Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for October 6, 2016

Georgia History

The first Mennonites arrived in America on October 6, 1683 aboard the Concord.

Cy Young threw his last professional baseball game as a member of the Boston Braves on October 6, 1911.

On October 6, 1953, WTVM-TV began broadcasting in  Columbus, Georgia.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience held its first rehearsal on October 6, 1966.

The second Presidential debate between Republican incumbent Gerald Ford and Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter took place on October 6, 1976. During the debate, Ford said, there was “no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe”.

Pope John Paul II became the first Pope to visit the White House on October 6, 1979. Carter’s notes from the meeting are at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta.

The last four B-52 bombers stationed at Robins Air Force Base in Warner-Robins left the base for the last time on October 6, 1983.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Governor Nathan Deal expanded the state of emergency in Coastal Georgia to seventeen additional counties yesterday.

This brings the total to 30 counties under the emergency declaration, which also warns against price gouging. Deal issued an additional executive order waiving rules and regulations for commercial motor vehicles transporting emergency supplies.

“The National Hurricane Center predicts Hurricane Matthew will include excessive rainfall, strong winds and potential flooding. Because of this, I’m encouraging a voluntary evacuation for residents in Chatham, Bryan, Liberty, McIntosh, Glynn and Camden Counties. Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMHSA) Director Jim Butterworth is coordinating with appropriate state and local officials to ensure the safety of residents in these six counties as well as those in the other affected areas. I urge Georgians in the affected areas to remain calm, be prepared and make informed, responsible decisions as we continue to monitor Hurricane Matthew’s path.”

The additional 17 counties included in the state of emergency are:

Screven, Jenkins, Emanuel, Treutlen, Candler, Toombs, Tattnall, Jeff Davis, Appling, Coffee, Bacon, Pierce, Ware, Atkinson, Clinch, Burke and Echols.

Voluntary evacuation is encouraged for the following six counties:

Bryan, Chatham, Liberty, McIntosh, Glynn and Camden.

Effingham County has also called for an evacuation and schools are closed today and tomorrow.

A Gulfstream G-IV named Gonzo is flying missions to gather data about Hurricane Matthew.

Chatham County officials are asking for voluntary evacuation of the Islands off the coast, and the City of Tybee Island issued a mandatory evacuation.

Glynn County has declared a state of emergency and called for voluntary evacuation of St Simons, Jekyll and the other barrier islands, and has evacuated the animal shelter to a location in Waycross.

Camden County has declared a state of emergency and is asking for a voluntary evacuation of low-lying areas and mobile homes.

Augusta is gearing up to host some of the temporary refugees from the coast, and the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center will care for some veterans being evacuated from the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston, SC.

Johnny Isakson should coast to victory, according to two political scientists.

Isakson looks “unbeatable,” said Georgia State University political science professor Daniel Franklin.

“Isakson is someone who would be difficult to unseat even if the state is competitive in the presidential election,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University.

Isakson has carved out a reputation as not being an ideologue, though he has a conservative voting record. “He’s seen as someone who is thoughtful and more reasonable,” said Abramowitz.

Fulton County voters will see different tax questions on their ballot on November 8th, depending on whether they live in the City of Atlanta.

MARTA – Atlanta residents will be asked to approve a half-penny increase in the city’s sales tax to support an expansion of MARTA. The proposal includes heavy and light rail, additional subway cars and more buses to reduce wait times during peak hours. MARTA estimates approval would raise $2.5 billion over 40 years.

Atlanta TSPLOST – Atlanta residents will decide whether to approve a four-tenths of a penny sales tax increase for projects such as Beltline expansion, synchronizing streetlights, sidewalk construction and road improvements. The tax will be collected for five years and is expected to raise $280 million to $320 million.

Fulton TSPLOST – Fulton County residents – except those in the city of Atlanta – will consider a sales tax increase of three-quarters of a penny to pay for road and bridge improvements, traffic mitigation and traffic signal optimization. The measure would raise up to $655 million over five years.

