Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for May 14, 2020

On May 13, 1607, English settlers founded the first permanent English settlement in America, at Jamestown on the James River. This led to the first English-language politics in America:

Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Susan Constant,Godspeed, and Discovery. Upon landing at Jamestown, the first colonial council was held by seven settlers whose names had been chosen and placed in a sealed box by King James I. The council, which included Captain John Smith, an English adventurer, chose Edward Wingfield as its first president.

Lyman Hall arrived in Philadelphia as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress on May 13, 1775.

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention began assembling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 14, 1787, the designated starting day. Because a large number of delegates had not arrived the opening of the Convention was moved to May 25.

On May 14, 1791, George Washington addressed the Grand Lodge of Georgia Masons in Savannah.

On May 13, 1798, a Constitutional Convention adopted the Georgia Constitution of 1798.

On May 14, 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left St. Louis, Missouri to explore the Northwest United States from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.

The United States declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846.

Georgia Whigs, led by Governor George Crawford, Alexander Stephens, and Robert Toombs, criticized the war for raising divisive questions about slavery in the territories. Georgia Democrats, led by Howell Cobb and Herschel Johnson, staunchly supported the war and states’ rights afterward. Because Whigs, nationally, appeared to be antislavery, Georgia Whigs lost the governorship in 1847. The Compromise of 1850 temporarily settled the slavery question in the territories, but the moderating influence of Georgia’s Whigs dissolved in the heated rhetoric of states’ rights in the 1850s. The next war would find Americans fighting Americans.

The first fighting at Resaca, Georgia took place on May 13, 1864 and Union forces marched into Dalton. On May 13, 1864, 257 cadets from the Virginia Military Institute camped at Mt. Crawford near Harrisonburg.The next day they would continue their march to New Market, Virginia.

On May 14, 1864, the VMI Corps of Cadets marched 15 miles and camped overnight at Mt. Tabor, near New Market, Virginia. The next day they would march into history.

On the same day, the Battle of Resaca was fully engaged in Northwest Georgia.

On Saturday, May 14, the fighting at Resaca escalated into a full-scale battle. Beginning at dawn, Union forces engaged the Confederates along the entire four-mile front. In the early afternoon Schofield’s Army of the Ohio attacked the sharply angled center of the Confederate line. The assault was badly managed and disorganized, in part because one of Schofield’s division commanders was drunk. As the Union attack unraveled and became a fiasco, Johnston launched a counterattack on Sherman’s left flank. The counterattack collapsed, however, in the face of a determined stand by a Union artillery battery. In the evening Union forces pushed forward and seized the high ground west of Resaca, which placed the bridges leading south from the town within artillery range and threatened Johnston’s line of retreat.The following day Sherman renewed his assault on the Confederate center.

Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Atlanta History Center’s original production “37 Weeks that Changed Georgia” chronicles the Battle of Resaca in this week’s episode.

On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot at St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

On May 13, 2005, the Pentagon Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) recommended the closing of Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Fort Gillem in Forest Park, the Naval Air Station in Marietta, and the Naval Supply Corps School in Athens.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Governor Brian Kemp issued Executive Order 05.12.20.01, to require road tests for people who got their drivers license while in-person testing was suspended.

From FoxNews:

Thousands of Georgia teens who got their driver’s licenses without taking a road test during the coronavirus pandemic will have to take one after all, the governor said Tuesday.

Gov. Brian Kemp signed a waiver on April 23 allowing drivers, 16 to 18 with a learner’s permit, to upgrade to a provisional license. They had to provide an affidavit from a parent, guardian or driving instructor indicating they’d completed at least 40 hours of supervised driving.

But Kemp issued a new executive order Tuesday that said “the on-the-road test was only temporarily suspended.” He said teens awarded licenses during the age of social distancing must complete a road test by Sept. 30 in order to keep the license.

“Anybody that has gotten a driver’s license that hasn’t taken the test — even though they met the criteria of so many hours on the road, and been to driving school, or had your parents verify that — they’re still going to have to come back and take the driver’s test,” the governor said at his COVID-19 briefing, according to Fox Carolina.

Governor Kemp also issued Executive Order 05.12.20.02, further moving to refine regulations on social distancing and requirements for businesses to reopen. That order was issued along with an update on state efforts to combat COVID-19.

Click here to read the text of the Governor’s remarks.

Click here to watch the video of the update.

From WSB-TV:

The governor is making changes that allow restaurants to inch closer to normal. Restaurants can now allow 10 patrons per 300 square feet of public space and dining rooms. Square feet includes dining space, bar areas and patios but not hallways and bathrooms. Restaurants can allow party sizes up to ten people now, that’s an increase from a maximum of six. The previous lengthy list of restaurant rules remains in place.

Bars, nightclubs, live performance venues and amusement parks like Six Flags over Georgia will remain closed through May 31.

