The Constitutional Convention of 1787 convened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787.
With George Washington presiding, the Constitutional Convention formally convenes on this day in 1787. The convention faced a daunting task: the peaceful overthrow of the new American government as it had been defined by the Article of Confederation.
The process began with the proposal of James Madison’s Virginia Plan. Madison had dedicated the winter of 1787 to the study of confederacies throughout history and arrived in Philadelphia with a wealth of knowledge and an idea for a new American government. It featured a bicameral legislature, with representation in both houses apportioned to states based upon population; this was seen immediately as giving more power to large states, like Virginia. The two houses would in turn elect the executive and the judiciary and would possess veto power over the state legislatures.
William Patterson soon countered with a plan more attractive to the new nation’s smaller states. It too bore the imprint of America’s British experience. Under the New Jersey Plan, as it became known, each state would have a single vote in Congress as it had been under the Articles of Confederation, to even out power between large and small states.
Alexander Hamilton then put forward to the delegates a third plan, a perfect copy of the British Constitution including an upper house and legislature that would serve on good behavior.
Confronted by three counter-revolutionary options, the representatives of Connecticut finally came up with a workable compromise: a government with an upper house made up of equal numbers of delegates from each state and a lower house with proportional representation based upon population. This idea formed the basis of the new U.S. Constitution, which became the law of the land in 1789.
Georgia Militia under General John Floyd began rounding up Cherokee Indians on May 26, 1838.
General Robert E. Lee wrote a letter dated May 26, 1861 to Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown asking the state to send any weapons available for Georgia volunteers who arrived in Virginia unarmed.
The Battle of New Hope Church was fought near Dallas, Georgia May 25-26, 1864 between Confederates under General Joseph E. Johnston and Federal troops under General William T. Sherman.
On May 25, 1907, an equine statue of John B. Gordon was unveiled on the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol.
President Calvin Coolidge signed the “Comprehensive Immigration Act” on May 26, 1924.
Many Americans saw the enormous influx of largely unskilled, uneducated immigrants during the early 1900s as causing unfair competition for jobs and land. Under the new law, immigration remained open to those with a college education and/or special skills, but entry was denied to Mexicans, and disproportionately to Eastern and Southern Europeans and Japanese. At the same time, the legislation allowed for more immigration from Northern European nations such as Britain, Ireland and Scandinavian countries. A quota was set that limited immigration to two percent of any given nation’s residents already in the U.S. as of 1890, a provision designed to maintain America’s largely Northern European racial composition. In 1927, the “two percent rule” was eliminated and a cap of 150,000 total immigrants annually was established.
The law particularly angered Japan, which in 1907 had forged with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt a “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” which included more liberal immigration quotas for Japan. By 1924, strong U.S. agricultural and labor interests–particularly from California, which had already passed its own exclusionary laws against Japanese immigrants–favored the more restrictive legislation signed by Coolidge. The Japanese government viewed the American law as an insult, and protested by declaring May 26 a national day of humiliation in Japan.
Fort Frederica National Monument was established on St Simons Island, Georgia on May 26, 1936.
Fort Frederica National National Monument on St. Simons Island
May 26, 1949 was named Clay Day in Marietta, Georgia in honor of General Lucius Clay, who spoke at the courthouse square.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia held on May 25, 1962 that the Georgia General Assembly was malapportioned and ordered the reapportionment of the State House and Senate.
Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977.
The National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler reopened on Memorial Day, according to the Savannah Morning News.
The museum was operating at 25% capacity — only about 75 people at a time — but folks were still wandering through on Monday, May 25, most of them wearing masks.
To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, interior doors were kept open to minimize touching of handles and push plates, and hand-sanitizing stations were placed throughout the museum.
The museum will be operating on its normal schedule now, and will be open every day except for Monday. The Mighty Eighth will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Vice President Mike Pence lauded Governor Brian Kemp’s reopening of Georgia, according to the AJC.
Vice President Mike Pence on Friday praised Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia restaurant owners who have reopened their establishments in recent weeks, lending a high-level dose of support to state leaders who have been criticized for ending pandemic restrictions too soon.
Pence said Georgia is setting “an example to the nation” by being among the first and most aggressive to restart its economy while staying mindful of public health guidelines.
“In a very real sense, I think history will record that Georgia helped lead the way back to a prosperous American economy,” Pence told reporters after a barbecue lunch with the governor and first lady Marty Kemp at Star Cafe near Atlanta’s Westside.
After dining on meatloaf, pulled pork and sweet tea with the Kemps, Pence spoke with local restaurant owners at a socially distanced roundtable at Waffle House’s corporate headquarters in Norcross.
“This isn’t really a choice between the health of our citizens and a growing economy,” said Pence. “It’s a choice between health and health, because a growing economy, which you’re beginning to see come back here in Georgia, contributes to the physical and emotional well-being of the American people.”
