Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for July 6, 2022

On July 6, 1775, Congress issued the “Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms” addressed to King George III, stating that they preferred to “to die free men rather than live as slaves.” The document was written by John Dickinson after a draft by Thomas Jefferson.

The Republican Party was formally organized on July 6, 1854.

The party was born of hostility to slavery.

In February [1854] a gathering in Ripon, Wisconsin, resolved to form a new party and a local lawyer named Alvan E. Bovay suggested the name Republican for its echoes of Thomas Jefferson. In Michigan there were meetings in Kalamazoo, Jackson and Detroit, and after the Act had passed in May, the new party was formally founded in Jackson in July. A leading figure was Austin Blair, a Free Soiler lawyer who was prosecuting attorney of Jackson County. He helped to draft the new party’s platform, was elected to the state senate in Republican colours that year and would become governor of Michigan in 1860.

On July 6, 1885, Louis Pasteur successfully tested a rabies vaccine on a human subject.

Happy Birthday to George W. Bush, who turns 76 today.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Former President Trump‘s potential announcement of a 2024 White House bid could upend the narrative on the economy and change November’s elections. From The Hill via WSAV:

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made clear they want the 2022 midterms to be a referendum on President Biden and his handling of inflation and the economy.

But that strategy will run into trouble if Trump announces his plans to run for president again in 2022. An early Trump campaign kickoff would give plenty of opportunity for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats to make November a referendum on Trump instead of Biden.

“Midterm elections tend to be referenda on the governing party and given President Biden’s rock-bottom job approval rating, anything that detracts from a focus on the Biden administration and its many failures weakens the Republicans’ ability to take control of Congress,” said Whit Ayres, a leading Republican pollster.

Biden’s job approval rating now stands at 38 percent, according to an average of recent polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.

Ayres say Republican voters are significantly more motivated than Democrats to vote given liberal disappointment over the Biden agenda.

“No question about it. The administration has managed to increase Republican enthusiasm and depress Democratic enthusiasm by the way it has governed,” he said.

Many Senate Republicans blamed Trump for contributing to their loss of two Senate seats in last year’s election runoff in Georgia because he claimed fraud in the 2020 November election, depressing GOP turnout in the following January runoff.

“Case in point the Georgia special we had in January of last year. Trump gave no thought whatsoever to what it meant to tell Republicans their vote no longer counted,” [Republican strategist Scott] Jennings pointed out.

Rising COVID numbers in Augusta lead some public health experts to recommend masking again, according to WJBF.

“Richmond County’s community COVID-19 level, as classified by the CDC, is now at medium, which means we are seeing an increase in the number of cases as well as hospitalizations,” Dr. Phillip Coule, VP & Chief Medical Officer for Augusta University Health System told NewsChannel 6.

He said this is happening as people head indoors to beat the heat. A New York Times chart of new cases in Georgia shows a significant drop from January through April of this year. And then those same cases begin to trend upward, spiking by July. It’s a similar story in South Carolina with cases high at the start of the year, going down in February and then by May, surging to present day.

“The important number to watch is how many people are becoming ill enough to require admission to the hospital and we are seeing that number going up, probably owing to the BA.5 variant,” he explained.

This more server variant is not as bad as Delta. But Dr. Coule said it’s enough for AU Health to require a medical-grade face mask for staff and visitors along with keeping up good hand hygiene. As for the community, he told us there’s no need to shut anything down at this point, people can follow suit with masks, hand washing and a booster.

“If you have a recent booster, you get a period of protection that crosses most of the variants that have emerged,” said Dr. Coule.

Rome also reports rising COVID numbers, according to the Rome News Tribune.

On Tuesday, 32 virus patients were under care at Atrium Health Floyd and Advent Health Redmond. That’s up 14 from the Friday afternoon report and the most since 32 people were hospitalized on March 3.

The report comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Floyd, Bartow, Gordon, Polk and Chattooga counties have moved from being classified as a low risk for spread to a medium risk, as of results posted Thursday night.

Most adjoining counties to the south and east of Floyd County are classified as medium risk while Cobb and Douglas counties were at a high risk classification. Counties on Georgia’s northern border near the Tennessee line were in the low range.

