Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for July 1, 2015

The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on July 1, 1776 to debate a resolution by Richard Henry Lee that the colonies declare their independence of Britain.

The first U.S. Postage stamps were issued on July 1, 1847 in New York City.

The Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders charged San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War on July 1, 1898.

Coca-Cola marketed its current formula for the first time on July 1, 1916.

On July 1, 1956, a new Georgia flag bearing the state seal and a version of the Confederate Battle Flag became effective after being adopted by the Georgia General Assembly in the 1956 Session.

The current Georgia Constitution became effective on July 1, 1983 after its approval in a referendum during the November 1982 General Election.

Georgia native Clarence Thomas was nominated to the United States Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush on July 1, 1991.

Georgia Politics

We’ll get a bunch of flag stuff out of the way today.

Former Governor Roy Barnes gave an account of the 2001 state flag debate to CNN.

As governor of Georgia, I successfully pushed for the replacement of that flag during our 2001 legislative session.

Everywhere I appeared in public after the flag change, I was greeted with protesters — almost exclusively older white men — waving Georgia’s 1956 flag and the Confederate battle emblem itself. It did not come as a surprise. My predecessor as governor, Zell Miller, had a political near-death experience running for re-election in 1994 after attempting to persuade our Legislature to replace the 1956 flag in 1993.

Many believe my effort to change the flag led to my defeat for re-election in 2002. That year, the Georgia Republican Party’s candidates, including its gubernatorial nominee, promised that if elected, they would hold a referendum that would allow Georgians to vote to bring back the state flag with the Confederate battle emblem. The tactic worked. Republicans won the governor’s office for the first time since Reconstruction.

The Republican Party in the South created its modern dominance on racial division, building a supermajority of white voters to win elections. Ironically, this strategy now gives it the chance to bring change to our region in a way that would be much more difficult for Democrats such as me.

One example here in Georgia is Republican Gov. Nathan Deal’s push to reform draconian sentencing laws that we have enacted over the last several decades. A Democratic governor would no doubt be attacked as “soft on crime” and be hard-pressed to garner significant GOP support for such an effort. A Republican governor, however, can make the case as an ally to his party’s legislators and supporters about the need for such reform.

A movement is afoot to boycott Stone Mountain until Confederate flags that fly at the flag terrace are taken down.

[A] Georgia state representative is calling on Georgians to boycott Stone Mountain Park this weekend, and everyday until the park removes its Confederate flags.”At a state-owned and state-run park that operates under Georgia code, we need something that represents all of us,” said Rep. LaDawn Jones (D-62).

Jones said, that “something” is not the Confederate Battle Flag, nor is it the three flags that served as the official banners for the Confederate States of America. All four flags fly high at Stone Mountain Park as part of a Confederate memorial.

Jones says the problem is the manner in which the flags are displayed.

“Where you are flying a flag next to the United States flag, that indicates to people that this is more than a memorial, this is credence to a time that has long gone,” she said.

11Alive News spoke with people at the park Tuesday, many of whom said the flags would not cause them to change their behavior.

“It only hurts you if you let it hurt you,” Candi Lee said, adding it is “just a symbol.”

But the 2001 flag fight and its aftermath resulted in, among other things, protections for the Confederate flag at Stone Mountain.

Bill Stephens, who heads the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, said a few days ago that the park’s operators were weighing different options for the three Confederate States of America banners and the Rebel war emblem that fly alongside Old Glory.

He reports today that the park’s position has hardened since then.

Said Stephens:

“Stone Mountain is preserved by state law as a Confederate memorial.  The law that changed the flag to our current state flag also expressly prohibited changes at Stone Mountain Park. Some on both sides of these issues have said that these Confederate symbols belong in a museum.  Here in Georgia, Stone Mountain Park serves that purpose.”

State law has a very clear mandate for Stone Mountain’s state-owned memorial. “The Stone Mountain Memorial Association shall continue the practice of stocking, restocking, and sales of Confederate memorabilia.” Another section says that the site should be “preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause.”

On Friday’s Political Rewind on GPB, DeKalb County County Commissioner Nancy Jester responded to a question about the state flag.

“It’s great to have a robust conversation about symbolism, but I’d really rather prefer us to waste less time of symbolism and deal with substance. When are we going to put the same passion behind showing up at McNair High School in DeKalb County where barely one out of every two children – 99 percent African-American, mind you – are graduating from high school and those who do graduate are behind where others of their peers are, that’s the real civil rights issue of our day, and that’s a substantive, and I see very little passion on that and a lot of defenders and apologists about the way these systems have been run. And they have hurt black children every day, and that’s where I’d like to see more passion. On that substantive discussion, not on symbolism.”

Former Atlanta Mayor and Ambassador Andrew Young has also weighed in on the issue.

He said some people fighting against the flag are more worried about treating the symptoms than treating the illness. Also he is not advocating a tax on the flag.

The former two-term mayor suggested people focus more on the substance of the problems and issues of today and not on a symbol. He said a lesson should have been learned by what happened at the State Capitol. He said supporters of former Governor Roy Barnes won a big state battle but lost the State House.

Instead of worrying about Confederate symbols, the man who walked with King recommends we pay attention to the substance of what’s taking place right now in 2015.

