Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for January 30, 2015

Today’s historical moments below combine to show some of the major influences on Georgia politics and governance since her founding, and how the same conflicts have played out across the world, from Northern Ireland to India, to stages of rock and roll shows.

On January 30, 1788, the Georgia legislature passed a resolution calling for a state Constitutional Convention in Augusta to adopt a state Constitution that conformed to the new Constitution of the United States.

On January 30, 1862, the United States launced its first ironclad warship, USS Monitor.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882 in Hyde Park, New York. In 1942, Roosevelt ordered Japanese-Americans on the west coast of the United States into concentration camps, leaving German and Italian Americans free.

On January 30, 1935, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. protested segregated elevators at the Fulton County Courthouse. If you’re stuck at home, maybe you’d like to take a moment to read one of the best essays I’ve ever seen on the true impact that Rev. King had.

On January 30, 1948, Mohandas K. Gandhi was assassinated.

On January 30, 1956, six members of the Georgia State House of Representatives introduced House Bill 98 to replace the red and white stripes on Georgia’s flag (above) with a Confederate battle flag (below). That same day, a bomb was thrown at the Birmingham, AL home of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 30, 1972 is remembered as Bloody Sunday in commemoration of the shooting of 26 civilians by British troops in Northern Ireland.

On January 30, 2001, the Georgia State Senate passed a house bill changing the state flag from the 1956 version to one that aggregated the State Seal and five former state flags, pictured below.

Georgia General Assembly

The Georgia legislature stands in recess today so that members from outside Atlanta can return home – I imagine some of them might be hearing the thoughts of local voters and elected officials on the House Transportation Plan.

What is being called the House Transportation Plan has been introduced in the House as House Bill 170.

Several times in recent years, Governor Deal has acted to suspend planned increases in the gas tax – that power appears to be taken away or at least seriously curtailed in §45-12-22(b) of House Bill 170, which reads,

Unless there has been a state of emergency declaration by the Governor, the Governor shall not suspend or modify in any manner the collection of any rate of prepaid state taxes….Any suspension or modification of any rate of prepaid state taxes under this subsection by the Governor shall be effective only until the next meeting of the General Assembly which must ratify such suspension or modification by a two-thirds’ vote of both chambers.

The Tea Party – or at least one faction — is not amused by the House transportation plan, with Debbie Dooley telling WSB radio,

“It is essentially a tax increase,” she says.  “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

Dooley says Georgians would actually pay 7.7 cents more per gallon at the pump under the plan.  She also says local governments and school boards would be forced to raise property taxes to make up the difference in the sales tax revenue they would be losing.

“You’re looking at a roughly $700 million shortfall that the local school boards and local governments are going to have; do you think they’re just going to absorb that loss?” she asks.

Rep. Jay Roberts, who chairs the House Transportation Committee, says local governments can impose a 3 cent excise tax to help make up the difference but that money could only be used for transportation.  An additional 3 cents could also be levied locally through a referendum.

That last part of what Rep. Roberts said, that a local 3 cent excise tax can be levied, may be a problem. In localities where part of the current gas tax is being for non-transportation items, a local excise tax that can only be used for transportation may leave a budgetary hole. That, in turn, may force local governments to look at their other options, one of which being property taxes, the third rail of local politics.

Cobb County Commission Chair Tim Lee, no shrinking violet, has criticized the House Tranportation Plan, according to the Marietta Daily Journal,

County Chairman Tim Lee ripped the transportation funding proposal announced this week by House Speaker David Ralston, saying it “pokes the school system in the eye” by taking millions from the Cobb School District.

Lee criticized the proposal during a town hall meeting at the North Cobb Senior Center in Acworth on Thursday, attended by about 30 people.

“They’re trying to do it revenue neutral, but how (it’s) revenue neutral for the state is they shifted it around in the state,” Lee said. “But then they take it from us, meaning that they basically want to remove the sales tax from gasoline and shift it over to another source that goes into the state, but that revenue comes from us.”

Not only does it hurt us from the Cobb County government, it really pokes the school system in the eye because all it does with the school system is just take about $18 million — just takes it from them and doesn’t do anything to help them out. And I told [State Rep.] John [Carson] on the way up here I could not support anything that does that kind of damage to our school system, who is trying right now just to hold their head above water,” Lee said.

Part of Lee’s consternation comes from the sheer magnitude of the budget hole the Transportation Plan will leave Cobb County and its municipalities – the top losers according to the Georgia Municipal Association’s reckoning:

Fulton County $43,136,175.82

DeKalb County $31,114,408.20

Gwinnett County $26,619,776.81

Cobb County $23,841,340.38

Clayton County $18,304,885.89

Chatham County $17,621,221.72

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer editors chime in with some additional concerns specific to their area.