Governor Brian Kemp announced he is appointing Newton County District Attorney Layla Zon to a seat on the Superior Court for the Alcovy Circuit, according to the Rockdale-Newton Citizen.
The appointment, announced Thursday, makes Zon the first female to serve as a Superior Court judge in the Alcovy Circuit.
“I am honored to appoint Layla to serve as a Superior Court judge of the Alcovy Judicial Circuit. As a judge, she will prioritize the business of the court and uphold justice, fairness and decorum,” said Kemp.
The Alcovy Judicial Circuit serves Newton and Walton Counties.
NPR reports that the pandemic is slowing voter registration efforts.
No door to door canvassing. Public gatherings are canceled. Motor vehicle offices are closed. Naturalization ceremonies are on hiatus.
Almost every place where Americans usually register to vote has been out of reach since March and it’s led to a big drop in new registrations right before a presidential election that was expected to see record turnout.
The consequences of that decline could reshape the electorate ahead of the November election, although it’s not yet clear how.
Until the pandemic struck, the 2020 presidential election had been on track to see a huge surge in new voters. According to data from the Democratic voter targeting firm TargetSmart, voter registrations in January and February of this year far outpaced those in 2016.
But since the virus hit, new registrations are falling around the country. After a record increase in January, Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams was disappointed that registrations in his state almost flat-lined.
Virginia saw 73% fewer registrations last month than it did four years ago. Officials said one reason is the shutdown of Department of Motor Vehicle offices, where voters routinely register. North Carolina had a similar decline and has expanded online registration to pick up some of the slack.
The New York Times looks at whether mail-in voting helps Republicans or Democrats.
Republican opposition seemed driven by the conviction that an increase in mail voting would benefit Democrats, who have tended to use mail ballots less compared with Republicans. But, like a lot of assumptions about voting, the reality is far less clear.
Conventional wisdom in both parties is that a surge of mail ballots, such as what we are likely to see in November, benefits Democrats more than Republicans.
The logic goes like this: Traditionally, most absentee ballots were cast by Republicans, so a big increase would disproportionately help Democratic turnout. And because turnout had always been higher among wealthier, better-educated voters who tilted Republican, anything that made voting easier was bound to benefit Democrats.
But recent demographic shifts in the electorate cast doubt on that: Since Mr. Trump’s election, more educated and wealthier voters have trended Democratic, while Republicans have gained among lower-income voters, especially white people. So conventional wisdom may no longer apply.
A new working paper by the Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University concluded that mail balloting modestly increased voter turnout but that both parties benefited more or less equally from the surge. Other academic studies have reached largely similar conclusions.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is asking citizens to return their mail-in ballots, according to AccessWDUN.
“We want to get it off of people’s kitchen tables and back to your county election office,” the Republican said. The June 9 primary is two weeks from Tuesday.
So far, nearly 510,000 people had returned their ballots as of early Friday, while another 61,000 had voted in person during early voting. Voters can still request mail-in ballots through June 5, but are unlikely to have enough time to receive them by mail and return them by mail if they wait that long. Ballots must be returned to county election offices by 7 p.m. on June 9.
Raffensperger warned Monday that voters could face long waits if they attempt to vote in person either early or on election day because of precautions to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 respiratory disease and a shortage of poll workers.
Election officials in Fulton County, Georgia’s most populous, agreed last week to open polls earlier and expand voting sites after lines formed on the first day of early voting.
Fulton County is still running behind on getting absentee ballots mailed. That’s in part because the county is struggling to process more than 27,000 emailed requests.
Two smaller counties saw their in-person voting sites shut last week because of coronavirus infections. Appling County will reopen Tuesday after its office was closed Friday for cleaning after a voter tested positive for COVID-19. Several election workers in McDuffie County tested positive. Raffensperger said Richmond County is sending workers to help McDuffie.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urged more absentee voting Monday in response to coronavirus infections in Appling and McDuffie counties related to voting sites.
“We would really highly encourage people to vote absentee, just because you don’t know what the situation could be,” Raffensperger said during a teleconference. “If this happened in the larger counties, shut down a couple precincts, it could create a much larger disruption.”
Meanwhile, Fulton County reported Monday that it had nearly cleared a large backlog of absentee ballot requests that had piled up in election office inboxes, including some requests made more than seven weeks ago.
The last 3,500 ballot requests will be completed Tuesday morning, said Elections Director Richard Barron.
Then Fulton voters should receive their absentee ballots in the mail several days later.
“We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Barron said. “We thank everyone for their patience. I don’t ever want to see us get behind like this again.”
Those voters might not have much time to return their ballots by the state’s election day deadline. A federal lawsuit is asking a judge to rule that ballots should be counted as long as they’re postmarked by election day.
