Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for June 27, 2017

On June 27, 1864, Sherman’s Union forces attacked General Johnston’s Confederates at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

One year later, the Military Department of Georgia was created to oversee Reconstruction in the state.

The Gone with the Wind scene that includes the line, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” was filmed on June 27, 1939, along with an alternate that used the line, “Frankly, my dear, I just don’t care.”

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Karen Handel was sworn-in to the 115th Congress last night.

Reps. Karen Handel (R-Ga.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), the newest lawmakers in the House of Representatives, were sworn into office on Monday evening.

“I’m not sure you’ve heard enough about this particular race,” Handel quipped, prompting chuckles from the crowd.”

“This is an extraordinary honor and the greatest privilege that I think I have ever had,” Handel said. “I look forward to serving the people of the 6^th District, to serving the people of Georgia and to being a good coworker and friend to each and every one of you.”

Handel was introduced by the longest-serving Republican and Democrat in the delegation, U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, and U.S. Rep. John Lewis. The Atlanta Democrat teased his newest colleague about hailing from the D.C. area.

“So you’re returning home…” Lewis said, before offering Handel help learning the ropes in Washington.

“Karen, the Georgia delegation … we are a family,” he said. “We are trying to do our very best to serve the people in our district and our state and to work on behalf of the people of this great nation. I welcome you and your husband Steve.”

Jessica Brooks, Democratic appointee to the Cobb Elections Board, abstained from the vote certifying Karen Handel’s election to Congress.

Board member Jessica Brooks, who was appointed by the Democratic Party, said she abstained because there were multiple documents provided to the board by citizens during the public comment portion and she did not feel she had enough time to absorb those documents, according to Janine Eveler, director of the Cobb Board of Elections.

The results were still confirmed with three other members voting yes and another absent.

“This is an extraordinary honor and the greatest privilege that I think I have ever had,” Handel said in brief remarks after receiving the oath of office from Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. She vowed to be “a good co-worker and friend to each of you.”

Jon Ossoff, or more likely a ghost-writer, penned an Op-Ed for the Washington Post titled Lessons for Democrats from the Georgia election.

Grass-roots politics, linking small-dollar fundraising to massive local volunteer organization, showed that it can rival the power of a right-wing machine comprising super PACs backed by entrenched interests and mega-donors. These outside groups were forced to spend nearly $20 million defending a seat gerrymandered never to be competitive.

The intraparty disputes that dominate national commentary on Democratic politics were nowhere to be found in the 6th District. On the ground, Democrats were committed to strike the first blow of this new era on behalf of decency and progress.

We ran an economy-first campaign centered on local prosperity and opportunity. I focused on the development of metro Atlanta into a world-class commercial capital, on affordable higher education and technical training, on research and development to drive innovation in Georgia’s tech sector, on renewal of our transportation infrastructure and a commitment to fiscal responsibility, on pointing out that taxpayers are rightfully upset that the federal government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

We lost, but I am proud of the campaign we ran, and I am proud of my community for standing up against the odds. I launched this campaign believing that America can become stronger, more prosperous and more secure only if we stay true to the values that unite us. I still believe that, and I’m not done fighting.

It’s telling that he published this in the Washington Post instead of the AJC, MDJ, The Dunwoody Crier, or Brookhaven Post. Allow me to suggest a shorter version of what he should have written: Lesson one is to live in the District. The Congressional District, not the District of Columbia.

Dusty Nix of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer writes about gerrymandering.

At the state legislative level, most [elections] aren’t [competitive]. As the Associated Press reported last week, almost half (42 percent) of all state legislative candidates in 2016 elections faced no major party opponent.

Much of that statistic, of course, is the result of gerrymandering — the majority party sculpting districts that serve its interests by slicing off areas that don’t. It’s perhaps not as flagrant (or unabashedly racist) as Alabama carving out majority-black Tuskegee to create a white “majority” Macon County decades ago. But Georgia’s Republican majority has continued what Democrats did for decades, resulting finally in elections that are less a democratic exercise than a costly formality of political balkanization.