Not surprisingly, word of such a plan was not received with glee by local officials gathered in Atlanta this week for the Mayors’ Day festivities. If the fuel sales taxes that help pay for local needs, including schools, are in effect usurped by the state, then those communities will have to make do with less, or find that funding some other way … such as additional local taxes.

In some places in Georgia, it could be even more troublesome. Gov. Nathan Deal, who has expressed general support for the plan, conceded that it is “not a simple issue to unravel and put back together again.” That’s especially true in towns and counties paying off long-term bond issues with local gasoline tax. If those taxes become part of the state transportation fund, what happens to those governments’ financing, and perhaps their bond ratings?

And then there’s Columbus, one of only three regions whose voters approved the 2013 TSPLOST that the rest of the state rejected. Those regions are paying a higher share of transportation costs as it is. It’s fine for House Speaker David Ralston to say all Georgians are going to have to “roll up our sleeves and recognize that there is a greater good, and that is the future of Georgia rather than our own narrow view of things and protecting our own turf and just saying no.” Does that “greater good” demand still more from those taxpayers who said “yes” two years ago and are paying more already? Concern about that inequity hardly constitutes a narrow view.

House Bill 111 by Rep. Wendell Willard (R-Sandy Spring) would allow commercial advertising on public school buses.

[Willard] said the income from the ads could solve a recent budget problem.

“We’re looking at cutting school-board employees’ insurance. We’re trying to find solutions, and this would give school boards that option,” Willard said.

There’s no school board currently asking for advertising. Willard said he drafted the bill and introduced it Wednesday at the suggestion of a marketing executive he knows.

Legislation anticipated by State Rep. Robert Dickey (R-Musella) would lower the number of members on the Bibb County Board of Education.

Right now, eight members sit on the board: two at-large members who represent the entire county and six from separate districts.

“The board seems to have a problem coming to decisions,” said state Rep. Robert Dickey, R-Musella, whose district covers part of west Macon-Bibb County.

He and others want to reduce the board by one member to eliminate tie votes.

“I don’t know of any other school systems that have an even number, so why have that possibility out there?” Dickey said.

Non-transportation political news

The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project is officially underway, kicking-off with a bang.

With a symbolic, echoing boom from the 1824 cannon atop Old Fort Jackson on Thursday morning, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officially kicked off the long-awaited construction phase of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project.

More than 15 years in the making, the $706 million project known as SHEP will deepen the Savannah harbor and the associated shipping channel from an authorized depth of 42 feet to 47 feet to allow larger, more efficient container vessels to use the East Coast’s second busiest container harbor with fewer weight and tidal restrictions.

As divers took to the chilly waters of the Savannah River to initiate the first phase of construction — the recovery of the Civil War ironclad CSS Georgia from the floor of the river — Col. Tom Tickner, commander of the Corps’ Savannah Distict, said the agency is preparing to award contracts to extend and deepen the channel from Fort Pulaski into the Atlantic Ocean and to construct and install an oxygen injection system into the harbor.

Congressman Rick Allen (R-Augusta) held a ceremonial swearing-in event in downtown Augusta.

After taking the oath at Augusta’s downtown federal courthouse, Allen said he has co-sponsored several bills and expected the Senate to pass a measure that the House approved in early January to fast-track construction of the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline. It did so later Thursday.

The Augusta Republican said he believes the effort will be the first of his goals to come to fruition, adding that legislation he endorsed to revoke the Affordable Care Act, limit House and Senate terms to 12 years, and require the president to propose a balanced federal budget could be the toughest to accomplish.

“Our country is at a critical crossroads and I ran on the conviction … to make real solutions for citizens both nationwide and in Georgia’s 12th Congressional District,” Allen said. “We must turn around our economy and strengthen our financial position for future generations.”

State Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) writes in the Augusta Chronicle comparing the fight to protect religious liberties today with the civil rights movement.

Ironically, the same Christian faith that Dr. King exhibited is again under attack in the South. Atlanta’s mayor recently let go the city’s African-American fire chief because he wrote a book about his Christian faith. The book included the chief’s efforts to glorify God through his life’s work and contained discussions on promiscuity, homosexuality and other sins to be avoided.

You see, Georgia is one of a minority of states that has not adopted a religious freedom law. The U.S. government, under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, enacted federal protections for people who practice their faith in public. Most states followed suit in the years since. This session, the Georgia General Assembly will consider such a law to protect religious liberties.

It’s time for Georgia to protect religious liberty. However, many in the state legislature, especially some Democrats, are strongly against such protections. They are bolstered by liberal organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and various gay groups who want to stop mentions of Christianity in public because they fear the Bible’s teachings on certain subjects.

