Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for August 20, 2018

On August 20, 1781, General George Washington sent Continental troops from New York toward Yorktown, Virginia to engage British troops under Gen. Cornwallis.

On August 20, 1906, Gov. Joseph Terrell signed legislation to build a statue of Georgia founding father James Oglethorpe in Savannah and a bill to build a statue of former Confederate General and Georgia Governor John B. Gordon at the State Capitol.

The Georgia Department of Archives and History was created by legislation signed by Georgia Governor Hugh Dorsey on August 20, 1918.

On August 20, 1920, the American Professional Football Association, which would later be renamed the National Football League, was formed in Akron, Ohio.

On August 20, 1923, Georgia Governor Clifford Walker signed legislation requiring state schools teach the United States and Georgia Constitutions and students pass an exam on the documents before being allowed to graduate.

On August 20, 1965, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones was released in the UK.

On August 20, 1974, President Gerald Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President of the United States.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Congratulations to Jason Thompson on his election as Republican National Committeeman from Georgia.

Governor Deal issued a raft of appointments, two of which we’ll highlight:

Phil Gingrey, M.D., Augusta University Health System Board of Directors (reappointment)
Gingrey is a senior advisor for the District Policy Group. He previously represented Georgia’s 11th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2015. While in Congress, Gingrey was a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and founded the GOP Doctors Caucus. He also represented the 37th District in the Georgia State Senate from 1999 to 2003 and previously served as the chairman of the Marietta City Schools Board of Education. Gingrey worked as an OB-GYN physician for more than 20 years. He is a member of the Cobb County Medical Society, the Medical Association of Georgia and the Georgia OBGyn Society. Gingrey is also a board-certified member of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia Tech and a medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia. Gingrey and his wife, Billie, have four children and 13 grandchildren. They reside in Marietta.

J. Comer Yates, Georgia Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Yates is the executive director of the Atlanta Speech School. He is a former president of Camp Twin Lakes and sits on the camp’s board of directors. Yates is a member of the Junior League of Atlanta Community Advisory Board and sits on the board of directors for the southeast regional office of the Anti-Defamation League. He is a member of the Get Georgia Reading Campaign Cabinet, the Brain Trust for Babies advisory council and the Rotary Club of Atlanta. Yates is the chairman of the Rotary Educational Foundation of Atlanta and a co-chairman of Georgia Pathway to Language and Literacy. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the Atlanta Bar Association and the Community Service Award from WXIA for his work with students at Daniel McLaughlin Therrell High School. Yates earned a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from Emory University, where he was a member of the Order of Coif, the Omicron Delta Kappa and the Order of the Barristers. He and his wife, Sally, have two children and live in Atlanta.

The State House County Governance Study Committee meets today at 10 AM in Room 515 of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building, chaired by State Rep. Meagan Hanson (R-Brookhaven).

The Dalton Daily Citizen editorializes that Democrat Steven Foster should drop his challenge to Congressman Tom Graves.

Foster, of Dalton, was a long shot as a Democrat to beat Republican incumbent Tom Graves of Ranger in the highly conservative district without any legal troubles. But his continuation in the race is a national embarrassment for the Democratic Party at a time when the upcoming mid-term elections have taken on increased importance given the political divide in the nation surrounding the Trump presidency.

Foster’s conviction and sentence do not prevent him from remaining on the November ballot, Whitfield County registrar Mary Hammontree said, since a first DUI conviction is a misdemeanor. A felony conviction would warrant automatic removal from the ballot.

Missing in action are Democratic Party officials. We have heard nothing from state party officials about the Foster arrest, conviction and sentence, and messages sent to Dan Lovingood, the Democratic Party’s 14th Congressional District chair, were not immediately returned following Foster’s sentencing.

If this is the best the Democratic Party can offer, even against tough odds given Graves’ incumbent status and the political makeup of the district, it is a sad state of affairs.

Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black had a sweet job this weekend, helping celebrate the 99th Anniversary of Leopold’s Ice Cream in Savannah, according to the Savannah Morning News.

To commemorate the milestone, Leopold’s served 99-cent scoops all day long to thousands of people.

And Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black turned out to help Stratton Leopold cut into cake during the party.