The new executive order expands the number of people allowed in a single classroom at a childcare facility from ten to twenty, as long as the staff-to-children ratio set by the Department of Early Care and Learning are maintained. Childcare facilities must adhere to the state’s 13 minimum, mandatory criteria that includes employee screening and frequent sanitation.

Day camps are defined as organized, supervised recreational, athletic or instructional activities held between school years. Day camps can resume starting May 14 if they meet 32 mandatory criteria. Overnight camps are not allowed.

Gov. Kemp toured temporary medical units at Floyd Medical Center in Rome, according to the Rome News Tribune, and will spend part of Friday in Gainesville, including the temporary medical pods stationed there, according to AccessWDUN.

Kemp’s first stop will be at the Fieldale Farms facility at 1540 Monroe Drive. State Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black and Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King will join Kemp on the tour of the poultry plant.

In the early afternoon, Kemp and King will visit a community COVID-19 testing site outside La Flor de Jalisco at 425 Atlanta Highway. The specimen collection and facial mask giveaway event is a project of the Gainesville Against COVID-19 Task Force, a group that was established to specifically offer help to Hall County’s Latino residents.

The governor and King will wrap up the day at Northeast Georgia Medical Center’s Gainesville campus where they will tour a mobile medical pod, one of four that have been set up in Georgia to handle coronavirus patients who may require hospitalization but who do not require ICU care.

Kemp said yesterday during the COVID-19 update that Hall County should continue working to prevent the further spread of the virus, according to the Gainesville Times.

At a May 12 press conference at the state Capitol, he said John King, the state’s insurance commissioner, and Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, had worked with community members and local officials to address the spread in Gainesville and Hall County, particularly with the area’s Latino community. He said the state’s work addressing other hot spots informed the work in Hall.

“It was a fairly contained environment, and so really through those processes and that work that we had done dealing with the Albany situation and other places like Upson County and Carrollton and the Rome and Cartersville area, we were able to jump on that very quickly, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” he said.

State Economist Jeffrey Dorfman said the state government may need to spend half it’s rainy day fund to close out the current fiscal year, which ends after June, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.

Between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in reserves may be needed to plug the gap in the fiscal 2020 budget, close to half of the $2.7 billion total in Georgia’s “rainy-day” reserve fund, said State Economist Jeffrey Dorfman.

Speaking with state lawmakers Wednesday, Dorfman cautioned that it’s still early in the ballgame to say precisely how much emergency reserve spending may be necessary. The state last month saw a drop in revenue of nearly $1 billion compared to April 2019, and that shortfall is expected to plunge further in the coming months.

Dorfman also said the state is likely short about $1.35 billion in income tax receipts delayed until July 15 due to coronavirus. Those revenues should be recouped once collections roll in after the delayed filing deadline, he said.

On Wednesday, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, said the agency cuts will be stiff but that Georgia will bounce back.

“It’s going to be a little bit different and still be a little bit difficult for a little bit,” England said. “But we’re going to get through it.”

House Speaker David Ralston issued a letter on May 12 on the latest efforts to determine how to reopen the legislative session. From the Speaker’s letter:

[W]e will now plan to transition staff back to their offices on Monday, June 1. In-person committee meetings may now resume on Tuesday, June 2. The 2020 legislative session will resume on Thursday, June 11.

Virtual committee meetings are ongoing and may continue at the discretion of the committee chairmen. Bear in mind voting on legislation, whether the meeting is virtual or in-person, may not take place until the legislative session officially resumes. However, committees may continue to hear testimony on legislation and discuss policy issues.

Click here to read the report of the House Committee on Reopening.

The AJC reports that the Senate may not agree to the House-proposed date for reopening the legislature.

Ralston has told House members the session will resume June 11. Duncan, after initially calling for lawmakers to return Thursday, now says the session should resume June 15 after all lawmakers and staff have been tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Some committees started holding virtual meetings last week.

Though no final decisions have been made, groups in each chamber are working separately to develop guidelines for how business will be conducted for the remaining 11 legislative workdays of the 40-day session.

Recommendations include limiting the number of entrances to the Capitol and legislative office building, installing temperature scanners, turning away those with body temperatures higher than 100.4 degrees, and encouraging, but not requiring, those entering the building to wear masks.

Here’s my favorite quote from that AJC article, and one that I’m considering having embroidered on a belt and wall hanging:

A legislative session is an environment that is ripe for passing infectious diseases.

The Usual Suspects are teaming up to oppose the Secretary of State’s administration of this year’s Georgia elections. From the AJC:

The Voter Empowerment Task Force will monitor fraud investigations, collect reports from voters and share voter education information.

Its members include the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, the Georgia NAACP, the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda.

“Georgia has a long history of voter suppression and intimidation,” the Voter Empowerment Task Force said in a statement. “We will not sit idly by as the state’s top elections official abuses the power of his office to intimidate voters through a partisan collection of prosecutors.”

Some in the federal government question whether Georgia’s healthcare system can withstand a second COVID wave, according to NPR.

