Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for July 13, 2012

“Yo quiero new home,” say four Chihuahuas who are available for adoption from the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter.  Gwinnett is offering $30 adoptions through July 28th, which include microchip, first round of shots, and spay/neuter. That’s less than the average cost of microchipping alone in a veterinarian’s office. $30 for your new best friend. Also, I’m pretty sure adopting a dog is good luck for you candidates out there.

Georgia Ethics

Earlier this week, Speaker David Ralston called the proposed $100 cap on gifts from lobbyists to legislators “a gimmick.” Ralston explained:

I think the choice that we ought to give Georgians is the current system provides for openness, for transparency, it lets y’all write stories about every nickel and dime that gets spent on us, and I think that gives information to people, and I trust people with that information. … Let’s take a look at giving the ethics commission or the transparency and openness commission the resources to do their job, let’s give them autonomy to do their job, so that they are truly independent, and let them deal with real problems rather than try to sell this idea of a cap out there.

Yesterday, a kerfluffle over direct mail pieces paid for by the “Georgia Republican Senate Caucus Promotion PAC” highlighted that one problem with campaign finance in Georgia is a lack of enforcement. The PAC in question was formed by a North Carolina political consultant and funded by $140,000 from Senate Republican Trust and $250 from the NC consultant’s company.

It appears that the only violation committed by the PAC or the Senators who benefitted from its largess is the PAC’s failure to timely disclose its contributions and expenditures. That’ll be $250, please.

Is there a problem with the Senate Republican Trust transferring that much money to a new entity that spends it to reelect members of Senate leadership? Apparently not.

“Georgia has some of the weakest PAC and independent committee laws in the country,” said Rick Thompson, managing partner of R. Thompson & Associates who spent five years as the Ethic Commission’s executive director.

“If we want to get serious about reform and transparency, we need to abandon the ridiculous $100 limits and ideas being pushed around this election cycle by special interest groups and focus on the reporting requirements of PACs and independent committees.”

Thompson, whose firm specializes in ethics and compliance consultation, said, “to truly be an expenditure of an independent committee, the candidate cannot have any coordination or control of the expenditure. Otherwise it is an in kind contribution.”

Yesterday, the Senate Ethics Committee met for two hours and released a statement:

Chairman John Crosby, R-Tifton, said that … the committee “initiated further investigation and following today’s meeting will be serving Senator Balfour with an amended complaint.”

It was not clear in his statement whether the committee had expanded the complaint to include other violations. Among issues not previously addressed by the committee is the fact that Balfour, as longtime chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, did not heed state law requiring an audits subcommittee.

The Rules Committee must have an audits subcommittee, the law says, “to examine and review, not less than once every two months, legislative expenditures, including all vouchers submitted by members of the Senate, as provided for in this Code section, for which the members have received payment.”

If Senator Balfour were to step aside as Rules Chairman so that an interim chair, perhaps a retiring Senator, could start the audit and review process, it would go far to restoring public trust in the Senate’s ability to govern its own affairs.

The Georgia Ethics Express Bus Tour was announced yesterday by the Georgia Gift Cap Pledge Alliance, which comprises Common Cause Georgia, Georgia Tea Party Patriots, Georgia Conservatives in Action. Stops include Augusta, Savannah, Macon, Columbus, Albany, Valdosta, Brunswick, Gainesville, Dalton, Blue Ridge and Waycross. I suspect it’s a coincidence that Blue Ridge is the home of Speaker Ralston.

Senator Josh McKoon will be part of the tour, raising the question of whether such a trip, supported in part by an organization that employs a lobbyist, will require disclosure as a gift or would be banned under the proposed gift ban. It’s complicated, huh?

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Yesterday, a statewide phone survey conducted by Georgia Pundit’s parent company of likely Republican Primary voters showed that T-SPLOST is cratering with 62.5% of voters saying they will vote against it and only 21.4% in favor. Undecided came in third with 16.1%. We’ll release more details on our website this afternoon.