Nearly an equal number of Republicans and Democrats have requested mail-in ballots for the partisan primary that features the presidential race, a competitive primary for the Democratic nomination for one of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats and every state and federal lawmaker.
According to voting data from the secretary of state’s office, slightly more Republican absentee ballots have been returned than Democratic ballots, and about 60% of in-person voters requested a Republican ballot last week.
Georgia unemployment claims hit a record high in April, according to the Statesboro Herald.
Georgia set a new all-time high for unemployment in April, with the jobless rate rising to 11.9% as waves of workers lost their jobs due to COVID-19.
The state only in February hit an all-time low of 3.1% unemployment and now has surpassed its previous all-time high of 10.6% set in December 2010. The jobless rate had begun to climb in March as the first effects of coronavirus related shutdowns showed up, rising to 4.2%.
The number of Georgians in the labor force fell from almost 5.2 million in March to less than 4.9 million in April, as many people gave up looking for work. The U.S. Department of Labor has said the actual unemployment rate may be higher because some people who have been furloughed are answering survey questions as if they’re still getting a regular paycheck.
State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, an elected Republican, expressed hope that Georgia’s rebound would be rapid.
“I have no doubt that we will recover just as quickly and get back to our record lows once again,” Butler said in a statement.
Another 176,000 Georgians filed seeking unemployment benefits last week. That brings the number of Georgians who have sought jobless benefits since the crisis began to more than 2 million. About 786,000 Georgians were getting payments, federal figures show, down by about 27,000 from the week before. The reason behind that drop wasn’t immediately clear.
Some Georgians are not wearing masks in public, according to the Macon Telegraph.
A spot check by a reporter in recent days at stores and restaurants around Macon to see if locals were heeding the advice revealed the many were. At the Bibb County Courthouse, a deputy stationed out front said “it’s about 50-50” whether visitors donned masks.
The general consensus now among health experts is that while a mask may not prevent a wearer from contracting COVID-19, a mask may reduce chances of an infected and possibly asymptomatic wearer spreading the disease.
A Valdosta agency that helps victims of domestic violence says its workload has increased as shelter-in-place is lifted, according to the Valdosta Daily Times.
Now that people are able to move freely, Yawn confirmed The Haven’s call volume has started to rise slightly. The number of clients being served at its shelter has grown, as well.
“I think that this pandemic is something most all of us have never been through before in our lifetime,” she said. “Domestic violence is very strongly about power and control and the fear around that power and control, and I think the fear of the pandemic may have just added on to that.”
“But I think the number of women or victims that would have called did decrease there for a while because I think they just didn’t have access or feel like they were in a safe position to contact us,” [Executive Director Michelle Girtman] said.
Much to his surprise, Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk said the shelter-in-place order has had no affect on domestic violence cases in the county.
A mobile COVID-19 unit is set up at Gainesville’s Northeast Georgia Medical Center, according to the Gainesville Times.
The unit designated for COVID-19 patients will remain near the center’s north tower for up to the next two years.
It is one of four in the state of Georgia funded by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, and will serve as a place for NGHS Gainesville to house COVID-19 patients. Matthew Crumpton, emergency preparedness manager for NGHS, said that although the COVID-19 patient count at the facility has decreased from 138 a couple weeks ago to 40 as of Friday afternoon, the mobile unit is still an essential safety net.
“It’s never been a decision to not have it, because of the secondary wave that is still projected by the government,” Crumpton said. “We know that once we open up more elective surgeries and return to normal with our normal volume, we need a release valve for the COVID patients to have a place to keep part of our facility clean from COVID, and then have a place that we can segregate the COVID patients to keep the rest of the patients safe.”
The unit will be used to house COVID-19 patients at some point though — even if NGHS Gainesville does not hit its capacity — in an effort to keep COVID-19 patients segregated from other patients as much as possible.
Coastal Health District officials appeared pessimistic last week about COVID-19, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Dr. Lawton Davis appeared downbeat while providing his assessment of Chatham’s infection rates since Georgia’s “soft reopening about a month ago,” which was ordered by Gov. Brian Kemp days before his own statewide stay-at-home mandate expired April 30. While Davis noted that some increase in COVID-19 case reports can be attributed to increased testing, he emphasized that the overall threat is clearly not abating.
“I would love to be able to tell you that this thing is going away, but a picture paints a thousand words,” Davis said, while presenting the commissioners with charts showing an increasingly steep climb of local COVID-19 cases over the past month. “You can see [in mid-April] we were kind of flat, and if anything, the charts are creeping up in this area.”
“Yesterday [May 21, 2020] was the single largest number of reported positive cases in the district since this thing began. Not in Chatham County, but in the district as a whole,” Davis said. “This most likely reflects the fact that we’ve been taking some pop-up [testing locations] out to some of the other counties that have not had a fixed location, so we’ve probably gotten to some people who’ve not had access to testing.”
