The Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – While high-profile races in Georgia remained uncertain on the morning after Election Day, voters have overwhelmingly approved two constitutional amendments and one statute on this year’s statewide ballot.
A constitutional change requiring that state fees and taxes collected for a specific purpose are spent as intended passed with 81.4% of the vote.
A second constitutional amendment prohibiting the state and local governments from using the legal doctrine of “sovereign immunity” to avoid citizen lawsuits won approval from 74.3% of the voters.
Georgia voters also authorized a tax exemption for property owned by charitable organizations for the purpose of building or repairing single-family homes. House Bill 344 was endorsed with 73% of the vote.
The General Assembly put Amendment 1 on the ballot in honor of the late state Rep. Jay Powell, R-Camilla, a longtime leader of the effort to ensure that fees collected for Georgia’s Hazardous Waste and Solid Waste Trust funds are spent cleaning up hazardous waste sites and tire dumps.
Georgia governors and legislatures have a history of redirecting the revenue those dedicated fees collect into the general fund during tight economic times.
The sovereign immunity amendment stems from a 2014 Georgia Supreme Court decision that essentially granted the state blanket immunity from citizen lawsuits in a case brought by the Center for a Sustainable Coast. The group had filed suit alleging the state Department of Natural Resources was illegally allowing alterations to private property in fragile coastal wetland areas protected by state law.
To discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits, the amendment prohibits plaintiffs from recovering monetary damages or attorney fees.
Supporters pushed House Bill 244 as a way to help grow the stock of affordable housing in Georgia, particularly in small cities and rural communities.
Andrew Clyde, a Republican and gun store owner, won election to the 9th Congressional District seat representing Northeast Georgia on Nov. 3, 2020. (Clyde campaign photo).
Gun store owner Andrew Clyde appeared headed for a convincing win against his opponent Tuesday in the race for the vacant 9th Congressional District seat to keep Northeast Georgia in Republican control.
Clyde, who fended off more well-known Republicans in the June primary, was poised to claim the district seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, who declined to seek reelection so he could run for the U.S. Senate.
Clyde, who was running his first political campaign, was leading with nearly 80% of the vote just before midnight in Tuesday’s general election. He faced Democratic candidate Devin Pandy, an actor and U.S. Army veteran Devin Pandy, in a district stretching from Gainesville and Athens northeast to the South Carolina border.
Clyde’s campaign touted hallmark Republican positions including protections for gun ownership, opposition to abortion and reducing government spending. He has also called for dismantling the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in favor of a “FairTax” levy targeting consumption only.
A U.S. Navy veteran, Clyde gained political exposure in recent years by pushing Congress to pass legislation limiting the IRS’s powers for civil asset forfeiture after the agency seized nearly $1 million from his gun store.
Clyde credited the experience with inspiring him to run for office, saying in a debate last month that it “showed me there’s a very thin line between we the people running our government and our government running us.”
Clyde grew a small firearms business he launched in his Athens garage in 1991 into a nationwide company with two locations, following three combat deployments in Iraq and Kuwait.
Ahead of Tuesday’s victory, Clyde defeated several prominent state Republican contenders including three current state lawmakers to capture the nomination.
Among them were state Rep. Matt Gurtler, R-Tiger, who fell to Clyde in an August runoff. Gurtler’s reputation for frequently voting against GOP-backed bills prompted many state Republican leaders to support Clyde.
Last month, Clyde batted down attacks from Democratic nominee Pandy who slammed the gun-store owner for suing Athens-Clark County officials to keep his business open during the county’s shelter-in-place order in March.
Clyde also faced criticism for his positions on climate change, which he said last month he does not think exists beyond the normal four-season cycle each year.
“I will hold court with those scientists who don’t believe in man-made climate change,” Clyde said during an Oct. 12 debate with Pandy.
Clyde’s likely win maintained Republicans’ strong hold over North Georgia along with a victory for businesswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in the neighboring 14th Congressional District stretching from Paulding and Haralson counties north through Rome, Calhoun and Dalton to the Tennessee line.
Greene gained national attention over past online videos in which she appeared to promote the anti-government conspiracy theory QAnon and dismiss the racial-justice underpinnings of the Black Lives Matter protest movement.
She defeated Republican opponent and neurosurgeon John Cowan in an August runoff and has been the presumed winner since her Democratic opponent dropped out of the race in September.
Carolyn Bourdeaux and Dr. Rich McCormick are vying for the 7th Congressional District seat in Georgia in the Nov. 3 general election. (Photos by candidate campaigns)
The race for the hotly contested 7th Congressional District seat in the suburbs north of Atlanta was too close to call Tuesday just before midnight with thousands of ballots still left to be processed in Gwinnett County.
Campaign spokespersons for Dr. Rich McCormick, a Republican, and Carolyn Bourdeaux, a Democrat, indicated a final decision in the race likely would not be known until at least Wednesday.
Thousands of ballots still need to be counted in Gwinnett County due a software error, according to media outlets. Both campaigns said late Tuesday night they are assessing the situation to determine a timeline for when to settle the election.
The 7th District, which covers most of Gwinnett County and part of Forsyth County, has trended more Democratic in recent years after a long stretch of being reliably Republican territory.
Current seat-holder U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, a Republican who did not seek re-election, narrowly defeated Bourdeaux in 2018 by fewer than 500 votes to win a fourth term.
