Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for July 7, 2014

Top Stories today
1. Georgia and World History
2. How to help a veteran
3. Advance voting turnout statistics
4. AP interviews Republican Senate candidates
5. Karen Handel endorses in #GA10
6. Marietta Daily Journal endorses in #GA11

On July 7, 1742, General James Oglethorpe was victorious over the Spanish at the Battle of Bloody Marsh and the Battle of Gully Hole Creek; a week later Gov. Montiano would call off the invasion of Georgia from Florida, leaving Georgia to develop as a British colony.

Union cavalry under Gen. Kenner Garrard reached Roswell, Georgia on July 5, 1864, setting the town alight.

On July 4, 1868, the Georgia General Assembly convened for the first time after passage of the Constitution of 1868 with a legislature comprising 186 members, of whom 36 were African-American.

On July 4, 1889, the Georgia State Capitol was dedicated, then housing all three branches of the state government.

The Clash played their first live show on July 4, 1976 at The Black Swan in Sheffield, England.

The first female cadets enrolled at West Point on July 7, 1976.

Sandra Day O’Connor was nominated to the United States Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan on July 7, 1981.

How You Can Help a Veteran

Marine Corporal Todd Love received a new “smart home” designed around his use of a wheelchair after losing his legs to an IED in Afghanistan.

Love, a 2008 Kell High School grad, joined the Marines because his father did. He wanted to be in Marine Recon because they were bad ass. He’s still bad ass, all 100 pounds of him. You can see it in the jut of his chin, his buzz cut, from his wry smile and the flash of mischief in his eyes.

Life changed for Love on Oct. 25, 2010, when an IED in Afghanistan pulverized his legs to the groin and turned his left arm into a mangled mess later to be amputated. His comrades thought he was dead but worked feverishly to save what was left of him.

The funding for the home came from the Gary Sinise Foundation, founded by the actor who played a war-wounded double amputee in “Forrest Gump”; the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, founded by the brother of a fireman who died on 9/11; and Home Depot. He’ll live there with his brother, Brandon.

Click here to watch the video of the home unveiling. Grab some tissues.

You can donate online to the Gary Sinise Foundation to make more gifts like this possible.

In Atlanta, Shepherd Center is one of the nation’s leading hospitals specializing in brain and spinal cord injuries. Because brain and spinal cord injuries are the “signature injury” of the gulf war, Shepherd plays a role in the rehabilitation of a number of veterans and created the SHARE Military Initiative, to which you may donate online.

For hands-on volunteering opportunities, you can’t beat Shepherd Center. The Quad Rugby program is excellent, and if you volunteer there, you’ll have more fun than you think volunteering should be. I’ve seen a man who was told he would never walk again moving on his own two feet.

If you like your service with a side of politics, you can support the Veterans’ Committee of the Georgia Republican Party. This Saturday, the Veterans’ Committee will present a sports chair to a disabled American veteran at the Jackson County Republican Party meeting in Jefferson.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 am and end at 9:15 am. It is held at the Jefferson Club House 302 Longview Drive Jefferson GA. Chicken/Sausage Biscuits, Coffee and Water are donated by State Reps Regina Quick and Tommy Benton.

In November, Proposed Constitutional Amendment Two will be on all ballots.

(  )YES

(  ) NO

 

Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow additional reckless driving penalties or fees to be added to the Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund to pay for care and rehabilitative services for Georgia citizens who have survived neurotrauma with head or spinal cord injuries?

There is nothing specific to veterans in that legislation, but veterans who suffered brain or spinal cord injuries may be eligible to apply for funds through the Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund, which also provides a listing of benefits and resources for injured veterans.

Advance Voting Continues

Click here to learn where and when you can advance vote for the July 22d Primary Runoff Election.

Click here to sign into the Georgia Secretary of State’s My Voter Page to see sample ballots and check information on your voter registration.

Ballots cast in Primary Runoff by Party

Republican         14,242
Democratic          4,477
Non-partisan           92

Ballots Cast by Congressional District

CD10      2,282
CD9        2,186
CD1         1,934
CD 8       1,842
CD 3       1,697

Ballots Cast by County

Cobb            949
DeKalb       837
Chatham    661
Gwinnett   655
Fulton        614

Ballots Cast by Gender

Female       9,222
Male           9,587

Associated Press interviews Jack Kingston and David Perdue

The Washington Times ran the question about whether each candidate would have supported bipartisan immigration reform that passed the Senate last year:

KINGSTON: I would have voted no. I do not support amnesty and there is not a political consensus for comprehensive immigration reform. There is, the possibility for increment reform with, I think, four basic tenants. Number one, no amnesty. Number two, securing the border first. Number three, no welfare for illegal aliens. And then number four, cracking down on those who knowingly hire.christina

PERDUE: I would not have, and the reason is, there are several reasons. One, it had an amnesty in there that I didn’t support. Secondly, it gave the head of the national homeland security discretion over enforcing the laws related to the border. My feeling on this thing is, in business, when you get a complicated problem, we break it down into its components. And the first component is to secure the border.

 

The Washington Times also includes a follow-up on “amnesty.”

The version that ran in the Statesboro Herald included a question about Common Core:

AP: Do you believe in the basic premise of the Common Core academic standards, that the United States needs a national benchmark for K-12 education to ensure the country remains competitive in a global economy?

