Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections for June 18, 2013

Tomato Sandwich Fiesta in Pickens County

Some of the finest things in life are simple pleasures, and very few are better than a tomato sandwich eaten outside in the Georgia summertime. I like mine with the bread lightly toasted, and some Duke’s Mayonnaise, or Italian salad dressing.

On Saturday, June 22, 2013, Pickens County will hold its largest event of the year, the Tomato Sandwich Fiesta at the Pickens County Community Center in Jasper, Georgia, featuring tacos, and tomato sandwiches with Vidalia onions. Doors open at 11 AM.

Beginning around noon, local officials, and Congressmen Phil Gingrey and Doug Collins will speak.

Also on Saturday at 9 AM, the Bartow County Republican Party will hold its June Forum at GOP HQ, 162 West Main Street Suite 106, Cartersville, GA, 30120,

U.S. Supremes void AZ citizenship for voting requirement

The United States Supreme Court has voided the Arizona requirement that prospective voters using the federal “Motor Voter” form to register to vote must provide proof of citizenship. Here is a link to the actual opinion in .pdf form. Click here for analysis from SCOTUSblog.com, including a “plain English” synopsis. From the “plain English” part of the article:

The argument before the Court was that the federal law must control, because Congress had specified that, in filling out a federal form, all would-be voters had to do was to swear they are U.S. citizens, while Arizona went further and required an actual piece of official paper to prove citizenship.   The challengers argued that the two approaches cannot co-exist, so the state proof requirement had to yield.

On the one hand, the Supreme Court agreed that, for now, Arizona’s proof requirement must yield to the federal form’s approach — that is, it is enough to register, using that form, if the would-be voter swears that he satisfies the citizenship requirement.

On the other hand, however, the Court also ruled that Arizona can seek permission from federal officials to impose its proof-of-citizenship requirement.  If it fails with that request, it can go to court and argue that it has a constitutional right to make proof of citizenship a binding requirement for all voters.

It was the kind of mixed decision that can sometimes baffle lay readers and, in this instance, maybe even lawyers and judges, too, because the two parts of the ruling did not seem to be reconciled easily.

So, what does this mean for Georgia? When the AJC caught up with their flacks yesterday, Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens and Secretary of State Brian Kemp were still reviewing the decision, but other less circumspect commentators opined that it will invalidate Georgia’s analogous requirement.

Olens — along with counterparts from Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma and Texas — had urged the Supreme Court in a written brief to uphold Arizona’s law, saying that to strike it down would mean “states’ control over elections would be diminished in law and in practice.”

Kemp, whose office oversees elections, said he was disappointed in the court’s ruling. He said Georgia’s law “ensures the integrity of our voting process.”

The National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group, and the League of Women Voters of Georgia applauded the court’s decision.

“This is a wonderful, great day of victory, particularly for the voting public,” said Elizabeth Poythress, president of the League of Women Voters of Georgia.

Phil Kent, a member of Georgia’s Immigration Enforcement Review Board and the spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control, called the court’s ruling a narrow decision that keeps voter identification requirements intact in Arizona and Georgia.

Said Kent, “Arizona and Georgia can still deny voter registration to anyone who submits a federal form if [they have] other information, such as a state form, that establishes the voter’s ineligibility.”

Congressman Phil Gingrey offered legislation to address the issue.

“Ensuring and protecting U.S. citizens’ right to vote is the very cornerstone of our freedom, and part of this is preventing fraud at the ballot box,” Gingrey said. “Georgia and other states have the right—and the responsibility—to enact laws that will preserve the integrity of our elections system. This legislation will help safeguard that right.”

Kemp later issued a statement:

“President Ronald Reagan said, ‘Trust, but verify.’ This is exactly what Georgia’s voter registration laws provide for.

In order to vote in an election, citizenship is required. Georgia requires that this is proven at the time of registration.  Rather than causing an undue burden, this requirement ensures the integrity of our voting process.

I am very disappointed in the decision that the US Supreme Court made today.

I will work closely with Governor Deal, the General Assembly and Attorney General Olens to make sure that we continue to provide a safe, secure and legal system for voter registration as we move forward.”

The Other Supreme Court

Yesterday, the Georgia Supreme Court heard an appeal in which union members seek records related to the state’s hiring process for workers at the Kia plant.

Gov. Nathan Deal has said the records need to be kept secret to allow the state to compete with other states in enticing large employers to bring jobs to Georgia.

The case on appeal to the state’s highest court involves the government’s role in helping the automaker staff its $1.2 billion factory in West Point, but the outcome could apply to other companies lured by state incentives.

Four members of the United Auto Workers labor union are suing to get access to documents the state has in order to see if the company had a stated policy to discriminate against union members. They say the state’s Open Records Act entitles them to the papers, but government lawyers contend a change in the law to protect proprietary information enacted after the suit was filed removes that access, which sets up the question of whether the retroactive provisions are constitutional.

Russ Willard, a senior assistant attorney general, told the justices the General Assembly has authority to change the law retroactively because access to the state’s documents was just a privilege and not a right.

“These are no rights that arise out of common law,” he said. “These exist out of legislative grace.”

Bryan Tyson has written a synopsis of the case at SCOGblog.com, which covers the Georgia Supreme Court, and a helpful discussion of how the case got to the Supreme Court.

Four workers who are employed at the plant sued the state after not receiving documents relating to Quick Start, a program operated by the Technical College System regarding the recruitment and hiring of workers through that program for Kia.