They have the right to disagree with those who believe in Jesus and Christian principles, but they don’t have the right to muzzle and punish believers who want to express their faith and carry out Christ’s teachings as Dr. King did.

Muscogee County is paving the way for a schools SPLOST this fall, and has named Co-Chairs for their SPLOST committee.

Macon-Bibb County is considering reducing the number of polling places as a cost-saving measure. Macon-Bibb Commissioner Elaine Lucas is fighting the proposal.

Lucas’ draft resolution, which could be discussed by committees Tuesday, said there’s a concern that cutting the number of voting precincts will disenfranchise voters, especially minority voters.

“The majority of precincts impacted by the consolidation plan involve areas in which minorities are the majority population,” the resolution reads.

The two new nuclear reactors being built at Plant Vogtle will be delayed 18 months. Here’s the most important line in the article,

“Building it correctly, and safely, is more important than building it quickly,” [Georgia Power spokesman Jacob Hawkins] said.

Marietta-based Times-Journal, Inc. will be the new owner of the Rome News-Tribune. Otis Brumby, III, who publishes the Marietta Daily Journal will bring back former RN-T publisher Otis Raybon. How many other companies have two men named Otis in charge of divisions?

Qualifying as a candidate for Centerville City Council will cost only $108, instead of the $144 adopted earlier this month.

On Jan. 20, the council voted to raise the fee to $144, or 4 percent of a council member’s $3,600 annual salary.

Wednesday’s action reverses that and returns the fee for qualifying back to 3 percent where it historically has been.

Mayor John Harley said the council decided to reverse raising the fee after discovering 3 percent would adequately cover required advertising costs related to declaring the coming election.

A 19-year old Right Whale gave birth to a calf off the coast of Tybee Island.

“Our North Atlantic right whale, her name is Smoke, was just spotted off our coast with a calf!” wrote Maria Procopio, director of the Tybee Island Marine Science Center. “The staff is having a huge celebration. We’ve waited three years for this!”

Since 2012, the science center has been sponsoring Smoke through the New England Aquarium, which coordinates research about these rare whales that migrate south each winter to give birth off the coasts of Georgia and Florida. An estimated 450-500 right whales remain, making them among the most highly endangered of all whales.

Smoke has become the unofficial mascot for the center, with its educators toting a full-size inflatable replica of her as a 1-year-old to area schools. It’s accurate down to the unique smoke signal pattern on her head, which gave Smoke her name.

On Jan. 19, Georgia Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Clay George and his team, working from a boat after an aerial survey team had left the area, found Smoke and her calf 18 miles east of Cumberland Island. The calf appeared to be about a month old, George said.

Jeb Bush campaign moving ahead quickly

Jim Galloway at the AJC Political Insider writes that Eric Tanenblatt has been making the rounds with former Florida Governor and potential 2016 GOP Presidential candidate Jeb Bush.

Former Florida governor and future presidential prospect Jeb Bush spent two quiet days in Atlanta this week, meeting with Republican-oriented business leaders and donors.

Most important was the fact that he was squired over those two days by Eric Tanenblatt, who was Mitt Romney’s key man in Georgia during the 2008 and 2012 presidential contests.

The McKenna, Long & Aldridge operative has a history with the two previous Bushes, both George H.W. and George W. But we’re told that he pledged his troth to the third Bush before Romney began exploring a third bid for the presidency.

It’s worth noting that Eric Tanenblatt was National Finance Co-Chair for Romney in 2012, and in 2000 served as Georgia State Chairman for George W. Bush. I first met Eric in about 1991, when he was back in Georgia to serve as Political Director for Paul Coverdell’s United States Senate campaign after a stint in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

The DesMoines Register reports that Jeb Bush has also signed David Kochel, a top GOP operative in Iowa.

Jeb Bush has recruited a key political strategist into his inner circle: Iowa’s David Kochel, who has been a close adviser to Mitt Romney since Romney’s earliest days on the presidential campaign trail.

Kochel, 50, of Des Moines, will be a senior adviser to Bush’s new political action committee, Right to Rise. If Bush pulls the trigger and runs for president of the United States, Kochel would be tapped to lead his national campaign, Bush’s advisers told the Register.

Some Iowa insiders have predicted that Kochel’s selection for 2016 will be the state’s eventual mainstream consensus pick for the GOP nomination.

Kochel is the first member of Romney’s current leadership team to break away and publicly project doubts about the viability of a 2016 run for the former Massachusetts governor. While some other members of Romney’s core team are privately deliberating about the wisdom of a third campaign, most are considered likely to stick with him if he decides to do it.