Some in South Fulton might have to vote two different ballots.

Some South Fulton residents may be asked to fill out their ballots twice on Nov. 8.

That’s because with a pending lawsuit about Atlanta’s annexation of their neighborhood, Loch Lomond, whether or not they live in the city is unclear. And depending on where they live, they would cast their ballots for different issues.

The best solution, according to a draft proposal, may be to let residents vote twice — then only count one ballot, depending on where they end up.

The order is not yet final, but it has already sent Fulton County scrambling to figure out what to do. The county’s Board of Registration and Election called an emergency meeting to figure out “an appropriate response to the emergency of a pending court order” dealing with the election, according to a notice.

The Southern Center for Human Rights has filed a federal lawsuit charging that the Columbus Recorder’s Court has fined women alleging domestic violence who are unwilling to testify against their alleged abusers.

“The city’s policy toward women experiencing domestic violence sounds like something out of the 19th century,” said attorney Sarah Geraghty with the Southern Center. “It’s a holdover from an era in which women were blamed for male violence.”

The suit said women who ask that charges be dropped or who refuse to testify against spouses or boyfriends are ordered to pay a “victim assessment” of at least $50 — and often several times that much — “without any consideration of the circumstances of their cases or their reasons for desiring not to prosecute.”

State School Superintendent Richard Woods says that the Georgia Department of Education is not focused on whether the Opportunity School District Amendment #1 passes in November.

“It doesn’t change the mentality,” Woods said. “It is my job to make sure that every child has a great education.”

Woods said he can only control the state education department and not Georgia voters.

“We got to be ready either way to meet the needs of our schools,” Woods said. “We don’t want any school that is classified as failing. Our focus is on making sure all schools succeed.”

Woods said Senate Bill 364, sponsored by state Sen. Lindsey Tippins, R-west Cobb, was a step in the right direction by decreasing the amount of state-mandated testing, but there is still more to be done.

Andy Miller of Georgia Health News writes about a Senate Study Committee looking at Medicaid expansion.

A legislative panel heard testimony Wednesday on ideas for reducing the high number of uninsured people in Georgia through alternatives to a standard Medicaid expansion.

The Senate study committee focused on a variation of expansion that Arkansas and other states have launched.

Under this “premium assistance,’’ a state would use Medicaid funds to purchase coverage in the health insurance exchange for newly eligible adults.

Georgia’s uninsured rate of 13.9 percent is the third-highest in the nation, behind Texas and Alaska.

Not expanding Medicaid leaves many low-income Georgia adults in a “coverage gap’’: They earn too much to qualify for Medicaid under the current system, but don’t make enough to qualify for tax credits in the health insurance exchange.

State Sen. Charles Bethel (R-Dalton), though, noted that the gap was not created by state policy. The ACA originally included provisions that essentially would have required states to expand Medicaid, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those requirements.

Congress passed an “unconstitutional’’ health law, Bethel said. “The federal government illegally passed a law — that’s what causes this gap,’’ he said. “States are being asked to fix a problem they didn’t create.”

State Rep. Bert Reeves (R-Marietta) plans to introduce legislation prohibiting the use of GPS to track people without their consent.

Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, discussed his plans for the bill on Friday, one day after Cobb Superior Court Judge Robert Leonard gave the go-ahead for a jury trial for a woman who sued a local private investigator for attaching a GPS to her car without her permission.

The suit was filed by Marietta attorney Charles Bachman Jr. on behalf of Melissa Atkins, a mother of three from Loganville, who said her rights were violated by the Marietta private investigation firm TFP Company Inc.

Reeves said his bill will seek to allow people to receive damages for invasion of privacy in cases such as Atkins’.

“This is stating the obvious,” Reeves said. “This is a classic example of when a law is not on par with technology. I have talked with several colleagues in the House and there’s interest in the Legislature. We’re committed to spearheading this” in the next General Assembly session.

Reeves is up for re-election this year, but is nearly assured to get a second term after winning the Republican primary for his seat in May due to a lack of a Democratic challenger for his seat.