A developer promoting a video lottery casino in Gwinnett County pitched the project to the Gwinnett Village CID Board yesterday.

in the Gwinnett Village community, where a $1 billion development featuring a gaming floor is proposed to redevelop an underutilized business park, the question Thursday centered on whether it would be good for the neighborhood.

“I do not want our quality of life to suffer on something that may be a negative,” Laylene Shaw said Thursday after developer Dan O’Leary pitched his idea to the board of the Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District.

The district was formed six years ago by business owners willing to pay an extra tax to fund improvements to the dilapidated area, from road and pedestrian enhancements to landscaping and security patrols.

“It’s going to improve the community, improve Gwinnett County and overall, the state of Georgia will have a more recognizable name in the country,” said Shiv Aggarwal, the CID board president whose Global Mall is across Jimmy Carter Boulevard from the proposed development, which would be at the OFS site along Interstate 85.

Aggarwal pointed out that the project would not only add jobs to the community — an expected 2,500 permanent full-time jobs with the first phase — but it would provide a huge boost to the CID in terms of property taxes. The money, he said, could in turn build more enhancements like a needed reconstruction of the Jimmy Carter bridge over the interstate or an extension of public transit.

And surrounding businesses and hotels would see a boost to business, he added.

“It’s like a chain reaction. It’s going to get better and better and better,” Aggarwal said.

The administrative law judge who heard the complaint alleging that Brandon Beach was prohibited from simultaneously holding a post on the GDOT Board, which is elected by legislators, and running for state Senate, dismissed the complaint. For the record, you can download the order here.

Georgia Power says the cost of building two new reactors at Plant Vogtle will be $2.2 billion less than originally planned.

Georgia Power says the project will cost $2.2 billion less than originally projected to operate over its 60-year lifetime because of a combination of tax breaks, fuel costs, low interest rates and other factors. Some of the disputes over who’s responsible for delays and possible cost increases at Vogtle are still being worked out between Georgia Power and its vendors, the company said.

Georgia Power customers currently are paying the financing costs of Vogtle’s twin reactors. They will begin paying the construction costs of the project when the reactors start producing power, currently scheduled for 2016 and 2017. Georgia Power says its $6.1 billion share of the $14 billion project has not increased and maintains that the project is on schedule.

Georgia Power continues to negotiate with its vendors but is adamant to not be responsible for the $400 million claim, which is tied to licensing delays. Additional disputes, known as change orders, between Georgia Power and its vendors have gone unresolved for months, but a company spokeswoman said some have been resolved.

Some Fulton County voters have complained that cards mailed to them with new precinct and district information have placed them in the wrong districts.

When Ansley Park resident Harry Harkins’ voter registration card arrived, it had him assigned to the wrong district.  And that bothered him.

“In my particular district, there’s a contested race for my state representative.  It’s a hotly-contested race and I want my vote to count,” he says.

So Harkins called Ken Britt, who’s running in the Democratic primary for House District 56.

Britt had heard from other residents similar stories.

He called the Fulton County election office.

“They did find the error that was with Piedmont Heights/Cheshire Bridge-Piedmont voter precinct,” explains Britt.  “It involved 2,000 registered voters, which they have corrected.”

But now, Fulton County has found problems with both absentee and early voting ballots.

Some voters are faced with ballots listing incorrect candidates.

No word on whether Fulton County’s misspelling of “incumbent” on sample ballots has been fixed.

The Democratic Primary for Muscogee County Clerk of Courts is getting nasty intense:

[Challenger Lisa] Jenkins accused [incumbent Linda] Pierce at a public forum of spending more than $350,000 in taxpayer dollars that could have been avoided by working with the city of Columbus. Jenkins continued to press her concerns during a recent interview, saying accountability and collaboration must be brought to the Clerk of Court’s Office.

Money can be saved by working with city departments, such as the city’s Information Technology division, instead of bidding out work, Jenkins said.

“I will be totally transparent in that office,” Jenkins said. “Why not utilize what I have free of charge?”

“That is the reason I’m running. There’s too much going on.”

Jenkins also pointed to the “difficult” computer system in place on the second floor of the Government Center, which houses the Clerk of Court’s Office. It could take six tries to find every mention of a business because the name has been keyed in six different ways./blockquote>