Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for December 6, 2021

On December 6, 1847, Dr. William White spoke to a group of Atlanta residents about a proposal to move the state capital to Atlanta and was met with cheers.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on December 6, 1865, when Georgia ratified the Amendment outlawing slavery.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The Washington Monument was completed on December 6, 1884.

On December 6, 1932, the legislation repealing Prohibition was introduced by Senator John Blaine of Wisconsin. It was ratified on December 5, 1933. Georgia never took action on the Amendment.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Merry Christmas to Stacey Abrams.

At 10 AM, former Senator Perdue announced his campaign for Governor. From WTOC:

The former U.S. Republican Senator announced Monday morning on social media that he’s challenging incumbent Brian Kemp in the 2022 Georgia governor’s race.

From the Gwinnett Daily Post:

In his announcement, Perdue attacked both Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused to help Trump after the then-President pressed him to “find” votes in the Peach State.

“To fight back, we simply have to be united. Unfortunately, today, we are divided, and Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger are to blame,” he said.

“Look, I like Brian, this isn’t personal. It’s simple. He has failed all of us and cannot win in November. Instead of protecting our elections, he caved to (Democrat Stacey) Abrams and cost us two Senate seats, the Senate majority, and gave Joe Biden free rein.”

From Dick Yarbrough via the Gwinnett Daily Post:

Donald Trump and his supporters seemed hellbent on bringing down Brian Kemp at the risk of rending asunder the Republican Party in Georgia by focusing on the past rather than the future. Speaking of the past, it might be helpful to remember that both of Georgia’s Republican incumbents in the U.S. Senate lost their reelection bids to political novice Democrats last year despite Trump’s backing. That seems to have been forgotten.

Trump wants to put the kibosh on Brian Kemp’s reelection chances even though our state’s revenue has grown by 13.5% this year, we have a rainy day surplus of almost $4.3 billion, unemployment is at an all-time low and for the eighth year in a row, Georgia has been named the Top State for Doing Business by Area Development magazine. For conservatives, he engineered a new voting rights bill and a bill banning early abortions. That deserves Republican punishment?

Former United States Senator David Perdue (Sea Island) will announce today that he’s running against Governor Brian Kemp. From Politico:

Former Sen. David Perdue plans to announce he’ll challenge Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, setting up an epic Republican Party primary clash in one of the nation’s top battleground states.

Perdue, who was recruited to run against the governor by former President Donald Trump, intends to make his announcement Monday via video and file his paperwork at the same time, according to sources briefed on the plans.

The former senator has discussed getting additional fundraising and endorsement support from Trump and that it will be forthcoming, the sources said.

Trump recruited Perdue to run against Kemp after the governor refused to help block his state’s election results — multiple recounts showed Georgia was won by President Joe Biden. Kemp told reporters in Georgia last week that Perdue had told him he wasn’t planning to challenge him. But Perdue for months has shown signs he changed his mind.

“All I know is what Sen. Perdue has told me, I hope he’ll be a man of his word, but again that’s not anything I can control,” Kemp said.

One Republican official who has advised Perdue to run against Kemp pointed to recent polling from Trump’s Save America PAC that showed Trump’s endorsement would catapult the former senator into contention with the first-term governor.

“Trump’s endorsement matters to Republican voters and he’s going to be helpful because this race is important to him,” the adviser said, adding that Perdue hopes the former president will help support him through his political committee, his email list or with a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

“The economy is roaring in Georgia. Jobs are great. Taxes are low,” a Kemp adviser, who was not authorized to speak on record, told POLITICO. “So what’s Perdue’s reason to run? That he’s Trump’s lap dog? That dog don’t hunt. Lap dogs don’t hunt.”

From the AJC:

The battle among the trio of political titans will draw even more attention to Georgia after game-changing elections that helped cement President Joe Biden’s victory and sealed Democratic control of the U.S. Senate.

The primary will also be a test of former President Donald Trump’s grip on the state GOP and his vow to punish Republicans he views as disloyal. Trump has vowed to oust Kemp for the governor’s refusal to reverse his defeat, and he’s certain to add Perdue to the list of Georgia Republicans he’s endorsing in 2022.

