Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for September 1, 2026

Former Vice President Aaron Burr was acquitted of treason on September 1, 1804.

On September 1, 1865, Confederate Lieutenant General John Bell Hood withdrew his troops from Atlanta, destroying supply depots and setting ablaze 81 railcars loaded with ammunition.

The last hanging in Atlanta took place on September 1, 1922 outside the Fulton County jail.

Approximately 5,000 people gathered outside the Fulton County jail to witness the hanging.

On September 1, 2004, United States Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat, spoke at the Republican National Convention.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Police blotter: Richmond County Sheriff’s Office Major Robbie Silas was arrested and charged, according to WJBF.

Silas was booked into the Wilkes county Jail, charged with Pandering, Solicitation for Sodomy, and Violation of Oath by a Public Officer.

Major Silas previously ran for Sheriff. That race was won by the late Richard Roundtree.

He has since been moved to the Richmond County Detention Center.

From WRDW:

Major Robert “Robbie” Silas was arrested Monday night and booked into the Wilkes County jail, according to GBI officials.

Early Tuesday morning, he was seen being escorted out of the Wilkes County jail into a Richmond County patrol car. Jail personnel were seen holding blankets over Silas to cover him.

According to jail bookings, Silas is charged with pandering, solicitation for sodomy and violation of oath by public officer in Richmond County.

Silas is currently over the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office’s Special Operations Division.

Silas has been employed with the sheriff’s office since 1987.

Law enforcement sources say that agents from the GBI served a search warrant at Silas’s home in Hepzibah late Monday.

The sheriff’s office says it will release more information on Tuesday.

Two Richmond County Sheriff’s Deputies were arrested and fired over alleged misuse of Flock surveillance cameras, according to WRDW.

Investigator Sean Morrow and Deputy Jose Ferrer were charged with misuse of license plate readers and violation of oath of office.

According to investigators, Morrow and Ferrer knowingly accessed the Flock License Plate Reader system to search license plate numbers for personal reasons. The searches were not connected to any active criminal investigation, call for service or intelligence gathering.

Morrow and Ferrer were booked into the Charles B. Webster Detention Center. After the arrests, both deputies were fired.

“Sheriff Eugene Brantley remains committed to ensuring the integrity and accountability of every member of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office,” the agency said in a statement. “Allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated, and employees found to have violated the law or agency policy will be held accountable.”

The investigation is ongoing, and officials have not released any further details.

This has been a recent problem in law enforcement across the county, including within the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office[.]

Tift County Sheriff Gene Scarbrough announced a deputy was demoted for misusing Flock surveillance cameras, according to WALB.

A Tift County deputy has been demoted, and his access to sensitive confidential data systems has been revoked after an internal investigation found he misused a law enforcement database, according to the Tift County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff Gene Scarbrough said the issue was discovered after the sheriff’s office did audits of the data systems used by the agency.

According to the sheriff, discrepancies were found within the agency’s FLOCK system, prompting an internal investigation.

The investigation determined the deputy had misused the system by searching his personal data, the sheriff’s office said.

As a result, the deputy was demoted from a recent promotion; his access to all sensitive, confidential data systems was also revoked.

After the investigation, Sheriff Scarbrough said his administration issued a memo to the entire agency emphasizing a “zero-tolerance” policy for behavior that could damage the community’s trust.

Deputies were also told to review policies about confidential data systems and their proper use.

The sheriff’s office has not released additional details about what information was searched or whether the matter could result in any further disciplinary action.

Former Covington Police officer Michael Canty was arrested by the GBI for allegedly misusing Flock surveillance cameras, according to the Athens Banner Herald.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday that Michael Canty, 29, of Covington, was arrested Aug. 26 and charged with misuse of a license plate reader system and violation of oath of office.

The Covington Police Department asked the GBI to investigate on Aug. 6 after allegations surfaced involving the department’s Flock Safety license plate reader system.

According to the GBI, preliminary information indicates Canty accessed the system for a purpose unrelated to law enforcement.

The GBI did not provide additional details about what information was accessed or how the system allegedly was misused.

Canty is a former Covington Police Department officer. Following his Aug. 26 arrest, he was booked into the Newton County Jail.

The GBI said the investigation remains active and ongoing.

Once investigators finish their work, the case will be turned over to the Alcovy Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.

An analyst with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department was fired for alleged misuse of Flock surveillance cameras, according to the Athens Banner Herald.

A crime analyst for the Athens-Clarke County Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center was recently fired after authorities reported that he allegedly misused the Flock camera system.

