During Thursday’s flurry of General Assembly maneuvering before a midnight deadline, several under-reported events occurred in the last couple of hours. Consider the death of Senate Bill 127.
S.B. 127 offered avenues for incumbent candidates who file late campaign finance disclosures to seek a waiver of the resulting fines. It also required national issue advocacy organizations to file disclosures regarding how they spent their funds, and where they got said funds. This provision was loudly opposed by almost 20 conservative groups and naturally raised First Amendment concerns. Furthermore, a provision was later inserted by Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, to trim the voting period from 21 to 12 days before an election day (with only four hours for voting on just one Sunday).
The House passed SB 127 with the campaign finance, organization disclosures and early-voting language. But when it ended up back in the Senate, legislators in that chamber refused to accept it.
The main bone of contention involved the restrictions and disclosure of donors by the political organizations— especially since House Speaker David Ralston, R- Blue Ridge, and some other House members had been involved in a bitter dispute with the Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform. That’s the “no new tax pledge” organization founded by Grover Norquist that opposed the transportation tax hike bill that ultimately passed.
A House-Senate conference committee was formed to work on a compromise, but it was never meant to be. During the session’s waning hours witnesses say Speaker Ralston had heated but unsuccessful discussions over SB 127 with Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and other Senate GOP leaders.
During the final hours, too, the League of Women Voters of Georgia and other organizations lobbied to convince senators that it would be a mistake to further reduce early voting days. (In 2011, the Legislature had reduced early voting from 45 days to 21.)
Be assured, though, that SB 127 will be back again before legislators next January. There is a high probability that the same battles over the same provisions will be waged again.
