Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for April 18, 2022

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere and William Dawes mounted up on horseback to warn of British troops on their way to confiscate American arms and to warn patriots Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who the British sought to capture.

By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government had approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from Great Britain to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against Concord and Lexington.

The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a British military action for some time, and, upon learning of the British plan, Revere and Dawes set off across the Massachusetts countryside. They took separate routes in case one of them was captured….

About 5 a.m. on April 19, 700 British troops under Major John Pitcairn arrived at the town to find a 77-man-strong colonial militia under Captain John Parker waiting for them on Lexington’s common green. Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation, the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead and 10 others were wounded; only one British soldier was injured. The American Revolution had begun.

President William H. Taft learned on April 18, 1912 of the death of his military aide, Major Archibald Butts of Augusta, Georgia on RMS Titanic.

The honeybee was recognized as the official state insect of Georgia on April 18, 1975.

On April 18, 2006, Governor Sonny Perdue signed legislation establishing February 6 of each year as “Ronald Reagan Day” in Georgia and celebrating the date of President Reagan’s birth.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Sixty six Georgia state legislators are not running for reelection this year, according to the Capitol Beat News Service.

Twelve of the 56 Georgia senators are not seeking reelection this fall, while 54 of the 180 members of the state House of Representatives aren’t running for another two-year term under the Gold Dome.

That’s an unusually large amount of turnover, driven in part by the ambitions of lawmakers leaving their seats to seek statewide office in positions including lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state. But many others simply have had their fill of the job.

“It was a combination of having been there awhile and the demands of the job, the sacrifices of being away from homes and businesses,” said House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.

At the same time, high turnover in the General Assembly is being accompanied by a larger than usual number of contested races for legislative seats.

In the House, contests for 87 of the 180 seats feature at least one Republican and one Democrat. The ratio is nearly the same in the Senate, where at least one candidate from each of the two major parties is on the ballot in 27 of 56 races.

“The changing population is spreading further out of Atlanta, putting some districts in Gwinnett [County] and North Fulton up for grabs,” [UGA Political Science Professor Charles] Bullock said. “Democrats came close to winning them in 2018 and 2020.”

On the House side, Ralston said he’s not buying that Democrats will gain six seats.

“We’re a competitive state now because of the changing demographics. We get that as Republicans,” he said. “[But] I think [a six-seat pickup] is a real reach for them. I expect we’ll end up pretty close to where we are now. We may pick up one or two [seats].”

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Extreme Northwest Georgia) was out-fundraised by one of her Democratic opponents, according to the AJC.

Democratic challenger Marcus Flowers outraised U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. He raised $2.4 million in the first three months of 2022. compared to her $1.1 million. And Greene spent about $300,000 more than she raised during the quarter. Still, she has $3 million in cash on hand, compared to Flowers’ $1.9 million. She has raised a total of $8.4 million for her reelection bid, while he’s raised about $7.1 million.

And it doesn’t matter, because the district is not winnable by a Democrat.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Charles M. Eaton, Jr., (Bright Yellow Signs) extended an injunction against Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson, according to the AJC.

A Fulton County judge Friday granted an injunction that prevents Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson from enforcing a ban on products containing hemp-derived substances, including delta-8 THC, while litigation proceeds to determine whether they are legal.

Judge Charles M. Eaton’s decision extends a 30-day temporary restraining order that had been granted March 18.

The injunction prohibits Austin-Gatson from prosecuting sellers of delta-8 or delta-10 THC, and from seizing products or money from them. The district attorney’s task force already seized more than $2 million worth of product, including about $300,000 worth of delta-8 edibles, and more than $220,000 in cash from a distributor, court documents said.

The injunction also applies to products containing cannabidiol (CBD), cannabinol (CBN) or cannabigerol (CBG)[.]

At issue are recent federal and state laws that legalized hemp products with less than a certain concentration of delta-9 THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, but are silent on similar chemical compounds including delta-8 and delta-10.