The department began the crime center a year ago and hired Nick Barker as its crime and intelligence analyst. The system uses not only Flock cameras but other security cameras throughout the city to investigate criminal incidents.

Barker was relieved of his duties on Aug. 27, when police received a complaint from his ex-wife alleging he was misusing the Flock system, according to police. That led to an investigation and his subsequent firing.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been asked to investigate Barker’s use of the system. In addition, police said the department’s Office of Professional Standards will conduct an administrative investigation.

“Trust is the foundation of our relationship with the community we serve, and there is no greater responsibility than protecting that trust. I am deeply disappointed by the former employee’s actions and their impact on the confidence our community places in this department,” Athens-Clarke Police Chief Jerry Saulters said in a statement released about the investigation.

The chief said he is “committed to moving forward with a complete examination of ACCPD’s ALPR technology and how we use these systems.”

Georgia has adopted the EPA waiver of summer gas blend requirements, hoping to lower gas prices, according to the Savannah Morning News.

On Thursday, Georgia Agriculture announced the adoption of the EPA’s Aug. 20 national fuel waiver. It runs Tuesday, Sept. 1, through Sept. 15 and allows temporary flexibility on certain ethanol blending and volatility requirements to help increase fuel availability, prevent supply bottlenecks, and ease pressure on gas prices.

Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper said “By adopting this federal waiver, we’re able to increase the available supply of fuel, while maintaining strict quality standards and certifying pumps across the state to ensure Georgians get what they pay for.”

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms wants to debate Republican Rick Jackson in Macon, according to 13WMAZ.

The Democratic candidate for governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is challenging her Republican opponent Rick Jackson to a debate in Macon, but there’s no word on whether Jackson will join.

On Monday, Bottoms’ campaign said she will participate in the “Middle Georgia Matters” debate on Sept. 17, saying that she wants voters across the state to hear from both Jackson and herself in one room.

“Georgians deserve to hear directly from candidates for public office with multiple debates around the state,” Bottoms said. “I’m ready to debate Rick Jackson in Atlanta, Macon and Savannah. It’s time for Slick Rick Jackson to stop hiding behind his billions of dollars made off of insider state contracts and to start debating the issues that matter to Georgia families.”

The announcement came with a slew of other debate opportunities, including debates in Savannah, Columbus and Atlanta.

But, in a response to the calls for a debate, Jackson’s campaign is throwing some cold water on the conversation.

They claim that Bottoms has been dodging debate requests for over a month, and questions the campaign’s intentions of the challenging Jackson to debate.

“Only the flailing campaign of a failed politician would spend more than six weeks ducking a debate, then suddenly demand six of them after Georgia begins to learn the truth about her disastrous record as mayor of Atlanta,” Jackson campaign spokesman Garrison Douglas said in a statement. “The fact is Keisha Lance Bottoms has become desperate and can’t talk her way out of what she did to Atlanta.”

Jackson has accepted one of the debates — a television town hall up in Atlanta — but it is unclear if he’s agreed to any of the other wdebates mentioned by Bottoms.

Bottoms says that she will take part in the following debates:

Middle Georgia Matters in Macon: Sept. 17
11Alive’s debate: Sept. 22 (simulcasted on 13WMAZ)
Atlanta News First: Oct. 6
WJCL’s debate in Savannah: Oct. 13
CNN’s nationally televised debate in Atlanta: TBD

13WMAZ reached out to Jackson’s press office to comment on whether they will take part in the Macon debate. They did not immediately respond.

It comes as the race for governor sits in a dead heat, according to some polls, with Bottoms and Jackson neck-and-neck.

Atlanta News First will host a debate between Ms. Bottoms and Mr. Jackson, according to WTOC.

WTOC’s sister station, Atlanta News First, announced Monday that it will host an exclusive, live gubernatorial town hall debate between Rick Jackson (R) and Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, at 8 p.m.

The one-hour debate will broadcast live from Assembly Studios, Gray Media’s state-of-the-art studio production facility in Atlanta. The event will follow a modified town hall format, giving undecided local voters the unique opportunity to ask questions directly to the candidates about the most pressing issues facing the community.

“By bringing undecided voters face-to-face with the candidates in a town hall format, we are ensuring that the questions that matter most to families in metro Atlanta are answered directly on our stage,” Schrader said. “We are proud to leverage the world-class production capabilities of Assembly Studios to deliver this vital civic broadcast.”