Not only does that leave too many voters with too little (or no) choice; it’s a disincentive to political involvement at all: “With an increasing number of districts being drawn to deliberately favor one party over another,” College of William & Mary government professor John McGlennon told AP, “lots of potential candidates will look at those previous results and come to a conclusion that it’s too difficult to mount an election campaign in a district where their party is the minority.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 680,000 Georgians will lose health care insurance under the GOP Senate proposal.

The nonpartisan office estimated that 22 million more Americans would be without health insurance at the end of 10 years if the plan becomes law. Georgia’s share of that figure is 680,000 or so, according to a health care analyst who has been following the debate, Bill Custer of Georgia State University.

Georgia advocates for rural hospitals, patients and others likely to feel the cuts howled.

“This legislation represents a giant leap backward from what Americans have come to expect and demand from their healthcare delivery system,” Earl Rogers, president of the Georgia Hospital Association, said in a statement.

“Cuts to Medicaid take resources away from the entire healthcare delivery system, so tough decisions will have to be made regarding which services to scale back or eliminate entirely,” he added, cutbacks “that will affect all patients.”

Following the CBO announcement Monday, the White House released a statement lambasting the CBO’s track record. Georgia U.S. Sen. David Perdue, a close ally on the health care law repeal effort, echoed, “It’s clear the CBO cannot predict the purchasing patterns for millions of Americans.”

In Georgia, Kelly McCutchen, the president of the libertarian-leaning Georgia Public Policy Foundation, was more measured, though he did note some numeric assumptions in the report that he said didn’t bear out. He also cautioned that the Senate had already released at least one revision to the draft that the CBO couldn’t take into account, and it was likely to sway the numbers.

“They generally do a good job,” McCutchen said of the CBO. He said, however, that once that revision is taken into account, “I think you’ll see the uninsured rate will go down.”

Governor Nathan Deal helped break ground for a new Georgia Bureau of Investigation lab in Pooler.

Gov. Nathan Deal, GBI Director Vernon Keenan, state legislators and representatives of the city of Pooler were among those to break ceremonial ground at the site of the new lab — a 5-acre plot on Isaac G. LaRoche Drive, situated between a city fire station and the West Chatham YMCA.

“It is a good day for our state,” Deal said at the ceremony.

GBI representatives have said construction of the new lab will begin in earnest later this summer and is expected to take about 18 months to complete. The new facility will stand three stories tall and will be able to house up to 60 employees. It is being built to last at least 40 years.

“(The new regional lab) is much-needed,” said Dr. George Herrin, director of the GBI Crime Lab in an interview earlier this year. “The facility we’re in is 30 years old. It’s not flexible enough to meet the changing demands of forensic science in the 21st century. … I and all of the staff in the Savannah laboratory are extremely excited about having this new laboratory.”

The Federal Government decided that the Federal Government didn’t try to interfere with Georgia’s elections systems.

The Department of Homeland Security did not knowingly try to breach the Georgia Secretary of State’s website before and after last November’s presidential election, an investigation by the Office of Inspector General concluded on Monday.

Kemp announced the conclusion of the investigation Monday.

“DHS did not knowingly attempt to breach Georgia’s firewall or hack our systems,” he said. “While I am disappointed that it took a new administration to investigate this highly important incident, I am pleased to learn this information and relieved that our federal government is not trying to interfere with elections in our state or others involved in this situation.”

The Georgia Supreme Court upheld legislation granting state tax credits for donations to private school scholarship funds.

The unanimous decision Monday ends uncertainty that has surrounded the program, which gives private schools money that otherwise would have gone into the public treasury and possibly to public school budgets.

“Lawmakers can move forward in confidence to expand the program,” said Lisa Kelly, spokeswoman for Georgia GOAL, which hands out more tax credit scholarships than any other Georgia group.

Raymond Gaddy and other taxpayers alleged that Georgia’s program violated the constitutional ban against state support of religion because some schools that receive the money are religious institutions. They sued the Georgia Department of Revenue, and appealed after a Fulton judge sided against them on most counts.

The high court’s opinion basically says this isn’t public money. It says the taxpayers had no standing to sue because tax credits do not equate to an expenditure of public funds. “Plaintiffs’ complaint fails to show that they, or any taxpayers for that matter, are harmed by this program,” the opinion says.

