MARIETTA — Michael Opitz, who is perhaps best known in the community as the founder and past president of The Madison Forum, wants to unseat U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey in the July 31 Republican Primary.

One of his biggest objections to Gingrey, Opitz said, is that the congressman voted for the National Defense Authorization Act.

“He voted for the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, Section 1021, that essentially overturns the Posse Comitatus Act as the discretion of the president,” Opitz said. “Now under the NDAA, the military can come in and apprehend you, detain you, any American citizen that they define as being a terrorist by their definition — and we know how their definition goes when they can’t follow the Constitution, and we see what’s happening in Arizona. So you can be detained. They can come into your house at any time, take you away, and you do not have habeas corpus, the right of habeas corpus to appear before a judge and hear the evidence, have a lawyer and be detained indefinitely, anywhere.”

Opitz said the act gives President Obama the sole authority to determine who is a terrorist.

“And this applies to American citizens, so you give up habeas corpus,” Opitz said. “And that’s a suspension of our individual rights. That’s one of the key protections that we have. Abraham Lincoln did it during the Civil War, so it was during a time of war and national rebellion, but Gingrey voted to give Obama this power and for Obama to use it at his discretion.”

While Gingrey says he is undecided about how to vote on the July 31 transportation referendum, Opitz plans to vote no.

“I am strongly opposed to TSPLOST for lots of reasons, but it is a tax increase,” he said.

Opitz describes the Madison Forum as a civic organization focused on good government with a foundation in facts and truth that is based on the Constitution. He said it grew out of the Madison Group, a loose affiliation of people who held informal luncheon meetings. When that group fizzled out, he decided to charter the Madison Forum with the state, slightly changing its name, back in 2004.

The Madison Forum counts among its more than 200 members Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Attorney General Sam Olens, former Congressman Bob Barr and Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, Opitz said.

The biggest problem the country faces that Opitz wants to tackle if elected is the loss of jobs, and not just any kind of jobs.

“Manufacturing is the fabric of our society,” he said. “Our Congress has created laws that have strongly encouraged flight of our companies and our manufacturing to China and third world countries, and my proposal is that we bring them back before we become a third world country.”

Like Gingrey, Opitz said he would support giving public dollars to private businesses in certain cases.

“In military defense spending you’ve got public money, defense money that’s given to Lockheed to develop our jets for the military,” Opitz said. “There has to be a certain amount of federal government spending for those kinds of activities, such as research and development.”

Were Israel to engage in a pre-emptive strike to take out Iran’s nuclear program, Opitz said he would support its decision to do so.

What Congress should do about the large number of illegal immigrants in the U.S., and Cobb specifically, is simple, he said.

“All we have to do is enforce our laws, state laws, federal laws, and build a fence,” Opitz said. “Every other location in the world where there are border problems there are solid border defenses, whether it’s (between North and South Korea), going back to the Great Wall of China — that was to keep out the barbarians. You can see that wall from outer space, so this is not a new concept. We know what the problems are, we just refuse to do anything about it.”

Opitz said he’s running a grassroots campaign and has raised a little under $10,000. The winner will of the GOP primary faces Democrat Patrick Thompson of Roswell in the general election.