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...The General Assembly ended with the traditional bang of the gavel late Friday night, but the biggest explosion came earlier when Sen. Preston Smith spoke on the Senate floor after receiving a text message for David Doss.
In the Senate debate about the transportation-governance bill that passed, a text message between two Rome politicians played a role in the discussion.
Senate Bill 200 will take some power from the board of the Department of Transportation to determine which road projects to fund and give more say to the governor and legislature.
Smith, R-Rome, read a message he got around 1 p.m. that day from Doss, a member of the DOT board from Rome. The message read in part, ““If SB200 passes, (Highway) 411 is dead.”
Smith raised his voice, saying Doss’ message was a threat and represented the type of old-boy politics the bill was designed to end.
“You can’t buy me, and you can’t bribe me,” Smith thundered from the S
Sen. Preston Smith alleged that Doss’ message was a threat. |
enate floor.”
In an interview with the Rome News-Tribune, Doss called Smith’s allegations “absurd” and said his text message was intended to convince Smith that if the bill passed, the governor won’t fund the proposed 411 connector, long sought by Rome business leaders.
“He took it that I was going to pull funding if he voted for the bill. That’s absurd,” Doss said.
Doss, who served as a Floyd County commissioner, said he has worked on the 411 project for about two decades. He said the governor has already stopped the road project once, six years ago, when he also halted the proposed Northern Arc around Atlanta.
Doss says he can get a contract on the project, which would provide a direct link between U.S. 411 and Interstate 75 in Bartow County, within a year.
Smith told fellow senators the six-mile project had languished for three decades and earned the reputation as the longest unfunded road project in the state. Then he had the Senate staff project the full text on overhead screens while he recounted his outrage.
When he finished, there was rare applause from various senators and some of the lobbyists packing the public gallery in the balcony.
Then Sen. Steve Thompson, D-Marietta, asked for permission to speak. At first, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle refused, noting that Thompson had already spoken in opposition to the bill and that Senate rules prohibit repeat speeches. Thompson persisted, arguing that a person’s reputation deserved to be defended. Cagle relented.
Thompson explained that when he learned Smith intended to use Doss’ text message as evidence of a threat, he said he stepped into the hallway where Doss was. There, he copied by hand the entire string of text messages, including those five hours later between Doss and Sen. Tommie Williams, R-Lyons. Williams is the president pro tem of the Senate, the highest-ranking senator.
Thompson read the whole string of messages to his colleagues and then returned to his seat.
“I’m not attacking (Smith), but I am taking up for a good man,” Thompson said.
Here is the string of texts as copied by Sen. Steve Thompson:
To Preston Smith @ 1 p.m.
1.) I need you to help kill SB200. I have US 411 where it can be under contract in 12 mos. from now. If SB200 passes, 411 is dead. Forget politics, help.
2.) To Tommie Williams @ 5:50 p.m. Here is text I sent to Preston “If 2b200 passes, we will lose the 411 project because the Gov. is tight with the Rollins. If you think I did something illegal, please call the GBI & report me.
3.) To David from Tommie Williams @ 5:52 “I have the text”
4.) 5:55 p.m. David to Tommie W. “Do you need the number?”
5.) 5:57 p.m. TW to David “I don’t need a number, I just do not want my Senators threatened.”
6.) 5:59 p.m. David to Tommie “It was not a threat in any way. This project is critical to Rome & we will lose it if SB200 passes because Sonny has a close relationship with Rollins.
7.) 6:00 p.m. Tommie to David “Understood”
8.) 6:34 p.m. David to Preston Smith “Let me be clear My earlier text was in no way a threat!! It is simple if SB200 we lose 411 because of Sonny’s Relationship w/ Gary Rollins.”
Attempts by the Rome News-Tribune to contact Smith to respond to Doss’ comments about the future of the road project were unsuccessful Friday and Saturday.
Rome News-Tribune Deputy Editor Mike Colombo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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