The store owners argue the compounds are legal in Georgia as long as they’re made from hemp plants and don’t contain prohibited levels of delta-9. But Austin-Gatson, in announcing her ban, said delta-8 and delta-10 are illegal because the laws don’t explicitly allow them, as they do low concentrations of delta-9.

Eaton’s order issued Friday said a Madison County Superior Court Judge ruled delta-8 gummies are legal in Georgia after a store there was raided last year.

“Consumers will be unsure of whether they may be subject to arrest for possession of the same products they have believed to be legally available for at least two years,” Eaton said in the order.

From 11Alive:

The lawsuit is aimed at Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson, with lawyers arguing she has unjustly raided retail stores and arrested employees and owners who sell the products.

The ruling this week by Judge Charles M. Eaton Jr. of Fulton County Superior Court determined both that businesses who sell Delta-8 and Delta-10 products “will suffer irreparable harm” and “will be unable to remain open” without an injunction against the DA’s actions against them, and that the DA had “provided no actual evidence to indicate that the distribution and sale of these products had led to any direct harm to any individuals or parties in Gwinnett County.”

Products containing Delta-8 and Delta-10 are legal and sold commonly in Georgia, since 2018, so long as they keep the amount of THC or Delta-9 below the 0.3% threshold.

The judge weighed the DA’s argument that, because the law legalizing hemp in Georgia does not specifically allow Delta-8 and Delta-10, they should be considered illegal.

However, he wrote, “this argument may also be seen in the opposite” – if lawmakers had intended to limit Delta-8 and Delta-10, they explicitly would have.

He then found that the law legalizing hemp products in Georgia is two years old and that, to this point, “there has been little to no action taken against or involving these products until this year.”

That means there is little to no precedent for the judge to refer to with this lawsuit, which, he wrote, “speaks volumes as to the merits of (the) position that these substances may be legal under current Georgia law.”

The judge’s order deferred to the current “status quo,” noting it would “be preserved by an injunction” against the Gwinnett DA.

With this, the judge determined there was a “substantial likelihood” the case would succeed.

This is a fascinating case for government nerds. It calls into question the extent of a Georgia District Attorney’s discretion in deciding how and whether to prosecute cases, a real Constitutional checks-and-balances issue.

Cobb County is looking at how to deal with four new cities that may incorporate, according to Fresh Take Georgia.

The county’s chief financial officer, Bill Volckmann, estimated the county would lose more than $40 million a year in revenue if all four municipalities are approved. That loss takes into account estimated savings of a little over $4 million, he said.

Cupid said in an interview she has a task force preparing for that scenario.

“We started tapping into the agencies that have services connected to the services that the cities would provide,” Cupid said. “There’s this informal group of leaders within the county that have been weighing the impact and helping to provide responses to the public’s questions they have regarding those specific cities.”

The four new cities are only proposing to provide some services, and will still depend on the county to provide the rest. For example, the city of East Cobb would have its own public safety, but would still use the county for sanitation.

Cobb’s Board of Commissioners held a special work session earlier this year, where board members questioned how the proposed cities would provide some services and what their respective budgets would be.

The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project will benefit the entire state, according to the AJC.

The work to deepen 38 miles of winding, narrow river channel by five feet was designed to make importing and exporting goods cheaper and more efficient aboard ever-larger freighters. The deepening will also help Savannah, now the third-busiest port in the U.S., stay ahead of expansions at competing harbors on the Eastern Seaboard, ports officials say.

Economists say the economic impact from the Savannah port washes over the entire state. Logistics jobs tied to the Savannah port have nearly doubled statewide in the past two decades. But a lot of work lies ahead for Georgia to keep its competitive edge.

Billions in new infrastructure projects — some underway and others in the pipeline — are in the works. The Georgia Ports Authority, the government entity that operates the Savannah port, wants to grow its capacity by more than a quarter from 7.5 million shipping containers a year today to 9.5 million annually in next three years.

“This is for our continued economic well-being,” said Joel Wooten, chairman of the authority board. “Georgia continues to have incredible economic development and the ports have to have the capacity for us to be part of that.”