Georgia Dems Demand Governor Retract Claims About Senators Blocking His Legislation
by Jim Brown
March 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Two Democratic lawmakers in Georgia are calling on the governor to retract statements he made in a recent interview with American Family Radio (AFR) News. In that conversation, Georgia's Governor Sonny Perdue criticized Senate Democrats impeding passage of his Faith and Family Services Amendment, a measure that would let the state contract with faith-based social service groups.In talking with AFR News, Perdue referred to those lawmakers blocking the amendment as "the No Party," and remarked, "They haven't got a plan for what to do positively." However, Senators Doug Stoner and Tim Golden, co-sponsors of a rival measure, take exception to those comments and want the governor to take them back. (See earlier article)
What Perdue failed to point out, Stoner asserts, is that he himself has introduced faith-based funding legislation into the Georgia Senate, and other Democratic legislators have supported such measures. "We've been proactive on this issue," the senator insists. "In fact, we as Democrats have been doing this for 30 years in Georgia."
The senator points out that the State of Georgia has been contracting with faith-based organizations since the early 1970s. "And so," he says, "in a sense, we've been doing this for a very long time, and it's been under Democratic leadership that we've been doing this."
The governor is "well aware," Stoner contends, "that I introduced Senate Resolution 42, which would allow the state to provide funding to faith-based organizations that perform charitable work in their communities, even before his proposal was introduced." However, he notes that his legislation differs from Perdue's in one important respect.
"We just have this difference of opinion concerning the language," he says. "SR 42 includes language that protects public funds from going to private schools in the form of vouchers." Perdue's amendment offers no such protection, the senator explains, and this is why he believes the measure was defeated.
"The governor says it's not about vouchers -- and we'll take his word on that -- and he wouldn't be doing a voucher program," Stoner adds. "We just ask that he put the anti-voucher language in, and then we can move forward. But at this point the governor has refused to compromise."
Golden, chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, is a co-sponsor of SR 42. He says Perdue has completely misrepresented the position of Senate Democrats while attempting to get his own legislation approved in the House of Representatives.
"If the governor insists on passing legislation that does not protect against using tax dollars for private school vouchers," Golden warns, "he will be disappointed again. But for him to say we have no alternative plan is disingenuous at best."
The Democrat-sponsored resolution known as SR 42 has the endorsement of the Georgia Council on Moral and Civic Concerns, which is an alliance of the state's United Methodist and Baptist Church conferences. It has also been endorsed by the Georgia Association of Educators, Professional Association of Georgia Educators, and the Georgia PTA.
Stoner says he is calling on the Governor Perdue to "retract his false statements" regarding the Democrats that oppose his voucher legislation. Furthermore, he urges the Georgia governor and his supporters in the state legislature to embrace SR 42, which addresses faith-based contracting and protects against taking tax dollars away from public schools to fund private education.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
