Georgia Legislative Watch

The AJC is reporting some developments on Sunday alcohol sales:

One of the bigger surprises of the day comes from the lobbying field. The GOP team of Clint Austin, Tony Simon and Sam Choate has been hired to help push through legislation to permit communities to hold referendums on Sunday sales of alcohol.

The Georgia Food Industry Association, which represents grocery stores, is footing the bill.

Both Simon and Choate are extremely close to House Speaker Glenn Richardson. Austin was essential to Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in his defeat of Ralph Reed in 2006. The rules of lobbying are this:

Your support of a cause isn’t necessarily an endorsement of your close friends in the Legislature. But a lobbyist won’t take positions that would make his lawmaker friends angry.

One must assume that there’s a green light on the bill. Legislators are being asked to ask the signers of last year’s measure, which failed, whether they paid for it at the polls in November. So far as is known, no one did.

Could 2009 be the year that Sunday alcohol sales finally gets passed? Maybe. However, Sonny Perdue has been hostile to the idea and the measure would require his signature.