Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for October 13, 2016

On October 13, 1870, Governor Rufus Bullock signed legislation creating the Georgia State Board of Education.

On October 13, 1885, Governor Henry McDaniel signed legislation authorizing the creation of a state school of technology as a branch of the University of Georgia; the school would open in Atlanta in October 1888, and in 1948 was renamed the Georgia Institute of Technology.

On October 13, 1918, the ban on public gatherings in Atlanta to prevent spread of the Spanish flu, was extended an additional week.

On December 13, 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter received a post-debate bump against President Gerald Ford, with polls showing Carter at 50%-40% over the incumbent, up from 47%-45% before the debate.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Attorney General Sam Olens was named yesterday as the next President of Kennesaw State University, beginning November 1, 2016.

“Sam Olens’ two decades of public service and outstanding leadership qualities make him the right person to lead Kennesaw State University at the right time,” [Georgia Board of Regents] Chairman Kessel Stelling said. “While Sam has successfully led a large workforce and managed a substantial operating budget, he also has a passion for KSU and public higher education.”

“I pledge to work in partnership with the Kennesaw State campus community to focus our efforts on advancing our academic mission,” Olens said. “Working with students, faculty and staff, together, we will continue to make KSU a leading university.”

Olens will succeed Dan Papp, who retired at the end of June shortly after an audit alleged he had improperly been paid $577,500 in retirement benefits while still working at the university.

Governor Nathan Deal shortly thereafter announced he will appoint current Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) Commissioner Chris Carr as the next Attorney General, to take office November 1st.

“Carr’s experience as an attorney, job creator and public servant make him the ideal candidate to fill the role of Georgia’s attorney general,” said Deal. “He is a leader with common sense, brilliant intellect and a wide range of experiences at the global, federal and state levels. That perspective will allow Chris to support and defend the laws of Georgia and the interests of our people. This role is a hybrid one of attorney, manager and public servant, and Chris is well qualified for it.”

Deal appointed Carr in 2013 to lead GDEcD, the state agency charged with helping to create jobs and generate investment in Georgia. During his tenure, GDEcD helped facilitate 1,055 projects across the state that represent $14.1 billion in investment and created more than 83,000 jobs. In 2015, GDEcD was recognized as the top economic development agency in the country. Carr has also served on the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC), the body charged with reviewing and recommending judicial appointments, since January 2011. To date, the JNC has filled more than 100 judicial vacancies statewide.

“I am truly honored and humbled that Gov. Deal has placed his confidence in me,” said Carr. “As I take on this new responsibility, I believe there is no more solemn duty than to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution and laws of the state of Georgia, and the interests of the people of our great state. The seriousness of this work requires focus on a smooth transition and a readiness to tackle our state’s challenges and opportunities—and that’s what Georgians should expect to see from me.”

Prior to joining GDEcD, Carr was the chief of staff for Sen. Johnny Isakson. Carr began his career with Georgia-Pacific, moving on to practice law with Alston & Bird LLP and then serving as vice president and general counsel for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. Carr graduated from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business and Lumpkin School of Law. Carr and his wife, Joan, have one daughter and one stepdaughter. They live in Dunwoody.

The AJC spoke to Deal about Carr’s appointment,

In an interview with the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Deal said that Carr’s administrative skills and “servant’s heart” helped him make the decision.

“He has a lot of common sense, and that’s what any public servant needs,” Deal said. “He’s intellectually brilliant. He understands the consequences, and he understands the different perspectives.”

[Carr] said he would stand for election as attorney general in 2018.

Carr said his understanding of state and legislative issues and his management of a state agency with more than 200 employees helped him prepare for the job.

“That’s the kind of experience I can bring to bear at the Department of Law to represent the state of Georgia and the interests of the people of our state,” Carr said. “People will judge me on the job that I do, and I’ll get up every day with a solemn responsibility to represent Georgia.”

Among Carr’s supporters is former Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat who is bucking party lines to back the Republican. Barnes said he got to know Carr when he was working for Isakson, a fellow Cobb County native whom the ex-governor also endorsed for re-election.

“I’ve known Chris for a long time. I think it’s a good appointment. I think he’ll do a great job,” said Barnes, who added that he might also back Carr in 2018. “If folks do a good job, whether they be a Democrat or Republican, then I’ll endorse them then. I have nothing but confidence that he’ll do a good job.”

Kathleen Foody from the Associated Press asked if Carr meets the requirement of having been an active-status member of the Georgia State Bar for seven years.

Deal said his staff did consider the state constitution’s requirement that the attorney general is an active-status member of the State Bar of Georgia for seven years, and determined that Carr met it.

The AJC’s Kyle Wingfield wrote about the job moves for Olens and Carr.

The president of a state school in 2016 may have no greater asset than these: prowess at raising money and a good relationship with the General Assembly. Olens should be excellent at both.

The two are related. Finances are at the heart of a simmering (for now) dispute between the Board of Regents and the Legislature. Lawmakers resent that they lack control over the regents’ spending but field numerous constituent complaints about tuition hikes. Colleges fear potential legislation to limit how fast tuition can grow. This could blow up next year.

