Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for April 12, 2022

On April 12, 1861, Confederates in Charleston, SC opened fire on Federal-held Fort Sumter opening the Civil War.

During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern “insurrection.”

“The General” Locomotive was hijacked at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw), Georgia on April 12, 1862, leading to “The Great Locomotive Chase.” The locomotive is now housed in the Southern Museum in Kennesaw.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia.

On April 12, 1961, Russian Commienaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to go to outer space and the first to orbit earth.

The triumph of the Soviet space program in putting the first man into space was a great blow to the United States, which had scheduled its first space flight for May 1961. Moreover, Gagarin had orbited Earth, a feat that eluded the U.S. space program until February 1962, when astronaut John Glenn made three orbits in Friendship 7.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama on April 12, 1963; while there he would write his famed, “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

The Braves played their first home game in Atlanta on April 12, 1966.

The Space Shuttle Columbia became the first reusable orbital vehicle when it launched on April 12, 1981.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Camden County Administrator Steve Howard said the county government still holds its citizens in contempt wants to build a spaceport despite a landslide vote against it, according to WTOC.

Camden County Administrator, Steve Howard, says despite the results of a referendum early last month, the county, along with private companies are meeting and planning the future of the spaceport project.

“The referendum said ‘yes’ meant ‘no’ and ‘no’ meant ‘yes,’ so very confusing. It wasn’t a ballot question that the county created, and still today I don’t think anyone’s come forward to say ‘I wrote it.’ We have our thoughts on potentially who that could be, but they need to actually talk about that and be transparent and bring that forward,” Howard said.

Howard says the county is appealing to the state Supreme Court, adding legal advisors for the County Commission are confident the referendum will be overturned.

Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler is asking for additional funding because of increasing numbers of overdose deaths and rising transportation costs, according to WALB.

More people in Dougherty County are dying from drug overdoses than from any other cause, according to Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler. The coroner asked the Dougherty County Commission for more money to help cover the cost of transport.

Victims of a death investigation are transported to GBI crime labs in either Macon or Atlanta. From July to March of this year, there have been 54 of them, most being drug overdoses.

“I already knew that we were probably going to run out of money,” said Fowler.

Coroner Fowler said these costs in transport have nothing to do with COVID-19, but another issue within the county.

“The problem is we’re having a lot of drug overdoses, usually fentanyl,” said Fowler.

Today, Governor Kemp will sign Senate Bill 319, the “Constitutional Carry Act of 2o21,” according to the AJC.

SB 319 would allow a “lawful weapons carrier” to carry a concealed handgun everywhere license holders currently are allowed — meaning guns would still be prohibited in places such as the secured areas of airports or government buildings that have security at the entrance, including the state Capitol. A lawful weapons carrier is defined as anyone who is now lawfully allowed to have a gun.

Those who have prior drug convictions, have been convicted of a felony or are facing felony charges, have been treated for mental health or substance abuse issues within the past five years, or have been involuntarily committed to a mental health hospital would still be prohibited from purchasing and possessing handguns.

Supporters of the measure say it removes an unnecessary barrier to their constitutional right to carry handguns.

Long guns can already be carried without a license. Georgia has not required training to get a license. There is no waiting period in Georgia when buying a gun. And those who don’t have a license must undergo a background check when purchasing guns from stores.

Georgians seeking to carry a concealed handgun have had to apply for a license with their local probate court or sheriff’s office (depending on the county), get fingerprinted, submit to a background check, and pay a fee up to $75. When Kemp signs SB 319, that requirement will go away.

The United States Department of Justice is asking for an order requiring the Georgia Department of Corrections to comply with subpoenas issue during an investigation of prison conditions, according to GPB News via the AP and Valdosta Daily Times.

In a March 28 filing to the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the DOJ said what it seeks, broadly, are documents relating to policies, training materials, staffing and personnel discipline, documents relating to certain prisoners, incident reports and internal investigations materials. The original subpoena specified a date in January for delivery of the material.

The DOJ said to date, Georgia corrections has only provided access to “an incomplete set of policies” which they call only a fraction of the original request, some blank documents, and a few organizational charts.

Also missing are any reports related to in-custody homicides. A GPB analysis of documents provided by the Georgia Department of Corrections shows 53 homicides in Georgia prisons between 2020 and 2021. Investigative reporting by The Atlanta Journal Constitution came to the same conclusion and is cited in the court filing.

