Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for May 23, 2014

John Hancock was elected President of the Second Continental Congress on May 24, 1775.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 convened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787.

With George Washington presiding, the Constitutional Convention formally convenes on this day in 1787. The convention faced a daunting task: the peaceful overthrow of the new American government as it had been defined by the Article of Confederation.

The process began with the proposal of James Madison’s Virginia Plan. Madison had dedicated the winter of 1787 to the study of confederacies throughout history and arrived in Philadelphia with a wealth of knowledge and an idea for a new American government. It featured a bicameral legislature, with representation in both houses apportioned to states based upon population; this was seen immediately as giving more power to large states, like Virginia. The two houses would in turn elect the executive and the judiciary and would possess veto power over the state legislatures.

William Patterson soon countered with a plan more attractive to the new nation’s smaller states. It too bore the imprint of America’s British experience. Under the New Jersey Plan, as it became known, each state would have a single vote in Congress as it had been under the Articles of Confederation, to even out power between large and small states.

Alexander Hamilton then put forward to the delegates a third plan, a perfect copy of the British Constitution including an upper house and legislature that would serve on good behavior.

Confronted by three counter-revolutionary options, the representatives of Connecticut finally came up with a workable compromise: a government with an upper house made up of equal numbers of delegates from each state and a lower house with proportional representation based upon population. This idea formed the basis of the new U.S. Constitution, which became the law of the land in 1789.

On May 25, 1907, an equine statue of John B. Gordon was unveiled on the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol.

On May 23, 1954, the NAACP petitioned the Fulton County Board of Education to desegregate after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia held on May 25, 1962 that the Georgia General Assembly was malapportioned and ordered the reapportionment of the State House and Senate.

Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter won the Virginia Caucus on May 23, 1976, gaining 24 delegates. On May 25, 1976, Carter won the Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky Primary Elections for President.

Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977.

Then-Lt. Governor Marvin Griffin announced his candidacy for Governor on May 24, 1954.

John Smoltz tied the record for most strikeouts by a Braves pitcher, throwing 15 Ks against Montreal Expos on May 24, 1992.

Runoffs and Local Election Results

Senate District 9 will see a spirited runoff between former Gwinnett County Commissioner Mike Beaudreau and former Lawrenceville City Council Member P.K. Martin IV. With much of the Primary focused on Sen. Don Balfour’s ethical baggage, it begs the question of how these campaigns will function without Balfour to be against.

“We need turnover. We don’t need people to serve decades and decades in office,” said Beaudreau, a former county commissioner who garnered the highest vote total Tuesday.

“It’s still the same message. It’s still about earning the trust of the people,” Martin said. “There is a true distinction in the race, and the records will speak for themselves.”

As of press time, Beaudreau’s vote tally was about 39 percent, while Martin brought in more than 32 percent of the central Gwinnett district. Balfour fell about 500 votes behind with 28 percent.

As far as we know, Senator Balfour’s son, a soldier with the Georgia National Guard is still in the hospital.

Trey Balfour, a member of the 48th Brigade of the Georgia National Guard, is currently hospitalized in intensive care in Germany, the senator said. While he has not yet been diagnosed, Balfour said he has been able to speak to his son.

“He wants to be back in Afghanistan,” Balfour said of Trey, 27. “The heart of a soldier is hard to understand. … He’s alive and well and ticked off that he’s not in Afghanistan.”

Please join us in adding Trey Balfour, his friends, parents, and fellow soldiers and other overseas-deployed personnel to your personal prayer list.

Gwinnett County Commissioner John Heard retains his seat on the Commission after a bruising Republican primary against challenger Alfie Meeks.

“The simple fact that the last leg of the campaign never got delivered from the post office, I think we’re lucky to get here,” Heard said.

As of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Heard had accumulated nearly 56 percent of the 6,930 votes cast in the district that stretches from Lawrenceville to Rest Haven and includes parts of the Dacula, Braselton and Buford areas. Challenger Alfie Meek claimed the other 44 percent of the unofficial totals.

Heard said the victory came even after 18,000 last-minute mailers didn’t go out to potential voters — and because Meek was “running a campaign based on four-year-old data.”

We’ll award Commissioner Heard +1 for singing and playing “Sweet Home Alabama” on the guitar at his victory party, but he could have earned +3. Free Bird!

Without a doubt, the most amusing, tragic, important runoff election for many of us in DeKalb County is the nonpartisan election between two self-labeled Democrats, incumbent Sheriff Jeff Mann, who took office in March when Tom Brown qualified for Congress, and former DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones.

From the AJC:

DeKalb County voters will decide in July whether the unelected incumbent sheriff or the county’s former CEO will be their new sheriff.Incumbent Jeff Mann, appointed in March, took an early lead over former CEO Vernon Jones but never managed to capture the 50 percent plus-one needed to avoid a runoff in the eight-candidate race, according to preliminary results releasted late Tuesday.

“This was always a race between Jones and an incumbent who was not elected,” said Steve Anthony, the former head of the Democratic Party of Georgia who now teaches politics at Georgia State University. “The real race will be the runoff.”

Jones was the most well-known candidate in the crowded sheriff field and also reported the most flush campaign account. His campaign disclosures filed with the DeKalb Elections Office showed he collected $96,620, including $25,000 he lent to his campaign. Mann reported the second-largest collections, of $72,358.

Local blog Decaturish sums it up:

[Vernon] Jones, who donned a cowboy hat and boots for a picture on his campaign website, proved on May 20 that whatever opinions people might have about him, he’s still a relevant force in local politics.

WABE provides the up-side of the opportunity presented to DeKalb voters:

Clark Atlanta University political science professor William Boone says Vernon Jones is crafting a campaign that overshadows an inexperienced law enforcement career

“Because if he loses this campaign, I think it’s probably pretty much over for him. Now he’s tried to address the question of lack of law enforcement experience by simply saying the sheriff is really an administrator and I’ve been an administrator.”

In Athens-Clarke County, Rachel Watkins and Melissa Link meet in a runoff for District 3 Commission.

Watkins, a marketing professional who works with the Athens Convention & Visitors Bureau and Prince Avenue’s Avid Bookshop, will face off against Melissa Link, managing editor of an environmental ethics journal and longtime local activist, to decide the District 3 race. Watkins and Link emerged from a four-way race in Tuesday’s primary in which businessman Herb Gilmore and attorney Dustin Kirby fell short.

Link led the vote totals Tuesday with 508 of the 1,360 ballots cast, or 37.4 percent of the vote. Watkins earned 452 ballots, or 33.2 percent of votes in the contest. Gilmore polled 282 votes, while Kirby trailed the field with 118 ballots.

Polk County voters will decide the nonpartisan race for Tallapoosa Superior Court Judge in a runoff between Meng Lim and Chuck Morris.

Lim, who held a wide majority over Morris, Vickey Atkins and Andrew Roper in Haralson County, failed to get the votes he needed in Polk County to win the race outright with a majority. Meng carried a final tally of 35.9 percent of the overall vote, with Morris garnering 28 percent of the vote. Atkins took 21 percent of the vote and Roper 14 percent.

In Augusta, Mayor Pro Tem Corey Johnson and Harold Jones II will campaign for the runoff election in state Senate District 22, which Hardie Davis vacated in his successful run for Mayor of Augusta..

With a 29.84 percent primary election turnout, Johnson, in his second term on the Augusta Commission, brought in 7,394 votes – or 45 percent. Jones, Augusta’s former solicitor general and now one of three attorneys representing Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, was second with 7,073 votes, 43 percent.