Recent editorials from Georgia newspapers:
___
May 17
The Newnan Times-Herald on why the Georgia legislature should keep regulations from blocking legislation:
Fortunately, it didn’t take the Georgia Supreme Court as long as it took the General Assembly in deciding to cut the government red tape that was blocking the innovative ride-sharing business.
The legislature dithered over how to open the door to companies like Lyft and Uber. There were countless hearings, dozens of lobbyists on both sides of the issue, and untold hand-wringing moments the two years before the lawmakers passed a bill in 2015. Wisely, Gov. Nathan Deal signed it into law.
The gist of it was to prohibit cities and counties from enacting new ordinances that would keep out ride-sharing companies. For Atlanta, that meant that the taxicabs that have city-issued medallions would no longer be protected from competition. While that city had not issued all of the 1,600 medallions it was limited to, it still had said no one could operate a “vehicle for hire” without one.
Atlanta council members were trying to be pro-business 20 years ago when they enacted their medallion rules. As a convention city, it is bad for business when tourists seek a taxi and find it dirty, unsafe and operated by a driver intent on fleecing customers. Requiring medallions empowered the city to inspect cabs and to withdraw the medallions of those that were substandard.
What changed is technology. Companies like Lyft and Uber now have the means to impose their own customer-service standards and better ways of getting substandard drivers and vehicles off the roads. That’s one reason customers are flocking to them.
A group of Atlanta taxi drivers sued to stop the law, arguing that it took away some of their livelihoods by eliminating their oligopoly. Justice Carol Hunstein in the court’s decision quoted a 130-year-old ruling from her predecessors that said essentially, “lump it.”
“Rarely, perhaps, does any new law which acts with vigor upon commerce, local or general, fail to impair the value of more or less property,” the court decided in an 1887 suit out of Atlanta.
No one should be guaranteed a safeguard from the competition that new technology can bring. Successful companies react by boosting their own customer service. Fortunately, all three branches of Georgia’s government have now affirmed that and held open the door for new innovation to benefit consumers.
Online: https://times-herald.com/
___
May 21
The Gainesville Times on rehab and the “war on drugs:”
As attorney general seeks tougher crackdown on offenders, diversion efforts succeed in Hall, state
In retrospect, the nation’s “War on Drugs” from decades past turned out in some ways to be like the earlier conflict in Vietnam: A lot of resources spent and lives lost with very little gained but a perpetual stalemate. That campaign proved to be ineffective in battling the problem, though wildly successful at filling prisons nationwide.
The specter of that effort was dug up last week when Attorney General Jeff Sessions moved to seek maximum charges from prosecutors for federal drug offenses, overturning an Obama Administration initiative to avoid “mandatory minimum” penalties in cases that involve nonviolent offenders.
Sessions’ move touched off reaction from supporters and detractors, some applauding a “get tough” throwback to the 1980s, others fearing a return to lengthier prison stints for more offenders.
The goal of the Obama policy was to give judges discretion to direct drug offenders into treatment or lighter penalties when prosecutors seek lesser charges. That would target the true kingpins of the drug trade rather than users or low-level dealers. Of the nation’s 188,000-plus prisoners, 46 percent are in for drug offenses. Many are a true danger to society, but not all, a distinction that needs to be made.
But to assume the feds are looking to lock up everyone caught with a few ounces of marijuana or crack cocaine misses a key point. Federal drug cases usually involve more heinous crimes and harsher sentences than those handled by state and local courts. U.S. law enforcement agencies tend to target high-volume traffickers, the kind of offenders not likely to be rehabilitated by diversion programs.
That said, the idea of steering many toward rehab instead of prison remains a valid option for those who need help, not a locked cell. Filling prisons with nonviolent offenders takes away any hope of a productive life, turns many into career lawbreakers and disproportionately affects African-Americans and other minorities. It leaves kids without fathers and mothers, often starting their lives on the wrong path. And maintaining prisons and their staff, plus the care and feeding of those housed there, doesn’t come cheaply for taxpayers.
Nationwide and closer to home, many leaders of both parties agree and have created models worth emulating.
Some 15 years ago, Superior Court Judge John Girardeau began Hall County’s first Drug Court. The program took first-time offenders, many of them teens, and directed them to treatment instead of prison. Over a two-year period, participants are tested to keep them clean while they perform community service and undergo counseling. As of last year, more than 600 had graduated into productive lives while supporting themselves in a program that costs a fraction of imprisonment.