To provide comprehensive coverage, WTOC’s sister station will also produce dedicated 30-minute pre- and post-debate programs. “On the Record: Live,” hosted by Doug Reardon, will serve as the pre-debate show beginning at 7:30 p.m. and the post-debate analysis airing immediately following the debate at 9 p.m. Both programs will be available for all participating Georgia Gray stations to air or stream.

In Savannah, viewers can watch the debate live on WTOC or stream it live on WTOC+ on Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV or the WTOC mobile app.

Bottoms, though, said one debate is not enough. She’s challenging her opponent to six total debates. In a Monday morning statement, Bottoms said, “Georgians deserve to hear directly from candidates for public office with multiple debates around the state It’s time for slick Rick Jackson to stop hiding.”

Thus far, Jackson has only committed to taking part in the Oct. 6 town hall.

The gubernatorial town hall debate is part of Atlanta News First’s robust election coverage. Just two nights later, on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, Atlanta News First will also host and broadcast the highly anticipated, exclusive Georgia U.S. Senate debate between incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) and challenger U.S. Rep. Mike Collins (R) live from Assembly Atlanta.

Additional details regarding voter participation, streaming access, and local broadcast listings for both events will be announced closer to the dates.

From the Athens Banner Herald:

Bottoms, the Democratic nominee, and Jackson, the Republican nominee, have both agreed to two debates later this fall ahead of the Nov. 3 election, but multiple others have been agreed to by one candidate or the other.

Bottoms and Jackson have now both publicly agreed to two televised debates.

A town hall debate hosted by Atlanta News First will be held Tuesday, Oct. 6, according to the news outlet, and streamed across all Gray Media stations in Georgia. The town hall style will allow undecided local voters to ask questions directly of the candidates.

They will also take the stage on Oct. 12 with the Atlanta Press Club Loudermilk-Young debate. It will be streamed live on YouTube and broadcast on Georgia Public Broadcasting at 8 p.m., and will last an hour.

Both candidates have stated they would participate in additional debates should the dates, times and rules be agreed upon.

Meanwhile, the Jackson campaign reported on their outreach efforts, according to the AJC.

The Republican nominee for governor said this morning his campaign has made 1.3 million voter-contact calls, knocked on 330,000 doors and sent 2.2 million nonautomated text messages since the general election began.

Now Jackson is layering a statewide coalition structure on top of that operation, naming 59 Georgians to leadership roles spanning 14 congressional districts and 13 constituency groups.

The effort is chaired by Nick Ayers, a veteran GOP mover-and-shaker with close ties to President Donald Trump. Longtime GOP activist Ginger Howard is a co-chair.

The broader roster includes current and former lawmakers, sheriffs, business leaders, veterans and party activists.

Among them are former U.S. Reps. Tom Price and Lynn Westmoreland; former Georgia Senate leaders Eric Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Butch Miller; and Joan Carr, the wife of Attorney General Chris Carr.

“This team is dedicated to helping to make sure that no matter their ZIP code or passions, Georgia voters are organized, energized, and turned out to vote and defeat Keisha Lance Bottoms this November,” the campaign said.

My dad has been making phone calls from home to voters for the Jackson campaign. I don’t remember him ever doing that before, despite being a life-long (at least during my lifetime) Republican.

Georgia voters will vote on three proposed Constitutional Amendments in November, according to the Athens Banner Herald.

Georgia voters will also decide three legislatively referred amendments. Each is a statewide yes-or-no choice so that they can draw support or opposition across party lines depending on concerns about public safety, tax policy, and judicial elections, noted Ballotpedia.

Here is a breakdown:

• The Next Generation 9-1-1 Fund would allow the state Legislature to dedicate revenue to a specialized emergency communications fund. It is primarily about allowing dedicated funding for communications upgrades.

• The Conservation Use Property Tax Amendment would raise the acreage limit for agricultural and timber land eligible for Georgia’s conservation-use tax assessment program from 2,000 to 4,000 acres. It asks voters whether larger landowners should be eligible to enroll more acreage under a favorable tax-assessment program for the purposes of conservation. Voter approval is required for legislation concerning property tax exemptions.

• The Nonpartisan Probate Judge Elections would require probate judges to be elected in nonpartisan elections rather than by party affiliation. The probate-judge proposal would align probate elections with the nonpartisan structure already used for other Georgia judicial offices, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Ocmulgee Mounds National Park Redesignation Act by U.S. Rep Austin Scott (R-Tifton) and others would create a new National Park, according to the Macon Telegraph.

