State Rep. Tom Taylor of Dunwoody told WSB-TV he would not fight DUI charges in an interview that aired Wednesday, April 20.
In his first interview since his April 7 arrest in Rabun County, Taylor told WSB-TV he was also seeking help for what he called a problem.
Brian Robinson, spokesperson for Taylor, told Reporter-Newspapers that Taylor has hired an attorney from northeast Georgia. Taylor’s plea hearing is set for May 9 in Clayton City Court.
Taylor was stopped April 7 in the city of Clayton in Rabun County for speeding. Clayton officers said they smelled alcohol on him, but Taylor denied several times he had anything to drink, according to a police report.
Officers administered a breathalyzer test and Taylor’s blood alcohol content was .225, more than three times the legal limit. Officers also found an empty water bottle in his vehicle that smelled of alcohol. He faces charges of DUI, speeding and possession of an open container.
After news broke of his arrest, Taylor issued a statement apologizing for “a serious mistake.”
Taylor said he is not resigning his seat. He was first elected to the state House in 2010. He faces Tom Owens in the May 24 primary.
Sorry Georgia State Representative Tom Taylor, I ain’t buying it – your apology, that is. You’re just sorry you got caught. I haven’t an issue with the vice. Lord knows that I have my own “demons”; however, although I imbibe, inhale, ingest, and inject in my own self style safe house and never ever drive foreign exchange students entrusted to my care at 72mph in a 45mph zone while blowing a .225 blood alcohol level, I still wouldn’t ever consider running for anything other than village idiot.
I will not vote for you in the primary, albeit not for the other knucklehead either, nor in the general election. You need to address your problems, but being someone that we couldn’t even trust to safely drive our children home from school kind of eliminates you from being someone we would bestow with the privilege of representing us as a State of Georgia legislator.
You can’t play politics with something this serious. There are incidents so egregious that the entitlement of living in a Republican ubiquitary just has to end. It’s not about whether someone is a good person or not or you wanting to be loyal to a dear friend of yours. What if Georgia State Representative Tom Taylor had rolled that SUV going 72 mph in a 45 mph zone while blowing a threefold over the legal limit .225 DUI and killed those four foreign exchange students? Ethan Couch, the “affluenza” teen, killed four people while driving drunk, and society as a whole, other than his judge, were of the opinion he should have known better, and he was a mere 16 years old.
Well shouldn’t Tom Taylor at his age and with his community stature have known better? But you say he has “demons” that he will most certainly address and everything will just magically go back to how it was; however, I’m telling you as one who knows, at our age those type of problems don’t just go away, and most probably are destined to stay with us until we no longer have the strength to grasp a bottle.
No, what needs to happen is that your friend, Tom Taylor, needs to resign and address his problem, because he has no business representing us in the State of Georgia Legislature, and if you Republicans are not happy with his current opponent in the primary, then write in a candidate. There are plenty of Republicans in the Dunwoody area with integrity and the acumen to do the job. Get to work and draft someone and get the word out.
One more thing, this all strikes me as political or very hypocritical as in the past I’ve noted the same folks defending Tom Taylor literally shredded other officeholders for far less serious infractions. And what about the city’s crucial Zeitgeist call-to-arms to combat speeders and drunk-drivers that have overrun the Dunwoody roadways and forced our children into hiding in their basements? Does the crime become benign when it only endangered four children from another country and not our own children or grandchildren?
Come on folks, don’t reelect a man who blew a .225 DUI while racing down a 45mph zone country road at 72mph and endangering the lives of four children that were entrusted to his care, just because his opponent’s views are so abhorrent. But I gotta tell you, Tom Taylor’s views and decision-making seem to be pretty loathsome as well when he chose to drink enough to blow a .225 DUI with four children in his care in the car. Have some integrity, these two people are not your only option. Explore alternatives, there’s always a way.
I recall on many occasions being a minor and riding in a car while one of my relatives drove drunk – I white-knuckled prayed as he sped double digits over the posted limit, flew through stop signs and red light signaled intersections, and on one occasion side-swiped every third mailbox on the road. Where’s the concern for the minors that were in Tom Taylor’s car? I’m sure this was quite a harrowing experience for them (or were they used to occurrences like this?) and as they were under Tom Taylor’s care, they had no choice in the matter. So, let’s not act like this was a victim-less crime, there were children involved.
So, what every Dunwoody and House District 79 resident has to ask themselves is if those four children were their own children or grandchildren instead of the four foreign exchange students, whom Georgia State Representative Tom Taylor thought was prudent to barrel down a country road at 72 MPH, but was marked with a speed limit of 45 MPH, holstering a Glock on his hip, and having consumed enough booze to blow a .225 DUI, if they would still vote for Tom Taylor, and never mind his opponent or the politics involved.
And if any parent would answer “Yes, I would still vote for Tom Taylor had those been my children in the car.”, then they are either a damn liar or a very very callous guardian.