ATLANTA – The Small Business Development Center at the University of Georgia will offer free online seminars next week to update business owners on the $900 billion coronavirus relief package Congress passed this week.
The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act includes $284 billion for a new round of small business loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Within that appropriation is $15 billion targeted specifically for live performance venues, independent movie theaters and other cultural institutions that have experienced revenue declines of at least 25%.
The package also includes $20 billion in grants through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, which provides targeted aid of up to $10,000 per applicant based on the number of employees. The first COVID-19 relief legislation Congress passed last March also contained $20 billion, but those funds ran out in less than four months.
The one-hour seminars will take place Dec. 29 at 10 a.m. and Dec. 30 at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Also available on demand will be a session that was pre-recorded on Wednesday and reflects the most up-to-date information available at the time of the recording.
Registration information can be found on the Small Business Development Center’s website at www.georgiasbdc.org.
One important caveat is that President Donald Trump has yet to sign the legislation. He has threatened to veto the bill because it doesn’t provide enough direct relief to Americans.
The legislation offers $600 stimulus checks to most Americans, while Trump is calling for $2,000.
Clockwise: Jon Ossoff, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, Rev. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler are competing for Georgia’s two Senate seats in the runoff elections on Jan. 5, 2021. (Photos by Beau Evans)
Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs have opened a flood of legal challenges over thousands of registered voters and the state’s rules on absentee ballots with less than two weeks to go until Election Day.
In the most far-reaching effort, the Texas-based conservative group True the Vote has lodged challenges against the eligibility of about 365,000 voters in all 159 Georgia counties, homing in on state law that lets local voters challenge the qualifications of other voters in their county.
That effort likely to favor Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler comes as Democrat-aligned groups seeking to restore nearly 200,000 voters to the rolls prepare to file another lawsuit after a federal judge tossed out their prior suit last week.
Meanwhile, the Perdue and Loeffler campaigns have signed onto two Republican-led lawsuits aiming to segregate the ballots of voters newly registered since the Nov. 3 general election and overhaul signature-match rules for absentee ballots. Both lawsuits were dismissed recently and appeals are pending.
Another Republican-backed lawsuit that was dismissed last week sought to outlaw absentee-ballot drop boxes for the runoffs and block county officials from processing mail-in ballots a few weeks before Election Day. State officials are allowing early absentee processing to give counties breathing room amid huge mail-in voting in Georgia due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lawsuits are yet another development in the intense competition for Georgia’s two Senate seats that will settle control of the federal government following President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump last month.
Perdue and Loeffler will need to overcome challenges from Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock to stave off a Democratic takeover of Washington, D.C., for at least the next two years. A win by either Republican incumbent would block that scenario.
The runoff-focused lawsuits also come as Trump and his allies continue casting doubt on Georgia’s election system, particularly its rules for verifying signatures on absentee ballots. Republican officials have also voiced concern out-of-state voters may flock to Georgia to illegally cast ballots in the runoffs.
The county-specific challenges by True the Vote relied on national change-of-address records to allege around 124,000 registered voters have left their county of residence and around 240,000 no longer live in Georgia, according to the group’s website.
“Filing the challenges preemptively, before absentee ballots are opened, will help ensure only legal, eligible votes are counted in Georgia’s Jan. 5 runoff elections,” said the group’s founder and president, Catherine Engelbrecht.
Their efforts have met little success so far as elections boards in several counties including Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb have already shot down the challenges, while Muscogee County officials last week let a challenge to more than 4,000 voters move forward.
As counties mull the challenges, the voting rights group Fair Fight – founded by 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams – is poised for a legal battle to squash True the Vote’s challenges before they can take effect if any local elections boards approve them.
“Georgia voters have the right to combat these shameful and abusive tactics in federal court, and we look forward to making the case that these challenges violate federal law,” Fair Fight said on Twitter. “Our message to True the Vote: Get out of Georgia and leave our voters alone.”
