Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for April 28, 2020

On April 28, 1776, Colonel Lachlan McIntosh wrote from Savannah to General George Washington.

he concluded his letter with the report that because the South had limited manufacturing capability, the price of needed goods was two or three times higher than in the North, making procurement of clothing and arms for the new recruits difficult.

This last tidbit would prove prescient as lack of manufacturing proved an insuperable problem for the Confederacy. On May 16, 1777, McIntosh dueled against Button Gwinnett, scoring a fatal wound against one of Georgia’s signers of the Declaration of Independence. McIntosh was acquitted at trial but forced to leave Georgia and eventually served under Washington at Valley Forge.

In 1787, McIntosh was a Commissioner representing Georgia in a series of three boundary disputes with South Carolina, two which were resolved on April 28, 1787 with the Convention of Beaufort.

On April 28, 2014, the earliest ever Primary Elections in Georgia began, as in-person early voting started across the state.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Chatham County voters who received incomplete absentee ballots will receive new ballots, according to the Savannah Morning News.

Voters in Chatham County Districts 4 and 7— whether they’ve already voted or not — should be on the lookout for another corrected ballot in the mail soon.

On Saturday, April 25, the Chatham County Board of Elections was notified that the race for Savannah Chatham County Public School Board’s District 7 seat was missing from the District 7 absentee ballots.

The rest of the races and names were there on the ballot, but not District 7 Incumbent Michael Johnson and Challenger Leonard K. McCoy.

The ballots with the District 7 School Board race were sent to voters in District 4. [Board of Elections Chairman Russell] Bridges said an error in proofreading the ballots led to the error.

“It was an error we did not catch when we proofed the ballots this time around,” Bridges said. “When the ballots went out late last week, somebody discovered it and reported it, and we found out about it Saturday. We’ve already coordinated with the state and had it corrected.”

New ballots will be mailed out to voters who have requested absentee ballots in District 4 and District 7. The new ballots will have a yellow header, and will come with a note from the BOE explaining to voters why they have received a second ballot.

Last week, the incorrect ballots were among the 29,000 absentee ballots sent out in Chatham County.

On Sunday, the ballot printers at the county and state level were given the corrected ballots, and Bridges said the new ballots should be mailed out later this week.

Bridges encouraged voters to cast the new, corrected ballots again.

Governor Brian Kemp held a briefing on the ongoing Covid 19 response yesterday, according to The Brunswick News.

Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday he has not decided what Georgia’s future guidelines will look like when the statewide shelter-in-place order expires Thursday at midnight.

“We’re going to be making some decisions most likely in the next couple of days about what the next week, two weeks or months look like,” Kemp said during a press conference at the state capitol in Atlanta.

The medically fragile are asked to stay home through May 13.

Kemp, along with Kathleen Toomey, Georgia Department of Public Health commissioner, urged Georgians who are experiencing even the mildest symptoms of COVID-19 to get tested. Symptoms, which can appear two to 14 days after exposure, include fever, cough, shortness of breath, chill, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and loss of taste or smell.

The state has increased its capacity for testing, Toomey said, and now is the time to be tested.

“Please go get tested,” she said.

From the Macon Telegraph:

Though he did not cite specific data or numbers to back up his choice, Kemp referred repeatedly to the economic loss the coronavirus pandemic has created, putting “people on the verge of losing everything that they’ve got.” He shared a story about a woman who had reopened her salon to keep from losing her car.

“As the president said and as I know as a small business guy for 30 years, there’s going to be businesses that we saw before this that we won’t see after it,” Kemp said. “And that will take a heavy toll on our local communities as well as our state, and I know that firsthand.”

Kemp thanked the state’s businesses that have decided to reopen, as well as those that have not reopened.

“It was not a mandate, there is a lot of people that have decided to wait and I support that 100%,” he said. “If they can weather the storm, they don’t need to open.”

From the Capitol Beat News Service:

Ahead of an April 30 end to the state’s shelter-in-place order, Gov. Brian Kemp urged Georgians to continue social distancing and to seek testing if they experience common coronavirus symptoms like coughing, fever and shortness of breath.

At a news conference Monday, Kemp did not say whether he will extend the statewide shelter-in-place order beyond Thursday, when it is set to end. The order has already been extended once since it was first issued on April 3.

He noted only that the order is currently scheduled to end after April 30 and that he plans to make a decision later this week on what to do next.

“I just haven’t made those decisions yet,” Kemp said.

As businesses start slowly reopening, Kemp and the state’s public health commissioner, Dr. Kathleen Toomey, stressed that anyone in Georgia who is experiencing common coronavirus symptoms can now receive a diagnostic test. On Monday, Kemp called on those with symptoms to “take us up on this offer.”

“We have the tests, we have the physicians, we have the sites and we have the bandwidth,” Kemp said. “What we need right now is to have more Georgians participate.”

