On December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty, led by Patriot Sam Adams, boarded three British ships in Boston harbor and threw tea worth $700,000 to $1 million in today’s money into the water in what came to be known as the Boston Tea Party.
Governor George Towns signed legislation on December 16, 1847 to build a State School for the Deaf and Dumb. The institution now known as the Georgia School for the Deaf was begun with a log cabin, $5000 from the legislature and four students and is still in operation in Cave Spring, Georgia.
On December 16, 1897, Gov. William Atkinson signed legislation recognizing June 3, the birthday of Jefferson Davis, as a state holiday.
On December 16, 1944, a German counterattack in the Ardennes region of Belgium created a “bulge” in Allied lines with particularly difficult fighting near the town of Bastogne. During the Battle of the Bulge, 89,000 Americans were wounded and 19,000 killed in the bloodiest battle fought by the U.S. in World War II. National Geographic has an interesting article published for the 70th Anniversary of the Battle.
President Jimmy Carter announced on December 16, 1976, that he would name Andrew Young, then serving as Congressman from Georgia’s Fifth District, as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Early voting has begun in the Runoff Elections for United States Senate and Georgia Public Service Commission, according to the Athens Banner Herald.
The first day of early voting in Athens went off without a hitch Monday as 1,402 voters turned out to cast ballots in the two U.S. Senate runoff elections that have garnered national attention.
“We had lines, but nobody was in line over, I’d say, 15 minutes,” Athens-Clarke County Elections Assistant Pam Long said Tuesday.
In Athens, 1,200 votes were cast at the Lyndon House Arts Center and another 202 at the Miriam Moore Community Center on McKinley Drive, according to Long.
A similar situation occurred in Oconee County, where Board of Elections Assistant Jennifer Stone said 1,402 people cast votes at the Oconee Civic Center on Hog Mountain Road.
In Madison County, an elections spokeswoman said 557 votes were cast at the Board of Elections Office.
Former Vice President Joe Biden asked Georgia Democrats to go out and vote in the U.S. Senate runoff elections, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen News.
“I’m starting to feel like I won to Georgia three times. I have to say it feels pretty good,” Biden joked. “You just taught Donald Trump a lesson in this election: Georgia wasn’t going to be bullied. Georgia wasn’t going to be silenced. Georgia wasn’t going to stand by and let Donald Trump or the state of Texas — or anyone else — come here and toss out your votes.”
The Jan. 5 runoff will determine the balance of power in the upper chamber of Congress. If both Democrats, Ossoff and Warnock, beat their Republican opponents, U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the Senate will split with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, giving Harris the tie-breaking vote.
Biden spoke at a drive-in rally that drew a little fewer than 200 cars in the Kirkwood neighborhood in east Atlanta. He urged Georgians to take to the polls for Ossoff and Warnock like they did for Biden.
“Tell your friends, your family, just like you did November, turn out to vote,” he said. “So it’s not even close.”
“Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, they’re ready to represent Georgia. Georgia,” the president-elect said. “They’ll actually fight for you, represent you, stand up for you. They don’t put Texas first, they don’t put Donald Trump first, they won’t put themselves first either. They’ll put you first: the people of Georgia. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
“We have a chance to save America, Georgia,” [Stacey Abrams] said. “This isn’t hyperbole. This is fact.”
From the Capitol Beat News Service via the Albany Herald:
Biden also pushed back on the images of Ossoff and Warnock as too radical for Georgia, noting he needs Peach State voters to put the two candidates in Congress to advance an agenda of unity after years of divisive politics under Trump.
“If you do, the doors of promise and progress are going to open in Washington,” Biden said. “We’re going to start to get done what we have to do, and more than anything, we’ll make the lives of every Georgian [and] the lives of every American better.”
“It’s crazy talk to say you want to defund police,” Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said Tuesday. “I urge all Republicans, Independents and conservative Democrats to make sure we don’t have a government controlled by one party.”
“I need two senators from this state who want to get something done, not two senators who are going to get in the way,” Biden said. “Because, look, getting nothing done just hurts Georgia.”
“The moment of truth is right now,” Perdue said at a Monday night rally in Atlanta. “We’re going to stand up to this onslaught that will perpetrate a socialist state here in Georgia.”
“We can get so much done, so much that can make the lives of the people of Georgia and the whole country so much better,” Biden said at a drive-in rally outside downtown Atlanta on the second day of early voting. “And we need senators who are willing to do it, for God’s sake.”
Biden criticized Perdue and Loeffler as “roadblocks” for not supporting a sweeping new economic aid package as the coronavirus pandemic surges. In contrast, he said Ossoff and Warnock would “fight for progress and not just get in the way.”
