by D.A. King | Apr 27, 2018 | The Forum<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s another race to watch: The Republican primary race for state Senate District 54 in the Dalton area has heated up over the topic of illegal immigration and the failed attempt at illegal alien driver\u2019s license reform in the 2018 legislative session.<\/p>\n
Scott Tidwell<\/p>\n Conservative political newcomer, Scott Tidwell<\/a>, a pastor and assistant funeral home director from Resaca has challenged Incumbent Senator Chuck Payne<\/a> and is apparently seeing increasing support in the North Georgia district.<\/p>\n Payne is under a barrage of fire for being one of two Republicans who voted<\/a> with the Democrats against Senator Josh McKoon\u2019s SB417<\/a> in a March Public Safety Committee hearing, which resulted in the bill\u2019s demise. The same language was then inserted into an already-passed House bill and offered for reconsideration in the same committee. This time, Payne was the only Republican to vote \u201cnay\u201d as it moved on but was never allowed out of Senator Jeff Mullis\u2019 Senate Rules committee.<\/p>\n McKoon also tried to amend the House distracted driving bill as it passed the senate with a greatly abbreviated version of his reform language but enough Republican senators wanted to pass a \u201cclean\u201d cell-phone bill to decline the floor amendment.<\/p>\n As can be seen on the official senate committee hearing video<\/a>, (00:39) Payne\u2019s apparent lack of full understanding of the bill and the territorial limits of state law had several watchers shaking their heads when he asked McKoon how, if passed, the Georgia law would be enforced \u201cout of state\u201d. Neither was it clear that first-term Senator Payne understood that the federal government operates the TSA airport security and decides what ID is acceptable for boarding airliners.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n State Sen. Chuck Payne<\/p>\n McKoon made it clear in his presentations that the goal was to end the practice of issuing the same driver\u2019s license to illegal aliens as are given to legal immigrants and guest workers here with temporary visas. He also explained that the proposed new driving document would only be good for driving privileges and would not be counted as an ID document for state or federal purposes and would be marked as such.<\/p>\n In 2016, a McKoon-sponsored bill with similar language sailed through the Georgia senate with thirty-seven Republican votes but was never allowed a hearing in the House. Among the \u201cyea\u201d votes was Payne\u2019s predecessor, former senator Charlie Bethel.<\/p>\n Payne\u2019s liberal position on illegal alien drivers licenses and his confusion seen in the now widely disseminated committee hearing video has not gone un-noted by conservative voters in his district. Neither has the fact that the president and CEO of the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce, Rob Bradham<\/a>, attended the Gold Dome hearing and testified against allowing the measure to move out of committee. Full disclosure: This writer testified at the same hearing in favor of the legislation.<\/p>\n Payne\u2019s remarks at a recent Dalton Daily Citizen newspaper candidate forum<\/a> in which he told challenger Tidwell \u201cyou were already a loser before you even came out of the gate\u201d<\/a> and that the legislation reforming the system by which illegal alien drivers licenses are issued was \u201cnot an immigration bill\u201d have cost Payne considerable conservative support.<\/p>\n Challenger Tidwell labels himself a \u201ctrue conservative\u201d and makes it clear that he would have voted for McKoon\u2019s driver\u2019s license reform bill. He says, \u201cthe illegal alien problem is threatening the economic state of Georgia.\u201d<\/p>\n Some estimates have put the annual cost of illegal immigration to Georgia taxpayers at $2.4 billion<\/a>. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than Arizona.<\/p>\n Payne told the audience that \u201cGeorgia doesn\u2019t deal in immigration\u201d and that the state \u201cdoesn\u2019t have immigration laws\u201d \u2013 apparently unaware of the numerous state laws put in place on illegal immigration since 2006 \u2013 including E-Verify, public benefits protections and \u2018sanctuary cities\u2019 laws \u2013 and 2011\u2019s internationally publicized HB 87.<\/a><\/p>\n You read it here first.<\/p>\n D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Insider Advantage Georgia Dalton GOP Sen. Payne Faces Primary Challenger From His Right by D.A. King | Apr 27, 2018 | The Forum Here\u2019s another race to watch: The Republican primary race for state Senate District 54 in the Dalton area has heated up over the topic of illegal immigration and the failed attempt at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11944"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14775,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11944\/revisions\/14775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tidwell.jpg\")
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