Georgia History
The Supreme Court of Georgia held its first meeting on January 26, 1846 at Talbotton, Georgia.
John Sammons Bell was born on January 26, 1914 in Macon, Georgia. He would go on to serve as Chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, as a Judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals, and as chief judge of the appellate court. He is today best known as the designer of the state flag featuring the Confederate battle flag, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1956.
On January 26, 2001 a new state flag, first designed by Atlanta architect Cecil Alexander, passed out of committee in the General Assembly by a 4-3 vote and would be voted on later that week. Click here to view the floor debate from 2001.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Senate Committee Meetings
12:00 PM RULES UPON ADJOURNMENT 450 CAP
1:00 PM ETHICS 307 CLOB
1:00 PM GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT 125 CAP
2:00 PM RETIREMENT 307 CLOB
2:00 PM JUDICIARY 310 CLOB
2:00 PM STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS – CANCELED 125 CAP
3:00 PM NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT 450 CAP
4:00 PM JUDICIARY NON-CIVIL 310 CLOB
4:00 PM TRANSPORTATION – CANCELED 125 CAP
House Committee Meetings
7:30 AM APPROPRIATIONS SUB 341 CAP
9:00 AM RULES 341 CAP
1:00 PM HIGHER EDUCATION 403 CAP
1:00 PM Judiciary Non-Civil Hightower Subcommittee 132 CAP
1:00 PM STATE PLANNING & COMMUNITY AFFAIRS 606 CLOB
1:30 PM Motor Vehicles Tags & Titles Sub 406 CLOB
2:00 PM ENERGY, UTILITIES AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS 403 CAP
2:00 PM HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES 606 CLOB
2:00 PM Judiciary Civil Fleming Sub 132 CAP
2:00 PM REGULATED INDUSTRIES 506 CLOB
3:00 PM GAME, FISH, AND PARKS 415 CLOB
3:00 PM Industry & Labor Pruett Sub 515 CLOB
3:00 PM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 506 CLOB
At least seven bills addressing marijuana have been filed in the Georgia General Assembly this year, according to the Macon Telegraph.
Of seven bills filed in the state Legislature that would loosen some cannabis laws, only the one dealing with cultivation of medical cannabis has any strength behind it so far.
While this might not be the year it or any of the other marijuana bills pass, some see growing evidence that marijuana isn’t the taboo subject it once was.
“I think it’s going to crumble eventually. Three years ago I would never have imagined we’d be standing here talking about this issue,” said James Bell, director of the Georgia CARE Project, which aims to end all prohibitions on cannabis.
A bill to require firearm safety training before issuance of a carry permit might gain traction in the legislature, according to the Gainesville Times.
That proposal would require anyone seeking a weapons carry license to first complete a firearms safety training course.
There are exemptions for those individuals working as peace officers, active-duty military personnel or National Guard members, as well as instructors certified by the National Rifle Association.
“I would think” Republicans can get behind it, Rep. Carl Rogers, R-Gainesville, said.
Rogers said he planned on taking a safety course himself this past weekend just to make sure he’s up to speed on properly handling his firearms.
Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville, said other potential problems could include prohibitive costs for citizens who have a Second Amendment right to own firearms.
“I could not get behind that,” he added. “My father taught me responsible use of firearms. I don’t think there is any weapons safety course that would have averted some of the senseless killings that have occurred around the United States.”
State Senator Lester Jackson will introduce legislation to limit the rate of property tax increases for commercial properties, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Owners of commercial property would see their tax increases limited under legislation Sen. Lester Jackson announced Monday to the visiting Mayor Eddie DeLoach and members of the City Council and school board.
The meeting between the local officials and members of the Savannah legislative delegation was designed as an update on the council’s legislative agenda, although there were no substantive changes from the agenda the previous council had given the lawmakers before DeLoach and new aldermen took office.
“This is just an effort to be more in-sync with each other,” the mayor said.
Jackson’s bill is modeled on the Stephens-Day law sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens and then-Rep. Burke Day, both Republicans in the Savannah delegation. Enacted 15 years ago, that law limits how much property taxes can rise on residences.
Two school system superintendents in Cobb County hope that reduced testing will make teaching more attractive, according to the Marietta Daily Journal.
Cobb Schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale and Marietta City Schools Superintendent Emily Lembeck spoke to the Cobb Legislative Delegation at the Coverdell Legislative Office Building in a session focused on K-12 education issues and their impact on Cobb County. The meeting served as a follow-up to a similar gathering held last month during which Cobb lawmakers heard from the leaders of the two districts.