“Are you ready to vote for two United States senators who know how to say the word ‘yes’ and not just ‘no’?” Biden said as supporters gathered in the railroad yard honked their horns.
Speaking before Biden, Ossoff took on the matter most directly. “If Mitch McConnell controls the Senate, they’re going to try to do to Joe and Kamala just like they tried to do President Obama,” he said, alluding to McConnell’s years of blocking legislation and Obama’s court appointments. “They will block the COVID relief that we need. They will block the $15 minimum wage. They will block the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act that we need. They will block affordable health care. We can’t let that happen, Georgia.”
Warnock declared the outcome a “a matter of life and death” because of COVID-19 relief and health care legislation, though he didn’t explicitly mention McConnell or Senate control.
“Both of these races are within a few points, and it really could go either way,” Mr. Biden wrote in the email. “That’s why I’m holding a rally today for both of these candidates, so they can spread their message to as many Georgians as possible. And if you donate $7 you can help them and the D.N.C. reach even more voters,” he said, referring to the Democratic National Committee.
In his remarks, the president-elect singled out the contributions of Stacey Abrams, who lost a bid to become Georgia’s governor in 2018 but is credited by many Democrats in the state for energizing the electorate by continuing to campaign for voter rights in the past two years.
“Is there anyone in America who has done more to protect the right to vote in this election?” Mr. Biden asked the crowd. “Is there anyone who’s done more to make sure the voice of every Georgian is heard? I don’t think so. Stacey Abrams, you’re a hero.”
“Don’t wait!” Mr. Biden said at a drive-in event in Atlanta, urging people to make a plan to vote early, prompting honks from the assembled vehicles. “I think Georgia is going to shock the nation with the number of people who vote on Jan. 5.”
Democrats are hoping for a large turnout, particularly among nonwhite voters, in the Senate runoff. Mr. Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are spending about $5 million on the runoff and shifted about 50 staffers from the Biden campaign to help on the runoff, a Biden campaign official said. The Biden campaign and the DNC have also raised nearly $10 million for Messrs. Ossoff and Warnock, the official said.
Early in-person voting began in the state Monday. Roughly 1.4 million voters have already requested absentee ballots for the runoff election, and more than 300,000 of them have returned their ballots, according to data compiled by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald at the U.S. Elections Project.
“This is a state that is almost evenly divided. The presidential election was decided by fewer than 12,000 votes. But what’s at stake isn’t divisive, what’s at stake is relief for our communities,” [Stacey Abrams] said.
Abrams said that 1.2 million Georgians have requested absentee ballots. Of that 1.2 million, she said 85,000 of those applications for mail-in ballots come from voters who didn’t cast ballots in November.
“They are disproportionately voters between the ages of 18 and 29 and disproportionately people of color.”
“As we head into a moment where Georgians face 160,000 evictions, we’ve had 4.1 million job loss claims, one-in-four businesses, small business have shut down during this pandemic,” Abrams said. “David and Kelly have done nothing. In fact, they have done nothing but cater to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump instead of fighting for Georgia.”
“I never contested the election to make myself the governor,” she said. “I contested the election to make certain every vote was counted and every voter was heard.”
Vice President Mike Pence will rally with Republican voters in Columbus tomorrow, according to AL Reporter.
The Georgia Republican Party is inviting the public to join Pence for a “Defend the Majority” rally, where Pence will be joined by former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue as well as Public Service Commission candidate Bubba McDonald.
The rally will be Thursday, Dec. 17, at 11 a.m. CT at the Columbus Airport with doors opening at 9 a.m. CT. You can get your tickets here.
Due to concerns over COVID-19, all attendees will be given a temperature check; masks, which they are instructed to wear; and access to hand sanitizer.
Republicans in Georgia’s Twelfth Congressional District filed a federal lawsuit contesting the General Election results, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
Filed by the 12th Congressional District Republican Committee, the suit contends procedures used to process absentee ballots in the general election could enable massive fraud in the runoffs.
The lawsuit names Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, members of the State Elections Board and one county elections board, Richmond County Board of Elections as defendants.
Chief Judge J. Randal Hall will hear arguments from both sides Thursday to decide whether to grant the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction blocking election processes in use in the runoffs, in which hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters have already cast ballots. He’s also being asked to issue a judicial declaration that the state’s processes violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
The lawsuit alleges the use of absentee ballots enables fraudulent votes, and it facilitates the collection of large numbers of absentee ballots by third parties, which the plaintiffs contend is ballot harvesting.