Representative Austin Scott introduced the Ocmulgee Mounds National Park Redesignation Act, or House Resolution 9416, earlier this summer on June 24. The bill, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Sanford Bishop and other Georgia lawmakers, was brought before the House Federal Lands subcommittee on July 1, where Bishop testified the bill was a “small, albeit meaningful step forward.”

HR 9416 elevates the status of the park from a “national historical park” to the typically more renowned “national park,” but does not include language about the establishment of the Ocmulgee Mounds National Preserve.

In previous bills, the boundaries of the proposed preserve encompassed 25,000 acres through Twiggs and Houston counties that followed the Ocmulgee River floodplain, according to prior Telegraph reporting.

The elimination of the preserve also removes the addition of co-management of the park between the National Park Service and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The federal government must consult the tribe on changes to the land, but co-management would give more authority in decision making to Muscogee (Creek) leadership.

“Where we’re at, this version of the bill stripped down, unfortunately, is probably our best chance under this administration,” said Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative chief executive officer Tracie Revis, whose advocacy organization assisted in drafting the bill. “If that’s the best we’re going to get out of it, then let’s run with it and still keep momentum going.”

At the end of the Biden administration, Senate Bill 4216, entitled “Ocmulgee Mounds National Park and Preserve Establishment Act”, made it out of committee and was added to the legislative calendar, ready to be heard on the Senate floor.

Disaster relief legislation after Hurricane Helene took priority, however, and the bill was pushed to the side as the congressional session ended. The same bill was introduced by Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in 2025 during the new session, but a new administration created new barriers.

Revis points to the Trump administration’s priority to limit the expansion of federal lands as the primary reason for cutting the preserve out of the new bill.

National Park Service associate director Mike Caldwell said in a December 2025 hearing that the agency opposed Senate Bill 1131 because its focus was on maintaining the current sites rather than expanding.

“They didn’t oppose the bill as a whole. They didn’t oppose the merits of the bill, the reasoning behind the bill,” Revis said. “They just opposed the idea of expansion of any federal property.”

It is unclear whether a companion bill without the preserve will be introduced in the Senate, especially as Ossoff campaigns against Republican Mike Collins for his Senate seat ahead of the November election.

Suburban Democratic candidates are linking their Republican opponents to national GOP priorities, according to the AJC.

Two of their top recruits, Adam Cleveland and Beth Fuller, offered a glimpse last weekend of how they plan to make that case.

At a fundraiser at an Alpharetta diner, Cleveland and Fuller repeatedly argued that voters should judge GOP incumbents not by their brands, but by their party’s policies.

Cleveland, a lawyer challenging Republican state Rep. Scott Hilton, framed Georgia’s 2019 anti-abortion law as an example of GOP power run amok.

“Our Republican colleagues lack the most important tool necessary for a fix,” Cleveland said. “The right tool for this job is a spine.”

Fuller, running against GOP state Rep. Deborah Silcox, came at the argument through public health, relying on her background as a contractor for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She described losing her job amid federal cutbacks and watching the agency where she worked for a decade come under attack.

“The Legislature right now are moving us backwards. It’s time to move forward and to do that, we have to vote Democratic,” she said.

The strategy comes with a complication.

Silcox was one of the few House Republicans who voted against Georgia’s 2019 anti-abortion law. Hilton wasn’t serving in the Legislature when it passed.

So Democrats can’t simply cast either Republican as an architect of the law, even if they’ve supported many of Gov. Brian Kemp’s other priorities.

Instead, they’re making a broader argument that if suburban voters oppose the Republican agenda, they should hold the incumbents responsible for keeping the GOP in power.

“Their opponents are telling the world they’re moderates,” state Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, said of the Republican incumbents. “I don’t believe that. They sure don’t act like it with their votes. They sure don’t act like it with their policies.”

Augusta City Commissioners continue working on a data center ordinance, according to WRDW.

Augusta leaders extended a pause on data center development to gather public feedback on a proposed data center ordinance.

Residents shared their input at a meeting Monday night.

The proposed rules would require a 500-foot buffer between data centers and residential or agricultural property. The draft also sets a 65-decibel noise limit at the property line. The ordinance would require data centers to use closed-loop cooling systems and would ban private wells at the sites.

The QTS data center adjacent to the Haynes Station neighborhood will not be subject to whatever rules come out of this process. Future data centers would have to adhere to the guidelines.