A persistent and maddening wall around the information about how their loved ones died has long been a complaint of family members of the incarcerated in Georgia, whether the deaths are among the 106 dating back to 2017 for which no cause of death has yet to be determined or the record number of homicides in the past three years.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R-ish) wants investigations of foreign citizens who attempted to register to vote, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Statesboro Herald.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is referring the cases of 1,634 people who tried to register to vote but could not be verified as U.S. citizens for investigation by state and local authorities.

The names of those would-be voters turned up last month in the first citizenship audit of voter rolls in Georgia history.

Raffensperger blamed voting rights groups for many of the attempts by non-citizens to register.

“Attempting to register to vote while knowing you do not possess the qualifications to vote is a felony in Georgia, a serious one,” he said at a news conference Monday. “Outside groups that attempt to help noncitizens register to vote will face consequences as well.”

Secretary Raffensperger also spoke in Columbus, according to WTVM.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made a stop in the Fountain City Wednesday, April 6, to talk with voters and answer questions.

Now, Senate Bill 441 will give the GBI full authority to investigate election fraud complaints.

Some critics of the bill say it will intimidate voters, however, Secretary of State Raffensperger says it will not.

“We just want to make sure we have fair and honest elections and then make sure we have the appropriate guard rails like accessibility and security,” said Raffensperger. “And we always prosecute people. I’m the first Secretary of State to do a 100% check of our voter rolls to see if there is any none citizens on those voter rolls.”

From WTVM:

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says there are 400 felony-level cases that his office has forwarded to law enforcement in the state. It all has to do with voter rolls.

Raffensperger says he’s pushing for a citizenship-only voting amendment for the state constitution, but the legislature did not pass such a measure this past session. State law actually says a person must be a Georgia resident to vote, but he wants it written into the constitution.

The secretary took a very partisan tone – saying that Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock had pushed for doing away with verifying citizenship as a requirement to vote.

From AccessWDUN:

“We want to make sure that if they are noncitizens, we want to know why they tried to register,” Raffensperger said. “And then they need to face the full fury of the law. It’s a serious felony. … And it’s done so that people know that we really take it serious in Georgia, that only the only American citizens should be voting in the state of Georgia.”

A person convicted of attempting to register to vote illegally is subject to up to 10 years in prison and up to a $100,000 fine.

A state law already exists that bans registered to vote illegally. But Raffensperger said a constitutional amendment, voted on by the public, is needed. He pointed to some cities, like New York City, that have recently passed legislation that will allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

“Laws can change, but constitutions are more difficult,” he said.

The Stacey Abrams/Fair Fight Action federal lawsuit continues, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Albany Herald.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones already has dismissed some of the lawsuit’s allegations, those he said were addressed by changes to state election laws the General Assembly passed last year, prompting Raffensperger to refer to the suit at a news conference Monday as a “hollowed-out shell.”

But several significant charges will be heard during the trial, which is expected to last several weeks. Witnesses will include voters who have encountered various obstacles either trying to register to vote or to cast their ballots.

“After repeated attempts by the state to silence the voice of the voters, these Georgians refuse to be sidelined,” Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said at a news conference Monday following the trial’s opening day. “These voters are finally going to have their stories told.”

Lawrence-Hardy said the lawsuit is challenging the state’s “exact-match” policy, which requires information provided on voter-registration applications to match information held by the state Department of Driver Services or the federal Social Security Administration.

The plaintiffs also accuse the secretary of state’s office of mismanaging voter rolls by wrongly purging Georgians from the list and providing inadequate training in handling cancellations of absentee ballots.

From the Associated Press via AccessWDUN:

During her opening statement, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, an attorney for Fair Fight and the other plaintiffs, evoked the image of U.S. Rep. John Lewis marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to fight for voting rights. The congressman, who died in July 2020, had planned to be the plaintiffs’ first witness at trial, Lawrence-Hardy said.

“Voting is also a bridge. It is the most basic path to democracy,” she said. Because of the actions of state election officials, she said, “eligible voters in Georgia face roadblock after roadblock as they try to get to that path.”

Under the “exact match” policy, information from voter registration applications is checked against information held by the state Department of Driver Services. The “flawed matching methods” used by the state inevitably produce erroneous results, Lawrence-Hardy said. Critics of “exact match” have long said data entry errors or differences as minor as a missing hyphen can trigger a non-match and that naturalized citizens can also be wrongly flagged if records are outdated. The problems disproportionately affect people of color, naturalized citizens and residents of certain counties, Lawrence-Hardy said.

