Extortion? We need to stop everything until we get an answer!
Apr 28, 2006    Georgia Political Digest   Opinion

Extortion? We need to stop everything until we get an answer!
The Georgia Oracle | bio |

We need to stop the campaign for Governor right now. The entire game needs to come to a standstill. We need one question answered before we give another moment of consideration to any candidate, attend another rally, read another news story or make another contribution.

Did Mark Taylor extort campaign contributions from Republican senators in exchange for allowing them to keep Senate committee assignments?

According to the Political Insider column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Casey Cagle, explaining a 1999 campaign contribution to Mark Taylor, stated in a press release this week:

“Taylor threatened the Republican senate leadership, of which I was a member. If we did not make a contribution to him to ‘bury the hatchet,’ then Taylor would strip all Republicans of their committee assignments and kill all Republican legislation."

“The Democrats still controlled all of state government in 1999, and we (the Senate Republican leadership) had a choice to make. Clean up Ralph Reed’s mess or our Republican Senators would pay a very high price. [Johnson] and I decided to do what was best for the Republican Party.”

Even in the rough and tumble world of politics, this sails past surprising, shocking and appalling and enters the realm of the criminal. I don’t believe that anyone is shocked that logrolling is a daily occurrence in the legislative process. It is what we expect legislators to do in order to get the people's business done.

However, demanding campaign cash from senators for committee assignments or to pass their legislation is not logrolling – it is extortion. It is a corruption of government. It is an arrogance of power.  It is an action that makes one unfit for public office.

It comes down to this. Does Casey Cagle stand by his accusation of Mark Taylor? Did Mark Taylor extort money from him in exchange for protecting Republican senators and their legislation? Or, was his press release an exaggeration?  Either Mark Taylor is unfit to be Governor, or Casey Cagle is lying.

Which is it?

Newspaper editorial boards, Georgia bloggers, news reporters, political activists, this is your challenge. Demand an answer to this question. Do not treat this as a small issue. A prominent Republican senator and candidate for Lt. Governor has made a serious accusation concerning extortion. Is Mark Taylor, the Lt. Governor and candidate for Governor, an extortionist or is Casey Cagle, a state senator and candidate for Lt. Governor lying?

We need an immediate answer.

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