Kemp’s allies promised to “total war” and “scorched earth” fury if Perdue got in the race. The governor said it would be a shocking betrayal from a one-time ally who helped Kemp win Trump’s endorsement in 2018.

The Kemp campaign’s initial response to Perdue’s plans was a sign the saber-rattling was no idle threat. Spokesman Cody Hall channeled the GOP attacks pummeling President Joe Biden over inflation and “runaway government spending” and turned them on Perdue because he lost the Senate runoff.

And Hall brought up a series of attacks also leveraged by Democrat Jon Ossoff in his victorious campaign, including Perdue’s stock transactions at the start of the pandemic and his no-shows at two pivotal debates in the closing weeks of the race.

Now Abrams and her allies face a fresh decision about how to capitalize on the fractious infighting across the aisle. Her campaign’s reaction to Perdue’s decision offered a glimpse at her strategy to frame herself as an above-the-fray candidate critical of both GOP rivals.

“While David Perdue and Brian Kemp fight each other, Stacey Abrams will be fighting for the people of Georgia,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, her top aide, highlighting Abrams’ plans to expand Medicaid and boost school funding.

“Only Stacey Abrams will lead to create One Georgia in which all of our people, regardless of zip code, background or access to power, have the opportunity to thrive.”

From the AJC Political Insider:

On the Republican side, Gov. Kemp’s new leadership PAC, Georgians’ First, Inc., made it known that it’s training its sites on Perdue, even though the PAC was originally envisioned as a mechanism to keep pace with Abrams’ fundraising prowess in 2022.

“David Perdue gave the U.S Senate to Schumer, Kamala, and Bernie,” Georgians First posted to Twitter. “Tomorrow, we’ll start reminding David of why voters rejected him at the ballot box – twice.”

[Perdue’s] campaign website, which went live late Sunday, said as much. It presents Perdue as a “bold conservative to unite Georgia” and asks donors to “join our team to stop Stacey Abrams.”

In addition to announcing his entrance into the GOP primary for the governor’s mansion, David Perdue will make his race Twitter official at 9:30 this morning when he changes his social media handle from “PerdueSenate” to “DavidPerdueGA.”

And he’ll be a guest on Martha Zoller’s WDUN radio show Tuesday morning at 9:30 am.

From the Associated Press via the Valdosta Daily Times:

“Perdue can bring together the Trump base and those Republicans, independents, and moderate Democrats who will find Abrams too radical,” former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on Nov. 12. “Perdue is the one candidate who can defeat Abrams.”

Some Republicans fear a bitter Perdue-Kemp primary will set the stage for an Abrams victory. Republican state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler of Rome wrote in a tweet that Perdue’s entry is “Good news for Stacey Abrams. Bad news for Republicans.”

Besides Trump’s displeasure with Kemp, it’s unclear what Perdue’s platform will be. In an interview last month with Gainesville radio station WDUN-AM, he talked about education, and contrasted the Trump economy to Biden’s “maniacal spending.”

But he seemed to circle back to hard feelings over Trump’s electoral loss, saying Biden won in a “questioned election.” In fact, courts and state election officials across the country found no grounds to question the validity of Biden’s victory.

Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie said it’s unclear if a Kemp-Perdue primary would be “demobilizing or demoralizing in a general election” for Republican voters, with some staying home.

The national environment in 2022 appears likely to be strong for the GOP, and Gillespie said “Republican voters are going to go vote for a Republican candidate, and they’ll put whatever differences they have aside to support that Republican candidate.”

Last week, Governor Kemp announced two judicial appointments, according to a press release.

Governor Brian P. Kemp [on Friday] announced two judicial appointments. Judge Danielle Roberts will fill the new seat on the Superior Court in the Flint Judicial Circuit created by the passage of SB 786 (Act 493) during the 2020 session of the Georgia General Assembly. Ralph Bailey, Jr. has also been appointed to Henry County State Court for the vacancy created by Judge Roberts.

