Obama bill fight leads to walkout

ATLANTA --- Frustrated black lawmakers staged a walkout Friday after the Georgia House decided to delay another vote on a resolution that would have honored President Obama as a politician with an "unimpeachable reputation for integrity, vision and passion."

House Speaker Glenn Richardson said the decision to send the resolution to a committee did not "bury" the bill, but the move outraged black lawmakers, who walked out of the chamber seconds later. They saw it as an effort to snub the nation's first black president by a group of white Republican legislators.

"It drips with racism," said state Rep. Al Williams, a Midway Democrat who joined about two dozen black legislators outside the chamber.

The furor began Thursday when the Republican-controlled House voted 70-68 to reject the resolution, which would have made Mr. Obama an honorary member of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.

The measure was blocked by a group of House Republicans who said they were forced to vote it down because House Democrats refused to hash out a compromise over the resolution's wording.

State Rep. Austin Scott, the Tifton Republican who led the charge, said he took issue with language that said "no one could be more worthy of special honor and recognition by the members of this body and the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus than this extraordinary leader."

Mr. Scott, who is running for governor, said if Democrats had taken out the wording "by the members of this body" he would have accepted it.

State Rep. Keith Heard, the resolution's sponsor, said the wording was stock language that has appeared in countless other resolutions and was approved by the Legislature's attorneys.

He said he and his colleagues have often voted for such "privileged" resolutions they don't support, such as a 2005 resolution commending President George W. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, out of respect for the lawmaker supporting the measure.

"We've passed thousands of these resolutions with the same language," said Mr. Heard, D-Athens. "The language is very minor, but if it is so minor, why are we changing it?"

Mr. Richardson, R-Hiram, suggested it would be an easy fix.

"Two or three words can be changed and this matter can be voted on," he said. "It's a matter of less than five words that are objectionable."