With the departure of Glenn Richardson, after he gobbles up several more thousand tax dollars to sit on his rear and do nothing through the end of the month, and now with Mark Burkhalter saying he is interested isn’t interested is interested in the GWCC Executive Director position, it seems that Majority Leader Jerry Keen is left with the potential to endure this crisis with little damage. But should he be so fortunate or must he show true leadership and allow a complete “clean sweep” with regard to Georgia House leadership?
A quick review of lobbyist contribution reports from the State Ethics Commission show he has certainly been the recipient of many “gifts” over the last five years he has been Majority Leader. And acceptance of these “gifts” is not in violation of current ethics rules. But the fact that the total sum of contributions is on par with Richardson and Burkhalter is indicative of the “culture” that he allowed to develop while he was a member of the leadership.
Buzz asks here if “Keen and Burkhalter stay put does that solve the GOP’s image problem?” No, it does not. The “command and control economy” method of leadership which has been exercised these last few years is one that is not fixed by simply changing one or two wheels in the proverbial machine. Indeed, the entire machine must be replaced. Assuming Burkhalter does get the 400K dollar gig with the GWCC, that will leave Keen as the last reminder of a failed period of leadership. For the good of the caucus, Keen needs to announce within the week that he, too, will resign as Majority Leader. If he wants to place his name into consideration for the position, again, that would be acceptable, but with so many changes developing daily, the caucus needs to be able to have the option and opportunity to make a total and complete break with recent dysfunction.
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Good post Pete. I have come around to the thinking that Keen must leave as well.
Do you really believe that the new team, if there is one- would not take money from lobbyists- are you all really that naive?
New leadership + tighter ethics rules = the solution to the current mess.
Yes, tighter ethics rules will keep legislators from “doing” lobbyists.
I really doubt it’ll keep them from “doing” us, though. The current crowd of pols seems to be making “doing” us a performance art.
Do you mean “doing” the voters or “doing” the lobbyists.
Ok, now you confused me confusing you.
I guess it’s a question of speaking literally or figuratively.
I was speaking figuratively, although if you look at the effect, it can seem quite literal.
New Olympic Event … the DoingUs.
A combination of the javelin catch, the shot put toss, the balance beam straddle, and the vault horse dismount.
Not a team event at this time. There is a couples bracket with extra points to same gendered couples.
Soon to be an online fantasy sport via Snicker.
LOL
The group are really feel sorry for are the good looking, female lobbyists. I fear they could face discrimination.
Keen needs to go because he is scum. He is and has been a large part of the Republican leadership problem. Do you know that about 3 1/2 years ago, he re-drew the lines of his District and didn’t even tell his constituents what he was doing. I used to live in his District and he was on a local talk radio show (Straight Talk) and didn’t say a word about his bill to re-draw our District. Roger Lane one county over was on Straight Talk about two days later and told everyone that he and Jerry Keen re-drew their Districts and the vote would take place the following week! No lie. People of Glynn County were Shocked! Jerry came on a couple of days later and explained he wasn’t hiding anything, no big deal……. He was just taking more of one part of Glynn County from Roger Lane and giving Roger more of the City of Brunswick.
Jerry Keen didn’t feel we peasant needed to know about this minor issue of re-drawing our District.
Debra
I think he is probably not straight forward for doing that but not scum.
I am sure he is probably scum for much worse stuff
You are so right about that. I could give you some real juicy facts about Jerry, but I won’t. If you go by Beachbum, there is a good chance you live in Glynn County and know as much about Jerry as I do. He is Scum. Period.
Jerry Keen should be replaced. He was once chair of the Christian Coalition in Georgia and the values he promoted were then tolerated when he became Majority Leader.
If Jerry were scum he would have been challenged or removed
The answer to that is to see what happens on the first day of the session. That will be very interesting.
Oh really!
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