Golden Sleaze Awards - The I Answer to a Higher Power Award

Rep. Randal Mangham

Never the brightest bulb in the box, Mangham has long been a puppet controlled by “Bishop” Eddie Long and other socially regressive south DeKalb megachurch leaders. He was one of two Democrats who furnished the needed votes to put the anti-gay marriage amendment on the 2004 ballot and, this year, his abstention allowed a ridiculous bill banning “coerced abortions” to pass out of committee on a 7-6 vote.

But it seems Mangham is as lousy a lawyer as he is a legislator. Last May, a DeKalb jury found him liable for $625,000 in legal malpractice damages for screwing up a client’s personal injury case a few years earlier. His sudden need to come up with more than half a million dollars may explain – in the absence of another logical explanation – why, on the last day of the session, Mangham announced he was leaving his seat to run for governor(!). If he makes only a fraction of the fortune Sonny Perdue amassed while in office, he’ll have that bill paid in no time.