Tibbetts, Scott trade comments on disclaimer bill

By Angie Thompson/senior reporter

TIFTON — The passing of legislation that allows politicians, special interest groups and others to mail campaign literature to the public and remain anonymous is a sore spot with Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) and his Democratic opposition, John Tibbetts, also of Tifton.

Tibbetts said Friday that Scott, who co-sponsored the bill, primarily as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, “had every opportunity to change that and send it back to the Senate.”

“He (Scott) played this off as dirty politics by the Senate,” Tibbetts said. “If he’s not responsible for the legislation, I don’t know who is.”

“I should have caught the change, but as it is, we’ll go back in the next legislative session and add it back to the ethics code,” Scott said. “I fully intend to comply with the disclosure rules as they were prior to the legislation being signed and I hope other candidates will as well.”

House Bill 1112 was passed on the last day of the 2008 legislative session and went into effect July 1. Under the law, candidates for state and local offices and other groups can now send out literature anonymously and be immune to liability. The legislation, originally dubbed as routine, originated with the Secretary of State’s office and was presented to clarify and simplify parts of the state’s election code.

Senator John Wiles (R-Marietta) the chairman of the Senate committee dealing with the bill, struck the section that moved the issue to the ethics commission. An article in the Atlanta Constitution stated that Wiles contends the mandated disclosure of the person or group responsible for mailing is unconstitutional.

In that election code was a section that stated, in part, “No person shall distribute, circulate, disseminate, or publish or cause to be distributed...any literature in connection with any political campaign for any public office or question unless such literature shall bear the name and address of the person or organization...” doing so.

Wiles was stated by the AJC as saying, “I believe those in office and those running for office should not be afraid of an anonymous attack. The public is smart enough to judge who is making the attack, and if they don’t know who is making the attack, the public usually discounts anonymous attacks.”

According to copies of legislation furnished by Scott Monday, the House’s version of the bill didn’t address the section dealing with disclosure at all.

“It was intended by the Secretary of State’s office to move the section to the State’s ethics code in the law,” Scott said Monday.

Scott said Handell’s version of the bill presented to the Senate had the section deleted from its original location and reinserted in a later section of the bill, in its entirety.

“The Senate, at the last minute, struck the section of the legislation and the end result is that the language was deleted,” Scott said.

“You rely on people who own the legislation to shepherd it and notice and announce that the Senate has added a poison pill,” Tibbetts said.

The House approved the version of the legislation that omitted the disclosure section entirely by a vote of 143-1.

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