Now, everyone can be tested who shows symptoms including fever, coughing, difficulty breathing, chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and loss of taste or smell.

“We have plenty of testing capacity,” Toomey said Monday. “And we are ramping up our contact tracing capacity.”

“We are looking at depression-like unemployment,” Kemp said. “It has all tumbled off a cliff like it has in every state. But we will come back, and we will come back even stronger.”

Gov. Kemp noted increasing cases in Hall County, according to the Gainesville Times.

Hall County’s COVID-19 cases continue to rise as statewide leaders see decreases, Gov. Brian Kemp said during a press briefing Monday.

“Over the past few weeks, as other areas of our state have seen reduced transmissions of the virus, the Gainesville area has experienced an increase in cases, and our hospital partners in the area are seeing more hospitalizations,” Kemp said.

The health system also has noted the increasing cases in Hall and a disproportionate number of Latino residents testing positive.

Additional free testing will be offered 4-7 p.m. Tuesday, April 28, to low-income and uninsured Hall County residents who are showing symptoms or have been in contact with a person who has tested positive for the virus.

“I think what we’re seeing in Gainesville. … is we have to get the community to buy into this. That community, they’re very hard-working. I’ve worked with them for almost 40 years,” he said. “They are going to go to work unless they just absolutely can’t, and that is their culture of being very hard-working people.”

To help Hall County handle the increase in cases, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency is sending a 20-bed unit to Northeast Georgia Medical Center Gainesville. Kemp said the unit will have 10 critical care beds and 10 general hospital beds. It is scheduled to be operational by May 14, Kemp said, a change from the original May 5 opening date.

From AccessWDUN:

Kemp said he and state insurance commissioner John King are working with the Mexican consulate in Atlanta and officials with the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to provide information that will help protect members of that community

Kemp said the insurance commissioner was in Hall County talking to poultry industry executives on Monday to ensure their workers understand public health guidance on how to protect themselves from COVID-19 and what the state is doing to help stop the spread.

Officials with Northeast Georgia Health System said last week that cases of the coronavirus may not peak until early June. The health system also said it may reach its staff capacity by May 4, although discussions are underway with the governor’s office and the Department of Public Health to bring in additional health care workers to assist.

About half of the COVID-19 hospitalizations at its four hospitals are from the Hispanic community, officials said.

Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah is seeking blood donations from people who have recovered from Covid 19, according to the Savanah Morning News.

After selecting seven COVID-19 patients being treated at Memorial who might benefit from plasma transfusions from recuperated donors — whose coronavirus-fighting antibodies could assist those still suffering from the disease — Memorial doctors asked for blood donations from anybody who was officially diagnosed with the illness and has completely recovered.

“We have experience from other diseases that we’ve helped manage by giving people antibodies from other persons, and we call that convalescent plasma therapy,” said Dr. Stephen Thacker, explaining that Memorial is participating in a nationwide Mayo Clinic trial to test the efficacy of this treatment for COVID-19 patients.

At this point, plasma donors for the trial can only be people who have tested positive for COVID-19, then had at least 14 days of recuperation time before testing negative for the illness, according to Thacker. Although asymptomatic coronavirus carriers might also develop therapeutic antibodies, it is currently unfeasible to identify them.

Bruker said eligible plasma donors would have to provide about a half-pint of blood in the same manner as ordinary blood-donation techniques, while noting that convalescent plasma is in high demand nationwide.

Georgia State Senator Chuck Hufstetler (R-Rome) suggests proceeding with caution, according to the Rome News Tribune.

Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, is an anesthetist at a local hospital in addition to being a member of the governor’s Coronavirus Task Force. His committee is still meeting regularly and the task force meets about once a week.

Hufstetler said he would have preferred to wait for more data on the spread, but there are multiple factors to weigh.

“We’ve never been here before. My timeline was different from others’ timeline, but who knows who’s right or wrong,” he said. “We are up to about 7,000 tests a day. I would rather have more, but we’ll have to watch it carefully.”

“I think the governor’s making the best decisions he can … (and) I do think he’s got the flexibility to make changes if needed,” Hufstetler said. “This area is in a better position than other parts of state because we’ve been flattening the curve.”

“I think there’s been a lot of behavior changes in this community that we need to keep in place — and in the legislature,” he said. “I think handshaking is a thing of the past.”

Dougherty County Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas is suggesting regional alliances to report on local Covid 19 conditions, according to the Albany Herald.

Cohilas broached the topic during a Monday commission meeting conducted online.

“One of the recommendations I have made to the governor’s office directly — I have requested that the governor form regional task forces,” he said.

The rate of coronavirus cases varies greatly by county, with some southwest Georgia counties leading the state in the number of infections.

“The Dougherty County experience is very different than many other counties in the state,” Cohilis said. “In reality, Georgia is the 21st-largest state in the nation. We are a very diverse population.”