Now managed by Judge Jason Deal, Hall’s program spawned other judicial efforts to help nonviolent offenders blend back into society. The success stories restore belief that redemption and rehabilitation are worth the effort.
The goal isn’t to be soft on those who head up trafficking efforts, or anyone who commits or threatens violent acts in the drug trade, but rather those who have hurt no one but themselves and need a way out.
“A lot of what we’re dealing with in Georgia is people charged with low-level offenses like possession, and those are the folks we’re trying to divert in Drug Court,” Deal said Friday.
Another Republican took notice and decided to spread the idea statewide. Gov. Nathan Deal, father of the judge and a former prosecutor, applied the idea to his justice reform agenda to limit the state’s prison population to hardened criminals and steer others into “accountability courts.” The state now has 139 such courts in 47 out of its 49 judicial circuits, with the number of new participants up 147 percent last year.
In 2009, 58 percent of Georgia prison beds were occupied by the most serious offenders; that’s now 67 percent. Meanwhile the percentages of African-American men and juveniles incarcerated are down.
Such a policy also could apply to the nation’s growing opioid epidemic, which has ruined thousands of lives. Many lawmakers and governors now prefer to approach drug addiction as a disease, not a crime.
“We should treat our nation’s drug epidemic as a health crisis and less as a ’lock ’em up and throw away the key’ problem,” said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, whose state is among the hardest hit by the opioid crisis.
“For people who were addicts, that’s an illness, and addicts needed treatment beds, and professional drug dealers needed prison beds,” said former U.S. Attorney Kerry Harvey, a federal prosecutor in Kentucky.
Sessions and federal officials should recognize that distinction. Both prosecutors and judges should have discretion to take each case on its merits and determine whether rehabilitation or prison are the best alternatives. The more rigid their parameters, the more likely prisons will overflow with those who don’t need to be there. That space should be reserved for major dealers and violent offenders who should face the full brunt of the law.
It’s also time to acknowledge the failure of the “war on drugs” as an expensive mistake that incarcerated thousands needlessly as a panacea for a human problem much more complicated to solve than slamming a cell door.
And it’s another case where politicians at the national level can learn from leaders at the state and local levels who have ideas that have been proven to work.
Online: https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/
___
May 21
The Dalton Daily Citizen on the reopening of Interstate 85 in Atlanta:
“This is a day of celebration,” our normally staid Gov. Nathan Deal said at a press conference to announce the surprisingly early reopening of Interstate 85 in Atlanta.
“It demonstrates the can-do attitude Georgia has,” he added, a statement that reflects the effective collaboration that occurred when the public and private sectors worked together to fix a major problem.
That problem was a transportation debacle that flared up on March 30 when a fire caused an overpass on I-85 in the Buckhead area to collapse. The fire reportedly was set by a homeless man and spread to construction materials that the Georgia Department of Transportation stored under the bridge.
The fire left a hole in the heart of Atlanta that was 350 feet long on both the northbound and southbound lanes.
News reports from that time predicted gloom and doom for weeks and months ahead as this road closure was sure to have a terrible impact on Atlanta’s already heavily congested road system.
Instead, the road officially opened a week ago, at least a full month ahead of the original June 15 deadline.
There are several reasons for the early completion. Kudos go to contractor C.W. Matthews, which had crews working round the clock since the collapse. The fact that the state dangled up to $3.1 million in incentives for finishing early was a great motive. The construction process was sped up by the fact that there was only one full day lost due to rain, according to Russell McMurry, Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) commissioner, who also deserves praise for coordinating the repair efforts.
GDOT has said the project will cost up to $16.6 million, including incentives. The federal government is expected to pay at least 90 percent of the cost of rebuilding the bridge, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
While the rebuilding was going on, traffic did keep flowing through our state’s capital as commuters found other routes, and other means, to get where they needed to go. The city’s public transit system, MARTA, reportedly stepped up its services and usage climbed. Now that I-85 has reopened, the system may see a slip in passenger numbers, but maybe new riders have found they prefer to avoid gridlock.
The rebuilding project has been a model of private and public sectors working together, and a part of that model we probably need to replicate are the incentives, some kind of financial reward for companies that come in on time and under budget, and not just on emergency projects, so we can get more cost-effective work done out of the private sector.
Now we need to encourage the state to stop storing piles of kindling under overpasses, or at least have the areas secured.
Online: https://www.daltondailycitizen.com/
Please read our comment policy before commenting.