Baylee, Kaylee, and Haylee are young, female Golden Retrievers who were dumped by their owner at the Cobb County Animal Shelter. Adoption will include spaying, vaccinations, micro-chipping, and heartworm testing. I’ve had three Golden Retrievers and can attest that they’re great with kids, as this trio is said to be. Cobb County Animal Shelter is located at 1060 Al Bishop Drive in Marietta, Georgia 30008 and you can call (770) 499-4136 for more information. If calling, please refer to them by their run number, which is 85, and their IDs, which are 545108,545109, and 545110.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
We’re taking nominations for Vice President on the Republican ticket at GaPundit.com. Head on over and tell us who your favorite contender is, and why you think they’re the strongest addition to the ticket. Next week, we’ll roll out a survey with the candidates with the most nominations and share some of the reasons they were nominated.
We’re asking for an email address on that form so we can weed out repeat voters, but we won’t reveal your choices.
A Washington, DC group backed by organized labor is running ads in the 12th Congressional District backing incumbent Democrat John Barrow. The ads are currently scheduled to run for one week.
Each [ad] begins by showing elderly people.
“For her, it’s about affordable prescriptions,” it intones. “For him, it’s a critical lifeline after a lifetime of hard work.
“But some in Washington want to end Medicare,” the Georgia one says. “John Barrow said no way.
“Barrow fought against raising the eligibility age for Medicare. Prevented a new Medicare doughnut hole. And opposed those who’d increase costs on seniors by six thousand (dollars) a year.
The “doughnut hole” — a lapse in prescription drug benefits — begins after costs exceed certain levels and ends only when they reach much higher ones.
“Tell John Barrow to keep fighting to protect Medicare and balance the budget the right way,” the message concludes.
Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee has reserved $900,000 in airtime in the Savannah and Augusta markets for the fall election against Barrow.
“For those … waiting to see if the GOP nominee will have serious support from the national GOP,” said Dublin lawyer Maria Sheffield, “… here is the proof you need.”
From the start, she’s said she considers Barrow — not the other GOP candidates — her opponent. On Tuesday, she raised the question — answered by Carbo — of whether Barrow would vote for Obama at the convention.
“Barrow is the newest member on the endangered species list in Georgia and not even his liberal friends … can help him now.”
The Fix, by the Washington Post, puts Georgia in the second tier of states in which growth of the Latino population could move elections toward Democrats in coming years.
The United States’ Latino population increased from about 35 million in 2000 to 50 million in 2010, and about 45 percent of that growth occurred in the eight states in the graph above.
Of that 15 million-person increase, nearly 20 percent came in five key swing states — Florida, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia.
The common thread between those five states? All of them had gone regularly for Republicans, at least before 2008. In the seven elections between Jimmy Carter’s win in 1976 and Obama’s election, Democrats only won four out of 35 contests in those five states. But they carried all five in 2008.
Beyond those five swing states are three other states with fast-growing Latino populations that Democrats hope to put in play in the near future.
The next line includes two states that Democrats hope to target at the presidential level: Arizona and Georgia. And perhaps most important — and potentially game-changing — is the situation in Texas.
Challenger Nathan Wade thinks his opponent, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Reuben Green, should not be listed on the ballot as the incumbent because he was appointed by Governor Perdue, not elected to his current term.
“This seat was held by long-time Judge Kenneth Nix,” Wade said. “Upon his retirement, there was an appointment that was made … without there being any interviews or without there being the opportunity for any qualified candidates to I guess submit a resume and interview for the position. I would have loved to have stacked my resume against the individual who got the appointment.”
Wade went on to say that he will be listed near the end on the ballot.
“I will not have the ‘incumbent’ next to my name,” Wade said. “‘Incumbent,’ I believe, should be reserved for those individuals who have been elected. I don’t think there really is an incumbent in this race. Neither of us have been elected. So please, ignore the incumbent mark.”
Kennesaw State Professor Kerwin Swint is sympathetic to Wade:
Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University who specializes in elections, said the ‘incumbent’ note is powerful.
“When voters see the ‘i’ next to the judge’s name, that’s usually who they vote for because they don’t know any better,” Swint said. “The average voter doesn’t know what kinds of decisions the judge has made or really much about their reputation unless they happen to be in the court or a lawyer, that kind of thing, so it’s an uphill battle to any challenger.”
Many challengers to appointed judges speak about against the incumbent note, Swint said.
“It’s not fair, but it’s the law,” Swint said. “It makes races less competitive, certainly, but there are a lot of things in our system that make races less competitive.”
Cobb Commission Chair candidate Larry Savage complained about the preamble language on the T-SPLOST ballot, saying,
“The ballot that I was going to show you has a statement added to it that says I’m the best candidate,” Savage told the audience. “That wouldn’t be fair, and everybody knows that. But the real ballot has a statement added to it saying the TSPLOST is really a good thing.”
