Solar Vote today at Public Service Commission

Not only will there be a big vote on forcing Georgia Power customers to pay for solar, there will be competing protests outside the building.

Americans for Prosperity will start the festivities at 11 AM with a Press Conference.

Americans For Prosperity-Georgia, the nation’s premier grassroots organization for promoting economic freedom, will host an “Energy Freedom” press conference to urge the Public Service Commission to “Vote NO” on solar energy mandates and “keep the lights on in Georgia” at their July 11 scheduled meeting.

The event will feature a coalition of energy experts from like-minded organizations along with Georgia tea party leaders. Speakers include Dr. James Rust, policy advisor at The Heartland Institute, Patti Gettinger of The Georgia Tea Party Inc., Americans For Prosperity-GA Communications Director Joel Aaron and Lance Brown, Executive Director of the Partnership For Affordable Clean Energy (PACE).

Joel Aaron released the following statement on the event:

“We are gathering against renewable energy mandates in Georgia that have proven to raise electricity bills and reduce energy reliability in other states around the country. The Public Service Commissioner has an opportunity to avoid a mandate that could needlessly hurt both rate payers and tax payers in Georgia. It’s time for Georgia to send a strong message that we are for energy freedom, not further government intrusion into the private sector such as the President’s recent declaration against economically efficient, reliable fossil fuels and the jobs they create.”

A reader emailed to note the following about the cost of solar power that will be borne by ratepayers whether they want it or not:

The fact is that the full cost of solar is incomplete without accounting for the required back up generation infrastructure to support what will always be an intermittent resource — there is no subsidy or reduction in production cost that can change the fact that the sun does not shine consistently, 24 hours a day, every day.

.

So for argument’s sake we can leave the subsidy and production costs out of the discussion (which are also essential to their business model), there is simply no getting around the fact that backup generation is required and has to be paid for by all consumers, whether a consumer is fortunate enough to be able to afford solar panels on their home or not.     The only real game changer for intermittent resources like wind and solar is large scale battery storage in some manageable, cost effective form.

Demographics and Doubling Down

At the end of the day, I remember the aftermath of the 2004 elections, when almost everyone was convinced that Democrats had to reach out to white “values voters” to win elections. God, guns, and gays were killing the Democrats, so the argument went, as was opposition to the Iraq War. Howard Dean was urging the party to send staffers to Mississippi and to learn to talk with voters who had Confederate flags in the back of their pickup trucks. Demographic analysts were trumpeting the fact that Republicans had won 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties, and claimed that Democrats were in danger of becoming a regional party, concentrated on the coasts, if they didn’t quickly moderate their appeal.

How quickly things change. Democrats did focus on improving their vote share with working-class whites to some extent in 2006, with positive results. But the approach was largely abandoned in 2008 in favor of targeting the “coalition of the ascendant” we hear so much about today. The conventional wisdom about what Democrats had to do was completely, utterly wrong

But the GOP’s gains among white voters aren’t national. They’re almost exclusively among southern and Appalachian voters. Outside of the South, there’s no clear trend. And Democrats might have even made gains among whites outside of the South, both absolutely and with respect to the national popular vote.

[S]ince 2000, the benefits of moving states like Virginia and Colorado from red to bluish-purple have outweighed the costs of making red states redder, or the losses among southern or Appalachian whites in Pennsylvania or Florida, which haven’t even been sufficient to budge their own states.

If these trends among white voters continue, it is not news good for Republicans. On balance, it would cement the Democratic edge in the Electoral College. Yes, there might be additional Republican gains in eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, or northern and central Florida, but these regions aren’t populous enough to decisively offset Democratic gains elsewhere in those states. In contrast, the GOP is losing more ground in New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, or even Ohio, where Democrats have made gains around Columbus and in the northwestern third of the state.

The extent that young voters can push the national white vote leftward depends on whether the next cohort of young voters is as liberal as today’s 18- to 29-year-olds. If today’s young whites tilt Democratic in large part because they’re less religious and are outraged by the GOP’s stance on cultural issues, then perhaps their similarly secular younger brothers and sisters might vote Democratic, too. On the other hand, to the extent that white millennials are particularly Democratic because they came of age during the Bush administration, which was widely viewed as disastrous, then the next wave of white millennials should be more competitive. The answer probably lies somewhere in between, but one piece of evidence points toward the latter scenario: Obama’s collapse among young whites since 2008, when he fell from winning them by 10 points to losing them by 7 (although Obama probably carried non-Southern young whites by a wide margin).