Meanwhile, four groups suing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office to reinstate nearly 200,000 voter registrations are set to file another lawsuit after losing in court last week. The judge ruled the lawsuit came too late, citing hesitancy to tamper with voter rolls so close to Election Day.
A similar too-late-in-the-game judgement last week struck down the Georgia Republican Party’s lawsuit to keep ballots cast by new voters who registered between Nov. 4 and Dec. 7 from being counted in the same batches as other ballots.
A separate lawsuit brought by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to overhaul how signatures on absentee-ballot envelopes are verified was also tossed by a federal judge this week, though an appeal has been filed.
The Perdue and Loeffler campaigns joined both of those suits.
Also dismissed in federal court last week was a lawsuit brought by the 12th Congressional District Republican Committee that sought to scrap absentee-ballot drop boxes that were installed across Georgia for the Nov. 3 election, and to halt counties from processing mail-in ballots as early as this week.
So far, nearly 2 million Georgia voters have cast ballots by mail or during the three-week early voting period for the Senate runoffs. Early voting started on Dec. 14.
The line stretched around the block at South Cobb Regional Library in Mableton where voters waited in line for hours to cast ballots on the first day of early voting in the Nov. 3 general election on Oct. 12, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Lawmakers on a state House committee overseeing elections offered a preview Wednesday of the heated debate over changing Georgia’s rules on mail-in ballots and verifying voter signatures set to play out during the upcoming legislative session.
The House Governmental Affairs Committee took testimony from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his top deputies who want to end no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia and shift to stricter voter ID laws after the controversy of last month’s presidential election.
In the latest of several fraud-focused hearings, Raffensperger urged lawmakers to back absentee-voting law changes to both ease pressure on local election officials and boost confidence in the system’s integrity – despite no evidence of widespread fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
He called for ending the ability of voters to request mail-in ballots for any reason in Georgia and requiring stronger ID verification for absentee ballots than signatures on envelopes, such as by using voters’ driver’s licenses instead.
“Blame-shifting is not productive and it doesn’t fix problems,” Raffensperger said. “All of us need to be focused on finding solutions that improve the elections process and make it secure and accessible for voters so there is strong trust and confidence in the system.”
The proposed changes come as Raffensperger faces a storm of criticism from supporters of President Donald Trump, who continues to claim his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden by 11,779 votes in Georgia was rife with fraud. State election officials have said his claims are not true.
Several Republicans on the committee indicated more changes may be needed for mail-in voting than those pitched by Raffensperger, such as clamping down on mobile voting units outside precincts and increasing security for absentee ballot drop boxes – or even outlawing the boxes entirely.
Others agreed with a proposal by Raffensperger to give his office more power to remove poor-performing county elections officials and board members, but added he ought to install more state monitors in local offices to oversee counting procedures on Election Day.
“Perception becomes reality,” said Rep. Darlene Taylor, R-Thomasville. “And with our elections, this has caused a lot of lack of confidence in our election process. … A lot of this is a local issue [and] I think you need to have more oversight over them.”
Meanwhile, suspicions of voter suppression are growing among legislative Democrats worried Raffensperger and Republicans may use the fraud claims as an excuse to overhaul election laws too much during the General Assembly session that starts next month, potentially disenfranchising voters.
Their fears stem from the Republican-controlled state legislature’s ability to revise election rules at a time when Democrats are making gains in Georgia, most recently with Biden’s presidential win, which benefited from huge numbers of mail-in votes cast amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No-excuse absentee voting has been used safely and effectively by both parties since 2005,” the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus wrote on Twitter. “Ending the practice in order to try and turn back the tide of Democratic participation in Georgia is voter suppression.”
Raffensperger’s office sought to frame no-excuse absentee voting as a burden on county election officials who were swamped with around 1.3 million mail-in ballots last month and forced to effectively run three separate elections for absentee, early and in-person voting.
Struggles in places like Fulton County to tally thousands of absentee ballots in the intensely close election also worsened many Georgians’ suspicions of fraud, highlighting how ill-equipped the state’s election system is to handle large numbers of mail-in ballots, said Raffensperger’s general counsel, Ryan Germany.