The City of Blakely has declared a local emergency and instituted a curfew, according to WALB.

The declaration states within the past month, the increase in gun violence has been “endangering the health, safety, and welfare” of Blakely residents.

On May 31, three people were shot on Palmetto Avenue. On June 8, two people were shot on Mulberry Street. On June 26, seven people were shot on North Church Street. This shooting resulted in one death.

A midnight curfew and ceasing alcohol sales within city limits at 11 p.m. will be in effect.

Some Augusta homeowners could see dramatic property tax increases, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

Homeowners in some of the city’s historic and transitional neighborhoods have seen their property values increase as much as 81%. The impact of those reassessments is disproportionately affecting lower-income households, according to some.

“When I think about it, I just don’t get it. This happens in a lot of areas – you raise taxes, the people can’t afford it so they decide to move,” said Bobby King, who owns one of the Sand Hills area’s newer homes, a mid-century-modern ranch built in the 1950s.

Chief Richmond County Appraiser Scott Rountree has said approximately 74% of all Augusta real estate parcels increased in value last year. He’s said 85% of the rises are market-based adjustments based on rising sales prices.

Richmond County Board of Tax Assessors increased the value of King’s house by 20% in 2021 and 50% this year, to $261,477. The move raised his estimated property tax bill by more than $1,100, to $3,982.

The Georgia Supreme Court will hear a case on whether a citizen referendum can prevent a county government, according to the Georgia Recorder.

The county is challenging a clause in the Georgia Constitution that paved the way for a special election that is blocking the purchase of 4,000 acres near the Atlantic Ocean where Camden officials plan the controversial rocket launching spaceport.

During a two-year period, Camden residents ‌obtained the signatures of more than 10% of registered voters required to put the referendum on the ballot.

And in the March 8 election, voters rejected a resolution permitting the county to complete the land deal with Union Carbide Corp. as residents objected to a still-running spaceport tab that now exceeds $11 million. Meanwhile, opponents continue to complain about the potential that rockets launched from the spaceport could explode, raining debris onto federally protected areas and 40 private homes located over Cumberland Island.

The supreme court has scheduled an Aug. 23 hearing for the case.

Camden officials’ foray into commercial space exploration began in 2014 and five years later, the Federal Aviation Administration granted the spaceport operator’s license for up to 12 launches annually. The license is contingent upon the county closing on land held by Union Carbide. Each individual launch would require state and federal regulatory approval.

Camden argues that the state constitution ‌forbids residents from repealing county resolutions. Instead, county lawyers say, the real estate agreement falls under the state’s home rule provision, which grants counties power to enact local laws.

If the state’s high court rules against the county, ‌a recurring cycle of petitions could be unleashed against county and city governments, which would be ‌‌‌contrary to the state constitution that sets the ground rules for government, the counties’ association attorneys wrote on May 16.

A reported settlement of a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Labor may have been scuttled after plaintiffs announced it, according to The Center Square via the Rome News Tribune.

The Georgia Department of Labor was poised to settle a lawsuit over the payment and processing of unemployment insurance benefits claims but sought to withdraw after the case’s plaintiffs disseminated a press release announcing the settlement.

Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center distributed a news release saying U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee approved the preliminary settlement in a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Labor. The SPLC and Atlanta-based law firm Bondurant, Mixson and Elmore filed the lawsuit in 2021.

“While GDOL claims there is no current backlog in making payments for unemployment benefits, we know there are still hundreds of thousands of people waiting for their appeals to be heard, with many having no idea when their appeals will occur,” Jamie Rush, senior staff attorney for the Economic Justice Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in the news release

When contacted by The Center Square last week, Kersha Cartwright, a GDOL spokeswoman, denied the state had reached an agreement. However, court records show Boulee did sign an order granting “preliminary approval of the proposed Settlement Agreement,” outlining three settlement classes.

“There is no settlement agreement,” Cartwright told The Center Square on Thursday. “There’s no formal approval of any plan, and this press release is inaccurate.”

“There is not a signed agreement at this time,” Cartwright told The Center Square on Sunday. “The GDOL did not have hundreds of thousands of people waiting for their unemployment claims to be processed or an appeal to be heard in 2021 as mentioned in the release.”