Reversing the anti-GOP trend among non-southern white voters will probably require changes in messaging or policy, probably by moderating on both economic and cultural issues. The Electoral College encourages the GOP to make gains across a diverse swath of swing states, and they need to push back against the equally diverse Democratic attacks that have hobbled the GOP: the attacks on cultural issues that hurt Republicans around Denver, Washington, and Columbus; the depiction of the GOP as the party of the elite, which has hurt the GOP just about everywhere; and yes, the challenges immigration reform poses in Las Vegas, Denver, Orlando-Kissimmee, and Miami.

Emory University Political Science Professor Alan Abramowitz writes with Ruy Texeira that the scenario for a GOP Presidential win based on more white votes grows less and less unlikely as the percentage of white votes in the electorate continues to erode.

Our findings indicate that the growing size of the nonwhite electorate constitutes a major challenge to the Republican Party in future presidential elections. This does not mean that a Republican candidate cannot win the presidency in 2016 or later. Given a sufficiently favorable political and economic environment, it certainly would be possible for a Republican presidential candidate to win the White House despite a growing nonwhite electorate, but this would require winning a much larger share of the white vote than any Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984. And Reagan accomplished this feat in an era when the electorate was much less polarized and party loyalties were much weaker than they are today. Moreover, our results demonstrate that unless Republicans improve their performance among Hispanics, African Americans and other nonwhite voters, the task facing Republicans is almost certainly going to become more and more difficult over time as the nonwhite share of the electorate continues to grow. Doubling down on white voters does not look like a very promising approach to restoring the White House to GOP control.

Yesterday, former President George W. Bush, who carried 44% of Hispanic votes in 2004, urged Republicans in Congress to seek a positive resolution on immigration reform.

“I don’t intend to get involved in the politics or the specifics of policy, but I do hope there’s a positive resolution to the debate,” he said. “And I hope, during the debate, we keep a benevolent spirit in mind, and we understand the contributions immigrants make to our country.”

Some Republicans have said the party needs to help fashion immigration reform following President Barack Obama’s sweeping victory in the 2012 elections among Latino voters. But many House Republicans remain unconvinced that endorsing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million unauthorized immigrants would be the right approach.

Georgia ranked 8th best for business

CNBC released its rankings of state business climates and placed Georgia at number eight, behind only Texas (#2) and Virginia (#5) among Southern states, and highest among our neighbors. North Carolina (#12), Tennessee (#13), South Carolina (#23), Florida (#30) and Alabama (#33) trailed the Peach State.

Cordele Inland Port agreement signed

Governor Deal signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Georgia Ports Authority and Cordele Intermodal Services to improve rail access serving the Port of Savannah.

“The GPA is one of our state’s strongest job creators, supporting more than 352,000 jobs across Georgia,” Deal said. “By more efficiently connecting businesses in this region to the global marketplace through our deepwater ports, the Cordele Inland Port is now part of that broader effort, supporting jobs and future development.”

By reducing the number of truck miles into Savannah, the Cordele operation is designed to save on shipping, reduce highway traffic and provide new service offerings for shippers, truckers and steamship lines.

“The new partnership provides our customers direct access to 38 weekly shipping services, connecting the region to vibrant global export markets,” said GPA Executive Director Curtis Foltz.

NRCC to bolster online fundraising

The Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee says he will work to close the fundraising gap behind the GOP House campaign arm and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has consistently raised more money both online and overall. So expect a ton of email and online appeals from DC as they raise money to help take on Democrat John Barrow once again in the Twelfth District.

Campaigns & Elections

First-time candidate David Schwarz, running for Congress in Jack Kingston’s First District sent out a press release touting his having raised more than $130k for his bid and $100k on-hand.

Pablo Picazo is looking to add Gainesville City Council to his two part-time jobs and class schedule at University of North Georgia.

Minority citizens of Gainesville have lived as second-class citizens, Picazo said, and he wants to make a difference by serving his city.

“I feel like if given this opportunity, there’s lot’s of different options we can take as a city into helping get these minorities their voice, their opinions out into the forefront and not just brush them aside,” Picazo said.

The Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials says it will sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, seeking to do away with at-large City Council districts in Gainesville.

Gainesville City Council has said the system gives good representation to all citizens by allowing all residents to vote for each city representative. The positions of mayor and council seats for wards 1 and 4 are up for election in November.

The Latino group’s board met July 2 and decided to move forward with a lawsuit. GALEO Executive Director Jerry Gonzalez said the case would be significant, especially in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on Section 4 and the impact on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

“This is going to be a historic case in the Southeast of the U.S. given what happened in the Supreme Court with the Voting Rights Act,” Gonzalez said. “These types of cases are going to become much more prevalent with minority communities looking at election changes that potentially discriminate, diminish the minority community’s ability to exercise their right to vote and influence the outcome of elections.”

That decision effectively put an end to the advance approval requirement that has been used to open polling places to minority voters in the nearly half-century since it was first enacted in 1965, unless Congress can come up with a new formula that meets “current conditions” in the U.S.