“We’re in a state where you’re going to continue to have close elections, where you’re going to continue to have very spirited responses on both sides,” Germany said. “The processes are designed to promote confidence, and we need to make sure all of our processes are set up that way.”
The 2021 legislative session of the General Assembly starts on Jan. 11, days after the hotly contested U.S. Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5, which are shaping up for similarly tight results as the presidential contest. With control of the federal government hanging in the balance, turnout is expected to be historically high.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoff races are grabbing a huge amount of attention, both inside the Peach State and around the nation.
But a third runoff also will be contested on Jan. 5 to decide a seat on the state’s utility regulating Public Service Commission (PSC).
Incumbent Republican Lauren “Bubba” McDonald captured 49.7% of the vote in the November general election, barely falling short of the 50%-plus-one margin he would have needed to avoid a runoff.
Now, McDonald must go another round with Democratic challenger Daniel Blackman, who won nearly 47% of the vote in November.
McDonald, who served 20 years in the Georgia House of Representatives before joining the PSC in 1998, is taking a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to his reelection bid.
“We continue to have the most reliable energy sources of any state in the nation,” he said.
That dependability is what keeps companies knocking at Georgia’s door, McDonald said, pointing to Georgia’s ranking by Site Selection magazine as the No.-1 state in which to do business eight years running.
“If a business comes to Georgia, foreign or domestic, one of the first questions they ask is, ‘What are my energy sources?’ and ‘What’s the reliability of it?’ ” he said.
But Blackman said that strong business climate hasn’t spread throughout Georgia. He said he’s running for the PSC to help people in the less prosperous parts of the state through lower utility bills and expanded broadband connectivity.
“We like to say Georgia is the No.-1 state in which to do business,” Blackman said. “But a lot of counties outside metro Atlanta haven’t had a chance to recover because they were already struggling.”
McDonald has gained a reputation on the PSC as a champion of solar energy. He led a move in 2013 requiring Georgia Power to add 525 megawatts of solar power during the next 20 years, more than tripling the amount the company had voluntarily pledged to add through its Advanced Solar Initiative.
“They had no solar in their mix,” McDonald said. “Now, we’re sixth in the nation in solar deployment with no upward pressure on rates and no state subsidies.”
But Blackman said Georgia’s progress on solar isn’t coming quickly enough. The share of the state’s energy generating portfolio derived from renewable sources remains in the single digits, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
That’s “crumbs off the table,” Blackman said, and is a result of “overinvestment in the fossil fuel industry and underinvestment in the renewable energy space.”
Blackman has made the issue of electric service disconnections a cornerstone of his campaign. The PSC suspended service disconnections last March, citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on customers’ pocketbooks, but voted in July to let Georgia Power resume the disconnections.
Since then, about 107,000 households have had their power shut off, while an additional 381,279 have received disconnection notices on their bills, according to numbers compiled by Georgia Power.
Blackman said the PSC ended the moratorium on disconnections too soon.
“I felt the long-term impact [of the pandemic] would be much longer than six to eight months,” he said.
But McDonald said Georgia Power and other utilities offer payment assistant programs to help customers having trouble paying their bills.
“There is no free electricity,” he said. “Somebody’s going to be paying for it.”
Along with the development of solar energy, McDonald cites the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project as an example of “clean, reliable and affordable” power he is helping to bring online.
He concedes the project has proven “costly to get off the ground,” with a series of cost overruns and scheduling delays that have nearly doubled the budget from the $14 billion estimate when the PSC approved the work in 2009.
But McDonald said the first new nuclear capacity in the U.S. in 37 years will more than pay for itself in the long run.
Blackman said the commission should have imposed a cap on the Vogtle expansion’s costs to protect Georgia Power customers footing the bill on a project he said eventually could run up to $35 billion over budget.
“We should have stopped charging ratepayers a long time ago,” he said. “The shareholders don’t have any skin in the game.”
