On March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court published its opinion in Sanford v. Dred Scott.
the Court held that African Americans, whether slave or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court,and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an African American slave who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the Court denied Scott’s request and in doing so, ruled an Act of Congress in this case—the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of the parallel 36°30′ north—to be unconstitutional for the second time in its history.
The decision would prove to be an indirect catalyst for the American Civil War and was functionally superseded by the post-war Reconstruction Amendments. It is now widely regarded as the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court.
One member of the Court that decided Dred Scott was Associate Justice James M Wayne, who was born in Savannah and served in Congress from Georgia from 1829 to 1835.
On March 7, 1861, delegates to the Georgia Secession Convention reconvened in Savannah to adopt a new state Constitution. A resolution offering to host the Confederate Capitol did not pass.
March 8, 1862 saw the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads, VA, take ninety-eight hits from Union warships without sinking. Virginia sank USS Cumberland after ramming it, blew up USS Congress, and ran USS Minnesota aground. It was the worst day in US Naval history at that time.
On March 6, 1946, the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals ruled in King v. Chapman that Georgia’s all white Democratic Primary violated the 14th, 15th, and 17th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Primus E. King of Columbus, Georgia brought the lawsuit against the Muscogee County Democratic Party Executive Committee Chair Joseph E. Chapman.
On March 8, 1946, a conference convened on Wilmington Island, near Savannah, that would lead to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, commonly called the World Bank.
On March 8, 1946, a special train arrived at Savannah’s Union Station from Washington, holding nearly 300 delegates, government officials, technical experts and reporters from 35 nations. Thousands of Savannahians watched as a 100-car motorcade rolled along flag-bedecked streets to the General Oglethorpe Hotel on Wilmington Island.
Treasury Secretary Fred M. Vinson headed the American delegation; the British were led by John Maynard Keynes, “the father of modern macroeconomics.”
The stakes were enormous.
Two years earlier, as World War II neared its murderous end, the winning Allies pondered the nature of the postwar global economy. The United States was emerging as the leader of the free world, largely supplanting the British Empire, gravely weakened by the war.
The IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (better known as the World Bank) were born at a July 1944 conference in Bretton Woods, N.H., where 44 countries established rules for the global monetary system.
The IMF was intended to promote international economic cooperation and secure global financial stability, providing countries with short-term loans. The World Bank would offer long-term loans to assist developing countries in building dams, roads and other physical capital.
The Bretton Woods agreements were ratified internationally by December 1945. Vinson, seeking a site for the new organizations’ inaugural meetings, sent Treasury agents around the country. “They made some fine reports on Savannah,” he later told the Morning News. He had never visited the city.
On March 7, 1965, a group of marchers led by Martin Luther King, Jr., met Alabama State Troopers on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
“I was hit in the head by a state trooper with a nightstick… I thought I saw death.”
—John Lewis, SNCC leader
John Lewis, now the United States Congressman from the Fifth District was in the front row wearing a light-colored overcoat and backpack.
GaVoice talked to Lewis about what was in his backpack on that day.
On March 8, 1982, President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union “an evil empire” for the second time, in an address to the National Association of Evangelicals.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Governor Brian Kemp has declared a state of emergency for 120 counties south of I-20, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Gov. Brian Kemp has declared a State of Emergency for all 120 counties south of Interstate 20 due to prolonged heavy rainfall and flooding. That announcement came during a press conference Thursday afternoon.
“We got some road issue and other infrastructure issues that we’re seeing because of the brunt and the level of rainfall that we have, flooding that’s going on,” Gov. Kemp said.
The governor said he is working with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to ensure the areas which have been hit hard have everything they need.
“The state is working to ensure counties impacted by flooding across Georgia have access to all the resources necessary to respond,” Kemp said. “I encourage residents to listen to their local officials and news sources and heed the directions of their local emergency management officials. We will continue to closely monitor this situation.”
Floyd Medical Center in Rome has a patient who tested positive for coronavirus in a preliminary test, according to the Rome News Tribune.
According to a Floyd Medical Center statement:
The 46-year-old woman was presented to the hospital’s emergency room with flu like symptoms on Saturday, Feb. 29. She was screened according to CDC and GDPH protocol.
“At the adamant urging of the attending physician and District Health Director Dr. Gary Voccio, CDC and GDPH authorized the COVID-19 testing for the patient,” the FMC statement read.
