Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for January 5, 2016

On January 5, 1734, the Trustees of Georgia ordered the return of 42 Jewish settlers who had come in 1733, primarily from Portugal, without the knowledge or approval of the Trustees. The Brits who sponsored the Jewish settlers refused and Georgia is home to the oldest Jewish settlement in the United States.

On January 5, 1781, traitor Benedict Arnold and 1600 British troops captured Richmond, Virginia.

On January 5, 1978, the British band the Sex Pistols started their American tour at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, GA. The AJC has a photo gallery from the show, including the young promoter, Alex Cooley, who would become legendary.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Mrs. GaPundit nominated as the legislative drama of 2015 the night when the General Assembly continued legislating past midnight. That was a not-entirely unpredictable result of Georgia’s most ~~horrible~~ hallowed legislative tradition, the last-minute sausage grinding sessions. WABE has a squib on the yearly late-night lawmaking,

The last-minute scramble to pass bills is a bipartisan Georgia tradition that some lawmakers say does not allow enough time to review legislation and avoid harming Georgians, let alone assess the potential effects of complicated laws.

Last year, just before midnight on the second-to-last day of the 2015 General Assembly, transportation bill HB 170, which aimed to raise hundreds of millions in tax dollars, appeared before the state Senate for a vote.

It was the most discussed piece of legislation during the session, but the version that passed included a $5 per night tax for hotel customers that was added just hours before the Senate voted to approve it.

That came as a shock to lobbyist Jim Sprouse, who leads the Georgia Hotel and Lodging Association.

“We didn’t have any heads up, any advance warning, no discussion or opportunity to provide data,” Sprouse said.

Republican Sen. Bill Heath of Cedartown called this situation “a disgrace.” Heath said that on that late night at the end of the 2015 session, hotel owners in his district did not have time to tell him what they thought about the transportation bill.

“Those people were back in their businesses trying to get people settled in for the night,” Heath said. “They weren’t down here looking over the rail at the legislature working.”

Heath voted against the bill, because he said he did not have enough time to review it.

The other most ~~horrible~~ hallowed tradition of the Georgia General Assembly is the yearly fixit bills that undo hasty changes made the previous year after the law of unintended consequences kicks in. It’s a yearly ritual. The hotel-motel fee is the worst of both situation.

If I were king for a day, the first thing I’d do after I got tired of taking hot laps around the track at Porsche’s Atlanta headquarters would be to institute a truly-biennial legislative process. Substantive bills would have to be introduced in the first year of a two-year cycle and would be eligible for passage in the second year, unless they first received a vote designating them at time-sensitive. Time-sensitive bills could compose no more than 5 percent of legislation in any two-year cycle, which would also limit the number of bills that would ultimately pass, while giving ample time for careful consideration of the other 95 percent of bills.

Of course, the yearly budget would still have to pass, and there are some bills that are truly time-sensitive, but I think Georgia would be better served by a more deliberative process 95% of the time. I’d also exempt repeal bills that only repeal existing laws from the 2-year requirement and the 5% quota. But I don’t have a vote, and most folks who do are invested in the current system.

The Neighbor Chain of newspapers named several 2015 Newsmakers in areas they cover. Micah Gravley, State Representative from District 67 (parts of Douglas and Paulding Counties) earned the moniker for his work on medicinal cannabis. It’s an interesting story that parallels those of many conservative legislators who came to support the legislation after hearing from constituents.

Paulding resident Kim Clark brought a request to District 67 State Rep. Micah Gravley in late 2013 – help her son gain access in Georgia to a medicine derived from marijuana to control his seizures.

Gravley, R-Douglasville, refused at first because he was a conservative Republican lawmaker, he recalled. But the father of three soon changed his mind and, in 2015, was able to convince Georgia lawmakers to make possession of cannabis oil legal in Georgia for those suffering from a range of illnesses.

Clark said Gravley had told her he had to pray about supporting legalization.

Her family had relocated to Colorado to obtain the oil legally. Gravley’s efforts allowed the family to move back home, she said.

“He has not only earned my admiration. He finally earned my vote,” Clark said in April.

Gravley said he worked hard to gain passage of the 2015 law – and plans to keep fighting for future laws allowing easier access – because “kids are still waking up every morning with these conditions.”

“For me, this wasn’t a one-time thing,” he said.

Also profiled as a 2015 Newsmaker was Tucker 2015, the citizen movement that led to the overwhelming passage of the cityhood referndum in November.

Tucker 2015, a grassroots effort made-up of volunteer residents, succeeded in helping Tucker achieve cityhood — granting them a more locally controlled community and making them the DeKalb Neighbor’s newsmaker of the year.

In the November elections, 73.9 percent of voters made Tucker DeKalb County’s eighth new city. That win came as no surprise according to Tucker 2015 volunteer council member Michelle Penkava.

“Within a few days, we had raised half of the $30 thousand needed for the feasibility study,” Penkava said. “It was easy to raise because the community was very supportive — they were all in.”

“Tucker Together was just educational, so to pursue cityhood we needed an advocacy group,” volunteer council member Frank Auman said about the formation of Tucker 2014 by Sonja Szubski — the group that would become Tucker 2015.

Council member Anne Lerner worked on the public relations side and said the many people actively involved had to drop everything to pursue “the logical next step in Tucker’s long history.”

“These were not professionals, but volunteers who gave up their time because this was important to them,” Lerner said. “We were constantly in meetings, on the phone at midnight or at the capitol everyday.”

Tonight, Eddie deLoach will be sworn in as Mayor of Savannah, along with several new members of City Council in a ceremony at the Savannah Civic Center.

Three members of the Warner Robins City Council were sworn in yesterday.