KINGSTON: No, and I would also say that we have always been a global economic leader and we have done that without Washington’s intervention in local school decisions and curriculum. It’s interesting to see as late as this week Oklahoma has now pulled out of it, Louisiana the week before, Indiana a couple of months ago. What we are seeing is that the states, the closer they get to looking at what a national standard would be, they don’t want it.

PERDUE: My mom and dad were teachers and I grew up listening to how the best decisions are made between the parent, the teacher, the principal, the local administration and the local school board, and I still believe that. What we recognize right now is that the results of the attempts to federalize education over the last 50 years have failed. … There are countries like Peru and Columbia that actually perform better in math and science than our 14-year-olds. So by any measure of results, this federalization of education has failed. And we spend billions of dollars at the federal level trying to manipulate and control local education and it’s not working. So that’s my first conclusion. Now having said that, Common Core needs to be abandoned. And the reason is, is that it’s another attempt to federalize a solution to a problem that is best solved at the local level, period.

And again, the original article includes follow-up questions and the candidates’ answers.

The Augusta Chronicle excepts focused on taxes:

AP: Do you believe the United States can substantially reduce its debt by only cutting spending and not seeking additional sources of revenue, and what sort of additional revenues might be possible?
Kingston: I believe we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem, that we have to rein in spending. There is a lot of duplications. For example, there are 47 different federal job training programs. And that would mean 47 managers, 47 locations, 47 desks, 47 sets of telephones and policies and letterheads. We actually have passed in the House a bill that consolidates those and reduces it down. And maybe you don’t need (just) one, but you don’t need 47 federal job training programs. … No. 2, the waste of the programs. There is a 16 percent error rate in school lunch and 25 percent in school breakfast. Surely, Democrats and Republicans could agree on let’s go after that kind of documented waste that the inspectors general have pointed out.
Perdue: First of all, I don’t believe the answer to our problem is increasing taxes. That just can’t happen. We’ve proven that time and time again. Nor do I believe that we can solve this debt crisis just by cutting spending. … To solve the debt crisis, we have to cut spending, but we also have to get the economy going, and that increases revenue without increasing taxes. We have over $2 trillion sitting offshore in foreign banks. These are U.S. profits trapped overseas because of our tax laws. We are the only developed country that has a repatriation tax law on foreign profits, and those monies inadvertently get invested over there. I think you can get bipartisan support for changing that one part of the tax code. I think that’s a short-term, that can be done right now. And those dollars would come flying, I believe, back into the economy and be invested in creating capital investment and jobs.

Handel endorses Collins in CD-10

Karen Handel announced her endorsement of Mike Collins in the Tenth Congressional District Primary Runoff against Jody Hice.

“Steve and I have had the opportunity to get to know Mike Collins and his family over the years at Rock Springs Church and on the campaign trail this past year,” said Handel. “Mike is a conservative who does more than just talk. He actually walks the walk. Mike has an actual plan to pay down our national debt, cut wasteful spending and eliminate job-killing regulations by implementing conservative policies. We need more leaders like Mike Collins in Washington that know what it’s like to run a business and balance a budget.”

Marietta Daily Journal Endorses Bob Barr for Congress

From the Marietta Daily Journal endorsement of Barr:

Local voters have two strong choices for the 11th District Congressional seat when they cast their votes in the July 22 GOP runoff. Bob Barr of Cobb and Barry Loudermilk of Cartersville are both capable legislators and can both be counted on to vote on the “conservative” side of the ledger if elected.
There is no Democrat in the race, meaning the winner July 22 will be the next congressman.
Barr of Smyrna is a former U.S. Attorney and spent four terms in Washington after being part of the “Contract With America”/Gingrich revolution that took control of the U.S. House in the 1990s.

Barr, meanwhile, is very much a “known quantity” to Cobb voters — or, at any rate, as “known” as one can be after having changed parties not once but twice and having had his name inextricably linked with some of the most polarizing issues of the past two decades. Barr was the first in Washington (even before anyone knew of the existence of Monica’s blue dress) to suggest Bill Clinton deserved impeachment. He sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act, though he now says there are more important things to worry about than gay marriage. And he has long been one of the country’s most knowledgeable and articulate defenders of the Second Amendment and the right to own firearms.

Barr, meanwhile, would return to Congress with eight years’ worth of seniority under his belt and also would be on a first-name basis with House Speaker John Boehner. Keep in mind Boehner will be playing a commanding role in House decisions on whether to keep open Dobbins Air Reserve Base, a key employer in Cobb and the 11th. And if Dobbins is shut down, there’s a very strong likelihood that Lockheed Martin (which shares a runway with Dobbins and employs more than 6,000 people) will soon close its plant here.

There’s also the undeniable fact that if 11th voters select Loudermilk, that Cobb would be without a resident in Congress for the first time since the 1960s. (Sixth District U.S. Rep. Tom Price lives in Roswell and 13th District Rep. David Scott in Atlanta). We’re sure that Loudermilk would do a conscientious job of representing Cobb if elected, but there are undeniable advantages to a community to having one of its own as its representative in Washington. We doubt any Cobb-based congressman would be going out of his way to make an enemy of the House Speaker with the future of Dobbins and Lockheed on the line, for example.
Bob Barr might not be a perfect candidate, but he can be counted on to work unfailingly for what’s best for Cobb County and the 11th District. And that’s why he has our support.

Disclaimer: did you know I work for Bob Barr’s campaign?