News - Eric Johnson

Now we know how our Senate president pro tem spent his summer. It takes time and effort to come up with a recipe for craven legislative pandering such as he unveiled last week.

Let’s imagine Johnson’s thought process: “Hmm, should I introduce a bill establishing air as the official respiration medium for the great, sovereign state of Georgia? Naw, too obvious. How about a resolution honoring all Southern mothers for giving us the precious gift of life? Naw, too sappy. Wait, I know! I’ll promote a constitutional amendment guaranteeing our right to hunt and fish in Georgia!”

We shit you not. This is what Johnson, R(what else?)-Savannah, apparently considers urgent legislation — even though his own self-congratulatory press release concedes that hunting and fishing are not under any perceptible threat.

To follow his logic, since there may be a couple of liberal pansy types out there who would prefer that folks not participate in these manly sports, he will take steps to ensure Georgians’ continued right to go out in the woods and kill things. Kiss my bass, vegan!

Actually, if pointless legislation were all Johnson had in mind, this bill would simply be an embarrassment. However, the purported desire to protect hunting rights is but a smokescreen for a more insidious, deeply cynical ploy to elect more Republicans.

You see, voters must approve proposed constitutional amendments. So adding this item to the November ballot will, Johnson obviously believes, bring to the polls many of the redneck yahoos and possum-eatin’ mountain folk who might otherwise have stayed in their double-wides. And, since these people inexplicably tend to vote Republican, that means more votes for George W. and the rest of the GOP ticket.

Let’s see: helping re-elect the president, pleasing the gun lobby and scoring some big-time pandering points along the way. For Johnson, this bill truly is, in every possible meaning of the term, a no-brainer.