Cover Story: 13th Congressional District

Americans have gotten used to picking the least worst politician.
Well, surprise, surprise: The Democratic primary in the 13th is chockablock with worthy candidates. In fact, in most other Georgia congressional races, we’d back former state Sens. Greg Hecht and David Scott.

A fourth candidate (another former state senator) Donzella James is well-intentioned and gutsy. She’s one of the few politicians we interviewed who thinks the U.S. should look for more peaceful means to deal with Iraq than reaching for the revolver — a courageous stance that needs to be voiced a lot more up in Washington. But, in terms of political savvy and her understanding of a broad range of issues, James doesn’t quite measure up to Hecht, Scott or our choice in the 13th, former state Democratic Party Chairman David Worley.

A 38-year-old lawyer, Hecht is smart and ambitious. His ideas about education (reward top teachers in under-performing schools) and health care (increase reimbursements for primary and preventive care for the elderly) should be considered by whoever wins the November General Election.

The big question is whether Hecht would break free from the corporate lobbyist crowd that courted him in the state Capitol. His stumble during last winter’s legislative session over a natural gas bill augurs poorly: He proposed a plan that would have benefited the state’s largest industrial users and hurt residential consumers; he only dropped that idea after a public outcry. Unfortunately, generous campaign contributions from folks like Georgia-Pacific ($4,542) signal that Hecht could be swept up by the well-heeled special interests in Washington that have hijacked so much of our democracy.

It was more difficult to pick against Scott, a 56-year-old ad agency owner. In 27 years in the Legislature, Scott has taken bold stands for sensible gun laws and against landfill expansions. He’s the rare breed of politician who’s both effective and principled. And he’s played his cards well enough to be named chairman of the powerful Rules Committee.

But Scott’s fine legislative record makes his lack of familiarity with crucial congressional issues all the more disappointing. He’s soft-pedaling such feel-good ideas as establishing “small-business councils” in the district and steering more money toward cancer research. Meanwhile, he’s downright equivocal on big-ticket positions that should be no-brainers. In an hour-long interview with CL, for example, Scott initially said he supported eliminating the estate tax — a very fair levy that helps even the playing field between well-to-do heirs and the rest of us. When editors briefly noted that his stand unfairly counters the interests of working-class constituents, Scott suddenly said he might have just changed his mind.

“Don’t misjudge my cautiousness,” the Wharton School of Finance graduate told us. “I will be forceful on the issues, but I don’t know all the issues.”

That would be a fine response in February. But it’s weak just before the primary, especially when you’re up against a candidate as strong as David Worley.

Worley gained notoriety in 1990, when he came within 974 votes of beating a slick Republican congressman named Newt Gingrich. Among the metro area’s 2002 congressional wannabes, he’s the most forceful and eloquent in advocating what Congress really needs: representatives who don’t forget that they’re elected to represent average people.

Yes, yes — after the Clinton administration, such talk seems about as fresh as universal health care and supply-side economics. But Worley backs it up with politically courageous positions and his own compelling American success story. The son of a night watchman, he graduated first in his class at Jonesboro High and got a scholarship to Harvard.

Ask him about affirmative action, and he offers a thoughtful answer: He says he saw affirmative action’s biggest beneficiaries in his freshman year, when he met dimwitted white “legacies” who got into Harvard because their fathers and grandfathers had attended. As long as that’s going on, he argues, black families who were withheld from countless opportunities for generations deserve a chance at an even playing field.

Whether or not you agree with everything Worley says, his thoughtfulness, consistency and eloquence indicate that he’d bring both principle and competence to Congress. In the early ’80s, he was an aide to U.S. Rep. Elliott Levitas of DeKalb County. As a young lawyer in 1990, he nearly snuffed Gingrich’s big-money campaign, even though the Democratic Party was too skeptical of his chances to really help him. From 1998 to 2001, he led an organizational revival of the Georgia Democratic Party that resulted in statewide and legislative campaign victories. Worley also is a nationally known labor attorney.

We don’t like all Worley’s positions. He expresses a hawkishness on Middle Eastern issues that seems conveniently pat and, for the time being, popular. His support from organized labor could cause him at some point to carry water for special interests.

But, with so many politicians brown- nosing Big Business, it would be good to elect someone who leans toward workers. Moreover, Worley is courageous enough to stake out stands independent of the unions. For example, he backs raising fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which could help clear the air pollution that is particularly bad in his district.

On issue after issue, Worley proves to have a firm grasp on how he’d help middle-class constituents. He understands particularly well how transportation solutions can be used to ease congestion, clean up the air and strengthen communities — a crucial concern in the district’s older and newer suburbs.

Worley also was the only candidate CL interviewed — in any race — who was willing to acknowledge hard truths about the federal budget: If we want to avoid detonating the national debt and raiding Social Security at the same time that we enact a prescription benefit for seniors, parts of the Bush tax cut for the rich will have to be rolled back.

“We’ve got a government that worships at the alter of an aristocracy of wealth,” Worley notes, adding that the Bush administration wants “to have only two kinds of workers, executives at Enron and greeters at Wal-Mart.”

In a summer when corporate scandals make such rhetoric easy, it’s important to note that David Worley hurled similar arguments at Gingrich 12 years ago and that he backs his talk with an unflinching walk on behalf of “working people.” Thirteenth District voters are lucky they have the opportunity to send this exceptionally qualified candidate to Washington.

The 13th District wraps south and east of I-285, taking in parts of Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Newton and Rockdale counties. The Democrat will be heavily favored against the Republican nominee November.