Fayette County, Georgia, is a suburban county near Atlanta. All five county commissioners, the county school board, the sheriff, a mayor, and some city council members are Tea Party members. The county was run by traditional Republicans for years. The median income is $81,000, and the county is overwhelmingly white. The Tea Party officials are fairly new to the scene.
Here’s the interesting thing. The local government is now battling high-density growth. The new commissioners say the old Republican commissioners were in the developers’ pockets, which is probably true. The Tea Party commissioners are also posting on-line videos of meetings and trying to be more transparent in appointing citizens to advisory boards. They are not dismantling the county government, nor is there any mention of “Agenda 21,” theyt whipping horse of the our local Carbon County Tea Party types.
I guess once people have the actual responsibility of governing, they learn that silly rhetoric no longer applies.
Information for this post came from an article entitled “Tea Time” in the April 2013 issue of Governing magazine.
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