My attention was drawn to this comment from Lawton Sack, Chairman of GA-GOP’s 12th District:
- Rep. Lee Anderson was elected as our Republican nominee for GA-12 on Tuesday night. There already seems to be an air of defeat permeating this race against Barrow. Some people are publicly and privately saying that Lee cannot beat Barrow. I have had some tell me that they will be voting for Barrow instead of Lee. I believe strongly and sincerely that Lee can win this election, and I cannot and will not give up without a fight. I have lived under Barrow for almost 8 years, and I am tired of his duplicity and his non-leadership. Barrow is not the right answer for GA-12. I kindly ask that each of you, our Republican leaders and activists in GA-12, to please not add any fuel to the pessimism. If you choose not to support our nominee, that is your right and prerogative. I simply ask that you please not make the battle more difficult for those that choose to fight on.–Lawton Sack, GA-12 GAGOP Chair
Now, as y’all probably know, I’ve spent a good amount of time over the past four years – since Anderson was first elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 2008 – watching the Georgia General Assembly quite closely. And honestly, Anderson’s name was never a factor in my conversations with fairly high ranking sources in the Assembly, no matter the issue. But I decided to use the power of LEGIS to do some research into Rep Anderson’s “leadership”, and here’s what I found:
Per his biography page, as of the 2011-2012 session of the Assembly, Rep Anderson’s highest ranking position is as the third ranking official (Secretary) of the Intragovernmental Affairs committee. He has no other leadership positions in the Assembly – meaning Speaker Ralston and the other genuine leaders in the Ga House of Representatives don’t consider the man a leader at all, else he would be given more prominent positions, particularly given the turnover of the last couple of years.
But let’s also look at his legislative record, shall we?
Rep Anderson has had his name attached to 40 bills in the 2009-2010 session, his Freshman term. Of those bills:
- 15 were statewide House legislation
- 2 were local legislation dealing with the City of Harlem and Columbia County
- 2 were Senate bills that he was the House sponsor of (SB 6 and SB 456)
- 16 were various commendation resolutions
- 2 were resolutions supporting development of Ga’s energy resourcese
- 1 was a resolution honorting China Day at the Capitol
- 1 was a resolution recognizing Burn Week
- 1 was a resolution creating the House Study Committee on Property Law Modernization and Standardization
Of those 40 pieces of legislation, Rep Anderson himself introduced just 1/4 of them – 7 bills (HB 196, HB 440, HB 453, HB 630, HB 723, HB 975, and HB 1253) and 3 commending resolutions (HR 1656, HR 1766, HR 1940).
Of the 7 bills Rep Anderson introduced himself, 4 (HB 440, HB 453, HB 630, HB 723) became law – though half of those were the 2 pieces of local legislation he had introduced. Of the rest of the House bills that Rep Anderson co-sponsored, only 4 became law: HB 93, HB 156, HB 529, HB 1206. Of these four, Anderson was the primary co-sponsor on half of them.
For comparison purposes on the numbers above, there were nearly 6100 pieces of legislation introduced in that session, with 1527 of them being House Bills, 552 Senate Bills, 2340 House Resolutions, and the remainder of them Senate Resolutions.
In Rep Anderson’s sophomore term, the 2011-2012 session, here is the breakdown of his 55 total bills:
- 38 were commendation resolutions
- 7 were statewide House legislation
- 5 were local redistricting bills
- 1 was a local bill to provide term limits for the Columbia County Board of Commissioners
- 1 was a resolution supporting the modernization of the Federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (HR 381)
- 1 was a resolution urging the US Dept of Labor to repeal certain proposed policies (HR 1561)
- 1 was a resolution urging the US Dept of Community Affairs to adopt amendments to the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (HR 1948)
- 1 was a dedication resolution
Of these 55 pieces of legislation, Rep Anderson introduced just 2 of the bills (HB 1179 and HB 1180, both redistricting bills regarding Lincoln County) himself, though he introduced 34 of the commendation resolutions himself.
All of Rep Anderson’s redistricting bills became law, as did his bill term limiting Columbia County Commissioners and 5 (HB 198, HB 274, HB 280, HB 485, HB 928) of his 7 Statewide bills.
For comparison with the above numbers, there were 5423 total pieces of legislation introduced in the 2011-2012 session, with 1311 of them being House Bills, 2201 of them being House Resolutions, 540 were Senate Bills, and the remainder were Senate Resolutions.
Thus, as Rep Anderson’s record clearly shows, he is hardly a leader – he has not held any position of any real importance on any major committee, and while he has had a few bills passed, 2/3 (4 of 6) of the bills he had passed that he had introduced himself were local legislation of no statewide importance.
I’ll leave it to the reader to interpret the benefit/detriment of the bills that did get passed with his name on them for themselves.
For anyone who would like to look at exactly what I have looked at on their own, please feel free to go to LEGIS. To find Rep Anderson’s information, simply use the Session drop down box to search for either the 2009-2010 Regular Session or the 2011-2012 Regular Session, then for the Member drop down select “Anderson, Lee”. All of what I have now shown will come up for you to look at the legislation at your leisure.***
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