Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections for February 13, 2013

Two little 11-week old female Lab mix puppies need a home before 1 AM Friday or they will be euthanized in the Murray County Animal Shelter. They are friendly to people and other dogs.

Paws up for this 1-1/2 year old mixed female who loves shaking hands with people. She gets along with everyone and is available for adoption from the Murray County Republican Party in Chatsworth, Georgia. She must be rescued before 1 AM Friday.

This 1-1/2 year old female mix is friendly and sweet and knows how to sit down; she gets along with others and needs rescue before 1 AM Friday.

Finally, we have this little three-month old hound dog puppy, who is at Murray County Animal Shelter awaiting rescue. We don’t have a better picture, but we can leave this little girl out.

If you are interested in adopting or rescuing any of these dogs, please contact: email Lisa Hester or call 770-441-0329 or email Megan or 706-260-5251 (daytime Tu,Th,F)(TEXT or call). Transportation help may be available.

To donate, please go to www.paypal.com, click on the “send money” tab on the home page and enter the shelter acct. In the subject line, indicate this is a donation and a brief descrip and/or ID # of animal or “hard to place dog”). IMPORTANT: Be sure to designate the payment as a “gift” or PayPal will take part of it.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections

Headline of the week: “Man steals donut truck, leads cops on car chase.” From the Gwinnett Daily Post:

Now those are some hot doughnuts.

Gwinnett authorities said a Lawrenceville man boosted a Krispy Kreme truck from a Dacula gas station last week, making off with untold quantities of glazed goodness and leading a sheriff’s deputy on a high-speed chase across the county.

Police said a Krispy Kreme delivery man was dropping off his wares at an Exxon gas station in Dacula at about 10:45 p.m. Thursday. That’s when James Freddy Major, 45-year-old alleged doughnut fiend, showed up and fled in the box truck.

Major reportedly ran a few more red lights and forced at least one vehicle off the road, going as fast as 70 mph before fleeing onto Burns Road. Driving erratically and leaving the roadway several times, the Krispy Kreme truck eventually made it to Ferrite Loop, a dead-end cul-de-sac near Cruse Road in Lawrenceville.

Mmmm, donuts. 

Yesterday was Georgia Day at the State Capitol, commemorating the February 13, 1733 landing by Oglethorpe. A video of Governor Deal’s address is available on GaPundit.com.

Today is Day Seventeen of the 2013 Session of the Georgia General Assembly.

Click here for the calendar for House Floor Debate.

Click here for the House General Calendar.

Senate Bill 91, the “Emerging Crops Fund Act” will be before the State Senate today.

Senate Meetings Calendar

12:00 PM	RULES *UPON ADJ.*	450 CAP
1:00 PM	NATURAL RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT	450 CAP
1:00 PM	BANKING & FINANCE	307 CLOB
2:00 PM	SPECIAL JUDICIARY	MEZZ 1
3:00 PM	JUDICIARY NON-CIVIL	307 CLOB
4:00 PM	JUDICIARY	307 CLOB
4:00 PM	VETERANS MILITARY & HOMELAND SECURITY	MEZZ 1

 

House Meeting Calendar

TBD	Floor Session (LD17)	HOUSE CHAMBER (10:00)
8:00 AM	AGRICULTURE & CONSUMER AFFAIRS	403 CAP
8:00 AM	INSURANCE	606 CLOB
9:00 AM	Public/Private Institutions Subcommittee of Higher Education	515 CLOB
9:00 AM	RULES	341 CAP
12:30 PM	Railway and Transit Subcommittee of Transportation	606 CLOB
1:00 PM	INFORMATION & AUDITS	403 CAP
1:30 PM	Appropriation Higher Education Subcommittee	341 CAP
2:00 PM	Appropriation Health Subcommittee	506 CLOB
2:00 PM	Appropriation Public Safety Subcommittee	406 CLOB
2:00 PM	RETIREMENT	515 CLOB
2:00 PM	JUDICIARY NON-CIVIL	132 CAP
3:00 PM	INTERSTATE COOPERATION	CANCELED
3:00 PM	STATE PROPERTIES	403 CAP
3:00 PM	Academic Support Subcommittee of Education	CANCELED
3:00 PM	REGULATED INDUSTRIES	515 CLOB
3:30 PM	JUDICIARY CIVIL	132 CAP
4:00 PM	Telecommunications Subcommittee of Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications	606 CLOB
4:00 PM	General Government Subcommittee of Governmental Affairs	415 CLOB
4:00 PM	Income Tax Subcommittee of Ways & Means	133 CAP

 

The Senate passed House Bill 55, which will make a judicial warrant issued approving a wiretap effective across county lines.

Right now, a wiretap warrant in one county is not recognized in another. But suspected illegal activity such as “drug trafficking does not occur within neat geographical boundaries,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rich Golick, R-Smyrna, the bill’s sponsor.

Wiretaps must still be approved by a Superior Court judge. HB 55 passed on a 48-6 vote. It passed the House on Jan. 31.

Governor Deal will sign the first legislation of this year at 9 AM today. I suspect it will be the above bill.