Both superintendents during Monday’s session addressed the number of tests teachers are required to focus on to determine students’ growth in a subject area, and that student progress accounts for 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. For principals, student progress counts for 70 percent of their evaluation.
“That 50 percent of the teacher’s assessment being tied to the test, I really think that really does need to be changed,” Lembeck said. “I asked the teachers if they knew what the principal’s portion of that is — what percent of the principal’s evaluation was going to be student progress — and jaws dropped when I said ‘70 percent.’ I do not think that helps to enhance school culture, which supports the teachers and the important work they need to do. The principals need to keep those teachers lifted as they’re working with parents and students, and having that hanging over them does no good.”
Ragsdale said that while legislators may consider raising teacher pay, a bigger impact on educators would be reducing what is on their “plate” — one thing being the heavy emphasis on student achievement.
“I think that addressing … the 50 percent on teachers and 70 percent on administrators will go a long way to making teachers feel like and be able to see action that, No.1, the profession is appreciated and needed, and No. 2, you guys are trying to relieve some of the things off their plate without adding anything else onto it.”
Marietta City Council is expected to ink the agreement tomorrow with Atlanta United FC to build the soccer team’s training facility in the Cobb County city.
DeKalb and Taxes
DeKalb County will ask voters to approve yet another penny sales tax to improve roads, according to Mark Niesse of the AJC.
The special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) is planned for November’s ballot, and if approved, it will generate about $100 million a year.
Currently, DeKalb spends $6.7 million a year on road work, which was enough to fill potholes and repave more than 25 miles of roadways last year but not sufficient to significantly decrease the backlog of needed road work. An average pothole can cost between $300 and $500 to repair.
Interim DeKalb CEO Lee May said the county can’t properly address the problem without the additional money. It would cost $176 million to erase the county’s resurfacing backlog — more than $400,000 per mile.
“It’s not because of any negligence, but we just don’t have the dedicated funding stream,” May said. “The SPLOST funding stream would allow us the ability to not just fill potholes, but allow us to handle the real work that needs to be done, which is resurfacing our roads.”
Yesterday, the DeKalb State House Delegation met, along with onlooker, former DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones. Among the items discussed were a proposal by State Rep. Tom Taylor (R-Dunwoody) to force Atlanta Public Schools and DeKalb County Schools property tax rates back in line with a state law they were exempted from many years ago.
A DeKalb legislator is proposing a tax cut that would reduce county school system spending by $56 million a year.
Rep. Tom Taylor, R-Dunwoody, told the county’s legislative delegation Monday that the school system’s property tax rate should be lowered to the same level as other schools across Georgia. DeKalb schools currently impose a higher tax rate than the norm because of an exception created more than 30 years ago.
“That money belongs to the taxpayers,” Taylor said. “We have the highest millage rate in the state with the lowest return.”
Taylor said Georgia law sets a property tax limit of 20 mills on most school systems in the state, but DeKalb has been allowed to exceed that rate since the 1970s because the county school system previously managed a junior college in addition to elementary and high schools.
Taylor said he will introduce a general bill on Tuesday to re-institute the 20-mill cap statewide.
DeKalb County’s current tax rate for schools is 23.73 mills. Atlanta Public Schools also exceeds Taylor’s proposed limit with its 21.64 millage rate.
The $56 million dollar reduction is approximately 3% of the DeKalb County Public Schools’ $1.5 billion dollar annual budget.
Campaigns and Elections
West Point, Georgia Mayor Drew Ferguson announced he will run for Congress in the Third District seat being vacated by Rep. Lynn Westmoreland.
“Washington is broken and as a small businessman I know that what our communities need from Congress is that they get out of the way and let us create jobs and economic opportunity for our citizens,” Ferguson said. “We are a conservative place, and I want to put conservative principles to work for the whole district like we have in West Point where we have cut taxes and utility rates while creating an economic development boom.”
Ferguson is a dentist and small business owner who has served as Mayor of West Point since 2008 and before that as an Alderman in West Point.
State Rep. Mike Dudgeon (R-Johns Creek) announced he will not seek reelection to the State House this year.
The longest-serving member of Forsyth County’s state legislative delegation has announced that this session of the Georgia General Assembly will be his last.