The mock ballot Savage wanted to show the audience lists the names of the four candidates for chairman — Mike Boyce, Bill Byrne, Tim Lee and Savage. At the bottom of the poster, it reads: “Larry is really a great guy, a wonderful humanitarian, kind to animals and small children, picks up trash on the street and is always courteous to his elders. He is clearly the right choice.”
The Cobb Board of Elections website lists the official ballot language for the TSPLOST as stating: “Provides for local transportation projects to create jobs and reduce traffic congestion with citizen oversight.”
Commission chairman Tim Lee said he has no problems with the wording.
“That describes exactly what it is,” Lee said.
Georgia Secretary of State spokesman Jared Thomas said the responsibility for the language is Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s. Thomas passed along a statement Kemp wrote in describing why he authored the language the way he did.
At the same debate, candidate Bill Byrne compared T-SPLOST to the United Nations Agenda21:
“When you take an approach of regionalism or regional government, you lose the concept of local control,” Byrne said. “Agenda 21 is a concept of planning — land use planning, if you will — to define economic development corridors and to develop them in high-rise fashion for residential and/or commercial use served by public transportation, be it bus service or light rail. The open space remaining from that is designated for public use.”
Byrne said he’s never agreed with such a concept and never will.
Incumbent Cobb County Chairman Tim Lee supports T-SPLOST and it is becoming increasingly clear that his chairmanship hinges on the tax vote. If Lee fails to get a majority of votes in the General Primary, he’s toast in the runoff.
In the race for House District 44, challenger JoEllen Smith is making an issue of incumbent Don Parsons’s attendance:
Her very first words were, “I’m sure everyone appreciates Mr. Parsons being here tonight so we could finally put a face with his name. … For 18 years, we really have not had any representation.”
Calling him “The Invisible Representative,” she held up what appeared to be a home-made copy of a well-known surrealist painting by Belgian artist Rene Magritte depicting a suited man wearing a bowler hat — but missing the face and the rest of his head.
“For 18 years, he has not once had a town-hall meeting,” Smith charged. “For 18 years he has not returned your phone calls or your emails. … And he doesn’t show up for work. Public records show that up to 30 percent of the time, he does not show up for work. Not because of illness or family emergencies, which we would all understand, but because he’s playing hooky with lobbyists. On the same day he’s not showing up for work, the public records show he’s going out and playing hooky with lobbyists.”
Parsons denied the charge of absenteeism and fired back:
He denied that he was absent 30 percent of the time, and complained that a mailer sent out by Smith wrongly accused him of consistently missing the all-important final day of the legislative session each year.
“Not even when I had cancer, not even when I was being treated for it, have I ever missed the 40th day of the session,” he said. “Never have I not stayed there until the last minute before ‘sine die’” (the midnight close of the session’s final night).
Then Parsons, brandishing a sheet of paper and his voice tensing, declared he had a copy of a document from the State Ethics Commission fining Smith $125 for “an ethics violation.”
“You’re someone wanting to make ethics such a big deal? Why don’t you pay it?” he said as he handed it to the startled Smith.
The paper turned out to be a copy of a $125 fine against Smith from the state Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission for having filed her March campaign disclosure form by mail rather than email.
“It was a paperwork error on my part,” she said afterward. “But I felt like I got a citizens’ arrest from Barney Fife up there” (from Parsons).
Parsons also took a swipe at the so-called Ethics Pledge:
“The state of Georgia actually has one of the strongest ethics laws in the whole country,” he said. “So I won’t sign that pledge. Signing these things is silly and shows immaturity and lack of experience.”
I’m not sure that will help him get any bills through the Senate next year if he returns.
House District 45 is also getting testy, as Cynthia Rozzo attacked incumbent Republican Matt Dollar.
“What would you do if you owned a company, which I do, and one of your employees didn’t listen to you, didn’t attend meetings, didn’t let you know what was going on and didn’t do the job you gave him to do? I don’t think you’d keep him on and give him a raise,” she declared.
She pointed out he was elected at age 24, is not head of a family, has never attended a PTA meeting, has never scheduled a town hall meeting, and has a $70,000 war chest filled with contributions from lobbyists.
The MDJ writers then took a couple swipes at Dollar that were purely personal and based on the fact that he looks like a “frat boy.” Cheap shot, MDJ.
Justin O’Dell, who is running for State House in District 41 will get a boost from former Governor Roy Barnes, who is hosting a fundraiser for O’Dell at his home tonight at 5:30.
Meanwhile, Dem-leaning Blog for Democracy questioned O’Dell’s Democratic bona fides:
Justin O’Dell only started pretending to be a Dem in the past few months.
O’Dell, a 35 year old, is listed as a “Strong Republican” in VoteBuilder. That’s probably because he pulled Republican ballots exclusively, including for the primaries in 2004, 2006, and 2010, and he voted in the Republican Presidential Primary in 2008. He was given a shout-out in a 2010 Cobb County Republican Women’s Club newsletter. Worst of all, he filed the petition that overturned the Sunday Sales vote in Cobb County.
Frankly, I think Mr. O’Dell has some questions to answer. He’s going around to fellow Democrats, and trying to sweep his Republican record under the rug. Trusting people are taking him at his word, when what they should be doing is asking him why exactly he became a Democrat in less than two years.