Covfefe is on the list of words that can’t be used on vanity car tags in Georgia.

The Internet may still be abuzz about the meaning of “covfefe,” but whatever it means, Georgia drivers apparently can’t get it on a vanity license plate.

Seven variations of the nonsensical word tweeted by President Donald Trump appear on a list that the state provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this month, following the AJC’s request for a copy of the state’s list of banned license plates.

So, along with “H0TBODY,” “2SXC4U,” “BUTT,” “KKK” and “PERVERT” on the list of 8,000-plus banned plate combinations are “C0VFEFE,” “C0VFEF3,” “C0VFEVE,” “C0VF3FE,” “C0VF3F3,” “C0VVEFE” and “C0VVEFE.”

State law instructs the Department of Revenue to reject vanity plate combinations that are “obscene according to current community standards.”

“Given the word ‘covfefe’ has a political meaning, the state can’t ban it because there are no provisions for rejecting political speech in their statute, and I’d say it is unconstitutional because rejecting ‘covfefe’ without rejecting all political speech means their decision is not viewpoint-neutral,” said Bruce Brown, an Atlanta-based trial lawyer with experience in First Amendment law.

Seriously, is there a state job for figuring out combinations of letters and words that can’t be on license plates? Because I love Scrabble Words with Friends and would apply for that job.

In the Peoples’ Republic of Athens, some folks took to the streets to protest the GOP health care plan.

nearly 100 protesters gathered in Athens on Monday to add their voices to the opposition of the GOP health care plan.

“By doing things like this, like cutting medicare for people who need it most, Congress is putting people’s lives in danger,” said Gretchen Elsner of Athens as she protested the legislation with others outside the Arch at the University of Georgia.

Elsner added that she’s already spent her life savings on medical bills once and fears it could happen again under the GOP plan.

Pam Walley of Madison County was one voice at the protest who would be directly effected by a plan that cut programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Her daughter, 22-year-old Callie Moore, suffers from cerebral palsy and requires home care while her mother is at work.

Walley is worried that the cuts to Medicaid will affect the home-care programs that provide a caretaker for Callie.

“We’re not looking for a handout, but without the Medicaid support, Callie doesn’t have a future,” she said.

Marietta might spend $12,000 on a video to promote tourism.

Valdosta store owners say lower sales figures resulted from having no state sales tax holiday this year.

Tim Nolan, Valdosta Mall general manager, and other business owners voiced concerns about the loss of the sales tax holiday to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce Economic Development and Taxation Committee at the Valdosta City Hall Annex building.

Nolan said the tax holiday is important to all Lowndes County businesses, not only in the mall. The holiday is more important to counties bordering other states that have a tax holiday. Without the holiday, he said shoppers will go running south to Florida, where there is a tax holiday.

Valdosta was the originator for a sales tax holiday for the State of Georgia back when it was first initiated in 2002. The holiday must be reintroduced every year for re-approval and was successfully approved every year except 2010 and now 2017.

But the state legislative session came and went with no new introduction of the holiday.

State Rep. Jason Shaw attended the chamber meeting. He gave a broader perspective of why the sales tax holiday wasn’t approved.

Since the recession, he said they have had to basically sneak the holiday into being approved, but this year, they just didn’t have the votes. Shaw said the two main groups people look to for these types of budget items both reached the same conclusion that tax holidays don’t work.

“When you see those two groups agreeing, it usually carries a little weight, ‘cause usually they’re on opposite ends,” Shaw said. “They came back and said it’s a terrible return on investment. It’s terrible for the taxpayers. So that’s what we have been up against.”

He asked for the business owners in the audience to tell other lawmakers what they told him. He said they should write letters and meet with the budget and policy makers to explain how it is impacting Valdosta-Lowndes retailers and residents.

“This is the kind of information we need to kind of sell it to our other border counties,” Shaw said. “We need your help for that.”

Hall County Board of Education members trimmed their proposed millage rate and approved a FY2018 budget.

A general fund budget of $265.15 million and a total budget of $371.4 million, which includes all funds for all programs coming into the district

The budget also drops the tax rate from 18.8 mills to 18.5 mills, but would still be a increase for some taxpayers who saw their property reassessment go up in 2017. The value of property subject to Hall County school taxes increased by 5.61 percent, according to Jonathan Boykin, finance officer for the school district.