Maureen Downey of the AJC wins the award for colorful metaphors with this prediction,

Gov. Nathan Deal’s merit pay proposal for teachers runs the risk of becoming the hoverboard of education, a smooth way to advance our goals but apt to explode from poorly made parts.

The incendiary issue will dominate the opening of the Legislature next week, according to House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge. Meeting with wary teachers in his home ground of Fannin and Gilmer counties over the last few weeks, Ralston said Georgia is not ready to roll out a fair and equitable pay for performance model.

“The case has not been made to me for merit-based pay,” he said. “I’m troubled by how you quantify and measure and get to the point that the concept wants to get at. And I am hearing this is going to have some impact on recruiting teachers.”

I don’t know if I agree on the issue, but it’s a great opener for a piece that delves into education policy and politics.

Local school board members for Rome and Floyd County will meet with their local legislators, State Reps. Katie Dempsey (R) and Eddie Lumsden (R) and Sen. Chuck Hufstetler (R).

“My hope is that we will be in better shape financially next year,” said Rome BOE representative Bruce Jones. “I’m hoping to … find out if there is some way to recoup what we’ve lost in funding in the past and get back to where we were.”

Richard Dixon, fellow Rome BOE member, said the local systems have been doing more with less.

“Hopefully, we can discuss the Legislature giving us the money we need to fund what they mandate and so we can give our children the education they need.”

Floyd County Board Chairman George Bevels said he thinks the meeting will be a great opportunity to find out what is coming up in the Georgia General Assembly session that starts Jan. 11.

“We can talk about what we as board members would like to see,” he said.

Meanwhile, math and science teacher slots continue to be difficult to fill, despite some incentives for educators.

“The number of graduates in math and science that are interested in teaching as a career is way below what it takes to replace teachers who are retiring,” explained John Jackson, interim superintendent of Floyd County Schools.

Lawmakers approved an incentive program in the late 2000s amid concerns about a shortage of math and science teachers, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The program, which pays incentives to some math and science teachers, is budgeted to cost more than $15 million this year.

However, a recent state audit questioned the program’s effectiveness.

It isn’t clear whether the incentives have helped slow the attrition of math and science teachers, auditors say. The audit also found that shortages of math and science teachers may not be as big a problem in Georgia as they are nationally.

On 60 Minutes, a story profiled corruption and counterfeiting in the world of Italian olive oil.

Tom Mueller: Easily half of the bottles that are sold as extra virgin in supermarkets in Italy do not meet the legal grades for extra virgin oil.

Bill Whitaker: So half here in Italy, what would it be in the U.S.?

Tom Mueller: Up around 75% to 80%, easily.

Yes, you heard right – he said up to 80 percent.

We’re unabashed foodies in the GaPundit household, and we love olive oil from Georgia Olive Farms.

Peach State Presidential Politics

I’m not supporting Ted Cruz or anyone else for President at this time, but I find myself writing about him more often than most of the other candidates. There are three reasons.

First, he’s done far more events in Georgia than any other candidate. I cover Georgia politics, and this is the first Presidential candidate who’s given Georgians so many events. Second, as a student of Southern politics, the SEC Primary and Cruz’s apparent strategy of prioritizing organizing in the South make it something I’ve been waiting to see happen for years. Third, he’s running a strong, well-organized campaign that politicos can learn something from.

The lesson from Donald Trump’s campaign, if he wins, will be that it helps to start out as a multi-billionaire reality TV star, but unless you’re a Kardashian, it’ll be hard to take a page from the Trump playbook in the future.

But Cruz is putting on a tutorial of how to organize and win in Georgia and other SEC Primary states, and whether he does in fact win will likely have more to do with Trump than with Cruz’s strategy and execution.

Yesterday, the Cruz campaign announced a national “Homeschoolers for Cruz National Coalition.”

In Georgia, homeschoolers have shown their ability to make a difference in hard-fought campaigns, from Tim Echols’s Public Service Commission race in 2010 to last month’s Senate District 43 squeaker by JaNice Van Ness.

I can’t imagine any of the other candidates, especially Trump, having much success in organizing such a group. It shows a detailed understanding of different groups that are important in Republican politics, and a willingness to put the time and treasure into organizing people who are often outside of traditional “political” organizations.

Events

This Saturday, January 9th, Senator Johnny Isakson will speak at the Cobb County Republican Party breakfast, which runs from 8-10 AM at the Cobb GOP Headquarters, 799 Roswell Street in Marietta. Admission is $10, payable by cash or check at the door.

Also this coming Saturday, the Gwinnett County Republican Party will hold its monthly breakfast, discussing the 2016 legislative session. Senator Renee Unterman and State Reps. Brett Harrell, Buzz Brockway and Tom Rice will be speaking, and county commissioners Jace Brooks and Tommy Hunter will discuss how the legislative session may affect Gwinnett County goverment.

At 10 AM on Saturday, the Donald J. Trump campaign is holding a Grand Opening for their Georgia Headquarters at 1000 Cir 75 Pkwy SE, Atlanta, GA. Free bumper stickers, t-shirts, and yardsigns. Click here for free tickets.

On Tuesday, January 12, from 6-7:30 PM at the City Club of Buckhead, 3343 Peachtree Road, 18th Floor, Atlanta, GA 30326, I’ll join host Bill Nigut and fellow panelist Jackie Cushman and a couple others for “Political Rewind Live,” based on the weekly GPB radio show. The show is sponsored by the Fulton County Republican Party Chairman’s Council and we’ll bring you more details soon. Mark it on your calendar, it will be fun.

On Thursday, January 21, 2016, the Georgia Republican Foundation is hosting a Cocktail Reception with Lt. Governor Casey Cagle at The Peachtree Club, 999 Peachtree Street, 28th Floor, in Atlanta. R.s.v.p. to Alexandra Kendrick if you’d like to attend.