On April 6, 1776, the United States Congress opened American ports to all countries not under British rule.
President George Washington exercised the veto power for the first time on April 5, 1792.
The bill introduced a new plan for dividing seats in the House of Representatives that would have increased the amount of seats for northern states. After consulting with his politically divided and contentious cabinet, Washington, who came from the southern state of Virginia, ultimately decided that the plan was unconstitutional because, in providing for additional representatives for some states, it would have introduced a number of representatives higher than that proscribed by the Constitution.
John Tyler was sworn in as the tenth President of the United States on April 6, 1841.
Tyler was elected as William Harrison’s vice president earlier in 1841 and was suddenly thrust into the role of president when Harrison died one month into office. He was the first vice president to immediately assume the role of president after a sitting president’s untimely exit and set the precedent for succession thereafter.
The Brown Thrasher was first recognized as the official state bird of Georgia on April 5, 1935 through an Executive Order signed by Governor Eugene Talmadge. Later the designation of official state symbols through executive fiat was challenged and the General Assembly would recognize the Brown Thrasher again as official state bird in 1970.
On April 5, 1962, Governor Ernest Vandiver called a Special Session of the Georgia General Assembly to revise the state’s election code following a decision by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Baker v. Carr.
On April 5, 1977, Wyche Fowler won a runoff election over John Lewis for the Fifth Congressional District, following the appointment of Andrew Young as Ambassador to the United Nations. Fowler would win election to the United States Senate in 1986, and ironically, lose his seat in a 1992 runoff election to the late Paul Coverdell.
On April 5, 1980, the band that would come to be known as R.E.M. played their first show as Twisted Kites in Athens, Georgia.
When ABC News used my photo without crediting me
They’ve since revised the video to use another photo, but only after I called them on it.
Tick tock
Earlier in the Session, the Senate changed its rules to require that conference committee reports be placed on the desks of Senators at least two hours before being eligible for a vote. From Tom Crawford’s Georgia Report,
The rule will apply to conference committee reports that are drafted by House-Senate committees that negotiate the final version of a bill.
From the 36th day to the 40th and final day of the session, those reports will have to be placed on senators’ desks at least two hours before the Senate votes on them. That will give senators twice as much time – the old rule required a one-hour wait – to read the final version of a bill before they make a decision on whether to pass it or not.
The new rule addresses a complaint raised by legislators like Sen. Josh McKoon (R-Columbus) and Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta) that bills were being rammed through the Senate during the chaos of a session’s closing days without lawmakers having enough time to read and study them.
After Sine Die, the last day of the legislative session, a question has been raised whether the Senate followed its own rules when voting for a bill that included a tax break that will allow Mercedes-Benz to continue its employee lease program. From Ray Henry, with the Associated Press,
In their haste to award Mercedes-Benz a $1.3 million tax break Thursday, lawmakers in Georgia thwarted any serious debate on the money, broke their own transparency rules and pushed past a constitutional time limit.
The final moments of Georgia’s annual 40-day legislative session are usually chaotic. By law, any bill that does not pass by midnight fails for the year, prompting a late rush of voting. Minutes before midnight, amid the ordinary chaos, senior Republicans forced a vote on a rewritten tax bill that included a previously unseen reward for Mercedes-Benz, which is moving its U.S. headquarters to Georgia.
The Senate ignored a requirement that lawmakers get two hours to review the measure and rolled past the midnight deadline implicitly set in Georgia’s state constitution.
To prevent last-minute mishaps and chicanery, Senate rules require that bills negotiated by a conference committee — like the Mercedes tax plan — should be printed and distributed to senators two hours prior to a vote. Sen. Joshua McKoon, R-Columbus, and others said they received the legislation around 10:30 p.m.
A debate on the tax bill started minutes before midnight. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle twice asked the Senate to suspend the two-hour waiting-period so a vote could proceed. That request was defeated each time.
Cagle called a vote anyway. The tax plan passed around 12:04 a.m., after the midnight deadline.
When asked whether the vote was legal, Cagle brushed off a reporter and walked off the Senate floor.
The Georgia Constitution does not precisely define a legislative day. In 1964, a newspaper photographer snapped a picture of state Rep. Denmark Groover as he dangled over a balcony, trying to manually stop a clock as it ticked toward midnight.
Gov. Deal signs legislation
Under the Constitution, Governors have 40 days to sign or veto legislation, and to date, Gov. Deal has signed 16 bills, mostly local legislation.
Religious Freedom Bill Buried
After some last-minute maneuvering by the bill’s sponsor, the Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act failed to pass both house of the General Assembly this year. From WABE’s Michelle Wirth,
Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, held on to the end and tried to attach the bill’s language to an unrelated House measure. He argued the bill is needed to make sure the government doesn’t infringe on someone’s religious rights without a good reason.
“People of faith would be entitled to better treatment by courts,” McKoon says. “That’s the difference it would make.”
McKoon says the bill closely mirrors a federal act that passed Congress in 1993.