House Bill 35 by State Rep. Paul Battles, was passed out of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee and will head to the House floor.

House Bill 35, introduced by Rep. Paul Battles, R-Cartersville, would give local school boards the authority to designate any number of employees to carry concealed weapons. The bill would provide some training criteria but largely leaves the decision-making on such issues to the local school boards, Battles said. The person or people appointed to carry firearms would have to obtain a weapons carry permit in addition to meeting other requirements, such as undergoing a background check.

The move is voluntary, and school districts are not required to participate.

The original bill allowed for school boards to appoint an administrator to carry concealed weapons on school grounds, but that was expanded to other employees.

“It could be the maintenance man, it could be the teacher, it could basically be anyone there once they’ve met a certain level of proficiency,” said Committee Chairman Alan Powell, R-Hartwell.

House Bill 123 by State Rep. Edward Lindsey, referred to as the “Parental Trigger Bill,” passed out of the House Education Committee on a 15-3 vote.

“This bill is called an empowerment act, and that’s what it would do,” said House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, the Atlanta Republican who sponsored the bill.

Under the measure, if 60 percent of the households or 60 percent of the teachers and instructional staff petition for a charter school, the school board would have to agree unless two-thirds of the board votes to oppose the petition.

A majority of teachers or student households at low-performing schools could also petition for one of a variety of turnaround models, some of which call for the removal of top administrators such as principals or assistant principals. The state Department of Education would determine which schools are low-performing.

The House Health & Human Service Committee recommended passage of House Bill 178 to regulate pain clinics that are alleged to overprescribe pain medications and flout state law.

Georgia has been flooded with pain clinics that indiscriminately distribute the powerful drugs — often to people from out of state — ever since Florida and surrounding states tightened their laws, said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Weldon, R-Ringgold.

“I do want organized crime to know we’re coming after them,” he said.

Weldon said he was motivated by the fatal overdose of his assistant’s nephew. Other witnesses offered similar testimony.

Vanita Hullander, Catoosa County coroner, described how 20 of the 27 unnatural deaths she investigated last year in her small county were drug overdoses. Even more wound up hospitalized, she said, including her own daughter.

“I said, ‘How did this happen? Your father is a cop. You know better,’ ” Hullander said.

She said her daughter had helped her study for emergency-medical training but got drawn into addiction while seeking relief from a back injury.

Lilburn Police Chief Bruce Hedley told the committee he needed federal help breaking up a clinic in his town because state law provided nothing he could use even as people were dying.

“You just have to go once to an accidental death to be committed to doing something about this,” he said.

Guest Post on HOPE Grants

Seth C. Clark, a Democratic political operative who currently serves as Chief of Staff to State Representative Stacey Evans, has written a Guest Post on the HOPE Grant for GaPundit.com.

Last Thursday something happened under the Gold Dome that rarely happens in politics. A good idea rose above party bickering. Democratic Representative Stacey Evans stood behind Republican Governor Deal as he announced that an idea that had been proposed by Evans and other Democrats for two years was worthy not just of his support, but also the Lt. Governor’s, the Speaker’s, and that of leadership in both legislative chambers.

There was no backroom deal struck, no votes traded. It was the merit of the proposal that brought together these political adversaries. Governor Deal did not endorse some of the idea, or propose to tweak the idea. He endorsed Evans’s proposal as is.

Representative Evans’s idea was simple: lower the GPA requirement for the HOPE Grant from a 3.0 to a 2.0. But it was by no means new. That’s the way the HOPE Grant worked for two decades.

Don’t believe me?  Perhaps former Governor Zell Miller is more convincing. In a speech for the National Council on Competitiveness at MIT in March of 1998 Governor Miller said the following:

“Those who don’t have a B average or don’t want to go to college can get free tuition and a book allowance for a diploma program – that’s usually 18 months or a two-year program – at a post secondary technical school.”

Clayton County

Prosecutors argued before the Georgia Court of Appeals that a Superior Court Judge erred in dismissing five charges against Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill.

Hill was indicted in January 2012 on 37 felony charges of racketeering and theft, stemming from a special grand jury investigation. They charges included misuse of campaign money as well as county-issued items.

The indictment said Hill used county cars and a county-issued credit card to take vacations to the North Georgia mountains, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi, sometimes taking an employee. He also was charged with using campaign funds for personal reasons. But those set of charges evaporated last September when Clayton Superior Court Judge Albert Collier dismissed the five counts – two racketeering and three theft by taking charges involving campaign money.

In his decision, Collier said the theft charges were unwarranted because the money belonged to Hill and there was no victim. Misuse of campaign funds, which could be an alternative to the theft charges, is a misdemeanor, Collier wrote, and a racketeering charge requires at least two felony counts to support it. The special prosecutor in the case, Layla Zon, appealed saying she wanted the appeals court to weigh in on the matter because she said it ultimately could set a precedent for what candidates can do with campaign money.

“We wanted to make the argument in front of the court of appeals that campaign money is not the personal assets of Mr. Hill,” Zon said. “Therefore any misappropriation of those funds, which he’s only allowed to collect under the Georgia Campaign Finance Act, constitutes a theft.”