Evidence will show that 98% of Georgians have had no problem with the policy and the other 2% can vote after showing a photo ID, which every voter is required to do, [defense attorney Josh] Belinfante said. The “exact match” policy has also become “less stringent” as a result of litigation and a 2019 law, he said.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Cohen says he is unable to pronounce Stacey Abrams President of United Earth the Democratic nominee for Governor, according to the AJC.

That, in turn, could make her ineligible to use a state law created to give Gov. Brian Kemp a major fundraising advantage in their possible rematch this year.

Judge Mark Cohen said Monday he would rule by the end of the week on a lawsuit that asks to let Abrams use the leadership committee law approved last year by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

The law lets the governor, the opposing party’s gubernatorial nominee, and party caucuses raise as much cash as they can throughout the campaign, including during legislative sessions. It gave incumbents an added edge, since their challengers can’t use the funds until they win their party’s nomination.

Abrams’ lawyers argue that she should be treated as the Democratic nominee now since she didn’t draw a primary opponent. U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, filed an affidavit declaring Abrams the nominee.

However, Cohen said state law is clear that “Stacey Abrams is not the nominee” and that Abrams’ campaign was asking him to re-write state law by declaring her the Democratic nominee before the primary.

“This statute is clear as day. You’ve got to have the primary” he said.

House Resolution 1158 by State Rep. Darlene Taylor (R- Thomasville) and other suggests the State House might take further steps to protect the Okefenokee Swamp, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.

Members of the Athens-based state water advocacy group Georgia River Network are celebrating the passage last week of House Resolution 1158 demonstrating the body’s intent to protect the Okefenokee Swamp’s “unrivaled beauty.”

The Georgia House of Representatives passed House Resolution 1158 on March 30.

The resolution, filed by Representative Darlene Taylor and others, states: “The Okefenokee Swamp is recognized as one of Georgia’s seven natural wonders and a natural area unique not only to the the state of Georgia but also to the United States of America and the world … the members of this body recognize the importance of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia and encourage efforts to protect the Okefenokee Swamp and promote it as an international tourist destination.”

“This resolution demonstrates collective sentiment amongst the House that the Okefenokee holds international importance and must be protected,” Georgia River Network Executive Director Rena Ann Peck, who worked closely with Taylor to pass the resolution, said in a news release. “Symbolically, it is an important first step for our legislators on the path to protect the Okefenokee Swamp in the future.”

The resolution is not binding law and has no legal bearing on the pending permit proposals submitted by Twin Pines Minerals LLC to mine adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. That decision is still in the hands of the Georgia Environmental Protectionision. To date, the EPD has received more than 60,000 letters from independent scientists, conservationist groups and citizens concerned about the detrimental effects mining could have on the Okefenokee. A public comment period is expected to be announced some time this summer.

From The Brunswick News:

The House’s message to Twin Pines with House Resolution 1158 indicates elected officials are concerned about the potential impacts mining could have on the world-famous swamp.

The resolution explains the 438,000-acre Okefenokee is the largest blackwater wetland in North America, and that it is one of Georgia’s seven natural wonders that is recognized internationally.

It is also important to local tourism, with more than 650,000 visits to the swamp each year generating $64.7 million for local economies and creating 750 tourism-related jobs.

“Our effort comes in the aftermath of many public requests, including a letter written by over 43 scientists from around Georgia opining that mining on Trail Ridge threatens to irreparably damage the Okefenokee by lowering the water level,” Taylor wrote.

Statewide Republican candidates campaigned in Glynn County, according to The Brunswick News.

State Senator Butch Miller made a stop in the Golden Isles Monday to speak to the Golden Isles Republican Women’s Club about his ongoing campaign for lieutenant governor.

Miller, who has served two times as the Senate pro tem by a unanimous vote, said the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic shows “conservatism works.”

“Conservatism made Georgia the best state for business eight years in a row,” he said. “The COVID immunity bill protected businesses. It would have put us out of business in Georgia (without the legislation).”

Miller expressed disappointment elected officials were unable to pass a medical marijuana bill, saying he has seen the positive effects it can have on a patient’s life.

“I believe in medical marijuana,” he said. “It’s a crying shame it wasn’t approved.”

