ATLANTA – Georgia House lawmakers heard testimony Monday from state health officials urging more resources for rural and minority communities to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“Nationwide, Black people have died from the coronavirus at a rate 1.4 times the rate of white people,” said Dr. Dominic Mack, a family medicine professor at Morehouse School of Medicine. “In Georgia, just being Black means you have a higher chance of contracting COVID.”
Dr. Patrice Harris, an immediate past president of the American Medical Association who is based in Atlanta, told the House Health and Human Services Committee the pandemic has impacted communities of color more than others.
Harris said those communities have been hardest hit because of a lack of communication technologies, such as broadband, as well as funds for mental health services.
State Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, the committee’s chairman, said House Speaker David Ralston “is committed to get broadband into rural areas, as well as increased mental health services. We’ve made progress, but we have a long way to go.
“One of our biggest problems surrounds our workforce,” Cooper said. “We are at rock bottom when it comes to the number of social workers and psychologists that we need.”
As of Monday, according to the state Department of Public Health, there have been more than 1.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases in Georgia since the pandemic began, along with almost 22,000 deaths and more than 79,000 hospitalizations.
Mack showed maps from the National Center for Primary Care showing high concentrations of COVID-related deaths in minority communities, the same communities that also have high rates of diabetes, hypertension and other chronic health issues.
Dr. Theresa Jacobs, clinical director of the Georgia Primary Care Association, said her organization represents Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC). In Georgia, there are 34 FQHCs that serve 600,000 residents each year at 229 sites.
“I get frustrated when I hear there’s a lack of health care in Georgia,” said state Rep. Jodi Lott, R-Evans. “I get frustrated when I hear we don’t provide health care to our poor communities.”
Lott and her husband own Evans Rehabilitation and Wellness.
“We devalue our primary care physicians with their reimbursements,” Lott said. “The reimbursement rates for our primary care physicians are pitiful.”
Marlon Harris, pastor of New Life Church, spoke about the need for public-private partnerships to improve health care in underserved communities.
“More than 20,000 clients have been served in our community centers,” Harris said. “Many are chronically ill, uninsured and underinsured, at the mercy of state and federal care, mentally ill, suffering from obesity and hypertension, single moms and working dads, and school-age children who only eat what’s offered at their school cafeterias.”
Harris said more organizations are needed like the Health Education Advocacy Learning (HEAL) Collaborative, which was founded by former state Rep. Howard Mosby of Atlanta. Mosby, who also attended the hearing, founded HEAL as a not-for-profit organization serving minority populations on health care availability and access to treatment options.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Capitol Beat reports on Georgia’s latest political advertisements and news
Two days after Donald Trump and University of Georgia football legend Herschel Walker appeared at a Perry rally, Walker’s Republican opponent donned some ill-fitting football gear for an ad called “On the field.”
“I’m probably not your first choice to compete on a football field,” says Gary Black, who then goes on to highlight his career in public service. “Whatever field the fight is on, I’ll keep scoring and winning for Georgia.”
Black, Georgia’s agriculture commissioner, has picked up more than 50 endorsements from state GOP lawmakers and officials, despite Trump’s endorsement of Walker.
Herschel Walker appeared at a Donald Trump rally in Perry over the weekend.
“On the Field” is one of three videos Black’s campaign said “will be heavily promoted statewide.”
Georgia has several GOP candidates vying for an opportunity to challenge Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock. Besides Walker and Black, the list includes businessman Kelvin King, trial attorney Jared Craig, former Navy SEAL Latham Sadler, and author James Nestor.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
PERRY— For a one-term ex-president who survived two historic impeachments and failed in his White House reelection bid, Donald Trump still packs a wallop … at least in Georgia.
“To have a country again, you have to vote for only America First Republicans,” Trump told an audience conservatively estimated in the tens of thousands at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry. “The world is eating our lunch and laughing at us, but when I was president the world respected us.”
Trump returned to Georgia for the first time since this past January’s U.S. Senate runoffs, appearing with several GOP candidates including UGA football legend Herschel Walker, who delivered his first major address as a U.S. Senate candidate.
Trump reiterated the core messages of his political career — deriding the current immigration crisis at the southern border, criticizing the leadership of top Democrats President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, support for law and border enforcement, and a strong economy.
“Joe Biden has thrown the border wide open and our country is being invaded by hundreds of thousands of people each month,” Trump said. “This is an invasion,” he said, followed by chants, “Build that wall! Build that wall!”
“Radical Democrats in Congress continue to push for mass immigration,” Trump said. “We’re living through the worst border crisis in a century.”
Trump called U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, the man Walker wants to defeat next year, a Democratic “far-left lunatic” who has to be defeated.
“What qualifies me to run for this office?” Walker said. “What qualifies a reverend to run for office? What qualifies a farmer to run for office? I’m an American, and that’s what qualifies me to run for this office.”
Walker is running for the GOP nomination to face Warnock next fall.
“The people we elect to office shouldn’t be asked, do you love America? If you don’t love America, you shouldn’t be running for office. We have to be accountable for ourselves.”
Walker recounted his upbringing in Wrightsville, and a conversation with his mother when her manufacturing job was lost with her plant’s closure.
“Let’s worry about the United States,” Walker said. “Let’s put people back to work. We can be compassionate but we have to the care of our people at home first.”
Trump also reiterated claims that last fall’s election was ripe with fraud and irregularities, and said his campaign “never issued a concession.
“We did much better in 2020 than we did in 2016,” Trump said. “Our rallies were bigger and we delivered more votes.”
On Friday, hours before Trump’s rally, state Democrats tried to make the case that Trump should no longer be a force in GOP — or American — politics.