The preliminary test result was deemed positive.
“While we await final confirmation, Floyd has been advised by the GDPH to notify caregivers who treated this patient prior to isolation on Tuesday. In addition, although the risk of exposure is low, Floyd made the decision to proactively notify all patients who may have had contact with any of these caregivers or who may have been in the ER at the time the patient was present in order to instruct them on the next steps and address concerns.”
The State Elections Board scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections decision to use paper ballots instead of the state voting system, according to AccessWDUN.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, chairman of the state board, issued a notice setting the hearing for March 11 to determine whether the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections’ decision violates state laws and election rules.
With early voting already underway, the county board voted 3-2 on Tuesday to sideline the new machines. Board Chairman Jesse Evans said the board found it “impracticable” when using the new machines to protect ballot secrecy and allow sufficient monitoring to prevent tampering as required by state law.
Judd Drake, the attorney for Athens-Clarke County, cautioned board members before they voted that it would be difficult to meet that standard in court after the county’s own election supervisor insisted the machines could be arranged in a way that protects voters’ privacy.
Georgia law requires all of the state’s 159 counties to use the new voting system except when county election officials determine that using electronic machines becomes “impossible or impracticable.”
The state board and the county board will both be allowed to have a lawyer, subpoena witnesses and documents, and respond to and present evidence. The hearing will be held in Athens.
Coronavirus testing will be expanded in Georgia, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Gov. Brian Kemp said late Thursday afternoon that no new COVID-19 cases have been confirmed so far after two people tested positive for the virus Monday night.
Dr. Kathleen Toomey, the state’s public health commissioner, said the risk remains low for an outbreak in Georgia and there are no signs now that the virus is spreading within local communities.
Georgia’s state lab began testing for the virus Thursday, tripling the number of diagnostic tests the state has conducted so far, Toomey said.
The state now has more than 2,500 diagnostic test kits on hand from the federal government capable of completing 1.5 million individual tests, Kemp said.
The Georgia Department of Public Health notified Floyd Medical Center in Rome of the test results late Thursday evening, the hospital administration said in a news release. If confirmed, the case would be the third for Georgia after a Fulton County father and his teenage son were diagnosed with the disease, known as COVID-19.
In the meantime, Floyd Medical Center is assuring the public that it is safe to seek care at the hospital, and they are taking all necessary steps to prevent spread of the infectious disease.
President Trump‘s trip to the CDC in Atlanta has been postponed, according to the AJC.
Under the Gold Dome – In Adjournment
10:00 AM Powell Subcommittee of Public Safety and Homeland Security 406 CLOB
10:00 AM REGULATED INDUSTRIES & UTILITIES 450 CAP
Savannah will proceed with St. Patrick’s Day festivities with some coronavirus precautions, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Convened by Mayor Van Johnson at City Hall in response to public concern about the spread of COVID-19 amid the approach of Savannah’s grand-scale March 17th parade and preceding festival, the roundtable included representatives from the Coastal Health District, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, the Tourism Leadership Council, Visit Savannah, and other civic organizations.
“Our festival in Savannah is March the 13th through the 15th. It is and it will be,” said Johnson at the meeting’s outset. “Thousands of people will come and discover and rediscover Savannah, and they will have the absolute time of their lives.”
Without once mentioning the words “coronavirus” or “COVID-19,” Johnson asserted that ample planning was underway to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 during Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities.
“We wanted to make sure that we brought everyone to the table to be able to discuss our preparations and how do we deal with the challenges that I’m sure is on everybody’s minds,” Johnson said. “It’s not an emergency-management response, it’s really a health response.”
Extra hand-washing stations will be set up around downtown Savannah during all St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, according to Susan Broker, the city’s director of special events, film, and tourism — but otherwise, plans are continuing unchanged.
Remember: Tito’s vodka doesn’t work as hand sanitizer.
“Per the CDC, hand sanitizer needs to contain at least 60% alcohol,” Tito’s Handmade Vodka tweeted on Thursday. “Tito’s Handmade Vodka is 40% alcohol, and therefore does not meet the current recommendation of the CDC.”
That said, a good barrel proof bourbon or 120-proof Knob Creek Single Barrel will sanitize your shot glass or Glencairn glass.
