that Freddi Hagin, a lobbyist whose clients had bills pending in the state Legislature this session, didn't spring for the finger sandwiches.

State Rep. Stacey Reece says that happens all the time. You might also be surprised to learn that my brother's wedding shower was held in the gathering space of his apartment complex office building, which is open to all tenants as long as they schedule 24 hours in advance — not in Atlanta's posh and private 191 Club.

Again, according to Rep. Reece, that's totally normal.

In a true Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot moment, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this week that lobbyists threw Rep. Reece and his bride-to-be a wedding shower. Lobbyists... threw him... a wedding shower.

You can't make this stuff up.

This sort of flagrant disregard for even the appearance of propriety is what happens when one party controls all branches of government. It happened when Democrats ran everything, and it's happening now with Republicans running everything.

Purely anecdotal evidence from my trip into Cobb County last weekend suggests one-party rule has taken its toll on even the staunchest of Republican voters. At least, that's the consensus I overheard from a group of seven or eight of them eating breakfast at the Einstein's Bagels on Powers Ferry Road come to.

It's no wonder former House Majority Speaker Newt Gingrich told Time Magazine the Democrats' entire agenda in 2006 should be simply to ask voters, "Had enough?"

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