U.S. Senate candidate Gary Black was given a few minutes to speak at the meeting. He expressed concerns about illegal immigration, inflation, and the nation’s Democratic leadership. He also criticized Herschel Walker, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate seat he is seeking.

“I helped build the Republican Party in Georgia,” he said. “I’m not going to have it stolen.”

State Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah) spoke to the Savannah Morning News.

“I’m pretty proud of what we got done locally. Take the Savannah Convention Center expansion — $173 million over a two-year period is just phenomenal. It is the largest in a decade when you accumulate it all together and that’s for one single project in Savannah. We did not fully fund the expansion but we got about 97%, 98% of it.”

“Also, it was a good year for our colleges. Georgia Southern Armstrong campus got money. So did Savannah State. And Savannah Tech got funds for the expansion of the culinary school they have planned down on Bay Street. When I first saw that old building and the original intent to try to turn that into a culinary school, I wasn’t sure how that was going to work out. But I’m glad that I was wrong. With the very nice restaurants we have in Savannah now, we are a culinary destination. Putting money into that school will come back to us many times over.”

RS: “Not only is it a [state income] tax cut, but it also moves us from a graduated tax to a flat tax. We eliminated many of the deductions a person might have to keep up with. Then there’s the refund on the 2020 taxes. If you paid taxes last spring, you’ll get a refund of $250 per taxpayer. That’s the way it ought to be. In my 24 years, I don’t ever remember seeing a check go back to taxpayers for a surplus. In government, you never have enough money, and there’s always people at the trough ready to spend a surplus. So that’s a big deal.”

“Getting back to the tax cut, the idea of moving to a 4.99% rate makes us incredibly competitive with our surrounding states. We’re constantly competing with our neighbors that have a state income tax, like North Carolina, for labor and for new businesses. This helps us in our goal is remaining the No. 1 state to do business in the country.”

“Speaking specifically about the opposition to the mental health bill, this is one of the things that honestly makes me nauseated. The idea that people who claim to be Republicans would connect dots that don’t exist makes me pretty ashamed. Unfortunately, you’ve got extremists on both sides, and we’ve got our share. Some long-timers say the extremists are noisy but they can never win on a long-term basis. But unfortunately, the extremists have taken over in certain parts of our state. I suspect some of this stuff, this embrace of more partisan positions and legislation, is going to continue. People tend to vote the way that they feel, and typically that’s near the middle. But the extremes are taking over in both parties, and as that happens, it encourages the conspiracy theories and all this stuff.”

State Representative Carl Gilliard (D-Garden City) is working on getting rental assistance funds to people affected by COVID, according to WSAV.

Since March 2020, the cost of a studio apartment in Savannah has increased by 60%, according to data site Zumper. Representative Carl Gilliard of Garden City called the rising prices “atrocious” and said it’s time to get people the help they need.

After feeling a financial pinch himself in 2009 during the recession, Gilliard said he wanted to help people stay afloat.

“I was working a job, making six figures and had to give up my home, had to give up my car,” he said. “I could not afford it, I’d just purchased a home. And there was nobody to help us.”

Gilliard has been working with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to help residents get assistance paying their rent, utility bills and down payments. Through their collaboration, 244 people were able to get adequate housing.

“A lot of people were out of work, a lot of people were not able to work,” Gilliard said. “And there were those who didn’t qualify for COVID money and so they went and got back in their rent. They were backlogging their rent, backlogging their utilities, some people got evicted.”

Republican candidates for State Senate District 52 and State House District 13 are invited to a forum held by Democratic organizations. From the Rome News Tribune:

These are two of the more interesting races on the May 24 ballot are included in the second of two candidate forums planned by One Community United, the NAACP of Rome/Floyd County and the Floyd County Democratic Party.

Senate District 52, which is a likely runoff with the winner getting the seat as there is no Democratic opposition.

Chuck Hufstetler, R, Incumbent
Derek Keeney, R
Jeff Lewis, R

House District 13: Also a potential runoff, which will decide the winner; no Democratic opposition in November.

Brad Barnes, R
Katie Dempsey, R, Incumbent
Luke Martin, R

Another candidate forum scheduled for April 25 hopes to include all 10 candidates for 14th Congressional District: That includes three Democrats, six Republicans and a Libertarian.

The Muscogee County Board of Education is working on teacher retention programs, according to WTVM.

Floyd County Commissioners will vote whether to deploy third party speed cameras around a school zone, according to the Rome News Tribune.