“At this point, we can only take the actions of the plaintiffs’ attorneys as a publicity stunt,” Cartwright said. “There is no signed agreement and the actions of the plaintiffs’ attorneys in this case have seriously endangered any future agreements or discussions,” Cartwright added. “Trust is very important in the negotiation process and when one side breaks that trust, it is very disheartening.”

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) wants to question a wide list of Washingtonians, according to the Associated Press via the Valdosta Daily Times.

The Georgia prosecutor investigating the conduct of former President Donald Trump and his allies after the 2020 election is subpoenaing U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and other members of Trump’s campaign legal team to testify before a special grand jury.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Tuesday filed petitions with the judge overseeing the special grand jury as part of her investigation into what she alleges was “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

“It means the investigation is obviously becoming more intense because those are trusted advisers, those are inner circle people,” said Robert James, former district attorney in DeKalb County, which neighbors Fulton.

Willis, who took this unusual step of requesting a special grand jury earlier this year, has confirmed that she and her team are looking into a January 2021 phone call in which Trump pushed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. She has said the team is also looking at a November 2020 phone call between Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta on Jan. 4, 2021, and comments made during December 2020 Georgia legislative committee hearings on the election. Raffensperger and other state officials have already testified before the special grand jury.

Willis also filed petitions for five other potential witnesses: lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Cleta Mitchell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Jacki Pick Deason. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney signed off on the requests, which are similar to subpoenas, deeming them necessary to the investigation.

To compel the testimony of an out-of-state witness, a prosecutor in Georgia has to file a petition and then a judge has to sign a certificate approving the petition, said Danny Porter, a former longtime district attorney in Gwinnett County in Atlanta’s suburbs.

The next step is to deliver the petition to a prosecutor wherever the witness lives, and serve it to the witness, who is entitled to a hearing. If the person objects to going to Georgia to testify, they have to be able to show that either their testimony isn’t needed or that it would be an undue hardship for them, Porter said.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving objects to the approach to DUI enforcement by Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones, according to WTOC.

An advocacy group for those affected by drunk driving incidents is calling on Chatham County’s top prosecutor to reconsider a policy dealing with punishment for those accused of driving under the influence.

So at the end of last month, MADD sent a letter to DA Jones, voicing their strong opposition to what they say is the proposed policy.

“We want the District Attorney’s Office to just listen to us, and consider that what this does, it just lessens the consequences for these drivers and inspires…could inspire repeat offenders,” Denise Brodsky said.

But in the copy MADD attached to the letter to the DA, Brodsky says the proposed policy in the rubric would reduce a first time DUI offense to a lesser charge of reckless driving if the circumstances don’t reach certain thresholds.

“That allows that person to continue being unsafe, and making the same mistake over and over again. And that personal choice is really going to, what we believe, is going to create more carnage on the roads,” Brodsky said

Brodsky highlighted stats from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in her letter, citing drunk driving deaths increased from 2019 to 2020, going from eight to 12 deaths.

Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson (D) said her office will decide whether to prosecute abortion cases on a case-by-case basis, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.

Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson said her office does not have the resources to prosecute every abortion case that could come up in a county of nearly 1 million residents. As a result, some abortion cases may not be prosecuted in Gwinnett.

“What we’re going to do is consider cases as they come, on a case-by-case basis,” Austin-Gatson said. “But, as a whole, we know as a DA’s office that we have limited resources, and then we have our own discretion on cases that we prosecute. So, that is our position.”

While Austin-Gatson is pledging to handle abortion cases on an individual basis, however, she was one of about 90 prosecutors across the nation who signed a statement from Fair and Just Prosecution in which the could said it would not prosecute such cases.

Seven of the prosecutors who signed the statement are from Georgia. In addition to Austin-Gatson, the other Georgia prosecutors who signed the statement include the DAs from DeKalb, Chatham and Douglas counties as well as the Macon, Augusta and Athens-based Western judicial circuits.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson is still mulling a curfew aimed to reduce gun violence, according to the Savannah Morning News.

After a weekend that saw another shooting in the heart of downtown Savannah, Mayor Van Johnson said Tuesday the city wasn’t ready to enforce a curfew yet, but that it is “still on our mind.”