Danielle Roberts has served as Henry County State Court Judge since October 2020, and previously served as Henry County Magistrate Court Judge between 2018-2020. Prior to becoming a judge, in 2008, Roberts co-founded and was managing partner for Axam~Roberts Legal Group, a criminal and civil litigation firm where she represented clients throughout the state of Georgia. From 2003 to 2008, Roberts served AXAMLAW as Office Manager/Paralegal before serving as an associate attorney and litigated both criminal and civil matters. She is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and has also served as a Georgia high school mock trial coach since 2008. Roberts received her Bachelors of Arts in Business Administration from Howard University and received her Juris Doctorate from Georgia State University College of Law. She is married to her husband of 18 years and has twin, 15-year-old boys.

Ralph Bailey, Jr. has served as a Senior Trial Attorney for Allstate Insurance Company since May of 2019. Bailey has an extensive background in the legal field, including serving on active military duty in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps as a Jag Officer from 2002 to 2006. Upon completion of his active military service, he continued serving in the military by joining the U.S. Army Reserves, where he currently holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and works as a Brigade Judge Advocate. After leaving active military duty, Bailey continued working for the U.S. Army as an Attorney Advisor at Fort McPherson. Afterward, Bailey served as a Senior Assistant District Attorney for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, from 2007 until 2010, before opening his own law firm, Genesis Law Group, LLC, in 2011, where he represented clients in civil, family, traffic, and criminal law cases. In 2013, Bailey served as an Assistant District Attorney for the Henry County District Attorney’s Office. He later became an Attorney Advisor for the Social Security Administration (SSA), in 2017, where he drafted social security decisions for administrative law judges. Bailey also has held part-time positions as an Associate Magistrate Judge for the Henry County Magistrate Court, in 2019, and has worked as an Adjunct Professor at Mercer University and at St. Leo University. Bailey holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Police Administration from the University of Louisville, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore School of Law, and a Master of Business Administration from Mercer University School of Business. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and serves as a mentor in the Henry County Veteran’s Treatment Court. Bailey resides in McDonough with his wife and two daughters.

A story in Politico purports to describe Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s approach to racial issues.

[Herschel] Walker, of course, is the famous former football player who is the top Republican candidate running for the United States Senate in this politically pivotal terrain. The polling and fundraising leader, Walker, 59, is endorsed by both Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell.

But after a lifetime of mainly steering clear of making head-on comments on matters of racial conflict, Walker only relatively recently began to more overtly engage in the political arena — and did so on behalf of a polarizing white celebrity-politician who had earned a reputation for stoking the very racial divisions Walker says he was taught and inclined to evade. In 2015, in the initial stages of the presidential bid of his former employer, Walker made known his support for Trump.

And in only the last couple years, in the wake of the murders of George Floyd in Minnesota and Ahmaud Arbery a few hours away here in Georgia, as Black Lives Matter and critical race theory and the fight for voting rights have come to define the rifts in the nation’s discordant political discourse, Walker has talked more and more about race — and in ways that echo if not outright reiterate the worldview he began to express when his out-of-the-way hometown more than 40 years back became an unlikely capital of the perpetual struggle for racial justice.\

“It ain’t about African American. It ain’t about white,” Walker said in a post on his Instagram in the midst of the coast-to-coast furor in the aftermath of the police killing of Floyd. “It’s about justice.” Earlier this year he argued in congressional testimony against reparations for slavery. “Slavery,” he said, “ended over 130 years ago.” And this fall he made his first major appearance as a candidate for the Senate at a Trump rally — in a small dot on the Georgia map not that different from the one he’s from. “Don’t let the left try to fool you,” Walker told the cheering, predominantly white crowd in Perry, “with this racism thing.”

So far, it’s how he’s sounded as a Senate candidate, too. He said what he said in Perry — “don’t let the left try to fool you with this racism thing” — and he struck the same note last month at a well-attended event in Marietta. “I’m getting tired of it, because that’s how they try to separate people,” he said. “We got to get out of this racism.”

It’s an interesting story, and I can’t speak to the truthiness of any of it.

Augusta Commissioners will consider adopting a redistricting map for their own districts, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

Drawn by the Legislative Reapportionment Office, the plan for commission and Richmond County Board of Education district lines was approved by a local committee last week, despite opposition from two older, largely white Augusta communities, Summerville and Forest Hills.

