With four minutes left, three votes kept Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, from achieving a yearlong effort to find more money for transportation.
An hour before midnight, he was almost manic: hair sweaty and hopes high as he and Rep. Vance Smith, R-Pine Mountain, signed a deal on creating a local 1 percent sales tax that regions could choose to fund transportation projects. The compromise sailed through the House only to fail in the Senate, by three votes — twice.
“We both failed to pull the issue across,” said Sen. Mullis, his eyes bleary from exhaustion and disappointment as colorful torn pieces of paper that used to be legislation fluttered through the air like confetti. “But it did lose in the Senate — I hate that.”
As predicted by Senate leadership, many things fell apart on the last day of the legislative session after the tax cuts did.
Just as the transportation leaders signed their deal, House Speaker Glenn Richardson declared tax reform dead and called Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle the murderer. Negotiators couldn’t find a middle ground between the House’s proposed car tag tax elimination and the Senate’s plan to trim the state income tax.
Most of the 18 “no” votes on Sen. Mullis’ transportation special purpose local option sales tax came from Republicans — including the two highest-ranking Republican leaders who voted.
“I can only imagine they wanted a tax cut before they voted for a transportation SPLOST,” Sen. Mullis said. “Policy lost and politics won.”
DEATH OF TAX REFORM
The dramatic defeat of the TSPLOST illustrated the frustration and disappointment with the end of the session where Republican leaders had promised so much, but so much failed in deadlock between chambers.
Asked what he thought of the session, Rep. John Meadows, RCalhoun, said “not much,” especially on tax reform. He blamed the failure “every bit on the Senate,” especially its leadership.
“If (the car tag tax elimination) could’ve gotten on the floor of the Senate, it would’ve passed,” he said, and predicted the tax reform stalemate will probably hurt some legislators up for re-election.
“We’re supposed to be the Republican Party,” he said. “... But we can’t get anything done.”
Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton, said he preferred the income tax cut all along because it began sooner and helped working Georgians.
“We weren’t able to agree (on tax cuts),” he said. “Maybe the downturn in the economy had something to do with that.”
Although a tax cut didn’t make it onto the ballot this election year, Rep. Martin Scott, R-Rossville, said he was proud of all the committee work and compromise that made it so lawmakers were discussing a tax cut and not a tax shift. He was referring to Speaker Richardson’s original plan to do away with all property taxes and replace the revenue with an expanded sales tax, which drew the ire of local governments and schools.
“We turned a tax increase into a tax cut with the work of a dozen or so committed conservatives,” Rep. Scott said.
STRAINED RELATIONS
Rep. Ron Forster, R-Ringgold, said in the final days of the session, when the tax cut posturing became most intense, he was asked by lawmakers in both chambers to prepare the impeachment charges he had filed against Lt. Gov. Cagle at the beginning of the session.
The impeachment charges claimed Lt. Gov. Cagle acted unconstitutionally by not taking up immediately 12 House overrides of Gov. Perdue’s vetoes on the first day of session.
The charges never got out of committee, even as Speaker Richardson attacked Lt. Gov. Cagle for not bringing the car tag tax elimination to a vote.
“Initially, I thought it was an honest mistake,” Rep. Forster said Lt. Gov. Cagle’s actions the first day of session. “Now I can see it’s political arrogance.”
In a statement at the session’s end, Lt. Gov. Cagle responded to the attacks by House leadership.
“It was my hope that we would come to an agreement on tax cuts and we came to the table, many times, in good faith ready to achieve true tax relief for Georgians,” he said in the statement. “It is unfortunate that those who were in the position to join us in providing tax relief were blinded by ego and unwilling to come to an agreement.”
TRANSPORTATION FUNDING STALLED
Many of the recommendations of a joint study committee co-chaired by Sen. Mullis this summer were accomplished this session, such as more legislative oversight of the Department of Transportation and urging of mass transit.
But none of them directly addressed the estimated $7.7 billion shortfall in transportation funding in the next seven years as the TSPLOST did.
“It was a great transportation year, but the finale lost,” Sen. Mullis said.
“I regret the transportation bill did not pass,” said Rep. Barbara Reece, D-Menlo, who gave Sen. Mullis her condolences minutes after the defeat of TSPLSOT. “A great deal of work went into that, and it’s not raising taxes,” she said, explaining regions that had a need would have had to convince voters to say yes on two referendums before the sales tax was raised.
TRAUMA CARE FALLS VICTIM
Without any tax reform measures to put before voters, a measure for a steady source of funding for the state’s struggling trauma care network also died.
Advocates hoped until the end a deal would be brokered, but House members made it clear they would not consider a $10 fee on vehicle registration without the bill on removing the car tag tax they originally passed.
Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton, said he was disappointed the $10 fee the Senate approved didn’t pass the House and that the House never passed his bill to require pickup drivers to wear seat belts while driving on state roads.
WATER WORRIES
The Legislature tried to accomplish one of its goals before the last day — water management — because the state faces record drought.
Both chambers passed a statewide water plan the first week of session in January, but by the 40th day, lawmakers outside the metro Atlanta area still worry the plan gives the existing metro Atlanta water district an advantage over the other regional water councils that are formed as a result of the plan.
Rep. Meadows, who is on the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee, said he remained “hopeful” legislators can come back next year and put in some more teeth to keep metro Atlanta in check.
“I want everyone playing on the same level,” he said.
Rep. Meadows said he thinks the reservoir measure is a valuable program that may help some water authorities in Northwest Georgia start building their own.
“It’s plan to help people do a little planning,” he said.
EDUCATION FUNDING PROGRESSES SLOWLY
The biggest stride made in education, which accounts for half of the state’s $21.2 billion budget, was the restoration of $50 million of $141 million cuts to the school funding formula, said Rep. Reece, a former educator.
“I felt like the budget greatly improved,” she said. “I’d like to see total elimination of austerity cuts.
Other than that, she said the best part about education legislation was what didn’t pass — a bill that would’ve provided vouchers for students in failing public schools to attend another public or private school.
Rep. Tom Dickson, R-Cohutta, another former educator who is on the Governor’s task force for education funding, said he hopes at some point the group can offer up a significant alternative formula to fund Georgia schools.