Meanwhile, colleges have redoubled their fund-raising efforts. They need to top up the amount legislators see fit to appropriate and the amount regents think they can levy via tuition, as well as to fill the gap between what the HOPE scholarship now covers and what low-income students can afford.

Georgia’s AG need not argue cases in court; Olens created the position of solicitor general for that. What he does need to understand is the role a state attorney general plays in the current policy environment, in which the federal government continually tramples state interests through legislation and — with alarming frequency and breadth in the Obama era, sure to continue if Hillary Clinton is elected — executive actions.

And if there’s any question where the Chamber of Commerce support will land in the 2018 election for Attorney General, this note from the AJC article:

Many of those influential big business forces are already lining up behind Carr. Georgia Power Chief Executive Paul Bowers and AGL Resources executive Hank Linginfelter, the chairman of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, both sent statements endorsing Carr as a pro-business force.

And Deal called Carr the “face and the voice of economic development in Georgia” who helped create more than 83,000 jobs on his watch.

The Marietta Daily Journal talked to local leaders about the Olens appointment.

Indeed, a slate of Cobb County leaders have told the MDJ they believe Olens would make an excellent university president, including Cobb Chamber of Commerce President and CEO David Connell, Cobb NAACP President Deane Bonner, Marietta Schools Superintendent Emily Lembeck and KSU alum Tricia Pridemore, a member of the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum and Exhibit Hall Authority.

“Sam Olens is a splendid individual,” Harris Hines of Marietta, presiding justice of the Georgia Supreme Court who will take over as chief justice in January, told the MDJ last week. “He’s a good lawyer. He’s conscientious as the day is long. He’s a hard worker. He values education greatly. He’s a guy who’s also a good manager and attends to detail, so I think he would be a fine president at Kennesaw State University.”

Roger Tutterow, economics professor at KSU and director of its Econometric Center, said Olens will be a successful university president.

“He’s a first-rate intellect. He’s very good at building coalitions. I think he will help raise the visibility of Kennesaw State further throughout the region,” Tutterow said.

Olens’ experience in administration — both in serving as the top elected official in one of the largest counties in Georgia and as the state’s lawyer — will be a boon for him as president, Tutterow said.

“As a state institution, the ability of the upper administration to interact well with the Board (of Regents) and the leadership in the state is important because although state universities do seek private funding, they are still very dependent upon the support of taxpayers,” he said.

Senator Johnny Isakson isn’t worried about GOP nominee Donald Trump suppressing his reelection, according to ForeignPolicy.com.

“I don’t think either of the nominees for president have coattails,” Isakson told Foreign Policy the day before the Oct. 1 tailgate. “It’s not a party thing. It doesn’t go down ballot.”

“If you’re trying to take me down the track of aligning myself with the presidential nominee … we’re not going to go there,” said Isakson, who chairs two Senate committees: one on veterans issues and the other overseeing lawmakers’ ethics. “My job is not to defend or support the rhetoric.”

He added, “I trust the judgment of the people of Georgia.”

Sensing an opportunity to force the Trump campaign to unexpectedly spend resources in Georgia, the Clinton team and the state Democratic Party have opened 12 offices and hired 39 full-time employees statewide.

Former Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican who retired last year, stoutly declared Clinton has no chance here. “Unless hell has frozen over and I didn’t know about it, it’s not going to happen,” Chambliss said.

“I would distinguish between Trump and the Republican Party,” Gingrich told FP in an Oct. 2 phone interview.

Trump’s hostile takeover of the GOP, Gingrich said, proves “the establishment’s model isn’t working.”

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed spoke to the Globe and Mail about Clinton’s failure to make a play in Georgia.

“I don’t think Georgia being competitive is a stretch to anyone who’s sophisticated in these matters,” he said, attributing it to “the number of people of all colours who are moving here” – African-Americans joined by Hispanics, Asian Americans and college-educated whites in shifting power away from the Republicans’ white base. As evidence, he pointed to Barack Obama getting 45.5 per cent here in 2012, a better result than for any other Democratic nominee since Georgian Jimmy Carter topped the ticket, despite Mr. Obama not campaigning here.

Mr. Reed’s argument for why Democrats should be less stingy with their southern investment is largely that this is an election in which there is value in running up the score, so a “humiliating defeat” for Mr. Trump ensures “no other leader will believe his behaviour is a path to the nomination of a major party.”

But there is another reason: Building a stronger political infrastructure here that carries over into future campaigns.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp visited the Glynn County elections board to see how they’re handling the storm and its fallout.

“There’s no damage to any precinct, all the equipment is good,” [Glynn County election supervisor Tina] Edwards said. “We’re set and ready to go for early voting.”

The other five counties Kemp visited all said about the same.

“That’s the message we’ve gotten all day,” Kemp said. “And if there’s a county touching the water, we’ve been to it.”

Kemp visited all of the coastal counties that were impacted by the storm Monday, working his way south through Chatham, Bryan, Liberty, McIntosh and Camden counties.