“I would never trade the flag for a single job,” said Young. “The problems we face don’t have anything to do with the flag. The fact is that 93% of black people killed are killed by other black people. So black lives matter. Let us start believing that we matter.”

“The flag is a symbol that means a lot of things to a lot of people when you get to institutions like Washington and Lee University,” claimed Young. “I admire that, I admire that. I admire the restoration of southern traditions in Washington and Lee University. The challenge for us is not to wipe out our past history but to learn to live together in the future.”

An editorial in the LA Times follows up on Young’s critique.

Initiatives to take the flag down from the Statehouse grounds in South Carolina or remove it from the state flag of Mississippi are being cited as signs of a new consciousness of the toll of official racism.

The danger is that the eradication of such institutionalized racism will only go as far as the symbol. Relatively speaking, symbolic acts are easy. They don’t cost anything, they don’t hurt anyone and, when sufficiently widespread, they provide political cover.

The real challenge is to follow them up with material change. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t shy about evoking the symbolism of John F. Kennedy’s supposed legacy in pushing for civil rights legislation immediately after the Kennedy assassination; but he knew that getting the laws passed would require every ounce of persuasion, threats and political capital he could muster. Take a look at the accompanying photo of LBJ physically intimidating Sen. Richard Russell (D-Ga.) over the Civil Rights Act. “I’m going to pass it, Dick,” he told Russell, his onetime Senate mentor, “and if you get in my way, I’m going to run you down.”

It’s encouraging to see politicians and citizens waking up to the noxious symbolism of leaving the Confederate battle flag flying in public spaces. But simply removing a racist symbol doesn’t in itself signify an end to racial policy. The next steps are the important ones: a rollback of restrictive voting laws that evoke the era of poll taxes and election-day violence, and the expansion of health coverage to all citizens. Unless and until they happen, the symbolism of taking down the flag will be empty.

Bobby Kahn, who served as Chief of Staff to Gov. Barnes, is targeting the Confederate flag artwork that hung in OK Cafe.

Bobby Kahn, the former chief-of-staff to Gov. Roy Barnes and longtime Democratic guru, said he urged the manager to take the painting down during his last visit to the restaurant.

“They told me it was artwork, and that they weren’t going to take it down,” said Kahn. “They need to change that flag.”

Legislation by State Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson) to protect existing historic memorials and hasn’t gotten anywhere since first being introduced in 2013, may be revisited in the next Session of the General Assembly.

Benton wrote his first bill after the statue of former U.S. Senator Tom Watson, an avowed white supremacist, was moved out of the Georgia state capitol plaza.

Benton’s current bill, HB 50, is in a House committee, where it could be sent to the full House next year.

“We’re not telling them they can’t move them,” but they need to be relocated to a “likewise prominent position,” Benton said.

“We’re saying they’ve got to leave them out where people can see them. It is still a part of our history.”

Attorney General Sam Olens files suit over “Waters of the United States”

From a press release sent yesterday:

Attorney General Sam Olens today has filed a lawsuit in federal court for the Southern District of Georgia asking the court to strike down a new rule from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that unlawfully expands the federal government’s regulatory reach over local streams, lands, and farms. He is joined by eight state attorneys general in the lawsuit.

The rule, known generally as the “Waters of the United States” rule, would extend the EPA and Corps of Engineers’ regulatory reach to an untold number of small bodies of water, including roadside ditches and short-lived streams or any other area where the agencies believe water may flow once every 100 years.

This rule could have dire consequences for homeowners, farmers, and other entities by forcing them to navigate a complex federal bureaucracy and obtain costly permits in order to perform everyday tasks like digging ditches, building fences, or spraying fertilizers. Failure to comply with this new regulatory scheme could result in fines of up to $37,500 a day.

“Today I am joining with a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general to challenge an unlawful and unprecedented expansion of federal power over private property owners and state and local matters” said Olens. “The scope of the ‘Waters of the United States’ rule is breathtaking and will directly impact the everyday lives of Georgians, from farmers to homeowners. Under this excessive and expensive rule, a farm pond, or even a homeowner’s backyard could be subject to federal regulation. As the federal government continues to issue burdensome and unconstitutional executive directives at an alarming rate, I remain steadfast in my commitment to protect and defend the interests of Georgians.”

“Through the finalization of this rule, a clear punitive overreach of the government’s power has taken place,” said Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black. “I view this as a frontal assault on private property rights; federal overreach on steroids. My sincere hope is that through this joint complaint, we will thwart yet another blatant overreach of the federal government.”

In the complaint, the Attorneys General of West Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin argue the final rule put forward by the EPA and Corps of Engineers violates the Clean Water Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the U.S. Constitution and usurps the states’ primary responsibility for the management, protection, and care of intrastate waters and lands.

While the Clean Water Act gave the EPA and Corps authority to regulate “navigable waters” – defined as “waters of the United States” – Congress made sure that states would retain their constitutional, sovereign responsibility over non-navigable, intrastate lands and waters. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice rejected the agencies’ attempts to expand their authority (in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers and Rapanos v. United States). However, this latest rule written by the two administrative agencies gives them virtually limitless power over these waters.

The complaint asks a federal judge to declare the rule illegal and issue an injunction to prevent the agencies from enforcing it. It also asks the judge to order the agencies to draft a new rule that complies with the law.