I’d invite Mr. O’Dell to explain to all of us why we should vote for him as a Democrat to Represent Cobb County. I would love to know what he thinks about issues like School Choice, Women’s Rights (aka abortion), LGBT rights– you know, Democratic issues. And, most of all, I think we deserve an explanation as to why we should now trust him as a hardcore Democrat, when he’s spent the past eight years voting as a Republican, never once pulling a Democratic ballot.
O’Dell accepted the invitation and has a Q-and-A at BFD:
Q: Let’s get to it, why are you running in the Democratic Primary?
A: First, I am a Democrat. My ideals, views and positions are now and have been aligned with the Democratic Party, particularly on social issues.
Q: What about your Votebuilder profile?
A: Voting is an ineffective way to rate someone. I believe that a person should be evaluated on the content of their character, not a piece of paper. People vote in elections for a variety of reasons.
Quite often, in Cobb County, there are no Democratic contested primaries. In other instances, it is important to vote for a particular seat in order to effect change.
Take July 2010 for example, the most important race that year for me (and most lawyers) was the State Senate. John Wiles, who had become very extremist, hostile and non-responsive, was being challenged by Lindsey Tippins. That race took priority for me over the Governor’s primary, particularly in light of the fact that most polling data had Roy Barnes clearly the primary comfortably.
Former Catoosa County Deputy Magistrate Judge Anthony Peters is suing the Chief Magistrate, Sheriff, and a deputy.
In his suit, Peters blames his arrest – which sparked an ethics investigation that eventually led to his removal from office — on his stated intention to run for the chief magistrate judge’s post after Caldwell told him he did not intend to seek another term. He claims that after learning that Peters had begun campaigning for the post, he conspired with Summers and Bilbrey “to interfere and block” Peters’ campaign and use his judicial powers to discredit him.
Peters was arrested by the county sheriff on June 16, 2010, after Caldwell assigned him to work an evening 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift and then ordered him to leave the courthouse when Peters refused.
When Peters refused to leave, a panic alarm was activated, summoning the sheriff and deputies who arrested Peters.
Peters’ arrest prompted an ethics investigation by the state Judicial Qualifications Commission, which last year filed ethics charges against him. Following an ethics trial, the state Supreme Court removed Peters from office, citing “bizarre and disturbing behavior” that included smoking marijuana, an addiction to painkillers, the public identification of a police informant, abuse of his judicial authority, and an assertion that he would have been justified in gunning down law enforcement officers who arrested him last year.
Peters’ behavior – which included playing with a pistol that he pointed at himself and cocked while at the county courthouse – had frightened courthouse employees, who testified at the JQC hearing that they feared his increasingly angry and unpredictable outbursts and worried that he might shoot Caldwell.
Dallas municipal judge Brian Hardison has sent his collection of Aaron Burr materials, which includes the late Vice President’s pocket watch and the only known photo of Burr’s wife, to be exhibited in New York.
Lester Miller, who is running for Bibb County Board of Education is considering a voting rights lawsuit over the use of old district lines for the July 31st Primary election, rather than new lines pre-cleared by the US Department of Justice.
Candidate for school board district 4 seat, Lester Miller, tells 41NBC the new district maps that have been approved by the Department of Justice are the lawful maps that should be used in the election.
However, the Bibb County Board of Education plans to use the old district maps when voting takes place on July 31st.
Miller says filing a lawsuit is the last resort, but he will do what it takes to make sure the updated maps are the ones used.
“As a taxpayer in Bibb County, as a parent of two public school educated children, and as a candidate for office, I couldn’t stand by and watch things happen the way they’ve happened,” says Miller. “I’ve been on the sidelines way too long waiting for the right things to happen and once I saw that time is running out, I felt like now is the time to do something.”
Muscogee County Coroner Bill Thrower is appealing the decision of the elections board that removed him from the ballot after his qualifying check bounced:
The coroner said he believes the court will rule in his favor, and asked voters to support him in the primary, for which early voting begins July 9. The voter registration deadline is July 2.
Thrower was among the party primary candidates who in May paid their qualifying fees to the local Democratic Party, to which Thrower’s bounced check was written. The party then paid the Muscogee elections office all its candidates’ qualifying fees in a single check, filling the gap for Thrower until he repaid the party.
[Thrower’s lawyer, Rob] Poydasheff on Friday filed an appeal arguing that Thrower’s qualifying fee was paid properly by the Muscogee County Democratic Party. Because the party’s check to the elections office cleared, Thrower should not have been disqualified, Poydasheff said.
He said the fee candidates pay their party is not the fee referred to in the Georgia law that states: “In the event that a candidate pays his or her qualifying fee with a check that is subsequently returned for insufficient funds, the superintendent shall automatically find that such candidate has not met the qualifications for holding the office being sought….”
The elections board disqualified Thrower based on that law, with City Attorney Clifton Fay advising board members that the code section’s use of “shall” left the board no choice, under the circumstances.
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