“From a public policy perspective, the problem with (TFP’s) legal position is that, if correct, anybody can put a GPS tracking device on anyone else’s vehicle,” Leonard wrote. “This case represents a classic situation where our jurisprudence and legislation have not kept up with rapidly changing technology that is widely available and cheaply obtained.”

He asked the Legislature to take up the issue of GPS tracking and “provide Georgians with proper protection of their right to privacy.”

The Polk County Board of Education passed a resolution opposing the Opportunity School District Amendment #1.

Whitfield County will ask voters to approve an extension of the existing E-SPLOST  Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for Education after it expires in December.

Charlotte Sosebee will leave her position as Hall County Elections Director after the November election.

Sosebee’s last day with the county will be Nov. 16.

Sosebee began her career with the Hall County elections office as a deputy clerk in 1989. In December 2006, she was sworn in as interim elections director and was then named elections director in November 2011. Since then, she has served on the Georgia’s Elections Advisory Council, the advisory committee for implementing the new Georgia Voter Registration System and as an officer of the Voter Registrars Association of Georgia.

“It has been an honor and privilege to serve the residents of Hall County for more than 25 years,” Sosebee said in a press release. “I’m proud of the advances the elections department has made during my tenure, and I want to assure voters that there will be no lapse in leadership or service during the upcoming election season.”

Sosebee will be taking over as the new director of elections and voter registration for the Athens-Clarke County unified government.

Sosebee will not take the Athens-Clarke post until Dec. 5, after the upcoming Nov. 8 general election, to avoid disruption of the election planning already under way in both counties, Williams said.

Cora Wright, who has been serving as interim director of Athens-Clarke County’s elections office, will continue in that role until Sosebee assumes her duties.

Williams said in the news release that Wright “has done an excellent job of managing this active election year, so I have full confidence in our current Board of Elections office staff’s ability to provide a successful election process over the next two months.”

A Macon Telegraph reporter writes that wrangling over a new senior center illustrates the best and worst of political process.

The quick background of the story is that funding for a new senior citizens center was included in the 2012 special purpose local option sales tax. Starting in 2014, the Macon-Bibb County commissioners began suggesting multiple sites with none of them drawing a consensus among seniors except for Central City Park.

On Tuesday, commissioners agreed to accept bids for a design despite the objection of some seniors, but also said they would see if a better compromise could be worked out.

The senior center is an example of what can sometimes happen in politics when an issue gets to a point where strong opinions are formed and sometimes the messages from officials get lost in the anger.

It’s the part of politics that neither side would like to be going through. And reporting on issues such as the senior citizens center is what makes being a journalist interesting: a vocal group of people taking part in a process that many others take for granted; and a commission that’s fighting against what they say is an unfair perception of them neglecting seniors.

Gwinnett Republicans will rally in support of re-electing County Commission Chair Charlotte Nash on October 19 from 5-7 PM at the Historic Courthouse in downtown Lawrenceville. This Thursday night beginning at 7 PM, the Gwinnett GOP will train volunteers to use the Advantage app for door-to-door canvassing at the Gwinnett Place Mall headquarters.

Mary Norwood, who narrowly lost a 2009 runoff for Mayor of Atlanta to Kasim Reed after earning more votes in the general election, will take another run for Mayor in 2017. Yesterday, her campaign sent out a statement,

“Today I’m taking the first step in becoming your next Mayor.  I’m following the law and filing to accept contributions. Over the next several weeks, I will continue to be in communities throughout our city with Atlantans from every part of our great city.”

“I am running for Mayor of Atlanta to give all Atlantans a responsible, transparent and accountable government that will ensure that we have a safe city, a sustainable city and a prosperous city for ALL of our citizens. With over 25 years of citywide service, I have a unique understanding of our city’s communities–their issues, needs, and aspirations.  As this city’s next Mayor, I will make certain that every community in this great city has the quality of life they deserve.  Your issues will be my issues and they will be addressed so that our city will be safe and you will have the accountability that you desire and expect from your city government.”