Sen. Robert Brown’s hilarious op-ed attacking Georgia Republicans, Georgia Power wins the day

• Senate Press Office

Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown is, without a doubt, one of the Gold Dome’s most colorful and flamboyant characters.

The Macon Democrat’s a master orator who often employs visual aids in his speeches from the well — most notorious being perhaps one where heprojected a photo of then-Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson draped in a Confederate flag during a Savannah parade.

Turns out that flair can be found in his prose as well.

Brown today released an op-ed about one of his pet peeves: Georgia Power’s planned rate increases to finance two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. (The utility is currently asking the Public Service Commission to OK a $1.1 billion rate hike, which makes Brown’s column even more timely.)

In the op-ed, Brown rips into Gold Dome Republicans who voted for the onerous Senate Bill 31, which allows the utility to start charging customers for the nuclear plant’s new reactors before they’re complete. The senator also reminds readers of the tactics Georgia Power — or as Brown calls the utility, a “two-faced, government-sanctioned monopoly” — used to pass the measure.

Throw in mentions of bleached-blond lobbyists, blind musicians, and talk of banishing Republican politicians to their homes for 130 years to learn the meaning of family values and you have an entertaining read that won’t win Brown many lunches with utility lobbyists during next year’s legislative session. (Bonus: He uses the word “ruffians.”) We’ve pasted his entire op-ed after the jump.

Brown’s expected to leave the Senate and run for Macon mayor. We hope whoever takes his seat and leader position has the same fire. Because Jesus, it’s so entertaining and vital under the staid Gold Dome.