School officials have said the school district will collect 2.33 percent more taxes than it would under the rollback rate.

Habersham County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve their FY2018 budget and property tax millage rate.

In addition to the 11.176 mills, the county will levy 0.998 for hospital bonds, and 0.39 for hospital services (ambulance service).

That will equate to about $27.50 on a home valued at $125,000, according to Habersham County Finance Director Heidi Hook.

Several residents said ultimately the commission must decide what’s best for the most residents in Habersham County, what commissioners consider to be essential services, and how much it will cost to provide those services. A couple of residents advocated the proposed tax increase, saying the commission must keep the county moving forward.

Commission Chairman Victor Anderson said the decision was not one any commissioner takes lightly.

“Anytime you’re looking at increasing taxes or increasing the millage rate, that is a hard decision – and it should be a hard decision, because it is an additional burden on all of our citizens and taxpayers,” Anderson said. “We have debated and thought and fought long and hard over this budget for this year. It’s the toughest one I’ve been involved with, and I think anyone on the board has been involved with.”

Gwinnett County Public Schools held a public meeting on the 2018 property tax millage rate and nobody from the public showed up.

Fulton County School Board members are discussing rising property values.

During the June 13 school board meeting, board member Katie Reeves of Alpharetta gave an impassioned plea to her fellow board members to consider a 3 percent cap on the amount of money it uses from higher property assessments on homeowners.

For example, if revenues rise 7 percent from one year to the next based on higher home values, the school board would only consider the revenue generated by a 3 percent increase; potentially returning the remainder to homeowners in the form of a millage rollback.

“I have been asked numerous times over the past few weeks if this board is willing to put such a limit on ourselves as Fulton County government,” said Reeves. “I can tell you right now if we don’t seriously figure out guard rails as a board, the Legislature will set them for us.”

The tentative school budget goes into effect on July 1 and factors in a 6 percent increase in local revenues to support the $1.6 billion budget. The 6 percent increase was provided to the school system by the Fulton Tax Commissioner as an estimate, absent an approved tax digest, and those early numbers appear to be way off.

Property owners were shocked by tax assessments received last month, with many properties showing double-digit gains in value from last year. Tax officials are now saying the 6 percent increase estimate is too low, placing the number closer to 13 percent. Tax bills will be sent to homeowners in October.

2018 Elections

Leo Smith is considering a Republican bid for the state Senate seat being vacated by Hunter Hill, according to the Marietta Daily Journal’s About Town.

Smith is known as a grassroots leader in the Cobb GOP and former GOP State Committeeman.

“I intend to run this race to represent citizens invested in bridging divides for all families and businesses throughout the district. My voice will be a place at the table for a broad, pro-jobs coalition,” he said.

Smith would face Democrat Dr. Jaha Howard who has previously announced his campaign for the state Senate District 6 seat.

That last line might not be correct, as Jen Jordan has also announced her campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Democratic State Rep. Stacey Abrams brushed off former Governor Roy Barnes’s endorsement of Stacey Evans in the 2018 Democratic race for Governor.

“We’ve spent the last month traveling the state, going from Albany to Dalton, from Macon to Savannah. And we have found in every one of those communities people who are excited about our candidacy, and who are excited about the coalition we’re building. In every single community, we’ve had multi-racial coalitions – multi-economic coalitions coming together. They’re excited about our message of success – that survival is not enough.”

“There are two theories of this case. One is that we attempt to recreate a coalition that has not really existed since the late ‘90s. And the other is we build a coalition based on the Georgia we have today – a Georgia that is racially diverse, that is economically, uniformly interested in how we move forward….”

“The previous coalition for Democrats was premised on a demographic that had a majority white population, and had a smaller coalition of people of color. Between 2000 and 2010, 1.5 million new people moved into Georgia, 80 percent of whom were people of color.”

“As of today, our actual population is roughly 52 percent white, 48 percent people of color. That’s not how are voting shakes out, but what I would say is that any winning coalition this next election has to be reflective of the broadest set of conversations.”