Georgia Governor Takes Action To Reign In Rogue Political Prosecutors, Commission Given Vast Power To Investigate And Remove

The spade of political prosecution against conservatives by the likes of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) against the Republican presidential frontrunner candidate Donald Trump has produced counter-reactions by conservative lawmakers seeking to crack down on the practice. In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) signed off a bill to create a commission that is tasked with the investigation and removal of such prosecutors, as per Just the News.

The purpose of the bill behind the commission, S.B. 92, is to "amend Article 1 of Chapter 18 of Title 15 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to general provisions regarding prosecuting attorneys, so as to create the Prosecuting Attorneys Oversight Commission; to provide for definitions; to provide for the powers, composition, appointment, and confirmation of such commission; to provide for commission members' terms, vacancies, and removals; to provide for procedures and confidentiality; to provide for related matters; to provide for effective dates; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes"  

The Commission that the Act enacted will be made up of eight members. Five members will be on the investigative panel of the Commission while the other three will conduct hearings. 

Governor Kemp touted the proposal by saying that "As hardworking law enforcement officers routinely put their lives on the line to investigate, confront, and arrest criminal offenders, I won’t stand idly by as they’re met with resistance from rogue or incompetent prosecutors who refuse to uphold the law...The creation of the PACQ [Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission] will help hold prosecutors driven by out-of-touch politics than commitment to their responsibilities accountable and make our communities safer."

State Senator Randy Robertson (R-GA) praised the law by saying "This measure will ensure that our state continues to maintain an honest and ethical criminal justice system... In order to do so, we must hold our prosecuting attorneys and solicitor generals to the same high standards that we hold our law enforcement to."

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Not all persons were carried away by the law. The Deputy Executive Director of Fair Fight Action criticized the measure as seeking "to take away the voice of Georgia voters" in "how the criminal legal system works in their communities." The deputy director added that "Make no mistake: this is part of a larger trend we are seeing nationally, where some far-right politicians are using every tool available to overturn elections...From Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, Pennsylvania, to Georgia—this is a coordinated effort that will impact voters across the country."

Abraham Lincoln back in 1838 to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois professed a desire that "reverence for the laws...become the political religion of the nation." He added that "When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been made.—I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed. So also in unprovided cases. If such arise, let proper legal provisions be made for them with the least possible delay; but, till then, let them, if not too intolerable, be borne with."  

The lack of enforcement of the law as written and intended in the United States by political prosecutors go against such a sentiment. So long as such a law is constitutional it should be enforced. If people feel that the law itself is unjust or unwise let them change it through an act of parliamentary debate and settlement and not through selective enforcement being decided by one prosecutor. As for the argument that the governor is annulling the acts of a locally elected official, perhaps the deputy director needs a reminder that the governor is an elected official too, and that the governor's domain goes far beyond that of one prosecutor's district.