Expanding broadband connectivity into unserved portions of rural Georgia is another of Blackman’s campaign priorities.
He criticized the PSC’s recent vote encouraging electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) to run broadband to their customers because commissioners rejected a proposal to let the PSC change the rates EMCs charge telecom providers for utility pole attachments after two years if they prove a disincentive to expanding broadband.
“We need to be able to have checks and balances in place,” Blackman said. “I’d like to see the PSC much more aggressive in pushing the EMCs.”
McDonald dismissed assertions from telecom providers that they might take their investments to other states with more favorable pole attachment rates. He said Georgia is too good an investment for them to pass up.
“Georgia’s got too much going on for them not to come,” he said.
Blackman also criticized the commission’s decision to let Georgia Power recover from ratepayers $525 million in coal ash cleanup costs.
The utility is working on a multi-year plan to close all 29 of its coal ash ponds at 11 power plants to meet federal regulations for handling coal ash, which contains toxic chemicals that can pollute drinking water supplies.\
“Georgia Power has done a great job employing people and keeping the lights on,” Blackman said. “But when it comes to the coal ash problem, we’ve got to take a more serious approach to protect the health and safety of all Georgians.”
The Sierra Club recently took Georgia Power to court in a thus-far unsuccessful effort to force the utility to pay for the cleanup rather than pass on the costs to customers.
But McDonald said it’s those customers who have reaped the benefit of inexpensive power generated by coal-fired plants.
“Coal ash was the residue of generating energy over many years,” he said. “The ratepayers are the people who enjoy the energy that comes from the coal.”
McDonald won his current term on the PSC by defeating Blackman in 2014 by almost a dozen points, 53.4% to 41.8%.
But the race figures to be closer this time. Democrats have gained strength in Georgia during the last six years, as shown by Stacey Abrams’ narrow loss to GOP Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018 and President-elect Joe Biden’s razor-thin win over President Donald Trump last month.
With the two Senate runoff races polling essentially even, Blackman also stands to benefit from being on the same ballot as Democratic Senate challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock
On the other hand, wins for incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler likely would translate into another six-year term for McDonald.
ATLANTA – Two Georgia men have pleaded guilty for taking part in a wide-ranging tax scheme involving the sale of fraudulent syndicated conservation easement (SCE) tax shelters.
According to federal court documents, Stein Agee of Canton and Corey Agee of Atlanta, partners at a Sandy Springs accounting firm, promoted fraudulent tax shelters between at least 2013 and the end of last year designed to generate deductions for high-income taxpayers through partnerships purported to be making real estate investments.
In reality, the partnerships were a sham, lacking economic substance and serving no legitimate business purpose.
The placement of conservation easements over the real estate was a foregone conclusion, which enabled the investors to fraudulently shelter their income from the IRS with no economic risk and to claim substantial tax deductions to which they were not entitled.
The Agees and their co-conspirators promised investors that for every $1 invested in the partnership, the investor would receive more than $4 in charitable tax deductions.
“The defendants’ and their co-conspirators’ criminal conduct enabled their clients to claim more than $1.2 billion in fraudulent tax deductions and generated hundreds of millions of dollars of tax loss to the United States,” said Richard E. Zuckerman, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
“Taxpayers engaging in such schemes, and the lawyers, accountants, appraisers and other professionals that enable them, should understand that they will be held fully to account for their fraudulent conduct.”
“Each year, millions of law-abiding Americans painstakingly file accurate tax returns and pay timely their tax obligations,” added U.S. Attorney R. Andrew Murray for the Western District of North Carolina. “As the defendants admitted in court … their tax shelter scheme helped wealthy clients skirt their tax responsibilities and avoid paying their fair share.”
When legitimately created and used in compliance with the Internal Revenue Code, conservation easements can both protect the environment and provide tax incentives. Abusive SCEs are designed to game the system and generate inflated and unwarranted tax deductions.
The Agees both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. They also face a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties.
