Magazine picks worthy Georgian as 2016 honoree

Among the first issues Sam Olens addressed when he was elected Georgia's attorney general in 2010 was the feeble condition of the state's open government laws. And though Georgia won't be a national model in government transparency until it has an adequately funded and staffed ethics oversight agency, its then-new attorney general was instrumental in urging the legislature to make the situation better.

It's because of that and other significant legal efforts led by Olens that Georgia Trend magazine named him its 2016 Georgian of the Year in the just-released January issue.

"He's a lot more," the magazine wrote in announcing the honor, "but Sam Olens is basically a good guy. Georgia's Republican attorney general, in the middle of his second term, is a plays-well-with-others, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-to-work consensus-builder, a lawyer's lawyer who is quick to share credit and gives every sign of loving what he does."

The Ledger-Enquirer's editorial board had the privilege of meeting with Olens when he visited Columbus during his first term in office. We were impressed by the apparent sincerity of his conviction that the law should trump politics -- a principle he demonstrated just this week in his opinion that Governor and fellow Republican Nathan Deal's executive order denying state aid to Syrian refugees could not be legally upheld at either the state or the federal level.

But Olens' legal resume as Georgia's AG was already impressive. He led the fight to toughen penalties against sex trafficking, particularly in getting the minimum sentence for forced labor or sexual servitude increased from one year to 10. His office hired a sex trafficking specialist from the Fulton County District Attorney's office to provide training for law enforcement agencies statewide.

He also started the "Legal Food Frenzy," an annual food drive competition among lawyers to help Georgia food banks fill the summer gap when poor children aren't in school and might be in need of nutrition. And he speaks at schools on the danger of prescription drugs, the illegal sale of which has been another target of his office.

(Olens' empathy with at-risk children has been hard and honestly earned: He lost his mother at 4, his father at 12 and the uncle who took him in at 14.)

And, as we noted approvingly in these pages not very long ago, his office's Consumer Protection Unit has taken on unscrupulous payday lenders who prey on military families.

"If you go outside Fort Benning," Olens told Georgia Trend, "you will see a litany of payday lenders. It's fine for businesses [that] comply with Georgia law, but we are going after those that don't."

You don't have to agree with every position Olens has taken on every issue (that would be impossible regardless of who held the office) to admire and respect his obvious sense of principle. Georgia Trend could not have chosen a more appropriate Georgian to honor.

This story was originally published January 6, 2016 at 5:15 PM with the headline "Magazine picks worthy Georgian as 2016 honoree."