Meanwhile, Mayor-elect Steven Kendrick weighed in on a data ordinance.

Kendrick said Augusta should use the public meetings to hear residents’ concerns and continue on its path of developing a strong, enforceable ordinance that allows the city to consider responsible datacenter development without compromising its neighborhoods, natural resources or taxpayers.

“Augusta should not give every data center an automatic yes, but we also should not give an entire industry an automatic no, either” Kendrick said. “Our responsibility in government is to establish strict standards, identify appropriate locations and determine whether a proposed project provides a genuine long-term benefit to our community.”

Kendrick said an Augusta ordinance should restrict data centers to carefully selected areas and require substantial buffers, enforceable noise limits, water-use restrictions and reporting, responsible cooling technology, stormwater and wetlands protections, generator and emissions controls, and safeguards against infrastructure costs being shifted to residents.

Data center developers should also be required to fund independent environmental, infrastructure and fiscal-impact reviews, he said.

Any tax or development agreement should include guaranteed annual payments, clear performance requirements, clawback provisions, decommissioning security, public compliance reporting and consultation with the Richmond County School System, he said.

Statesboro will hold three public meetings on a proposed property tax millage rate increase, according to the Statesboro Herald.

Statesboro’s mayor and council are proposing an increase in the city’s property tax rate stated as producing an almost 34% tax increase, with three public hearings to be held Sept. 8 and Sept. 15. City Manager Charles Penny says the increase is needed to fund the Statesboro Fire Department after the loss of other sources.

All three hearings will be held in the council chambers at City Hall. The first two are scheduled for noon and 6 p.m. on Sept. 8. The last hearing is set for 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 15, also the start time of the regular meeting at which council can act to set the millage rate.

In the city government’s explanations, the main reason for the tax increase was last year’s split with the county over funding the fire service. Since July 1, 2025, the county government has used the revenue from its own fire service property tax exclusively to fund the Bulloch County Fire Department, expanded to serve the entire county outside Statesboro. So the county no longer pays a share to the city, whose SFD previously provided primary response into the unincorporated area for five miles from the two long-established Statesboro fire stations.

“All of that is because of the cost of fire. …,” Penny said in a phone interview Monday. “We added no new employees (in any department), and the cost of the fire (service) was almost $3 million.”

If property values had remained the same, the proposed not quite 1-mill (0.975-mill) increase in the city’s tax rate to 9.6 mills from the 2024 and 2025 rate of 8.625 mills would be an 11.3% hike. But under the Georgia law known as the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, local governments must reduce their millage to counteract inflation in assessed property values or advertise any resulting increase as the full difference between the new rate and the potential “rollback rate.”

Three public hearings are then required before the governing board, in this case City Council, adopts a tax increase. Statesboro’s city rollback rate this year, as determined by the Bulloch County Board of Tax Assessors staff, would have been 7.165 mills. So, the net increase based on the rollback rate as advertised in the city’s “notice of property tax increase,” on page 8A of the Aug. 27 Statesboro Herald, is 33.98%.

A mill is $1 tax on each $1,000 worth of property as assessed for taxes, and most property in Georgia is assessed at 40% of its county-appraised market value.

Based on supposedly average-value properties, the following examples for the cost of the tax increase were cited in the city notices. The tax on an owner-occupied home with a fair market value of $255,000 and the standard homestead exemption will be approximately $243.50 higher with the proposed 9.6-mill rate than it would have been at the rollback rate. The tax for a non-homestead property with a $375,000 fair market value will be approximately $365.25 higher than it would have been if the city adopted the rollback rate, according to the notices.

That article does an excellent job of explaining the property tax procedures.

Effingham County Board of Education members voted to reduce their property tax millage rate, according to WTOC.

The Effingham County Board of Education voted unanimously Monday morning to lower the school district’s millage rate to 16.45 mills, delivering another property tax rollback to local residents.

The decision represents a significant drop from the previous rate of 18.018 mills. Prior to that, the millage rate sat at 18.45 mills.

School officials said the deeper tax cut was directly funded by proceeds from the Effingham County Industrial Development Authority’s (ECIDA) recent land sale to artificial intelligence research company OpenAI.

“By leveraging the proceeds from the OpenAI transaction, we are in a unique position to deliver meaningful tax relief to our community while maintaining our high standards of academic excellence,” Effingham County Schools Superintendent Dr. Yancy Ford said. “Our priorities remain supporting our educators and students, and easing the financial burden on our residents.”

The lower rate will apply to the 2026 property tax year.