U.S. Senator David Perdue discussed COVID-19 and the vaccine in Dalton, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen News.
Most Georgians won’t be vaccinated until the spring of 2021, with front-line workers, such as health care professionals, first in line, Perdue, a Republican, said. Though a vaccine of this nature typically requires three or four years of development, the “public-private partnership” of Operation Warp Speed — initiated by the federal government to accelerate the development, manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics — has delivered multiple promising vaccines in less than a year.
Some people are already receiving Pfizer’s vaccine, and a Moderna vaccine is expected to gain emergency use authorization later this week from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The latter vaccine could be shipped to Georgia as early as next week.
Operation Warp Speed’s efficiency is the Republican Party’s “way of doing things,” Perdue said at Dalton’s airport. “Can you imagine (the country) being shut down for three or four years” awaiting a vaccine?
“When it comes my turn, I’ll get my shot like anyone else,” he said.
Congressman Barry Loudermilk (R-Cassville) was diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the AJC.
“I’m quarantining at home in Georgia, with mild symptoms, but I look forward to getting back to my full legislative duties as soon as possible,” Loudermilk, R-Cassville, said.
Augusta area voters are setting early voting records, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
At Augusta’s Bell Auditorium advance voting site, “it looks like we’re headed for another good day,” said Lynn Bailey, executive director for Richmond County Board of Elections. “Through 3 o’clock, we are at about 1,300.”
The number is more than the 1,268 total for the second day of advance voting in the general election, Bailey said.
Monday, Richmond County set an all-time single-day, per-site record for advance voting with 2,022 casting ballots, she said. The previous single-day high was an October Friday when around 1,700 voted.
Democrat-heavy Richmond County has seen 26,002 request an absentee ballot. Around 6,000 have been mailed back or dropped at a ballot drop box and are in some phase of the receipt and verification process, she said.
Republican-leaning Columbia County saw 2,931 vote in person Monday at one of its two advance voting sites, more than the 2,432 who voted on the first advance voting day in the general election.
The county had received 6,758 absentee ballots returned by mail Monday of 16,095 so far requested. The last day to submit a written request for an absentee ballot is Dec. 30.
According to the AP, as of Tuesday morning, a total of 482,250 ballots had been cast either absentee or during Monday’s early in-person voting.
Locally, just over 1,000 people in Floyd County have cast their ballots at the Floyd County Administration Building and Garden Lakes Baptist Church precincts.
According to Waddell, about 5,000 Floyd County voters have sent in requests for absentee ballots. Once they receive their ballots and fill them out, people can mail them to the elections office at 12 E. Fourth Ave. or drop them off at one of the five ballot drop boxes:
Some Georgia healthcare workers received the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Macon Telegraph.
Four Coastal Georgia nurses received COVID-19 vaccines Tuesday. They work at the Chatham County Health Department, Memorial University Medical Center, Candler Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Georgia is expecting about 84,000 doses of vaccine in this first wave. All of them are already spoken for.
The first to be vaccinated will be health care workers and people in long-term care. It will likely be months before the vaccine is available to the public at large.
“We have a long way to go,” Gov. Brian Kemp said after the vaccines were administered. “But this is certainly a bright start to a different kind of normal than we’ve been living the last nine months.”
“We are prepared to take the vaccine and distribute it as quickly as we get it,” Department of Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey said. “The only limitation is the production of the vaccine.”
Because the vaccine rollout is in its early stages and the pandemic is still in full force, Kemp and Toomey both urged Georgians to continue wearing masks and social distancing, especially as the holiday season continues over the next few weeks.
Gwinnett County Commissioners voted to buy Starcourt Gwinnett Place Mall, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
County commissioners, acting in their role as Gwinnett’s Urban Redevelopment Agency, voted to let the county buy 39.06 acres at the mall for $23 million. They then immediately turned around at another meeting right afterward and voted, in their capacity as commissioners, to approve a resolution ratifying the action they took less than an hour earlier as the URA board.
“I am very excited about this purchase and sale agreement, the first step towards closing on this property,” outgoing Commissioner Jace Brooks said. “Obviously the Gwinnett Place area is like the county’s central business district and this has sort of been like a glaring hole and I look forward to this purchase and working the anchors owners, as well as the (Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District) and the community to redevelop this area.”
The total acreage listed for the purchase matches the acreage listed in county property tax records for the interior of the mall and the former Belk property, all of which are owned by Moonbeam Properties. The purchase does not appear to include the Macy’s, Mega Mart, Beauty Master and former Sears anchor spaces, however.