“I am very proud to say the coronavirus task force, city, county, department heads, law enforcement, medical staff from Phoebe and the Marine base have worked over many days to address the influx of the coronavirus within our community,” Cohilas said. “We are definitely flattening the curve.

“It has been very encouraging to see the trend over the last several days (and), more importantly, an overall reduction in the number of folks who have been admitted to Phoebe Putney with COVID-19.”

Athens-Clarke County is being called on to release prisoners from the jail, according to the Athens Banner Herald.

Demonstrators staged a new kind of protest in Athens Monday, taking to the streets with social distancing in a kind of car parade to call on Athens-Clarke County officials to release prisoners to prevent the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Once at the jail, the protesters parked and got out of their vehicles, most wearing protective face masks and keeping six feet apart. Once outside, they held up their hand-made signs and got out to climb up on two of the vehicles and hold up a large banner with the slogan “Care not Cages.”

The protest comes as the American Civil Liberties Union continues a campaign launched weeks ago to urge governments to release prisoners from jails and prisons, which can become hot spots for COVID-19 outbreaks.

Public health officials have also warned of the potential of uncontrolled spread among incarcerated people.

The United States Supreme Court has held that the State of Georgia cannot hold copyright to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, according to the Daily Report.

The state of Georgia cannot copyright the annotations in its official annotated code, the Supreme Court held Monday in a 5-4 opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that the so-called government edicts doctrine, which holds that nonbinding, explanatory legal materials created by judges are not copyrightable, also applies to legislative bodies.

“The Court long ago interpreted the word ‘author’ to exclude officials empowered to speak with the force of law, and Congress has carried that meaning forward in multiple iterations of the Copyright Act,” Roberts wrote in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org.

Roberts ruled that, because the commission is “created by the legislature, for the legislature, and consists largely of legislators,” and the OCGA is “published under authority of the state,” it must be free to all of the public. To rule otherwise would leave citizens, attorneys, nonprofits and private research companies with only “the economy-class version of the Georgia Code available online.”

“The animating principle behind this rule is that no one can own the law,” Roberts wrote.

Dalton City Hall will open again on Friday, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen News.

Mayor David Pennington said today the city is waiting on Gov. Brian Kemp’s shelter-in-place order to expire on Thursday before reopening city offices.

Visitors to City Hall will notice some differences. All staff who interact with the public will be wearing masks. And there will be marks in front of windows at the city clerk’s office reminding people to stay 6 feet apart.

Murray County Sole Commissioner Greg Hogan said he will continue with plans to reopen county offices there to the public on May 14.

Gwinnett County Transit drivers will stop working Thursday over Covid 19 concerns, according to the Saporta Report.

Augusta University Health and the Medical College of Georgia are working to perform 1000 Covid 19 tests per day, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

It is part of a larger effort by AU Health System and the Georgia National Guard and public health to coordinate statewide testing and open new sample collection sites in Atlanta and hard-hit Albany and other areas of the state with higher black populations that seem to be especially at risk from COVID-19, said Dr. Phillip Coule, the chief medical officer for AU Health.

“We know that COVID-19 disproportionately affects black and African American communities,” he said. “That’s part of the reason we are targeting those areas is to make sure that we are getting the testing to the area where the current system has not been able to adequately support it.”

Georgia State Rep. Kasey Carpenter (R-Dalton) made the AJC because he decided to reopen his restaurants.

Carpenter is walking a tightrope amid the coronavirus restrictions. He’s a Republican state lawmaker and close ally of Gov. Brian Kemp. He’s also a restaurateur in Dalton whose two downtown eateries were upended by orders to shut down in-person dining at restaurants.

When the governor made the polarizing decision last week to allow restaurants to reopen their dining rooms if they abided by safety precautions, Carpenter didn’t hesitate. He reopened both restaurants Monday with more limited capacity, social distancing and other measures.

“I was ready. I didn’t want to shut down in the first place,” he said, though he was forced to shutter first by local officials and then by Kemp’s April 3 mandate. “People were scared to death and they were doing the best they could, but I pleaded with them not to do it.”

“You can’t let fear drive your decisions,” he said. “I pray at night that we don’t spread the virus, that my employees don’t get it, that my friends don’t get it. But we’ve flattened the curve. At some point people need to see progress.”

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources announced that Loggerhead nesting season has begun, according to the Savannah Morning News.

The first clutch of loggerhead eggs was found Monday morning buried in the sand on a Cumberland Island beach .

The nest, made Saturday night, April 24d, marked Georgia’s 32st year of comprehensive marine turtle nest monitoring and the seventh straight year that Cumberland National Seashore had the first nest.

But Cumberland is only the start. Loggerheads, Georgia’s leading marine turtle and a protected species, nest on all barrier islands in the state. The season will hit full stride by June.

Predicting a nest total is anyone’s guess, according to Dodd, a senior wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. But one question is whether 2020 can top last year’s 3,950 nests, the most since extensive monitoring began in 1989.