Johnson said he has talked to business owners who would be affected by a curfew, should one be put in place. He said the city has reached out about working collaboratively with the businesses, “utilizing our partnerships to see what we can do to be able to address those issues.”

“The curfew in my mind is the absolute final step — when nothing else has worked,” Johnson said Tuesday.

Johnson’s comments come after a weekend that saw another City Market shooting, on the 600 block of Barnard Street that injured two teenagers near Wild Wing Cafe.

That incident followed a triple shooting on the 200 block West St. Julian Street on June 26, where police found four people with injuries — three with gunshot wounds and one with an injury of unknown origin.

But the violence is not confined to downtown. Police are also investigating a July 2 homicide on Meadows Avenue that took the life of a 21-year-old, as well as a domestic stabbing in which a man injured four of his family members.

Johnson lamented there being “guns everywhere,” due to state laws. Earlier this year, Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill into law that made Georgia a constitutional carry state, which eliminated the state’s requirement for gun owners to have a permit to carry their weapon in public.

Gwinnett County Commissioners will hold public meetings on the proposed property tax millage rate, according to the AJC.

The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners will hold three public hearings this month on a proposal to hold the general fund millage rate steady at 6.95 mills, or $6.95 per $1,000 in assessed value.

State law requires commissioners to announce a property tax increase and hold hearings because keeping the millage rate the same will collect more revenue than last year. To keep revenues the same, the county said it would have to roll the rate back to 6.088 mills.

Due to rising property values, county officials have said they expect to collect about $34 million more for the general fund than they estimated when this year’s budget was developed. However, they said the county needs the money primarily for employee raises due to the tight labor market. Some of the additional revenue would also fund capital maintenance and property for a park-and-ride facility in Lawrenceville.

Commissioners will also consider separate millage rates for the police, fire and emergency services, development and code enforcement, recreation and economic development funds. The county’s total property tax rate is currently 14.71 mills, not including the rates set by cities and Gwinnett County Public Schools.

About 60% of residential properties in Gwinnett have [a value offset] exemption. Those homeowners will not pay more in county taxes if the millage rate remains the same. The exemption does not apply to city or school district taxes.

From a publication by the Gwinnett Tax Commissioner’s Office:

The Gwinnett Value Offset Exemption (VOE) is a local homestead exemption. When a homestead exemption is granted, County VOE is automatically applied. The VOE protects homeowners from County property tax increases that are the result of increases in a property’s value. The VOE is applied to the home and up to five acres of land.

The VOE establishes the property value as of Jan. 1 of the year prior to the application year as the base value for County tax purposes (not school or city). Even though the appraised value will change due to market value updates, the County portion of taxes will continue to be calculated using the base-year value, unless the value drops below the base-year value.

If the assessed value drops below the base-year value, there will be no VOE savings until the value rises above that point. Until then, the current assessed value will be used to calculate taxes.

Savannah still aims for all electricity consumed in the city to be from renewable sources by 2035, according to WTOC.

The whole goal is to have all electricity consumed in the City of Savannah to be generated from clean, safe and renewable energy by the year 2035. They have 13 years to make it happen and they are starting by weatherizing all city buildings to get to 100 percent clean energy and save tax dollars.

“Energy prices are skyrocketing all across the country and people are taking a look at their energy bills, their gas bills and now is the time for us to figure out strategies to save money and help our planet at the same time so this is super exciting, now is the time for implementation,” said District 4 Alderman Nick Palumbo.

Muscogee County Sheriff Greg Countryman addressed overcrowding in the ecounty jail, according to WTVM.

As of Friday, it housed 1,076 inmates – seven more than the maximum capacity allows for, according to Sheriff Greg Countryman.

The sheriff said the population increased mostly because there are inmates who have been sentenced to prison but have not yet transferred to state custody.

“Inmates who have been sentenced cannot be transferred to prison until all appropriate documents have been completed by the Clerk of Superior Court’s Office,” said Countryman. “Once the documentation backlog is resolved, inmates will be removed from the Muscogee County Jail to Georgia State Prison and greatly reduce the current inmate population.”