“The purchase of this property by the Urban Redevelopment Agency will help encourage the redevelopment of the whole Gwinnett Place Mall as contemplated in the county’s 2040 Unified Plan,” county attorney Mike Ludwiczak said.
Gwinnett also named the Courthouse expansion after outgoing Commission Chair Charlotte Nash, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
And, that’s not some wistful thought about what kind of legacy she might have either. Her name will literally be associated with GJAC after her fellow commissioners revealed on Tuesday that they are naming the center’s new expansion building the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center Charlotte J. Nash Court Building.
Officials did not tell Nash about the naming in advance, so her colleagues sprung it on her during the ribbon cutting ceremony for the building.
“Ya’ll have got me so choked up,” Nash told her fellow commissioners. “I am going to cry. thank you, thank you, thank you. I had no idea. I appreciate the recognition, but it belongs to so many people. I can’t give a list of everybody that deserves the same type of recognition, but thank you.”
Incoming Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones named her transition team, according to the Savannah Morning News.
The executive team consists of attorneys Michael Edwards, Jennifer Parker and Nathanael E. Wright.
Jones, who worked in the Chatham County DA’s office from 2010 to 2014, defeated Republican incumbent Meg Heap in the November election and will take office Jan. 4.
The new administration will take office Jan. 4 with a ceremonial swearing service to take place on Jan. 8. Due to social distancing requirements, the ceremony will be closed to the public but may be streamed live on the Chatham County website and the DA-Elect’s Facebook page.
Chatham County Manager Lee Smith is on medical leave with no projected return date, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Some Columbus-area schools are switching to online learning because of COVID-19, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
Citing a high rate of exposures to the coronavirus, Smiths Station High School has stopped conducting in-person classes for the rest of the week. SSHS announced the news on its Facebook page Monday.
Monday night, the Troup County School System announced in a news release that the district’s “highest number of positive and quarantined cases since school started in August” prompted the school board to agree with the administration’s recommendation to conduct only virtual classes during the week after Christmas break.
The Club for Growth “Save America Coalition” Bus Tour will hold events in Brunswick, Warner Robins, and Atlanta today. From a press release:
Today, the ‘Save America Coalition’ bus tour will be in Brunswick, Georgia at 9:00 AM at the Toucan’s Ale House . The event will feature Senator- elect Tommy Tuberville, Representative- elect Madison Cawthorn, Representative- elect Byron Donalds, Tea Party Patriots CO-Founder Jenny Beth Martin, Kimberly Klacik and other republicans in Brunswick, Georgia. KAAAF’s “Healthcare for You” tour will join Club for Growth Action.
9:00-11:00 AM EST
Toucan’s Ale House
2450 Perry Lane Road
Brunswick, GA 31525
More info can be found here.The tour will also be stopping in Warner Robins, Georgia at 2PM at the Houston County Republican Party. This stop includes the following speakers: Senator- elect Tommy Tuberville, Representative- elect Madison Cawthorn, Representative- elect Byron Donalds, Tea Party Patriots CO-Founder Jenny Beth Martin, Kimberly Klacik and other republicans in Warner Robins, Georgia. KAAAF’s “Healthcare for You” tour will join Club for Growth Action.
2:00-4:00 PM EST
Houston County Republican Party
3035 Watson Boulevard
Warner Robins, GA 31093
More info can be found here.The tour will wrap up its Wednesday by stopping in Buckhead (Atlanta), GA Robins, Georgia at 6PM at the Penley Art Company. This stop includes the following speakers: Former Representative and Trump HHS Secretary Dr. Tom Price, Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville, Representative-elect Byron Donalds, Representative-elect Madison Cawthorn, Kimberly Klacik, and other republicans in Atlanta, Georgia. KAAAF’s “Healthcare for You” tour will join Club for Growth Action
6:00-8:00 PM EST
Penley Art Company
102 West Paces Ferry Road Northwest
Atlanta, GA 30305
More info can be found here.Additionally, the ‘Save America Coalition’ tour will be joined by the Keep America America Action Fund (KAAF) Bus Tour at all events tomorrow. The Keep America America Action Fund led by KAAF launched a multi-million-dollar campaign today in support of Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia runoff. KAAAF President Elaine Parker, is highlighting the Republican Senators’ commitment to prosperity and pro-growth policies, in contrast to the socialist ideas supported by their competitors, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
The Keep America America Fund has additional stops:
8:30AM – 9:30AM
Pruett Air
422 Legion Dr
Eastman, GA5:00PM-6:00PM
JP Travel Center
2781 GA-16 (Right off Hwy 75)
Jackson, GA
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