House Bill 1114 by State Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta) will expand Medicaid coverage for some new mothers, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Gwinnett Daily Post.
The bill would authorize the state to apply for a federal waiver that would allow Georgia to offer Medicaid coverage to income-eligible women up to six months post partum. The current Georgia Medicaid program only permits coverage for up to two months.
Improving Georgia’s high maternal mortality rate is a House priority for this year’s legislative session, Speaker David Ralston told reporters Thursday.
“It is completely unacceptable for the No. 1 state in the nation in which to do business to have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country,” said Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.
“As a nurse and nursing professor who taught maternal care, I am very much a champion for quality health care for our mothers and babies,” Cooper said.
The state would have to seek a waiver from the federal government to offer the coverage. If approved, Georgia would offer medical care for mothers, plus lactation care to help mothers and infants with breast feeding. Cooper said many mothers don’t return for post-birth visits now, but she hoped lactation care might be a hook to get more moms into doctors’ offices.
“Mothers will often not go back for their postpartum visit, which is so critical, but they will take an infant to care, to a pediatrician or lactation specialist if they’re having trouble breastfeeding,” Cooper said.
“This is a tight budget,” Cooper said,.
Ralston said Cooper’s measure is projected to cost $19 million. The state committed $2 million over two years to provide quality improvement grants for 20 rural hospitals where babies are born.
House Bill 847 by State Rep. John Corbett (R-Lake Park) passed the State House, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Gwinnett Daily Post.
House Bill 847 follows passage last year of a measure that legalized the growing, processing and transport of hemp. It deals with crucial licensing requirements as well as penalties for carrying hemp without proper documents.
Under the bill, anyone caught with hemp who does not have a proper license would face the same penalties as for marijuana possession in Georgia. That could include jail time and fines, depending on the amount of leafy-green substance being carried.
With a license, hemp farmers and others in the new industry could cultivate and transport hemp like any other agricultural product. A late revision to the bill also added college and university hemp researchers to the list of eligible licensees.
Licenses would require paying the state Department of Agriculture a permit fee of $25,000 for the first year and $50,000 for every year thereafter.
Some state higher learning institutions are preparing online materials in case of class cancellations due to coronavirus, according to the AJC.
The Chatham County Commission approved 10 new jail employees and will now try to figure out how to pay them, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Along with discussing jail-staff funding, the commissioners will hold a second reading for a new ordinance to license short-term-rental accommodations at private homes in Chatham’s unincorporated areas, and also consider accepting over $1 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency grant money to raise eight flood-prone properties.
Following up on the commissioners’ Feb. 21 decision to add 10 Sheriff’s Office employees so that the jail can reopen its long-dormant Unit 5, on Friday the board will consider providing $286,000 to fund these positions out of a current surplus in local option sales taxes.
According to a memo in Friday’s agenda packet from Chatham County Finance Director Amy Davis, the commissioners’ funding approval “will increase LOST (Local Option Sales Tax) revenues $286,000 to cover the cost of the positions in Unit 5 for the remainder of this fiscal year. LOST revenues are trending ahead of budgeted amounts.”
The Glynn County School System is preparing for a possible coronavirus outbreak, according to The Brunswick News.
Virgil Cole, superintendent of Glynn County Schools, gave the school board an update during a work session Thursday on measures the school system is taking to protect students, faculty and staff should the coronavirus reach the Golden Isles.
Glynn County Schools officials met this week with the health department and plan to keep the line of communication between the two open, Cole said.
Custodial staff are cleaning with additional thoroughness, just as they do every year during the flu season, he told the board.
The school system is encouraging parents and students to practice good health habits like getting plenty of sleep, staying physically active, drinking plenty of fluids and eating nutritious foods.
No plans are in place right now to cancel field trips or close schools, though there are active conversations about implementing such measures should the need arise.
Floyd County‘s Republican legislators all are opposed either the primary or general election, according to the Rome News Tribune.
Software engineer Brad Barnes signed up to challenge incumbent Katie Dempsey for the state House District 13 seat in the May 19 Republican primary.
Charles DeYoung, a welder and metal artist, filed as a Democrat to seek the state Senate District 52 seat held by Republican Chuck Hufstetler.
And Jonathan Gilreath-Harvey, an interior designer in Rome, qualified as a Democrat to run for the state House District 12 seat held by Republican incumbent Eddie Lumsden.
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