Americans for Tax Reform today applauds Georgia Sen. Preston Smith, candidate for Attorney General, for signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. The Pledge is a binding commitment to oppose and work to defeat all tax increases. He is the first of Georgia’s Attorney General candidates to sign the Pledge this cycle.

While ATR promotes and maintains the Pledge, it is actually made to a candidate’s constituents, who are entitled to know where a candidate stands before voting for him or her. Currently, 1,104 incumbent state legislators and nine incumbent governors have signed the Pledge. On the federal level, 173 U.S. Representatives and 34 U.S. Senators have taken the Pledge.

“I could not be happier to see such a stalwart defender of the taxpayers running for Georgia Attorney General,” said ATR President Grover Norquist. “Time and again, Preston Smith has shown his commitment to his constituents by standing up to the political establishment and refusing to vote for a tax increase. By signing the Pledge for his Attorney General race, Preston indicates his principled record of fiscal conservatism will continue.”

Sen. Smith signed the Pledge for Attorney General on June 1, making him the first candidate in this race to sign. He also signed the Pledge as a state legislator and kept it for the entirety of his term in the Senate. This includes the contentious budget battle during the 2010 session, during which he took a public stand against Gov. Sonny Perdue’s hospital bed tax increase, which ATR opposed.

“Preston Smith’s heroic stand against tax increases this past legislative session tells us all we need to know about his conservative bona fides,” continued Norquist. “I am thrilled to see him reaffirm as a candidate for Attorney General the anti-tax pledge he made and kept for eight years in the Senate.”

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Posted by Joshua Culling on Thursday, June 24, 2010 11:27 AM EDT

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