5th UPDATE
Dems Help Pass Statewide Transportation Plan In House

5th Update at 4:37 p.m. adds Smith comment. New material highlighted.
4th Update at 2:44 p.m. shows package clearing House with ease.
3rd Update at 11:20 a.m. adds House Rules Committee action.
2nd Update at 10:45 a.m. adds new developments.
Update at 9:45 a.m. rewrites throughout with later material

(3/3/09) A 1 percent statewide sales tax for transportation cleared the House with ease on Tuesday after Republicans cut a deal with Democrats that ensured the proposal would garner the two-thirds vote majority necessary for it to pass.

The proposed constitutional amendment, to be voted on at the November 2010 ballot, needed 120 votes to pass, and easily cleared that mark 151-15. It now goes to the Senate, which prefers and has passed a counter proposal to allow regions to propose and seek to pass local option sales taxes for transportation.

Tuesday's vote marked the first time in the two-year struggle to pass a new transportation funding mechanism by the Legislature that the statewide concept, backed strongly by House leaders, had come to a vote. Last session, a similar measure also was proposed but GOP leaders lacked the votes and did not put it to the floor.

Now, House and Senate leaders are positioned to try to determine anew if they can settle the long-standing debate over whether to pass the House-preferred statewide sales tax or the Senate-favored local option, regional approach.

The day began with Rep. Vance Smith's transportation package being sent back to the Rules Committee for the approval of three amendments that proved critical to attracting Democrat support.

(Republicans hold 105 seats in the lower chamber but need Democratic help to reach the 120 mark.)

The amendments approved by committee and ultimately on the floor:

* Shift the fourth penny of the sales tax on gasoline from the general treasury, where it can be spent for anything, to transportation needs, where the other three pennies now go. Democrats insisted on the same provision last year in voting for a transportation funding bill that never made it to the finish line.

* Guarantee that the minority party will have at least two members on the 11-member oversight committee charged with seeing that the increased sales tax money - if approved by voters in 2010 - is spent on the projects specified in the enabling legislation.

* Stipulate that the money from the increased sales tax will go to whichever state agency is officially recognized by the federal government to receive federal highways funds. That’s important because the Department of Transportation currently is so designated. Legislation proposed by Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Speaker Glenn Richardson would create a new super agency to handle transportation planning and funding. Democrats don’t support the makeover bill.

As the floor debate opened, HB 277, the enabling legislation, was called first. Smith opened by explaining the legislation and then was succeeded by the House's top Democrats, Rep. Calvin Smyre and Rep. DuBose Porter.

"This is the year for us to pass something on transportation," said Smyre. Porter was even more effusive: "If we're going to move forward, we've got to do something bigger and bolder and better than we had last year, and that's what this bill does."

HB 277 passed 149-18 after less than an hour of floor time. The constitutional amendment, HR 206, passed moments later.

"For too long, the state has approached transportation funding with little regard for a comprehensive, statewide funding plan,” Smith said following the vote. “After passing this act today with such broad, bi-partisan support, we are one step closer to putting this proposal before the voters for their approval in 2010, and finally addressing Georgia’s statewide transportation needs.”

Meanwhile, the fate of any tax bill this session - either the House’s statewide sales tax increase or the rival plan from the Senate to allow local option sales tax hikes for transportation - may well depend on the plan by Perdue, Cagle and Richardson to makeover the transportation system. The governor has said he won’t support any tax increase until the governance bill has been passed, and his desire for the bill has only increased since the DOT board last week fired his hand-picked DOT Commissioner, Gena Evans.

The chances for that measure have seemed tenuous, given that lawmakers now choose DOT board members, and those DOT board members make transportation policy. Lawmakers would not choose members of the proposed new State Transportation Authority. Rather, they would be named by the governor, lieutenant governor and House Speaker.

While Perdue and Cagle are adamantly supportive of the governance change, Richardson’s position is the subject of endless speculation in the hallways. While there is no public sign that he has grown less supportive since the upheaval at DOT last week opened new opportunities for control of the existing DOT, Capitol watchers are keeping a close eye on how the makeover bill is handled in the House. It is expected to pass the Senate this week.