What’s gotten into Sonny?
Gov. Sonny Perdue seems to be cramming for his finals.
“Too little, too late” never seemed more apt.
After doing not much more than grumbling about metro Atlanta’s growth problems for seven years, Sonny Perdue finally is pushing lawmakers to pass water conservation and transportation funding bills. Not only that, last week he proposed converting four statewide elected offices into appointed positions — a bold idea that any good government type should be celebrating.
The perplexing thing is that Perdue’s doing all this in his eighth and final year as governor, when his influence is surely too low to bend the Legislature to his will. He won’t have any way to followup to ensure that his ideas are implemented effectively, either.
I’m not all ga-ga over the governor’s water and transportation proposals. As if to underscore his desire to wash his hands of both messes, neither bill actually would take effect until well into 2012 — nearly two years after he’ll have left office. The water conservation bill doesn’t go as far as needed, while the transportation bill does too little to ensure that anything but roads will get adequate funding.
Still both measures are likely to be steps in the right direction, and some form of each is likely to pass.
I’m more amazed about the governor’s proposal to change elected statewide offices. Perdue wants the legislature to approve a referendum for a constitutional amendment to convert the agricultural commissioner, insurance commissioner, labor commissioner and state school superintendent into appointed positions.
On Election Day, Georgians find too many races on their ballots that they know nothing about, so almost every time people either fill out only part of their ballot or default by voting for the incumbent. And if there’s no incumbent, the Republican wins — regardless of qualifications — because the Republican base is more likely to spend the time to vote in down-ticket races.
The result has been to have the same agriculture commissioner in office for 40 years — an 80-something Democrat who runs his department like a fiefdom — and to have the venal and unethical John Oxendine as insurance commissioner four terms. Despite numerous scandals, Oxendine could have served as commissioner-for-life had he not decided to run this year for governor; now (to the nightmares of many Republicans), he’s the GOP frontrunner in the governor’s race.
Jay Bookman argues on his blog this morning that it would be best to keep the school superintendent elected so that the office would continue to be a power base to fight for what’s good for children. But it hasn’t worked that way with the current superintendent (who’s gone along with the big cuts to education); her predecessor actually won office by beating a better qualified bureaucrat who was a lousy politician — then she went to jail for abusing her office.
The thing is it’s difficult to imagine the switch to appointed positions passing in the last year of Perdue’s two terms. And the governor hasn’t exactly laid the groundwork for such a controversial reform to win approval from lawmakers — many of whom hope to run someday for those very offices.
The proposal has the feel of Sonny’s parting shot to the political class, which seems typical of the often unproductive way Perdue’s has handled his office. Part of the problem is that Perdue seldom exhibited the patience to build consensus for worthwhile policies.
But another part is that his own party has put him in a tough spot. By constantly ladling out tax cuts and other pandering portions of populism, Georgia Republicans have made it pretty much impossible to govern while sticking to supposed Republican “principles.”
At times, Perdue has served as a moderating, if grumpy influence on the all that posturing. That’s left him in the odd predicament of serving as Dr. No to some of his party’s stupider ideas, of going along with a few of them, and of occassionally flinging his own decent ideas out there — only not to lack the support to push for them effectively.
So while other states have worked to solve major problems like education, transportation and growth issues, Georgia has slipped further and further behind. Sadly, that will be Sonny Perdue’s legacy.
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Comments
2 Comments on What’s gotten into Sonny?
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Progressive Dem on
Wed, 10th Feb 2010 4:08 pm
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HistoryJoe on
Wed, 10th Feb 2010 5:33 pm
He seems to be throwing a hail Mary pass for salvation. Usually you only throw one, but when you are as desparate as Sonny to have accomplished something beyond building boat ramps, you just keep chucking. In addition to the aforementioned legislative proposals, the Guv is attemping to raid Lottery funds and water and sewer bond funds. The only possible winner is transportation, and that’s primarily because a lot of groups have pushing this for the past two years. In his address to the General Assembly he didn’t mention any of these proposals.
Sonny has wasted his opportunity. he will forever be remembered as the Go Fish Governor.
It’s interesting he didn’t mention making the State Surveyor an appointed position. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen on a ballot.
I’m not sure if it was something psychological (fear of looking dumb or something?) but I’ve never seen an executive with less leadership qualities than Sonny. It’s almost like he was sitting in a bunker somewhere for 8 years and only came out to pray once in a while. Hugely botched opportunity during the boom years. Tom Murphy passing when he did was a shame for many reasons.
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