“It ain’t about public policy. It’s about fucking politics.” Casey Cagle, Georgia’s current Lieutenant Governor and frontrunner in July’s Republican runoff for governor, was recorded saying some extremely soulless things that would bury his career in any world but the one that we’re currently trapped in. You know the one, where Donald Trump is president.
The iPhone recording, made just two days after Cagle took first place in the GOP primary, and released to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday, captures a conversation with the LG and an opponent he’d just beaten.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle told a former rival in a secretly recorded conversation that he engineered the passage of a bill he described as bad “a thousand different ways” because it would deprive another opponent in the race for governor of millions of dollars in support.
Cagle told Clay Tippins in the recording that he circumvented the state Senate’s top education leader and swallowed his own misgivings over the bill, which raised the cap on tax credits for private school scholarships to $100 million, purely to prevent Hunter Hill from receiving financial help from a super PAC.
The 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race is something of a shitshow on the GOP side. Remember when Cagle followed through on retaliation threats against Delta Airlines after they rescinded travel discounts for the NRA’s annual terror convention?
Yeah. That’s the frontrunner.
Soon after, former State Senator Hill made headlines alongside Secretary of State Brian Kemp, as they each released creepy, gun-heavy commercials in an attempt to race each other (and Cagle) to the gun-lover gutter. Tippins focused more on expanding medicinal marijuana access and talking trash about Cagle; unsurprisingly, he came in fourth, to Hill’s third.
Since Cagle didn’t take a majority, he now faces Kemp in the July runoff. The winner of that battle of Nobody Good will then face Daily Kos-endorsed Democrat Stacey Abrams in November, and, if all goes well, that Republican will lose to her in a history-making landslide that will make millions of Georgians rejoice as they celebrate her hard-won victory and prepare to see her progressive agenda become reality!
Anyway. Now that we know the players and the stakes, let’s get back to that tape.
Clay Tippins, who’s brand spanking new to the political sphere, needs everyone to know this wasn’t about sour grapes about coming in fourth place. He did this for the voters. For the record, Georgia is a one-party state when it comes to recording conversations, so Tippins also broke no laws.
Tippins said he disclosed the private conversation because he wanted to provide voters a “window into Casey Cagle’s character.”
“We all complain about these things happening, and no one thinks that anything can be done about it. I just hit a point where I decided I’d do whatever it takes to bring transparency,” said Tippins, who hasn’t endorsed either candidate.
“I hope voters are furious. I was,” he said. “That’s why I did this.”
Tippin is the nephew of State Senator Lindsey Tippins, who at the time was heading up the Senate Education Committee. Cagle, as Lieutenant Governor, holds a lot of power when it comes to the State Senate; as a career politician, he knows how to use it.
Cagle presides over the state Senate and has vast influence over which measures reach a vote in his chamber, and he’s been preparing to run for governor for roughly a decade.
Cagle has made education policy a cornerstone of his campaign since entering the race last year.
State Senator Tippins had united with Cagle in the past—together, they managed to stall a bill that raised tax credit caps for private school scholarships from $58 million to $100 million. Opponents of the bill claimed it funneled money out of public schools. Though it cleared the House, Tippins and Cagle “beat the pulp out of it,” and it never made it past Senate committee.
Then Cagle flipped on the bill. Or perhaps he flopped. Either way, Senator Tippins was suddenly only one of three state senators willing to vote “Nay” on the measure. Nephew Tippins demanded answers.
Clay Tippins wanted to know what led Cagle to “hurt” his uncle this year by pushing the bill through despite his opposition.
“Why? You turned on him,” Tippins said. “And there are reasons for that. Why did you have to have it?”
“Exactly the reason I told Lindsey, that you need to listen to,” Cagle said. “It ain’t about public policy. It’s about fucking politics. There’s a group that was getting ready to put $3 million behind Hunter Hill.”
“They wanted that $100 million SSO,” Cagle told Tippins, referring to the abbreviation for the tax credit program, Student Scholarship Organizations. “And, you know, I was the only guy standing in the way. Is it bad public policy? Between you and me, it is. I can tell you how it is a thousand different ways.”
As Cagle got out of “the way,” the bill was moved to another committee headed up by a Cagle pal, brought to a vote, and passed. Lindsey Tippins resigned from the Education Committee in protest.
Back on the recording, Clay Tippins pushes Cagle for more details, and discovers that Hill’s money would have come from the oh-so-wealthy family behind one of the worst corporations in the world: Walmart.
Pressed by Tippins, Cagle identified the group as the Walton Family Foundation, which backs charter school initiatives across the nation. Hill is an outspoken supporter of school choice efforts.
“Oh, no. If he got $3 million from the Walton Foundation, he’d have been money,” Tippins said. “That makes him formidable.”
Cagle quickly agreed.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. He ran out of money in his own campaign. He had nothing to spend down the finish line,” Cagle said. “But had he had $3 million behind him, against me?”
[...]
Cagle told Tippins that he admired his uncle, whom he called a “man of principle.” But he said he told the senator: “I’ve got to have that bill out of committee, or I’m going to have to work around you. Because this is not about policy, this is about politics.’”“I said, ‘Lindsey, you need to understand this bill is going to happen. It’s going to happen.’”
Clay Tippins interjected: “Because it had to, to keep the money away from Hunter?”
“Yeah, I mean, I was playing defense,” Cagle answered. “I’m being honest with you.”
The Walton Family Foundation has made little comment on Cagle’s confession, but maintains that they did not donate any money to this race. Of course, as Channel 2 Action News points out, if the money was filtered through a super PAC, we’ll never know the truth.
Predictably, Cagle makes no apologies for his behavior. In fact, he’s tossing out a lot of Trumpian gibberish, and insisting that everything he did is what anybody would do in a situation where they had no idea that they would be held accountable for their terrible deeds and thus felt safe talking about them freely. The Robert Durst philosophy, one might call it.
Here’s the “What did he just say?” highlight reel from Cagle’s interview with the AJC and Channel 2 Action News:
Cagle: “During the political exchange that I had with Clay Tippins, it was just that: A political exchange.
That is not a complete thought, Casey, but nice try.
Cagle: “When I made the statement that this was bad legislation, I will tell you there were things that I did not like. And I don’t back away from that. In the context of the way it was framed, I would probably have said things a little differently. But you always have to look at whether the greater good is being accomplished. And in this instance it was.”
If “the greater good” is defined as Hill not making it to the runoff, this is kind of true.
Q: Tippins called it a “window” into your character. What’s your response?
Cagle:“He’s open to his opinion. Ultimately this is a decision the voters of Georgia get to make. And when someone comes into your house and begins asking you various questions you didn’t know they were taping – that’s a decision that each and every individual has to make.”
What does that even mean? What decision does each and every individual make when people secretly record them?
Q: Did an outside group ever threaten to support an opponent if the tax credit cap wasn’t expanded, like you said in the recording?
Cagle:“This was all rumor and innuendo that was placed out there. And obviously that’s where it stands.”
Where, Casey? Where does what stand?
P.S. Donate to Stacey Abrams’ campaign here, so she can beat whoever gets the nomination in July!