<\/p>\n
Note, the below posted news article was followed up by an editorial:\u00a0Our view: Voters deserve to know – The Daily Citizen: Opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Leaving no record<\/strong><\/p>\n Charles Oliver<\/p>\n The Dalton Daily Citizen<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n October 21, 2015<\/p>\n Republicans have a supermajority in the state Senate, with 38 of 56 seats.<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t mean that conservatives have a supermajority, says D.A. King, president of the Dustin Inman Society, which opposes illegal immigration.<\/p>\n King, who spoke to a meeting of the Dalton Tea Party Tuesday night, pointed to a bill introduced earlier this year by Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, which would have denied Georgia driver\u2019s licenses to any illegal alien with a deportation waiver.<\/p>\n King noted that President Barack Obama\u2019s executive order providing temporary protection from deportation for illegal aliens who entered the United States before their 16th birthday and before June 2007 provided them with Social Security numbers and work permits, which in turn allows them to get Georgia driver\u2019s licenses or state IDs.<\/p>\n King said some 20,000 illegal aliens are eligible for Georgia licenses and that number would have increased by 170,000 if a federal court had not put a second administration deportation waiver on hold. McKoon then offered his bill as a floor amendment to a bill that had been passed by the state House of Representatives dealing with a separate driver\u2019s license issue. McKoon called for a roll call vote on his amendment, which would put all votes on the record.<\/p>\n \u201cHe needed five other senators to support him. Only four did,\u201d King said. \u201cHis amendment was then defeated by an unrecorded vote. There\u2019s no record of how any senator voted.\u201d<\/p>\n State Sen. Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, said in an interview on Wednesday he does not recall McKoon telling anyone in the Republican caucus meeting he would be offering the amendment.<\/p>\n \u201cGenerally, in our caucus meetings someone will announce \u2018I have an amendment\u2019 and talk about it. That didn\u2019t happen or if it did I wasn\u2019t there, and I\u2019m usually there for caucus meetings,\u201d he said. \u201cI knew what bills we would be voting for, but I wasn\u2019t aware that any amendment would be offered.\u201d<\/p>\n Consequently, Bethel was not on the floor of the Senate when McKoon offered the amendment.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the day that we had the vote on the autism bill (which mandated that insurance companies provide some coverage to children with autism), which I was the lead sponsor of. There were a number of media inquiries, so I stepped out to talk to reporters,\u201d Bethel said.<\/p>\n Bethel said when he stepped back into the chamber the vote on McKoon\u2019s amendment had already been taken. \u201cJosh has always been good to me, and if he\u2019d asked for a recorded vote on his issue, I expect I would have supported him,\u201d Bethel said. \u201cI didn\u2019t run (for office) not to vote. It doesn\u2019t bother me to have a recorded vote. But others may disagree. They may not want a record of their vote. But there could be other reasons. They may just want to keep things moving. They may believe the sponsor of the amendment or other issue has done something procedurally improper and they don\u2019t want to reward that person. I\u2019m not saying any of that happened because I wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n King said even those who aren\u2019t passionate about immigration issues should be concerned that the Senate regularly conducts business through such unrecorded votes.<\/p>\n Dalton Tea Party member Ed Painter said only the threat of being replaced will motivate elected officials to do what voters want.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, it isn\u2019t about who is the better person or better candidate. It\u2019s about what this person has done or hasn\u2019t done in office,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to be prepared to oppose someone who has been in there and hasn\u2019t done what we wanted. That\u2019s the only way we\u2019ll send a message.\u201d \u00a0HERE<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Note, the below posted news article was followed up by an editorial:\u00a0Our view: Voters deserve to know – The Daily Citizen: Opinion. Leaving no record Charles Oliver The Dalton Daily Citizen October 21, 2015 Republicans have a supermajority in the state Senate, with 38 of 56 seats. But that doesn\u2019t mean that conservatives have […]<\/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\/5482"}],"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=5482"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5495,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions\/5495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedustininmansociety.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMcKoon\u2019s bill \u201cwas not allowed even a single committee hearing in the Republican supermajority Senate,\u201d King told those attending the meeting.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBut what I heard from my colleagues and others is the same story (King told),\u201d he said. \u201cIt apparently wasn\u2019t a long debate because I only did a couple of interviews.\u201d
\nBethel said he generally supports recorded votes.<\/p>\n