Here’s something you will not hear any of your local legislators taking credit for: Raising your automobile insurance rates.

But here are the facts on the people who represent Fayette County in the Georgia General Assembly:

Every one of them — all seven, Democrats and Republicans alike, without exception — voted to make you pay more money for your automobile insurance.

See the nearby column by Scott Bradshaw for specifics on the sleight of hand involved in passage of that bill.

Suffice it to say the little-debated rider on a larger bill took away the Ga. insurance commissioner’s power to regulate in any meaningful way how much insurance companies may charge you for your auto insurance premiums.

It just slipped by, with no advance notice, a minimum of committee debates, no input from the public.

Doubtless, Republicans will characterize it as a return to free market principles, restoring insurance companies’ ability to set rates without government interference. (Does anybody have any doubt which way those rates now will go?)

Frankly, we don’t know what the Democrats were thinking in their support of this bill, if, indeed, there was any thinking at all taking place.

The Republicans are wrong: They discount the fact that there is NO true free market for automobile insurance.

The state requires you to purchase insurance for your vehicle. That takes away the “free” in the free market argument. Try driving without auto insurance for any length of time, and you will eventually wind up as a defendant in city or state court.

Since the state has intervened in the insurance market to require its purchase, the state also has a commensurate responsibility to ensure the sellers don’t gouge the public.

That was the function of the state insurance commissioner — a Republican, by the way. Commissioner John Oxendine says that insurance companies are laughing all the way to bank. And what are our elected representatives doing?

Here’s the recorded vote on SB 276 that will raise your auto insurance rate:

Representatives: Roberta Abdul-Salaam — Yes; Virgil Fludd — Yes; Darryl Jordan — Yes; Matt Ramsey — Yes; John Yates — Yes

Senators: Valencia Seay — Yes; Ronnie Chance — Yes.

In a rare bipartisan display, all of our Fayette representatives — black and white, Republican and Democrat — have joined together in an attack against every vehicle owner in Fayette County (and the state).

We should think of appropriate thanks for our elected officials for their coordinated raid on all our wallets.