District 25 state Rep. Mike Dudgeon, a Republican from south Forsyth, attributed his decision not to seek a fourth term to the growth of Hirez Studios in Alpharetta, where he serves as chief technology officer.
“I really hate to leave the Georgia House, but the reality is that my business commitments no longer give me enough time to serve,” Dudgeon wrote in an email.
“We are now in full high-tech growth company mode. In doing both jobs, my work-life balance is not sustainable. Therefore I have to step away from politics for the time being.”
Fulton County Magistrate Judge Andrew Margolis will seek the Superior Court seat being vacated by the retirement of Judge Wendy Shoob, according to the Fulton Daily Report.
Margolis has one announced opponent, Eric Dunaway, DeKalb County chief assistant district attorney.
“I have the dual experience of serving as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney specializing in criminal and family law cases,” Margolis said in his announcement. “It is critical for a judge to be able to be fair to all parties. In order to be fair and arrive at a result that serves justice, a judge must have the ability to see both sides of a case.
“I am the only candidate with experience as a prosecutor who has not spent his whole career looking only at one side of the issue in criminal cases. I will bring my diverse experience to the Fulton County bench and be truly fair to the people on all sides of a case.”
In Cobb County, the race for the Cobb State Court seat being vacated by Judge Irma Glover is getting crowded.
The newest candidates are business litigator Luke Lantta, a partner with Bryan Cave, and Leah Zammit, who has her own firm and is a former part-time Cobb County Magistrate Court judge. Both have announced plans to run for the seat being opened by the planned retirement of Cobb County State Court Judge Irma Glover.
Glover’s position is one of three openings in state court, which hears civil trials and misdemeanor criminal cases. Also, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Adele Grubbs has announced she does not plan to seek re-election.
Lantta and Zammit join John Morgan and Kellie Hill in seeking Glover’s position.
Robert “Bo” Hunter, III announced he will run for a seat on the Richmond County State Court, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
Hunter, a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, has practiced law in the Augusta area since 1982.
He served two terms as the solicitor general of Richmond County State Court from 1988 to 1996, before returning to private practice.
Two other lawyers have announced their candidacy for the Richmond County State Court judgeship – Kellie McIntyre, the current Richmond County State Court solicitor general, who will complete her first term in office this year; and Monique Walker, the chief operating officer and general counsel for Global Personnel Solutions.
The Times-Georgian spoke to Carrollton activists behind the electronic billboard touting Ted Cruz’s candidacy.
“I never put a lot of stock in polls,” Henderson said. “They’re strictly to manipulate people and get into their heads so they question who they’re voting for. I believe Ted will win on March 1.”
Henderson is so confident, that after gaining the county tea party vote for a Cruz endorsement, she personally gathered enough donors to rent a huge LED billboard on Bankhead Highway near Zaxby’s.
“We decided to do some serious advertising,” she said. “I spent about an hour on the phone, rounding up the donors. It was very easy because we have tremendous support for Cruz in this county.”
“We have a second billboard we’re going to put up, on the other side of the road, near the (Carroll County Sales Barn), for people coming into Carrollton from Villa Rica,” she said. “It’ll go up Feb. 1 and both billboards will stay up through the primary.”
In addition to being the local tea party chairman, Henderson and Norma Jean Kitti co-chair the Cruz campaign in Carroll County. They have a Facebook page, “Carroll County for Ted Cruz,” which has featured photos of the billboard. The site has gotten 17,000 views and 2,000 likes since it went active last Friday, Henderson said.
“One of our friends with the Cruz campaign showed it to Ted and he’s been re-tweeting it on his account,” she said. “He’s told us how awesome he thinks it is. Over 40,000 people have seen it on Twitter.”
Town Hall Meetings
State Senator Judson Hill (R-Marietta) will hold a Town Hall Meeting tonight from 7-8 PM at Lassiter High School Theatre, 2601 Shallowford Road in Marietta.
Marietta Mayor Steve Tumlin and Council Member Anthony Coleman both have public Town Hall meetings scheduled this week.
Tumlin will meet tonight with members of the community and the teenagers of Marietta’s youth program, YELLS, to discuss changes coming to Franklin Road.
The program is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and will be moderated by the youth program, whose members include Franklin Road residents.
Councilman Anthony Coleman on Thursday will host a town hall meeting to update the community regarding developments in Coleman’s request to have more minorities in the city’s police and fire departments.
“How can we try to come up with solutions to better relationships with law enforcement and the community?” Coleman said. “Start that dialogue and get input from different people in the community.”
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