He said he waited to stop by Glynn’s board of elections on the way back to his office in Atlanta. Other members of his office checked in on the inland counties that were impacted by the hurricane.

A federal lawsuit in Savannah seeks to compel the State of Georgia to extend the voter registration deadline that fell earlier this week, to allow extra time for coastal resident.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, the suit noted that Chatham, which includes Savannah, has more than 203,000 citizens of voting age and that more than 40 percent of them are African Americans and Latinos — groups historically underrepresented on the rolls.

The county was one of six under a mandatory evacuation order, and the homes of more than half its residents lost power during the storm. Several communities within the county, such as Tybee Island, suffered widespread property damage and flooding.

The complaint alleges that by failing to extend the deadline, the state violated residents’ constitutional right to vote as well as provisions of the National Voter Registration Act that require states to receive and process voter registration forms 30 days prior to Election Day.

The Georgia NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda and the New Georgia Project brought the suit, with help from the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The groups all said in the suit that the storm and related office closures forced them to cancel or curtail planned registration efforts in Chatham County that otherwise could have resulted in people joining the voter rolls.

“We had hoped that Georgia would do the right thing by its citizens and not penalize aspiring voters impacted by Hurricane Matthew,” Kristen Clarke, the Lawyers’ Committee’s president and executive director, said in a statement. “There is no right more important than the right to vote, and this suit seeks to ensure that those who wish to exercise that right are not arbitrarily blocked by the vicissitudes of a hurricane and the hardened stance of elections officials.”

Large numbers of Georgia residents registered to vote online, according to the [Chattanooga] Times-Free Press.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp announced Wednesday that 74,425 Georgians took advantage of the state’s Online Voter Registration System to register to vote or update voter information to take part in the General Election on Nov. 8.

On the final day of the registration period in 2014, only 12,018 Georgians used the online system.

Advance in-person voting begins Monday. Georgia law also requires the polls to be open on Saturday, Oct. 29, in all 159 counties for Georgians to vote in the November contests.

Currently, there are over 6.5 million registered voters in the Peach State.

Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens is monitoring claims in coastal Georgia.

Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner was in [Savannah] Wednesday making sure insurance companies are taking care of their customers.

Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens was in the meeting with CEMA and other local officials. He also stopped by the Allstate command center at the Home Depot on Victory Drive. Officials say this is where folks – who have Allstate insurance — can start making their claims.

Hudgens says depending on what kind of insurance and coverage you have, he expects folks to run into issues when it comes to wind damage.

“There is a wind exclusion a lot of times on policies, but it’s what you purchase. You determine what kind of deductible you’re going to have, you can have a $250, $500, $1,000 deductible – you choose that when you decide on your insurance. But a lot of times there is wind exclusion,” said Hudgens.

Georgia Power expects to complete restoration of services in coastal areas by Friday.

“Tremendous progress was made today with restoration completed in several areas except for isolated services and those that cannot take service,” [Georgia Power Coastal Region Vice President Cathy] Hill said.

Service in Springfield and Hinesville is expected to be fully restored tonight.

There are still 17,220 Savannah accounts without power, and 212 powerless accounts on Sapelo Island.

Georgia ports have reopened, with the Garden City Terminal and two at Ocean Terminal working newly arrived ships.

By the end of [Wednesday], Garden City Terminal was working nine vessels, moving nearly 800 containers per hour, with an anticipated 7,800 container moves for the day.

“Georgia’s ports are now fully operational, which is a testament to the efforts of countless individuals to ensure our port customers experienced minimal impact,” said Griff Lynch, executive director for the Georgia Ports Authority. We would like to thank our many service providers, port stakeholders, first responders, GPA employees and Governor Nathan Deal’s Office for working around the clock to bring the ports of Brunswick and Savannah back online so quickly.”

Of all the ports affected by Hurricane Matthew, the Port of Savannah was hit the hardest, according to U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Amy Beach, commander of Marine Safety Unit Savannah and Captain of the Port.

Gwinnett County will spend more than $2.1 million on retaining law enforcement personnel.

Muscogee County Clerk of Courts candidate Mike Garner says he decided to run as a write-in candidate because Democratic nominee Ann Hardman lacks relevant experience.

Mike Garner is a local criminal defense lawyer who as worked in Columbus for 40 years. He’s challenging Hardman as a write-in candidate. There’s no Republican in the race.

Garner, 70, entered the race after the primary. He had hoped to run as an Independent, but he ran out of time to collect 5,000 signatures. A lawsuit that he filed challenging the constitutionality of the signature requirement was thrown out because the deadline for signatures passed before a hearing could be scheduled, he said Wednesday.

Garner cited Hardman’s lack of court experience as his reason for running. He attributed her victory to backlash against Linda Pierce, who is among four elected officials suing the city over budgets. He said he has extensive experience working with the Superior Court, which makes him the best candidate running for the position.

“The key issue is that my opponent is unqualified to be the clerk,” he said. “… And only a legal person with a lot of legal knowledge and experience can handle that job.