UPDATED
Pending Battle For Speaker's Gavel Becomes An Issue In One Legislative Race

Update at 4:44 p.m. adds Keen's remarks in Macon. New material highlighted.

(7/21/08) The Democrat hoping to unseat Republican Rep. James Mill in November in HD 25 says he’ll vote for David Ralston as Speaker of the House against Glenn Richardson if he gets that chance. It’s the first sign we’ve seen so far that Democrats may be hoping to use the pending inter-party fight among Republicans in their fall campaigns.

Chris Strickland, a 33-year-old teacher from Flowery Branch, commented over the weekend, just hours after Ralston confirmed rumors that he planned to challenge Richardson for the gavel when House Republicans gather following the general election to nominate their candidate for the post.

Ralston told Insider last week that if he loses in the caucus, he will not continue the fight to the floor of the Legislature in January where all House members get to vote for the presiding officer. The minority party always raises a token challenge. Past efforts to forge a bipartisan coalition behind a challenger have failed.

Nevertheless, Strickland circulated a press release over the weekend in which he said, “I will support any North Georgia representative, Republican or Democrat, that challenges Speaker Richardson. The House leadership is broken.”

Mills, chairman of the House Banks and Banking Committee, was noncommittal when The Gainesville Times asked him who he would support in the Speaker’s race.

He said his top concern was getting re-elected. “I think it’s very unwise to commit who you’re going to support until you know who all the candidates are.”

Strickland countered in his press release: “Mills is unable to make a policy decision without taking marching orders from House leadership. In this case, he can’t take a stand because he doesn’t want to be caught on the losing side of an important issue.”

Whether Richardson proves to be a general election issue remains to be seen, but in the past, when Republicans tried to use Democratic Speaker Tom Murphy as a political whipping boy, they didn’t get the traction they expected.

Meanwhile in Macon Monday, House Majority Leader Jerry Keen told Rotarians that Richardson has done "an outstanding job" as Speaker and that Ralston's coup doesn't stand much of a chance. He was quoted by The Macon Telegraph.

"I will vote for Glenn Richardson again as speaker, and I'll tell you why," Keen told the club. "Public relations notwithstanding, he's done an outstanding job. ... Most, if not all, of the major legislation we've passed up there in the last four years since he's been speaker would not have been possible (without him).

"I'm confident he'll be re-elected as speaker," Keen said. "I don't think there's any doubt that he will be."