The Summerville Neighborhood Association threatened to join with other split neighborhoods and file a lawsuit, saying the map was hastily approved by politicians not acting in the communities’ best interest.

The chosen map divides Summerville and Forest Hills and moves large parts of them from District 3 into Districts 1 and 2, which have been majority-minority districts for decades. It changes little else and preserves five districts with Black voting-age populations of 60-70%.

While the committee voted to approve the map and reject all other options, commission approval Tuesday isn’t the final hurdle. The school board votes on it next week then state legislators will have a turn with it.

Some locals say the map is the only legal option, but one Augusta legislator said that’s not the case. Rep. Mark Newton, R-Augusta, said representatives will take community feedback into account.

Augusta Commissioners will also consider $1 million in bonuses for first responders, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

Augusta public safety and first-responder personnel are poised to receive more than $1 million in American Rescue Plan bonuses authorized by Gov. Brian Kemp.

Kemp, who is running for reelection, announced in September a plan to award $1,000 bonuses to all local and state law enforcement, public safety and emergency medical personnel.

To secure the funds, however, the local government must apply for the funds and apply on behalf of the Richmond County School System which can’t do so on its own.

The local government has approximately 1,000 eligible sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, EMTs, jailers and other staffers eligible for the bonuses, while the school system has around 30 qualified public safety personnel, officials said. Workers had to be employed during the month of August to be eligible.

Dalton City Council will today discuss the proposed 2022 budget and Whitfield County Commissioners will do likewise Tuesday, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen News.

[Dalton City] Council members are scheduled to unveil a draft 2022 budget and hold a public hearing on that budget.

The draft budget calls for $37.2 million in spending, up from $34.4 million budgeted for 2021, an increase of 7.94% Funding for the police department under that budget proposal would increase to $10.2 million from $9.3 million. Fire department funding would increase to $9.8 million from $9.3 million. Spending on administration would increase to $659,500 from $522,600. Funding for the human resources department would rise to $526,350 from $440,000. And funding for the finance department would rise to $861,000 from $759,700.

The Whitfield County Board of Commissioners has posted a first draft of a $48.1 million 2022 budget to the county website, whitfieldcountyga.com. The first of two public hearings on that budget is scheduled for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Edwards Park Community Center, 115 Edwards Park in Varnell. Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the budget at their Tuesday, Dec. 14, meeting at 6 p.m. in Stage 123 in downtown Dalton, which will include a public hearing on the proposed budget.

Floyd County Commissioners were scheduled to meet Monday morning to discuss the 2021 budget, according to the Rome News Tribune.

This will be the first of two public hearings, the second of which will take place at their Dec. 14 meeting. After the second public hearing, commissioners are expected to pass the budget.

County officials are planning a base pay increase for all employees, averaging $2,500. This would also be added to the starting pay for new employees.

Some employees would get a different pay increase, depending on how recent their last raise was. This category includes law enforcement officers, who had a major pay plan increase last year.

County Manager Jamie McCord previously said the new pay plan proposed would be covered by the recent increases in the tax digest as well as sales tax revenue.

An endangered Right Whale, entangled in fishing gear, has been spotted off the Georgia coast with her calf, according to The Current.

An aerial survey team from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission spotted the whale, nicknamed Snow Cone, and her calf. A team from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources responded by boat, Georgia DNR spokesman Rick Lavender reported.

North Atlantic right whales migrate from their summer feeding grounds off New England and Canada to give birth off Georgia and Florida in the winter. Snow Cone’s calf is the second right whale calf documented this season. The first was seen off South Carolina in November.

The calf is not entangled, but has been observed swimming in/through/around the ropes. Wildlife officials believe the ropes are short enough that the calf likely won’t become entangled if everything remains the same. Based on the length of the mother’s entanglement and general health assessments, officials believe her entanglement is not immediately life threatening. They intend to continue monitoring the situation.

Right whales are highly endangered with fewer than 350 remaining. Once hunted to near extinction for their oil, entanglements and ship strikes now pose the gravest dangers to these bus-sized baleen whales.