Bourdeaux, a Georgia State University professor and former state budget advisor, emerged again from the primary in June to compete for the suburban Atlanta congressional seat against McCormick, an emergency room doctor who fended off a slew of Republican challengers.
McCormick touted his first-hand experience treating patients infected with COVID-19 since March as proof he knows how to combat the disease in hospitals and in the economy.
Bourdeaux accused McCormick of downplaying the issue of coronavirus despite his experience with the virus’ health impacts, a stance which she described as “shocking” in a recent debate.
She highlighted a letter signed by dozens of doctors and health-care advocates urging the Medical Association of Georgia to pull its endorsement of McCormick due to his comments on COVID-19.
McCormick cast Bourdeaux in the mold of more progressive Democratic leaders whom Republicans have accused of adopting socialist stances on issues like health care and government spending.
Bourdeaux and McCormick also contrasted in how best to expand access to health care and insurance coverage, unemployment benefits amid COVID-19 and immigration policies.
In particular, the two differed in whether to keep the 287(g) information-sharing program between the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a key issue in a district with a growing Latino population.
McCormick supported the 287(g) program, while Bourdeaux opposed it.
Voting patterns in the 7th District have been closely watched as Democrats gain ground in suburban parts of the state, positioning Georgia as battleground territory that boosted Democratic hopes of capturing the presidency, two U.S. Senate seats and control of the state House of Representatives.
The suburban area north of Atlanta has trended parallel to the neighboring 6th Congressional District, which Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath won against Republican former U.S. Rep. Karen Handel in a close 2018 race.
McBath appeared headed for victory against Handel in a rematch Tuesday in a bid for her second term in Congress.
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. David Perdue appeared on his way Tuesday night to winning a second term representing Georgia on Capitol Hill.
Perdue, a Republican, was leading Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff 54% to 44% late on Election Night with 2,071 of Georgia’s 2,656 precincts reporting, according to unofficial results. Libertarian Shane Hazel had received only 2% of the vote.
With few Georgia voters splitting their tickets, the Perdue-Ossoff contest was mirroring closely the presidential results in the Peach State. GOP President Donald Trump was well ahead of Democratic challenger Joe Biden in Georgia late Tuesday night, 54% to 45%.
Perdue, 70, was elected to the Senate in 2014 after a 40-year career in business that included serving as CEO of Reebok and Dollar General.
He spent his first term in the Senate as one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies, supporting the president’s tax cut legislation in 2017, Trump’s get-tough trade policy with China, and, more recently, the president’s much-criticized handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
Ossoff, 33, an investigative journalist who runs a documentary production firm, entered elective politics three years ago, losing a special election for a congressional seat in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. This year marked his first run at statewide office.
In what turned into a brutal campaign during the final weeks, Perdue portrayed Ossoff as backing the national Democrats’ “radical socialist” agenda including a government takeover of health care, defunding the police and abolishing ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
The senator also accused Ossoff of harboring ties to a Chinese company, charges an Ossoff campaign spokesman later said pertained to a Hong Kong media company that bought one of Ossoff’s films.
For his part, Ossoff has slammed Perdue for following Trump’s lead in downplaying the threat posed by coronavirus during the pandemic’s early days.
The challenger even called Perdue a “crook” during a televised debate last month, referring to purchases of stock in a company that produces PPE (personal protective equipment) after some senators received a private briefing in January about the looming threat of COVID-19.
Perdue noted he was cleared of any wrongdoing by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee.
ATLANTA – Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath appeared headed toward winning reelection Tuesday night over Republican challenger Karen Handel in a suburban Atlanta congressional district once represented by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
McBath, who won the seat two years ago by turning Handel out of office, was leading Handel 55% to 45% late Tuesday night, according to unofficial results.
If those numbers hold up, it would be the second win in a row for the Democrats in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, once reliably Republican turf stretching from East Cobb County through North Fulton and North DeKalb counties.
When Gingrich resigned from Congress in 1999 after more than 20 years in office, Cobb County real estate executive and former Georgia House Minority Leader Johnny Isakson won the seat, keeping it in Republican hands.
Then, when Isakson left the House to run for the U.S. Senate, GOP state Sen. Tom Price stepped up to again retain the seat for the Republicans.
McBath, 60, entered politics as an advocate for gun restrictions after her son, Jordan, was murdered in 2012. Two years ago, she was elected to Congress over then-Rep. Handel by a narrow margin.
Handel, 58, came into this year’s campaign with the longer political track record. After serving as chairman of the Fulton County Commission during the early 2000s, she was elected Georgia secretary of state in 2006.
Handel unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor in 2010, a contest eventually won by Nathan Deal. Seven years later, she became the first Republican woman from Georgia elected to Congress when she won a special election to complete the unexpired term of Price, who had left Congress early in 2017 to serve as President Donald Trump’s first secretary of health and human services.
Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in an off-year special election that became the most expensive House race in U.S. history. Her loss to McBath in 2018 set the stage for this year’s rematch.
During the campaign, McBath attacked Handel for supporting Trump’s agenda, including backing the president’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and its protection of insurance coverage of Americans with pre-existing conditions.
Handel portrayed McBath as a one-issue activist who supports the agenda of street protesters who have called for defunding the police.
The two also clashed over the abortion issue, with Handel defending her anti-abortion views and McBath taking a pro-abortion rights stance.
