Rep. Rob Teilhet (D-Smyrna), candidate for state attorney general, speaks with the Journal's editorial board about his views on open meetings, lobbyists and the state legislature. Thinh D. Nguyen

Attorney General candidate speaks out on honesty, politics
Published: 07/20/2009
By Katy Ruth Camp
krcamp@mdjonline.com

MARIETTA - Smyrna resident and Democratic state Rep. Rob Teilhet sat down with the Journal's editorial board Friday to discuss his run for attorney general. He talked about a number of issues ranging from open meetings to lobbyists to the kind of attorney general he would be.

First elected in 2002 at the age of 28, Teilhet is the chief deputy whip in the House Democratic caucus and serves on the House Judiciary Committee. Outside of his official duties, Teilhet serves on the board of the Georgia Network to End Sexual Assault, is a member of the advisory committee of the Cobb Literacy Council and was selected by the State Bar of Georgia to serve on its Lawyer Advertising Task Force. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and is a member of the Leadership Georgia Class of 2009.

After earning bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Georgia in 1996 and 2000, Teilhet spent six years as a lawyer for the Marietta firm Brock Clay, two years as an insurance law adviser and joined Rogers, Strimban & Teilhet last year as a personal injury lawyer. Teilhet's wife, Heather, is Gov. Sonny Perdue's former external affairs director and they have 16-month-old twin daughters, Maddie and Harper.

Open meetings/open records laws

"I have always told my clients to operate on the assumption that every e-mail, every scrap of paper that you produce is going to be on the front page of the paper, because it probably will be if the paper wants it," Teilhet said. "No, I don't feel it's right or legal to vote if you're in executive session, unless you're in the very narrow circumstances. It's a top priority because it goes with ethics in government, something I am very adamant about reforming. Because if they can do it in secret, you can bet that it's not going to be something the public wants ... And where the public decides that public officials are lying to them or stealing from them, they don't trust us to do anything else. They're not going to trust us on transportation or health care or any other issue that's big and significant because you know, like loose dirt in a heavy rain, trust washes away when they decide you're a liar or that you're hiding stuff from them."

Lobbyists

"I think lobbying is out of control," he said.

Teilhet said it has been the "dominant force in everything" since he has been in the state House. He called the lobbying "breathtaking."

"I don't think most members of the public know this, or would believe it if we told them, but there is no limit on the gifts," he said. "There's no limit. They could give me an automobile and fly me to Tahiti for the pawn brokers convention or whatever. There literally is no limit. Now, there is a bribery statute where you can't be paid to vote for something tangible, that will get you thrown in jail, but no limit? When we talk about the gift cap, we set a dollar amount."

He said, however, that a complete ban on gifts - or "no cup of coffee," as it is sometimes called - may be going too far.

"I have accepted gifts, yes. No trips, nothing extravagant, just lunches paid by lobbyists. And that's one of the reasons why I took pains to say that I don't know that no cup of coffee is the way to go, because I don't want to be a hypocrite about it either," he said. "There have been things I have turned down and said 'You know, I can't accept this.' And, there are a lot of times when I'll pick up my own tab and that actually irritates a lot of lobbyists, which I find interesting. It's almost always a lunch, and it's usually a bill of $15 or so. But the trips are very common. And those are sometimes done at state expense, too. There's a lot of travel to conventions and stuff that is submitted to the state and often times it's paid for by lobbyists, but yeah. Trips are relatively common ... It's every day, it's every night, it's trips and it's all supposed to be reported publically, but I'm sure it's not. And I do think it's a real problem."

Past years' frustrating legislative sessions

"As you all know, the legislative sessions are dominated by the leadership, by the speaker, lietenant governor and the governor. That's really who the players are. The rest of us are there and involved and trying to affect things more on the margins, but I have never seen anything like the disfunction between those public officials. And it seems to me, from afar, not being a confidant of any of the three, that it is more personal than what has happened in the past, and it seems to be less interest in what happens in the end," he said.

Teilhet said, previously, top officials could "go at it hard and spend 39 days on issues," but they knew "there had to be a deal at the end."

"There had to be a natural place to come to, to get a bill, and these three don't do that. In my mind, transportation was the most surprising one because we were so close, we were three Senate votes from the regional SPLOST so it seemed reasonable to me that you would start there and accommodate whatever the three senators wanted or whatever piece they needed to get the deal, but instead we went to the polar opposites. The House went to statewide and the Senate went to regional, and the governor said, 'I don't want anything now. I want the DOT first. And once the DOT is done then we'll do these two.' So rather than a contentious situation that is business-like and where I've left you a natural point of compromise with me that we can get to at the end, because we all need a deal at the end, these three individuals, who all have strengths and weaknesses, don't have any interest in that."

The kind of attorney general he would be

"My idea, which is different from some other views of attorney general, is that this position is the people's lawyer in addition to the state's general. And the attorney general ought to have a legislative agenda and ought to have an affirmitive agenda of his or her own independent of whatever the state through the general assembly and governer are doing," he said. "So, if I'm attorney general, there will be a legislative agenda, there will be people hauled into court on predatory lending and there won't just be a defense firm for the state agencies, there's going to be a much more proactive approach on things such as predatory lending, ethics in government and crime victim protection.

"The attorney general does not work for the governor. It's complicated, but the current attorney general would tell you that if the general assembly passes it and the governor signs it, the attorney general is obligated to defend it. Mike Bowers would tell you that that's not true at all, and that the state agencies and government don't have the authority to hire outside counsel, that attorney general ranks supreme on all these things. And I'm somewhere in between on all that, I think if the state's made a good faith effort to comply with the law, the attorney general ought to offer its defense, but under the Constitution, I think it's pretty clear that the attorney general is the state's lawyer and any counsel obtained from the state has to go through the attorney general's office. If I opposed it but the law was constitutional, I'd give it my defense. If the opinion of the professional office was that it was unconstitutional and I felt it was unconstitutional, I'd be strongly inclined to make that clear and not offer the defense."

His opponents

On the Democratic side, former Albany County District Attorney Kent Hodges is also running for attorney general. Cobb County Chairman Sam Olens is running as Republican.

"We've raised over $200,000 so yes, we lead the pack," he said.

He said Olens will be able to raise whatever money he needs, but "the difference between Hodges out of Albany, and Sam, who is campaigning almost exclusively through metro Atlanta and Cobb County, is that we were able to get almost 500 contributors, from Dalton to Douglas."