But opponents say it could lead to discrimination against the LGBT community and comes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to legalize gay marriage nationally. On Thursday, Sen. Nan Orrock argued against the bill in the Senate.
“I just don’t want any of to us to have the misapprehension that this doesn’t have something to do with carving out, a legal carve out, to allow discrimination,” says Orrock.
Gov. Deal spoke about a possible path forward for RFRA in the next session, according to Greg Bluestein of the AJC,
First, stick to the language of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And secondly, make sure to include an anti-discrimination clause.
On the first count, Deal said hewing to the federal language would ensure none of the unintended consequences that critics say could arise, such as a legal loophole that could lead to discrimination against gays and lesbians. Supporters, meanwhile, describe it as a much-needed safeguard to protect people from government intrusion.
“As close as a state can stay to the original federal language, the safer you are,” said Deal, who voted for the federal legislation while a member of Congress in the 1990s. “It has been interpreted in the courts, so by having that model you narrow some of the arguments about what it does or does not do.”
House Speaker David Ralston also spoke of a continued discussion of the measure, according to the Washington Times,
“I was disappointed about some of the rhetoric that came out of that debate,” Republican House Speaker David Ralston told reporters after the House adjourned Thursday at midnight. “I’m hoping that we can step back over the interim and catch our breaths and have a calmer, more reasoned discussion about that measure.”
State Sen. Josh McKoon, the measure’s sponsor, said he plans to focus on summer conventions for the statewide Republican party and in Georgia’s congressional districts.
That could further expose a rift in Georgia’s GOP over the issue.
Kathleen Foody of the Associated Press writes about the possibility that RFRA will become an issue in the GOP Conventions this summer.
The divide within the Georgia Republican Party on a religious freedom measure came into clear focus at a March rally opposing the bill.
“I will not let a small minority of vocal legislators hijack my state,” David Bachman told the crowd outside the Georgia Capitol.
Bachman is a 26-year-old gay man who owns a tie-making company and has been involved with Republican campaigns since high school, personifying the split between his party’s business wing and religious backers. The bill failed to get a House vote on Thursday as lawmakers adjourned for the year.
It is likely to return in 2016.
Polling consistently shows younger voters are more accepting of gay rights. Historically, deeply conservative Georgia has taken a harsh stance on gay rights.
More than 76 percent of residents voted in 2004 to change Georgia’s state constitution to ban gay marriage. Views appear to have softened somewhat since then. About 62 percent of Georgia voters said they opposed gay marriage in an exit poll taken in November.
“I think that there’s changing demographics in the entire country, including the Southeast,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a major Republican fundraiser. “I think that it’s important for party leaders to understand that. It doesn’t mean they have to change their particular personal views on things, but I think it requires that if the Republican Party is going to continue being a dominant party they’re going to have to be accepting of people in their party who have different views on different issues.”
Savannah-centered bills
Walter Jones of Morris News writes about the local effects of legislation passed by the General Assembly for the Savannah Morning News.
The city of Savannah’s highest priority was extending state income-tax credits for developers who renovate historic property. Current law grants up to $100,000 for the rehabilitation of legacy homes.
Savannah officials are eager to expand it so that it will benefit Richard Kessler, who is converting a defunct power station on the river into a luxury hotel.
For weeks, the Senate and House traded versions of the bill, raising and lowering the amount of yearly credits available for an individual project, before they agreed on a final, $5 million amount.
Now the bill awaits the governor’s signature to become law.
Legislation sought by the county will bring pay increases to local judges, tax commissioner, clerk of superior court, sheriff and coroner when their next term of office begins.
The entire local legislative delegation cosponsored the bill.
“It was requested by all the officials and the county commission,” said Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah.
Secretary of State’s Office Purges Leadership
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp announced the resignation of now-former Elections Director Linda Ford and the appointment of Ann Hicks as interim director.
As part of our regular process to keep the voter registration roll up to date, every election cycle, there is a process to change the status of long-time, Inactive voters to Cancelled Status. This is a standard process required by law, and there are strict deadlines and procedures for how this is done.
This process was conducted on February 19, 2014, and moved 312,712 voters from Inactive to Cancelled Status. However, an investigation conducted at my direction revealed that six days later, 7,690 voters were moved from Inactive to Cancelled Status. This change was within 90 days of an election and conducted under Linda Ford’s supervision.
I want to emphasize that this process only affects voters in Inactive Status who have not voted in two general election cycles and did not respond to written notice. The 7,690 voters who were moved from Inactive to Cancelled Status should have been part of the February 19 process. Again, the issue at hand has only to do with the timing and the fact that they were moved within the 90 days before an election.
All of the voter records moved from Inactive to Cancelled Status met the requirements for having their status changed. These changes simply took place after the federal deadline. This situation may seem like a minor issue to some, but to me, it is very serious.
The Augusta Chronicle had more on the voter purge,
Kemp’s office was investigating one instance of a Richmond County voter who had to re-register after being improperly placed in “canceled” status to determine whether she had gone to the polls for the May 20 election, and if she did go to the polls, if she had any problem in casting a ballot.