State Rep. Mike Glanton (D-Jonesboro) will introduce legislation to allow Clayton County voters to make the job of Chairman of the Board of Eduction full-time.

Making it a full-time job would strengthen the leadership of the school board, which has been mired in controversy since the district emerged from its accreditation crisis nearly two years ago, said Rep. Mike Glanton. Even though the school regained its accreditation, he said the county is still trying to emerge from the problems and perceptions created by the sanction.

The Clayton school board oversees an annual budget of about $500 million and has tremendous sway over the county’s overall economic health and future, Glanton said. By comparison, Clayton’s County Commission oversees a budget half the size of the school board’s, and its chairman works full time and is elected countywide.

“All of the taxpaying residents of Clayton pay into this annual (school board) budget,” Glanton said. “It’s only right that the taxpayer has a say in who leads our school system.”

As it stands now, the school board’s leadership “has no accountability to the county as a whole,” Glanton said.

DeKalb County

Lawyers for DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis are asking to see the report of a grand jury investigating allegations of corruption before it becomes public, based on their allegation that the District Attorney is overreaching.

The special grand jury’s final report and presentment of its yearlong investigation into possible corruption in county water and sewer department contracts is complete, court records show.

But lawyers for Ellis and attorney Kevin Ross contend they should be able to read the report before it becomes public to determine if the special grand jury exceeded its authority, according to court filings. DeKalb Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott, who is overseeing the grand jury probe, signed an order Thursday giving the lawyers 10 days to review the grand jury report, while at the same time keeping it sealed from public view.

In January, investigators searched the homes and offices of Ellis and Ross. According to search warrants, authorities said they were looking for evidence of fraud, bribery and other political corruption. Both Ellis and Ross have denied any wrongdoing.

[DeKalb Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony] Scott expressed concern that prosecutors were abusing the grand jury process by getting Ellis, unaccompanied by a lawyer, to testify twice before the special grand jury about watershed contracts at the same time a separate criminal investigation was ongoing. The same goes for calling Ross to come testify before the special grand jury — although Ross’ lawyers successfully stopped that from happening, Scott said.

In his order, Scott gave Ellis, Ross and their lawyers 10 days to review the final report and presentment in the judge’s chambers, with instructions not to photocopy the document or disclose any information they learned from it to anyone.

DeKalb prosecutors told the appeals court that Scott exceeded his own authority by granting such a request by Ellis and Ross to review the report.

Former Democratic Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond will address the State Board of Education in his new role as Interim Superintendent of the DeKalb County Board of Education.

“The board has voted and decided that I will be the spokesperson. I will articulate the facts and make the case on behalf of the DeKalb school district at the hearing on Feb. 21. I look forward to the opportunity,” said Thurmond, the former state labor commissioner.

The new superintendent, signed to a 12-month contract, made his remarks at a gathering of state legislators from DeKalb County on his second day on the job. His job: To preserve the school system’s accreditation, which has been threatened by governance issues within the school board. I.e., squabbling.

State Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta, had noted that Thurmond’s predecessor, Cheryl Atkinson, had not attended the previous state Board of Education meeting – which was taken as a sign that she and her board did not see eye-to-eye. Thurmond, in essence, replied that he would give the closing argument for a local school board that could soon be out of a job.

State of the Union Georgia Reactions

Brian Slowinski, who is running for the Congressional seat being vacate by Paul Broun, issued a video “Prebuttal to the State of the Union.”

Campaigns

Macon City Council member Elaine Lucas will run for a seat on the Macon-Bibb County consolidated commission.

Lucas said her campaign will be based on “putting the community first” and promised the “same hard, assertive work ethic” she’s shown in more than a quarter-century on council.

Her major issue will be to make sure officials’ promises on city-county consolidation are kept, she said. Lucas vehemently opposed the consolidation plan voters approved July 31 and since then has consistently criticized it as giving a “blank check” to the task force working on the new government structure.

She said she expected the same people who opposed her husband, Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, in his quest for the District 26 Senate seat would also dump “big money” into the campaign against her.

“But I pledge to you we will not let that kind of negativity enter into our campaign,” Lucas said. “We will run a positive campaign.”

Georgia Republican Party Convention Spin Cycle

Douglas County First Vice Chair Michael McNeeley, who also serves as Chairman of the Georgia Black Republican Council, will be headed to the State Convention as a delegate.

Douglas County GOP Chair Bert Blood said he spoke with Georgia Republican Party Chair Sue Everhart Monday morning and confirmed that the vote at Saturday’s precinct meeting to keep McNeely out of the convention was invalid.

McNeely, the First Vice Chair of the Douglas County GOP, was initially denied a spot at the convention after GOP Board Member Jack Gamel’s effort to keep McNeely from being one of the 15 delegates to the county convention from the Mirror Lake precinct succeeded by a 3-2 vote.

Blood said Everhart told him the only reason to have a vote on precinct delegates would be if there are more people seeking delegate status than members present. Only five members were present, so Blood said the vote was invalid.