Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for May 26, 2017

Lt. Colonel George Washington fought French and Indian scouts on May 28, 1754, beginning the Seven Years War.

On May 27, 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to John Adams to let Adams know of the death of a mutual friend.

On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, requiring all Native Americans to relocate west of the Mississippi River.

Georgia Militia under General John Floyd began rounding up Cherokee Indians on May 26, 1838.

General Robert E. Lee wrote a letter dated May 26, 1861 to Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown asking the state to send any weapons available for Georgia volunteers who arrived in Virginia unarmed.

On May 27, 1863, Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal district court judge, issued a decision in Ex parte Merryman, which challenged President Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of the right of habeas corpus. Lincoln ignored the ruling.

Today is the 153d Anniversary of the Battle of Pickett’s Mill in Paulding County, Georgia, where Sherman’s forces attacked Johnston’s Confederates on May 27, 1864. Among the combatants on the Union side was Ambrose Bierce, who would later write The Crime at Pickett’s Mill.

On May 27, 1864, the Federal Army, having been stopped in its advance on Atlanta two days earlier by the Battle of New Hope Church, attempted to outflank the Confederate position. Some 14,000 Federal troops were selected for the task, and General Howard was given command. After a five-hour march, Howard’s force reached the vicinity of Pickett’s Mill and prepared to attack. Waiting were 10,000 Confederate troops under the command of General Cleburne.

The Federal assault began at 5 p.m. and continued into the night. Daybreak found the Confederates still in possession of the field. The Federals had lost 1,600 men compared to the Confederate loss of 500. The Confederate victory resulted in a one-week delay of the Federal advance on Atlanta.

Here are some photos of the battlefield and links to additional material.

The Battle of Dallas, Georgia began on May 28, 1864. Click here to watch Week 7 of the Georgia Public Broadcasting/Atlanta History Center series on the Civil War in Georgia.

President Calvin Coolidge signed the “Comprehensive Immigration Act” on May 26, 1924.

Many Americans saw the enormous influx of largely unskilled, uneducated immigrants during the early 1900s as causing unfair competition for jobs and land. Under the new law, immigration remained open to those with a college education and/or special skills, but entry was denied to Mexicans, and disproportionately to Eastern and Southern Europeans and Japanese. At the same time, the legislation allowed for more immigration from Northern European nations such as Britain, Ireland and Scandinavian countries. A quota was set that limited immigration to two percent of any given nation’s residents already in the U.S. as of 1890, a provision designed to maintain America’s largely Northern European racial composition. In 1927, the “two percent rule” was eliminated and a cap of 150,000 total immigrants annually was established.

The law particularly angered Japan, which in 1907 had forged with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt a “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” which included more liberal immigration quotas for Japan. By 1924, strong U.S. agricultural and labor interests–particularly from California, which had already passed its own exclusionary laws against Japanese immigrants–favored the more restrictive legislation signed by Coolidge. The Japanese government viewed the American law as an insult, and protested by declaring May 26 a national day of humiliation in Japan.

Fort Frederica National Monument was established on St Simons Island, Georgia on May 26, 1936.

On May 27, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the United States was in an unlimited national emergency and laid out conditions under which Germany’s expansionism would constitute an attack on the United States. There are those who believe that Roosevelt suspended the right of habeas corpus with Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps.

Happy Birthday to Gladys Knight, born in Atlanta on May 28, 1944.

May 26, 1949 was named Clay Day in Marietta, Georgia in honor of General Lucius Clay, who spoke at the courthouse square.

On May 27, 1976, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter blasted the “Stop Carter” movement in a speech in Cincinnati.

Actor Christopher Reeves was thrown from his horse in an equestrian competition in Culpepper, Virginia on May 27, 1995, becoming quadraplegic.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Governor Nathan Deal will attend the Georgia Republican Party State Convention next weekend.

Fulton County is moving twelve polling locations ahead of the June 20 Special Runoff Election in the Sixth Congressional District.

Fulton County is moving 12 of its polling places to different locations a little more than three weeks out from the highly watched Sixth Congressional District runoff election because officials said they had no choice.

Most of the polls are located in Fulton County School District schools, and shortly after the April 18 primary election, school officials informed elections director Richard Barron that they needed to renovate those buildings, so they could not be polling locations for the June 20runoff between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Most changes are within a mile or two of the original locations, but some are more than three miles away.

Georgia has taken the number one spot globally for film production.

More top 100 feature films released at the domestic box office in 2016 were made in Georgia than any other place, according to a new industry study by FilmL.A. – Los Angeles’ film office.

The rapid growth of the film and television industry in Georgia and the state’s steadfast commitment to its support is remarkable,” the group said in its report. “With 17 projects in 2016, the first-ranked Peach State hosted nearly three times as many feature films as fifth-place New York and Louisiana.”