Lowell Greenbaum, chairman of the Richmond County Democratic Party, said while he didn’t file any actions himself, he recalled “a lot of complaints” from voters removed from the rolls.
Greenbaum said many voters also encountered state-level difficulty when their voter registration applications took unusually long to be processed.
“I’m happy that this has caught up with the (director) and maybe this won’t happen again. It’s a poor filtering of good people out of the system.”
How to enforce a drone ban?
After banning drone flights during the Masters, Augusta struggles with how to enforce the ban, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
“We’ve been looking at options,” said Lt. Allan Rollins, motioning to three pictures pinned to the wall behind his desk at the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
One of the pictures was of the red and black plane piloted by WWI ace Manfred von Richthofen, who earned the nickname Red Baron. The second picture featured a man toting a specialized shotgun beneath the words “drone hunter” and another showed a Stormtrooper astride a speeder bike.
The suggestions were made in jest, Rollins said, but illustrate that the sheriff’s office really hasn’t nailed down a plan to tackle the issue of unmanned aircraft systems.
Rollins said the department will likely concentrate its efforts around Augusta National Golf Club.
“If you go out in the woods or go out into a field to fly one of these things and are just playing with it, are we going to send the police? Probably not,” he said.
State Rep. Bert Reeves’s Freshman Memories
The Marietta Daily Journal interviewed State Rep. Bert Reeves (R-Marietta) about his freshman year in the lower house.
Overall, his first legislative session was successful, Reeves said. The freshman legislator has been busy inside and outside the Capitol since he was elected in November.
The first bill Reeves passed through the House was House Bill 119, which allows a positive AIDS diagnosis to be disclosed as medical information in court when a person is determined to be mentally ill.
Another bill Reeves sponsored, HB 316, allows for medicine, surgery and ophthalmology to be practiced in the same corporation.
Reeves also sponsored HB 418, which places restrictions on who can serve on a grand jury. According to HB 418, anyone who is in a pretrial release program, who did not complete a court sentence, who is serving a first offender sentence or who is taking part in a drug, mental health or veterans court program cannot serve on a grand jury in Georgia.
“By the time Day 40 was here, I had four bills that I had filed, which were still ‘living.’ On the final day, I saw three of them pass (HB 119, HB 316 and HB 418) and a fourth (HB 295) made it through the House around 11:35 p.m. on Day 40, but ran out of time in the Senate, so it did not pass. If there was one thing I learned for sure it is when you file a piece of legislation, it does not move on its own. You have to work it, constantly, to get it through the process. It’s never-ending and very stressful because a lot of unexpected things happen in the legislative process. But it was great for me to see that hard work and persistence does pay off,” Reeves said.
Brad Carver running for 11th CD GAGOP Chair
This weekend, we received an email from Billie Dendy, who had been running for 11th Congressional District Chair of the Georgia Republican Party. Dendy has withdrawn from that race and endorsed Brad Carver for Chair.
I had announced that I am running for Chairman of the 11th District; however, due to unforeseen circumstances, I am going to step down from running for that position. I would urge you to consider my friend, Brad Carver, who is now running for this position.
Let me introduce you to Brad, if you do not know him, and, even for those who do, you will be amazed at the accomplishments of someone this young. He is a young man of impeccable character, valor and honor.
Brad served in Bosnia from 1996-1997 (he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal), in Kuwait and Iraq from 2002-2003 and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for exceptionally meritorious service during combat operations. He continues to serve in the U.S. Army Reserves as a Lt. Colonel and now commands a Detachment at Fort Rucker, AL. Wow! Please be sure and thank Brad for his service.
Brad is certainly a rising star in the Republican Party in Georgia, and has been involved in politics from the time he was a teenager working on various campaigns. He started as a Neighborhood Leader, then Precinct Chair, House District Chairman, then Vice Chairman of the Fulton County Republican Party to finally our current 1st Vice Chairman of the 11th District.
As you can see, Brad knows about leadership and working hard. Both of these are needed in this position, and I am endorsing Brad Carver to be the next Chairman of the 11th District. Brad and his wife, Michelle, a former Coverdell Leadership President and current House District Chair, work together as a team like Joe and I do, so you are doubly blessed with this choice.
2016 Presidential campaign
Ted Cruz made a visit to the Palmetto State last week, speaking to the Aiken Republican Club.
Cruz, who came to Aiken with his wife, Heidi, and his two daughters, said he was encouraged by the reception he has received so far in a mini-tour around South Carolina. In Aiken, he was met by a crowd of more than 275 people.
He said the message he wanted to share is that the country is faced with many challenges and that “answers aren’t coming from Washington.”
“I think people are hungry,” Cruz said. “They’re hungry for a leader who will tell them the truth. They’re hungry for someone who will stand up and do what he said he’ll do. … South Carolinians are looking to turn this country around.”
Among Cruz’s major talking points were his desire to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and stem the tide of the Common Core education initiative. He also vowed to overhaul health care.
“We need to repeal every word of Obamacare,” he said.
Comments ( 0 )