“Memorial Day might increase the potential of those being exposed to coronavirus,” [Chatham County Commission Chair Al] Scott said, adding that he sees dangerous trends in local infection rates. “Looking at this information every day, multiple times a day, I really expect the death rate to go up in Chatham County.”
Hall County saw steady turnout for in-person advance voting last week, according to the Gainesville Times.
About 600 people cast their ballots at Gainesville Exploration Academy in the first four days of early voting for the June primary.
The county has about 200 poll workers, less than the usual target of 350 poll workers but above the minimum of 124. Workers are sanitizing machines between voters, and hand sanitizer is provided at the entrance and exit of the polling place. People are required to stay six feet apart.
As of 7 p.m. Thursday, 591 people had voted at Gainesville Exploration Academy in the first four days of early voting. That number is similar to turnout in the first week of early voting in past primaries. In the 2016 primary’s first five days of early voting, 655 people voted, and in 2018, 516 voted in that year’s primary during the first week of early voting.
The Augusta Chronicle looks at fundraising totals in the race for Senate District 23, an open-seat being vacated by Sen. Jesse Stone.
The Hall County School District will continue its meal program for students in June, according to AccessWDUN.
The Floyd County Commission will hold an online meeting at 6 PM today, according to the Rome News Tribune.
The AJC writes that local governments are required to hold some meetings in-person.
Many local governments have moved meetings online since March or encouraged remote public comment or other access to reduce the number of people coming in to the same room throughout the coronavirus pandemic. But public hearings — like the one required to rezone Cagle’s land — must be conducted in person, according to state law. So those have largely been on hold.
But as many of Gov. Brian Kemp’s restrictions have expired, governments are taking steps to return to normal. Some are reopening city halls that were closed or bringing more people back to work. And for the first time since March, many are beginning to schedule public hearings for land-use decisions or budget discussions, potentially bringing residents back into government buildings en masse.
Michael Rich, a political science professor at Emory University, said other states have changed their laws to make public hearings more accessible through the pandemic. In North Carolina, written comments are now allowed for 24 hours after a public hearing is held. Votes are delayed until the comment period is over. In Vermont, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns put out guidance for taking public comment during remote meetings.
Gwinnett zoning meetings often draw crowds, and though commissioners said they would defer some contentious proposals, they still worried that there would be some high-interest cases they didn’t know about in advance, that someone would come to the meeting sick or that someone who falls under Kemp’s order and determined they could not attend would challenge the result.
Federal funds totaling $128 million will be disbursed to Georgia nursing homes for COVID relief, according to the AJC.
Nursing homes across Georgia are getting $128 million in federal dollars to help them fight coronavirus, which has taken a devastating toll on long-term care residents across the nation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday.
All certified skilled nursing facilities with six or more beds will get a base payment of $50,000 each, plus $2,500 per bed. Marshall said the typical 100-bed nursing home in Georgia will receive about $300,000 through the relief program.
While many Georgia nursing homes have previously gotten federal financial relief through earlier waves of funding for health care providers, Marshall said those dollars were tied to their amount of Medicare revenues and went mostly to larger facilities in metro areas. The payments announced Friday, he said, represent some of the first significant relief for all nursing homes and will provide a big boost to those that primarily serve residents covered by Medicaid, many of them in rural areas. Medicaid is the health care program for low-income people that covers long stays in nursing facilities.
Columbus police arrested two men for the most bizarre thing I’ve heard of in campaign-related mischief. From the Ledger-Enquirer:
Columbus police have arrested two men allegedly recorded spinning their car wheels while cutting doughnuts in the Civic Center parking lot for an online campaign ad for district attorney candidate Mark Jones.
Each is charged with felony interference with government property and first-degree criminal damage to property, plus the misdemeanors of reckless conduct, reckless driving and laying drag, according to records at the Muscogee County Jail, where they were booked Friday night.
[The two men] had a bond hearing Saturday morning in Columbus Recorder’s Court, where they were ordered held without bond for interfering with government property, $200,000 bond for criminal damage, $500 each for reckless driving and reckless conduct, and $100 for laying drag, records show.
The chief Recorder’s Court judge, Julius Hunter, reviewed the bonds later Saturday and reduced them so both suspects could be released. Otherwise they could have remained jailed over Memorial Day weekend, until Hunter returned to work Tuesday.
The “Get Out And Vote” hip hop video ad published on Monday to the “Mark Jones for District Attorney” Facebook page features Jones with a rapper identified as JawGaBoi. It’s about a minute long and ends with an overhead drone shot of a car burning rubber in circles around Jones in the Civic Center parking lot off Veterans Parkway.
Police confirmed the video is what led to the arrests, and said more are anticipated. Slater was not informed of the investigation, they said. The department, which issues permits for public events such as parades and protests, said no permit exists for what’s depicted in the ad.
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