U.S. Representative Karen Handel kicked off her reelection campaign, according to the AJC.

he blasted the out-of-state money and national attention focusing on her Democratic opponent. She criticized former President Barack Obama and made frequent mention of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. And she invoked her vanquished rival from last year’s race, Jon Ossoff.

“I am battle-tested. I am ready for this fight. Last summer, they threw everything they could think of at me. Including $40 million. Well, we looked that $40 million in the eye and stared it down,” said Handel, speaking to more than 100 supporters at a Roswell restaurant.

“We took on all of the shrill resistance folks who were chanting ‘Flip the Sixth,’ and we stayed steady and focused. And we got the job done.”

In this year’s contest, Handel will face Lucy McBath, a former flight attendant from Marietta who became a national gun control advocate after her teenage son was fatally shot following a dispute over loud music.

“The candidate they found this year, well, she’s a lot like the candidate they found last year,” said Handel. “Outside money is going to flow by the million. We will be treated by the Hollywood elite coming into our community telling us who we should have as our congressman. But just like last year, we shall win. Because we know what’s at stake.”

Savannah has upgraded some school zone signs, according to the Savannah Morning News.

Chatham County property values are a victim of global warming, according to the Savannah Morning News.

Chatham County lost nearly $7 million in property value growth due to sea level rise flooding from 2005 to 2017, a new analysis suggests.

Scientists from the non-profit First Street Foundation looked at losses in home value across five coastal states from Virginia through Florida. While Miami tops the list for value lost, four areas in Chatham County landed in the top 250: Tybee Island, Skidaway Island, Savannah and Wilmington Island. Overall the study found that Georgia lost more than $15 million in property value from sea level rise flooding over the same time period. The study does not tally direct losses from flooding; instead it attempts to pinpoint a subtler effect.

“In the majority of cases it’s that the same type of home in an area that doesn’t flood appreciated faster than in an area that does flood,” said Matthew Eby, executive director at First Street Foundation. “People say ‘My home went up $10,000 in the last 10 years,’ but it would’ve gone up $25,000 if flooding hadn’t happened. We can prove that with the real estate sales data we’re modeling out.”

The Decatur County Board of Education voted unanimously to deny a charter school application, according to the Post-Searchlight.

Democratic statewide candidates spoke in Glynn County, according to The Brunswick News.

“Y’all, this is our year — Georgia is a blue state, if everybody will vote,” state Democratic Party Chairman DuBose Porter said. “Our mission this year is to turn out the Democratic vote like we’ve never before. That’s our mission, that’s our task. We do that, and we will elect everyone up here at this podium. Y’all, if we don’t, it’s our fault. Are you ready to work?”

“For 14 years, this state has been controlled by one party,” [Democratic Lt. Governor candidata Sarah] Amico said. “Ten and a half million people, and one party — the Georgia GOP — has controlled our destiny for more than 14 years. They’ve had majorities in both houses of the state legislature — in many cases, supermajorities — they have had the governor’s office and, for many years now, every statewide executive office in the state of Georgia.

“So, when they go out and they campaign about how they’re going to fix rural broadband, how they’re going to fix rural health care, how they’re going to save our rural hospitals from closing, it is disingenuous at best.”

Democratic candidate for Governor Stacey Abrams spoke to the Gwinnett Daily Post about her campaign.

“I want every Georgian to have the freedom and the opportunity to thrive,” Abrams said during an interview with the Daily Post on Friday. “We know that the equation for that is a solid, effective education coupled with economic investment and economic opportunity that is undergirded by an effective and engaged state leadership that helps remove barriers and creates pathways for opportunity.”

Abrams has been laying out a broad, multifaceted plan for addressing education and new economic opportunity that shows how, in some ways, the two issues overlap particularly in making sure Georgia has a trained workforce that can attract new employers to the state.

“I think about it from cradle to career,” she said. “A massive part of our economic opportunity is being able to provide a quality workforce but it’s also letting families that want to relocate to Georgia to bring businesses, bring companies here (know) that they’re children will get a good education, so we have to start thinking about it in both ways.”

“And we have to start thinking about it as early childhood investment and investing in K-12, but also apprenticeships for those who aren’t intending to go to college or technical college.”

