Barnes: "Reluctant candidate" for governor

Alan Mauldin The Moultrie Observer

MOULTRIE — When Roy Barnes was seeking re-election to a second term in 2002, his return to the governor’s mansion seemed a sure thing.

Barnes and political pundits were stunned by his loss to Gov. Sonny Perdue. Perdue, who will leave office in January, won 51.4 of the vote that year in an election in which Libertarian candidate Gary Hayes garnered 2.3 percent of ballots.

After being out of office for eight years, Barnes, a Democrat, said he is reluctantly running again.

“My campaign resulted as a reluctant candidate where I am concerned about where the state is going, particularly in education, economic development, and the direction our rural economic development process,” he said. “One thing we need to do is straighten out our financial state. This is the first time we’ve furloughed teachers. That’s the reason I’m running.”

On the issue of rural development, Barnes said that OneGeorgia Authority funds earmarked for economic projects have “been raided to put into the general fund, (and) not kept in for 71 counties as originally intended.” Some of the funds also have been used in projects in wealthier counties in the Atlanta area.

OneGeorgia was established in 2000, with the state placing a third of tobacco settlement funds paid by tobacco companies into a fund to assist the state’s rural counties with economic development.

Barnes said he also is concerned about the cuts to public safety, including the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime laboratory in Moultrie, mental health and education. Since the time of the interview Perdue agreed to restore funding to keep the Columbus and Moultrie GBI labs open and for renovations at the Moultrie facility. Community mental health services were drastically cut in Colquitt County last year, with patients now having to travel to Pelham and Thomasville for services they formerly received in Moultrie.

“If a state cuts education and crime prevention, then the priorities are skewed, and that’s what they’re doing,” Barnes said. “Something’s wrong here. We’re not providing the very services a state government has to provide. We’re overburdening local governments.”

Barnes said he would set as his priorities education, specifically improving direct instruction in classrooms, providing sufficient funding for mental health and law enforcement, and finding funds to pay for those expenditures without reinstating regressive taxes such as sales taxes on groceries.

One example of the latter is making sure that businesses collect and remit to the state the existing sales taxes.

A pilot project in Hall County, for example, determined that a number of businesses were not registered for tax purposes, and it is estimated that enforcing existing law statewide could bring in $5 billion a year in sales taxes.

“We have to address all issues of mental health and law enforcement, and we have to stop allowing every special interest to have a tax break,” Barnes said. “For example, there’s almost 200 exemptions from sales tax that do not benefit us as a whole. I think that (sales tax on food) ought to be a last resort.”

At that same time the state eliminated a homeowners tax grant, which cost the state $486 million a year, it gave health insurance companies an $180 million tax break, Barnes said.

“They (homeowners) are getting squeezed,” he said. “Those who can afford a lobbyist, they’re getting taken care of.”

Asked about the change in the state flag that brought a backlash from some voters, Barnes said it was an issue that needed to be addressed at that time for economic development reasons.

“I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to go through that process again. It came up on my watch. Whether I was right or wrong, I did what I thought was right. The people had a right to disagree with me.”

University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock said that Barnes also angered teachers, which along with the flag flap helped contribute to his defeat.

As governor, Barnes was instrumental in pushing through legislation ending teacher tenure.

A redistricting plan that split many of the state’s small counties also was a factor, Bullock said.

This year, Barnes appears to have the best chance of any Democrat in a state that has trended Republican since the 2002 election year, in which incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland lost to Saxby Chambliss, Bullock said.

“My thinking is the Democrats will pull out all the stops for that race,” he said.

 Barnes is one of five Democratic gubernatorial candidates who will be on the ballot Tuesday, including Attorney General Thurbert Baker and David Poythress, a former secretary of state and labor commissioner.

Democrats are in the same position Republicans were in during the 1980s and 1990s, when as the minority party they concentrated efforts in the prestigious governor’s position, Bullock said. There also is a pragmatic reason for Democrats to win the governorship this year.

“In 2011 they’re doing redistricting,” he said. “If the Democrats don’t win the governorship, they don’t have any say over how the districts are drawn.”





 

Text Only