A slide prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for an interagency briefing last week said Georgia’s intensive care unit beds were 79% full on May 6, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Data suggest that Georgia may have limited healthcare capacity margin to respond to a future surge in critically ill patients,” reads the slide, which is marked “NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION.”

Georgia Tech professor Pinar Keskinocak said she is not surprised by the HHS assessment that the state may run out of ICU beds.

“That’s very much in line with our predictions as well,” said Keskinocak, who leads a team modeling several potential scenarios for the future of the coronavirus in Georgia. “In most of those scenarios, we found that there would be shortages.”

Keskinocak’s modeling team at Georgia Tech determined that hospitals in the state would run out of beds for COVID-19 patients before mid-August in all but two of the 14 local hospital regions — even if 60% of Georgians did a good job at staying at home when they or their household members felt sick. The Georgia Tech group has shared its projections with the state’s Department of Public Health.

Data published by the state were slightly more optimistic about hospitals’ bed capacity there. The same day it was reported at the federal briefing that 79% of Georgia ICU beds were full, according to CDC data, the state reported the figure at 73%. As of Tuesday, the CDC reported that 71% of Georgia’s ICU beds were full; Georgia said 66% as of Monday. According to Georgia’s data, the portion of Georgia critical care beds that are full has hovered around 70% since April 14, the earliest date for which the state has reported such numbers.

ICU beds in the 12-county hospital region just south of Atlanta were 89% full on May 11, state data show. Most of the other regions bordering Atlanta were over 70% full.

In the region home to Atlanta and the CDC’s headquarters, nearly 2 in every 3 critical care beds were occupied.

But other places in Georgia have more wiggle room. Hospitals in southeast Georgia still had more than half of their ICU beds available May 11. The state had witnessed more than 34,000 total confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 1,400 deaths as of Tuesday, May 12.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson is looking into whether the city can require face masks, according to the Savannah Morning News.

“Folks are walking around like we’re not living in the middle of a pandemic,” Johnson said Tuesday during his weekly news conference to discuss Savannah’s ongoing response to the coronavirus crisis.

To increase face mask use among Savannah residents, the mayor recently instructed City Attorney Bates Lovett to research legal options that would impel anyone in public to wear one.

Johnson also announced the launch of a “Resilient Savannah” initiative to explore ways for city businesses to restart operations while abiding by comprehensive measures to prevent further COVID-19 spread.

To assist Savannah restaurants that lack sufficient space to offer dine-in services while adhering to social distancing guidelines, a new municipal proposal calls for closing certain downtown streets and parking spots so eateries could set up sidewalk tables.

The Technical College System of Georgia will receive $12 million in funding from the federal government to train workers who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the AJC.

Georgia will also receive $260 million in federal funds to help with COVID-19 testing, according to GPB News.

Sen. David Perdue said this CARES Act funding will allow Georgia to expand its testing capacity and test as many people as possible, even asymptomatic individuals.

“As we continue to gradually reopen the economy, we must ensure our healthcare system has the testing capabilities and resources necessary to identify and contain COVID-19,” Perdue said.

Atlanta Public Schools has released a revised 2020-21 school year calendar, though COVID-19 may force further changes, according to the AJC.

The DeKalb County Board of Education may be forced to consider furloughing employees or making other budget cuts due to the COVID-19 impact, according to the AJC.

The district could need $1.18 billion to operate for the upcoming school year, officials said during the DeKalb County Board of Education’s monthly meeting on Monday.

Gov. Brian Kemp has called for a 14% cut to school budgets, Superintendent Ramona Tyson said during the meeting, saying that equated to approximately $76 million for the district. Emergency funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, through which the district will receive about $34 million so far, will help with shortfalls, district officials said.

“These are unusual circumstances in unusual times,” Tyson said.

The tentative budget projections include funding to quickly make sure students have necessary technology to work from home as classroom shutdowns due to the coronavirus exposed weaknesses in virtual learning systems across the country.

In discussing potential cost-saving measures, officials said the district would save $3.5 million for each teacher furlough day and about $500,000 for a central office staff furlough day.

 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will reopen some Savannah River recreation facilities Friday, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

The gradual reopening of recreation areas will vary depending upon the ability to ensure visitors and Corps of Engineers staff remain safe and can reduce the spread of coronavirus, according to a release. Before facilities are opened, a thorough cleaning of restrooms, showers and other common-use items will be conducted.

Multiple boat ramps, including Scott’s Ferry, Mt. Pleasant, Keg Creek at Thurmond Lake, will reopen Friday. Below Dam South Carolina will also reopen , while multiple campgrounds, Modoc, Ridge Road, Petersburg, Windfield and Hawe Creek, will reopen Monday.

At Hartwell Lake, Watsadler, Paynes Creek, Springfield, Coneross, Oconee Point, Crescent and Twin Lakes campground will reopen Monday with restroom/shower house occupancy limited to two. Water is available in restrooms.