Quick Poll

Do you give annually to the Coweta Can-A-Thon?

Related Story

Blogs

Angela McRae

Tea with friends

Deberah Williams

Everyday Finesse

Lorrie Lynch

Who's News

Published Sunday, September 21, 2008 in Local

Aaron believes she can do a better job

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

Democrat Betty Aaron of Palmetto is challenging state Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, because she thinks she can do a better job.

Aaron, who represented DeKalb County in the Georgia House from 1980 to 1990, didn't have any plans to get back into politics -- until the 2008 General Assembly session.

A friend who served with Aaron, representing Fulton County, asked her why she didn't challenge Seabaugh.

"I said I've been there, done that," Aaron said. "But when the paper started coming out with all these things that they did and didn't do in the session, I just got mad.

"And I know that I can do better."

The number one thing that convinced Aaron was Seabaugh's vote against Senate Resolution 845, which would have allowed regions to band together and implement a 1 percent sales tax for transportation projects.

The plan, which took the form of a constitutional amendment, failed by three votes in the final minutes of the session. If it had received the two-thirds majority needed, it would have been on the ballot for voters this fall.

"I always voted to let the people vote on an important referendum," Aaron said. "When he voted against letting his constituents vote on transportation, on whether to tax themselves or not to, that made me so mad," she said.

After that, she started digging deeper into Seabaugh's record.

"Then I found out that he voted for the insurance bill to let them change their rates any time they want to. He just did a lot of things that I would have done differently."

Traffic in Atlanta has become horrible, and "I think it is going to hold us down," Aaron said. Large companies are going to other cities such as Charlotte, N.C. Charlotte already has a commuter rail system.

"We tried to do it in the '80s," Aaron said. At that time, folks who didn't live in the city wouldn't vote for things like that. "If they just would have realized that the way Atlanta goes, so goes Macon and every other town."

The Georgia General Assembly hasn't responded to the foreclosure crisis, Aaron said. "I hate to point it out, but it may be because nearly a third of its members has ties to banking and financial institutions."

"I was disappointed, too, that they didn't get anything done with the trauma care network," Aaron said of Georgia's legislators in 2008. "I don't think people understand -- if you're not right in Atlanta and something happens, you may not live," she said. "We need that network all over the state."

Aaron said Georgia lost out on $20 million in federal money for the trauma network by not acting.

When it comes to education, Aaron is concerned that some colleges and high schools are putting more emphasis on athletics than teaching.

Aaron said she heard Georgia's state Republican Party chairman say that, in her opinion, "there would be a great exodus of Democrats leaving Congress in the coming years because they'll make such a mess that their constituents would vote them right out of office."

"I would change one word in that," Aaron said. "I would change Democrats to Republicans."

Aaron said she has been "kind of a rebel all my life."

She's getting too old to be a rebel now, but "I think things need to be done right. I think when people vote for you, if you tell them something, you ought to do your damnedest to do it for them.

"I was that way when I spent the 10 years in the House, and I'm going to be that way when I go to the Senate," she said. "I want to be a senator that people can trust, and call if they need me."

In 1980, Aaron defeated a sitting representative. When she first started out, she asked the speaker to put her on the insurance committee, and "I went charging down there on my white horse." But just about everyone on the committee was in the insurance industry, and "we couldn't get anything out of that committee," Aaron said. "It was very hopeless. And there is a lot of hopeless stuff up there."

Aaron doesn't tell voters what she will do. "I might say I'm going to try to do so and so," she said. "A lot of times you get backed up against the wall and the good old boys don't let you do it."

Even so, "we got a lot of good stuff done, and it really hurts me a lot to see a lot of the things that we got passed and the things that we did as Democrats, and the Republicans have gone down there and just turned it around."

If elected, doing something about transportation funding is going to be Aaron's main goal. Aaron believes that Georgia needs to get started on a commuter rail system.

She'd also like to work on education issues, and hopes to encourage agribusiness and aqua business to come to the 28th district. Aaron would like to work with small businesses, as well, to help them stay afloat.

Aaron is concerned about the state's budget crisis. "While state employees have to take one day a month without pay, our current state senator is in Hollywood helping his friend and giving the movie industry a $10 million dollar tax cut," she said.

"I just want to be a good legislator and do things for the constituents down here in the 28th district."

Why should people vote for Aaron?

"I'm going to be better than the one they've got, I know I can," she said.

"When I get involved in something, I really like to do my best, and you're there for your constituents," she said. "I want to be there for my constituents."

She remembers a few encounters with Speaker Tom Murphy. He would ask her to help him with votes on some issues. "I'd say I can't do it, Mr. Speaker. My people don't want that," Aaron said. Murphy would get mad if someone said they would vote for something and then didn't follow through, "but I never did him that way. I just told him the truth, and I think he respected that."

In the House, Aaron said she tried to read each piece of legislation she voted on, "which is almost impossible," she said. "I'd take a pile of bills home, and everybody laughed at me."

She remembers getting a $500 campaign contribution from a lobbyist. During the session, the lobbyist came up to her and asked, "You remember that $500 we gave you? My bill is coming up next."

Aaron said she told him she'd be right back. She went to her desk, got her checkbook, and "I wrote a check for $500 and stuck it in his pocket."

"You have to know what you're doing. You have to know what you're dealing with, some of them can get right rambunctious," Aaron said of lobbyists.

"But I just never have been afraid of them. Either I don't have sense enough to be afraid of them, or something else, I'm not sure."