The Albany Herald looks at Randolph County, where changes to voting precincts have become a national controversy.

The county of around 7,000 people will not likely determine the outcome of the governor’s race between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, but after the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote a story about the proposed closure of the precincts, tempers flared throughout the county and the American Civil Liberty Union waded in and took the issue nationwide.

Democrats are blaming Kemp for using the ADA as a tool of voter suppression, while the GOP, which is claiming no ownership of the poll issue, is asking why the Democrats do not support the ADA?

Republican Gerald Greene, who represents the district in the Georgia house, was scratching his head late last week trying to figure out what happened.

“What many people don’t get is, because of local control, this is strictly a Randolph County issue,” Greene said. “It’s not a Washington, D.C., issue and not an Atlanta issue. This is a Cuthbert issue.”

Easter Seals of Southern Georgia Executive Director Beth English has a unique perspective from an ADA, as well as a political, point of view. She is an advocate for those with disabilities and also a member of the city of Vienna’s City Council.

“The situation in Randolph County is a local issue, it’s not a legislative issue,” English said Saturday. “The ADA has been in effect for 25 years, and I fail to see how something like this would go unnoticed for so long, then come to light with just over three months to go before a general election.”

Columbia County is seeking to promote tourism by highlighting local quality of life, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

Coweta County resident Angela Munson was appointed a federal immigration judge, according to the Newnan Times-Herald.

Preserve Coweta has been organized to promote the integrity of rural parts of the county, according to the Newnan Times-Herald.

The Museum of Flight at Richard B. Russell Airport in Floyd County is raising money to acquire and display an F-14 Tomcat, according to the Rome News-Tribune.

Healthcare

Ariel Hart of the AJC writes about the shortage of physicians in Georgia.

Georgia’s Legislature is once again brainstorming legislation to address the state’s rural health care crisis. Sixty-four of 159 counties have no pediatrician; 79 have no obstetrician/gynecologist; and nine, like Webster, simply have no doctor. That makes Georgia worse than the national average for needy areas short of primary health care providers, according to federal data assembled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Health outcomes for Georgia patients lag accordingly, with the state ranked among the worst 10 states for most measures.

“You don’t see it immediately or directly in the cities, but people who don’t have good access to care, when they get there, they’re sicker, they come there later and their use of resources is higher,” [Dr. Vikas] Saini said. Plus, “It’s not either/or. Many of the same solutions that would make a difference in rural areas would make a difference for people who are struggling in urban areas.”

Rural counties have a lot of patients on Medicare and Medicaid, as well as patients without insurance at all. When doctors see patients on Medicare or Medicaid, they’re most likely losing money, being reimbursed below cost.

Raising the government’s reimbursements for care to 100 cents on the dollar, so that doctors aren’t losing money when they work with Medicare and Medicaid patients, isn’t in the cards, said state Rep. Terry England, a Republican from Auburn. He’s the chairman of Georgia’s powerful House Appropriations Committee and is leading a two-year task force on rural development.

“Where are you going to find the money?” England said. “We’re just not able to. You’re talking about several hundreds of million dollars more. We have to balance a budget every year.”

Some legislators, including England, have said they might be willing to look at some sort of a waiver that expands coverage but includes a work requirement, though they still oppose an outright Medicaid expansion.

The Rome News-Tribune looks at how the opioid crisis plays out in Floyd County.

Floyd County ranks in the top five Georgia counties for the number of opioid prescriptions issued per person, according to an analysis by a local law firm handling a class-action suit against manufacturers. The Rome and Floyd County commissions are parties to the suit and officials are working to address the epidemic locally.

County Commissioners want to create a task force to look at ways to stem the tide and they’re mulling the membership, possibly with Floyd Against Drugs at the helm.

And Sheila Bennett, chief of patient care services at Floyd Medical Center, told County Commissioners that prescriptions are written for just three days at a time, except in the case of terminal illness, cancer and chronic pain.

[Anitra] Duke said she has hopes that medical marijuana can replace the narcotics she and so many in her group depend on. Prescriptions are legal in Georgia for certain conditions. But the General Assembly has yet to legalize buying or selling it and it’s against federal law to bring it across state lines.