The steadfast commitment came in large part to Georgia’s generous use of tax credits, which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars as the state has tried to lure both movie and TV productions here.

Gov. Nathan Deal, who just helped host a “Georgia Night in L.A.” reception in Los Angeles, has been a consistent advocate of the approach while pushing executives and studios to put down roots that would keep them here. He also backed creation of ancillary efforts such as the Georgia Film Academy, which aims to provide training for Georgians to get industry-supported jobs.

Walton County hosted the greatest political event in the state this week.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, state Sen. Hunter Hill and Secretary of State Brian Kemp were among the Republicans in attendance for the annual Walton County Republican Party Barbecue on Tuesday at Nunnally Farms.

Cagle, Hill and Kemp are vying to succeed term-limited Gov. Nathan Deal in 2018.

“We need to be doing more for the conservative values of this state,” Hill, of Atlanta, said. He promised to oppose any effort to create “sanctuary cities” for immigrants in the state.

Cagle, the third-term lieutenant governor from Gainesville, said all of the candidates agreed on many of the basic values.

“I don’t have to be governor,” he said. “I want to be governor.” He pledged a $100 million tax cut in his first 100 days in office.

Kemp, a regular visitor to Walton GOP events, said he’s traveled Georgia in his current office, fighting efforts to strike down voter ID laws.

“I feel like no one has a better idea about what’s going on around the state than I do,” he said.

Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge Kathy Schrader and state Senator Renee Unterman (R-Buford) hosted an event last night discussing the epidemic of mental health issues and opioid addiction.

Schrader called the event a “reality check” for Gwinnett County to make people aware of the seriousness of mental health and substance abuse issues in the county.

“For a couple of years, I have been speaking in front of community groups about the fact that I don’t have many community resources to support my participants in drug court,” she said. “Then I realized that really the community needs resources to support everyone in the community because there is not a family today that has not been impacted by mental health or substance abuse issues.”

Unterman said she was inspired to get involved in the issue of addressing mental health and substance abuse issues in Gwinnett County partially because she is a former nurse, but also because of parents who have come to see her at the state Capitol.

“I look in their eyes and I know the feeling so intimately because I lost my child, and any parent, or any loved one, who has lost a loved one, you will do anything within your power because you know the grief and you know the feeling you had,” Unterman said. “You never get over it.”

Gainesville’s unemployment reached the lowest level since November 2007.

Metro Gainesville’s unemployment rate in April fell to 3.9 percent, the lowest it’s been since November 2007 for Hall County, when the rate was 3.5 percent.

“A diverse economy is growing and needing some workers,” [Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce CEO Kit] Dunlap said. The rate remains the lowest in Georgia, according to state Department of Labor figures released Thursday, and was down from 4 percent in March.

Metro Dalton, which includes Whitfield and Murray Counties, hit 5.2% unemployment, which is also down for the area.

The unemployment rate in April for Metro Dalton — Whitfield and Murray counties — was 5.2 percent, down from 5.8 percent in March, according to the Georgia Department of Labor. The rate in April a year ago was 5.5 percent.

The rate dropped as “employers created more jobs and reduced the number of new layoffs,” the department said in a press release.

Metro Gainesville had the lowest area jobless rate at 3.9 percent, while the Heart of Georgia and River Valley regions had the highest at 5.9 percent.

The state’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for April was 5 percent, a decrease from 5.1 percent in March. The rate was 5.4 percent in April of 2016.

Lockheed Martin is testing its first commercial C-130 aircraft.

The first Lockheed Martin LM-100J commercial freighter aircraft completed its initial flight Thursday.

“This first flight is a source of pride for Lockheed Martin and serves as a proof-point to the ongoing versatility of the Super Hercules aircraft,” said George Shultz, vice president and general manager, Air Mobility & Maritime Missions, and Marietta site general manager. “ … the LM 100J is exceeding all expectations in terms of performance and capabilities.”

This first flight route took the plane over north Georgia and Alabama.

The number of able-bodied welfare recipients in Georgia has been reduced, according to new state figures.

State figures released this week revealed that 11,779 people considered able-bodied without children were required to find work by April 1 to continue receiving food stamps, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Sixty-two percent were dropped after the deadline, whittling the number of recipients to 4,528.

State officials began enforcing the work mandate in 2016, and plan to expand work requirements to all 159 counties by 2019.

About 1.6 million Georgia residents use food stamps, which are funded with federal dollars managed by the state Department of Family and Children Services. The number of food stamp recipients deemed able-bodied and without children in Georgia has dropped from 111,000 to 89,500 in a year, a drop that state officials believe is attributed to a statewide review of the population.

The Hall County Board of Education plans to adopt a property tax millage rate higher than the rollback rate, but lower than the current rate.

The Muscogee County Board of Education voted against hiring Camelot Education to run special programs, and also voted against upgrading the AV systems in the Board Room.