After the litigation was filed, the General Assembly passed its comprehensive revision of the Open Records Act, which included an exemption for training programs related to economic development projects such as the Kia program.

Historic Georgia Senate Comebacks

Nate Silver, of the New York Times FiveThirtyEight blog, writing about the slim odds of GOP nominee Gabriel Gomez winning against Democratic Congressman Edward Markey, where polls show a 7-11 point Markey lead, noted two historic come-from-behind Senate wins in Georgia.

The award for the largest comeback belongs to Paul Coverdell, the Republican candidate in the Georgia election for Senate in 1992. Mr. Coverdell overcame a huge polling deficit to defeat the Democratic incumbent, Wyche Fowler Jr., having trailed him by 24 percentage points with a month remaining in the campaign and by roughly 19 percentage points in the polling average with 10 days to go. However, Mr. Coverdell’s win requires an asterisk of sorts, as Mr. Fowler took the narrow plurality of the vote on Nov. 3, 1992, triggering a runoff that Mr. Coverdell won three weeks later.

In Georgia’s Senate race in 2002, the Republican candidate, Saxby Chambliss, trailed the Democratic incumbent, Max Cleland, by eight percentage points in the polling average with 10 days remaining in the race. But Mr. Chambliss wound up winning by a clear margin, roughly seven percentage points. (It’s possible that this reflected a case of social desirability bias as some voters were reluctant to tell pollsters about their plans to vote against Mr. Cleland, a triple amputee and war hero.)

Democratic Senate Campaign Committee Flails against Broun, Gingrey, Kingston

The DSCC will be using paid Twitter attacks to take on three Georgia congressmen who are running for Senate in 2014 as the July 1 deadline for preventing student loan rate increases approaches.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee will ask Michelle Nunn, a presumed Democratic candidate for Senate, where she stands on ObamaCare and the role of the IRS in enforcing ObamaCare.

The remnants of the Obama campaign will launch a campaign to enroll Georgians in ObamaCare.

Enroll America is starting to staff up in the states – it has hired a Texas director, and it’s looking to hire people to lead the efforts in Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The coalition says it’s going to use paid media and “a comprehensive digital outreach strategy” to spread the word about the new Obamacare coverage.

But the money hasn’t been flowing in as quickly as the Obama administration and its allies had hoped, which is one reason they’ve turned to more creative — and controversial — fundraising strategies.

Abortion Politics in Washington

House Republicans plan to move to the floor today a measure designed to ban abortions after 20 weeks.

after the high-profile murder trial of an abortion doctor in Philadelphia this spring, many Republicans in Washington and in state capitals across the country seem eager to reopen the emotional fight over a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. Their efforts will move to the forefront on Tuesday when House Republicans plan to bring to the floor a measure that would prohibit the procedure after 22 weeks of pregnancy — the most restrictive abortion bill to come to a vote in either chamber in a decade.

The bill stands no chance of becoming law, with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House. Republican leaders acknowledge that its purpose is to satisfy vocal elements of their base who have renewed a push for greater restrictions on reproductive rights, even if those issues harmed the party’s reputation with women in 2012.

But beyond Washington, advocates on both sides of the issue say the chance to limit abortion in the near future is very real. Republican-dominated state legislatures in South Carolina and Wisconsin are weighing bans similar to the one the House will vote on, which would impose the 22-week limit based on the scientifically disputed theory that fetuses at that stage of development can feel pain.

Aware of the risks inherent in abortion politics, Republican leaders have moved to insulate themselves from Democrats’ criticism that they are opening a new front in the “war on women.” Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, will manage the debate on the bill when it reaches the House floor, a role that would customarily go to the sponsor, Representative Trent Franks of Arizona.

Georgia Right to Life sent an email this morning asking Georgia pro-life advocates to contact their Representatives.

Please call or email your U.S. Congressman (you will need your 9 digit zip code) Tuesday morning June 18^th and ask him to:

• Amend HR 1797 to remove the rape and incest exceptions.

           Or

• Vote against HR 1797.

We need your immediate help to protect pain capable pre-born children nationwide. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, H.R. 1797 is scheduled to be voted on Tuesday, June 18^th.

Background

Introduced by Representative Trent Franks (R-Ariz), the bill would ban abortions by 20 weeks fetal age nationwide. It is based on the proven science that pre-born children at that age can feel and react to pain.

Unfortunately, the bill was recently amended to allow for abortions based on the manner in which the child was conceived.

“This abortion ban relies on the fact that babies feel pain in the womb and shouldn’t be made to suffer. Babies conceived in rape feel no less pain than babies conceived under the happiest circumstances. People like me, who were conceived in rape, feel the pain of being targeted for death every day,” noted Rebecca Kiessling, founder of Savethe1.com.

A similar bill—with no rape or incest exceptions—was passed in Georgia in 2012.  That law is being challenged by the ACLU in the Fulton County Superior Court.

GRTL Position

Georgia Right to Life advocates that women who have suffered such assault be given genuine support and help and that those who commit such crimes be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and that laws be passed to aide in such prosecution.

However, further traumatizing the woman with another act of violence and killing the innocent child for the crime of the father does not help the women and is absolutely morally wrong.  All life is sacred. Its value should not depend on the manner of conception.

A convicted rapist doesn’t receive the death penalty, why should the innocent child? Aborting the child does not erase the memory of the crime.  In fact, it produces another emotional burden for the mother to bear.

Research has shown that women who carry their child to term after sexual assault, overwhelmingly do not suffer the same emotional trauma and regret as those who abort.

Please join Georgia Right to Life and ask your Congressman to vote against this shameful legislation.