“For Republicans, it’s Trump over everything, including working Georgians,” state Rep. Miriam Paris, D-Macon, said. “We want to make sure this return of Trumpism to Georgia doesn’t pose a threat to us in 2022. He received 75 million votes in America and did nothing but cause chaos and attack our elections.”
“It’s Republicans who are keeping Trump in the headlines,” said state Rep. Teri Anulewicz, D-Smyrna. “There are GOP candidates who are doing everything they can to get on that stage with Trump and trying to get his blessing.”
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Vernon Jones, who hopes to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp next year, said, “Georgia is a red state. We are going to fight for Donald Trump. The sky is blue today, but the ground is red. In 2022, we’re going to show we’re a red state, and in 2024 we’re going to show the nation Georgia is red.
“Donald Trump is the undisputed heavyweight champ of the Republican Party.”
U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Greensboro, who is running to unseat current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said every decision made so far in the Biden administration has been against the interests of the American people.
Kemp and Raffensperger have drawn Trump’s ire for their refusal to overturn Georgia’s November 2020 election results.
“It is time to give Brad the boot, and send him home,” said Hice. “He has destroyed election integrity in this state.”
Also appearing were state Sen. Burt Jones, R-Jackson, who is running for lieutenant governor. Incumbent Geoff Duncan is not seeking reelection.
“Eight months of Joe Biden, America is in full retreat,” said Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer. “The only thing progressive in Joe Biden’s administration is his dementia.”
Dr. Alveda King condemned Pelosi and House Democrats for their stances on abortion and said Trump was the most “pro-life president in history.”
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, drew cheers two and a half hours before Trump’s appearance, shaking hands while holding an “Impeach Biden” sign.
Chants of “Impeach Biden” also greeted Greene on stage. “Let’s talk about Democrats. They’re communists,” Greene said. “We need to close our borders. It’s time to say, Americans only.”
Trump has given indications he might seek the Republican White House nomination in 2024, after Joe Biden defeated the Republican incumbent in last November’s presidential election. Biden carried Georgia in an election in which Trump continues to allege voter fraud.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Middle Georgia State University’s Eastman campus is one of only nine in the country offering flight management and aircraft maintenance programs.
ATLANTA – Few Georgians realize that aerospace is the Peach State’s second largest manufacturing industry or that Delta Air Lines is Atlanta’s second largest employer.
But now, that lofty status is being threatened by shortages of both pilots and aviation technicians. Both are critical if aviation is to remain one of Georgia’s leading industries, said state Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin.
“If an aircraft is not worthy, nothing else matters,” said Knight, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees state spending on higher education. “If you don’t have pilots, they can be airworthy, but they sit on the ground.”
Members of Knight’s subcommittee have been touring airports large and small across Georgia in recent weeks to explore what can be done to refill an aviation workforce pipeline that’s being drained by older workers retiring.
“We’ve got to get the next generation in here,” he said. “We need to be hiring yesterday.”
The consensus during two days of hearings before Knight’s subcommittee this month was that the state needs to do a better job marketing job opportunities in aviation.
“There are great high-paying jobs across the field in aviation,” Knight said. “[But] students have no idea what’s out there. The dots aren’t being connected.”
Some initiatives to market aviation as a career are underway throughout Georgia. The Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base in Houston County hosts field trips and summer camps for students.
Delta sponsors student tours of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The Center of Innovation for Aerospace, run by the state Department of Economic Development, markets the industry to teachers and guidance counselors.
But the colleges around the state that offer aviation programs are limited in what they can do to market career opportunities, said Tal Loos, dean of aviation at Savannah Technical College, one of five Georgia technical colleges that train aviation technicians.
“I don’t have much money for marketing,” Loos said. “I’m just trying to keep the program afloat.”
Attracting students is not a problem for Macon-based Middle Georgia State University’s campus in Eastman, one of only nine in the country offering both flight management and aircraft maintenance programs. In fact, its flight school has a waiting list of 441, said Adon Clark, dean of the university’s School of Aviation.
“We’re turning away students,” he said.
Instead, the issue in Eastman is recruiting and retaining faculty to teach aviation at a state institution when they can make a lot more money either teaching at a private college or working in the industry, Clark said.
Martin Kehayes, chairman of the Department of Aviation Maintenance and Structural Technology at Middle Georgia State, said the university wants to expand its program from 80 students to 135 to 140. To do so, however, would require hiring three or four additional instructors, he said.
Clark said adding more students to the Eastman campus also would require buying more aircraft and hangars, big-ticket purchases but infrastructure an aviation school can’t do without.
“It’s a budget issue,” he said. “It’s all about facilities, equipment and faculty.”
Knight suggested the aviation industry should be willing to help the state with the financial support the colleges need, at least in their marketing efforts. It’s only fair considering the schools are turning out pilots and aviation technicians to fill jobs at companies like Delta and Savannah-based Gulfstream Aerospace, he said.
“They need to step up,” Knight said. “We need to make sure to keep aviation as one of the top industries in Georgia and see that it grows.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Friday on Georgia’s controversial abortion law, and justices said they were inclined to wait on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on a Mississippi abortion law before issuing a ruling.
“That would be the prudent way to proceed,” said Justice William Pryor during the hearing, which was livestreamed on the court’s website. Attorneys on both sides of the case – Jeffrey Harris for the state of Georgia and Gov. Brian Kemp, and Elizabeth Watson, representing SisterSong – said they had no issue with the court delaying a decision.
Georgia’s abortion law – known as the Living Infants Fairness Equality Act – seeks to prevent abortions after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, typically six weeks into pregnancy, except in special situations.
Lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights led the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in December 2019 to rule the law unconstitutional. The legislation, which the General Assembly passed earlier that year, had been scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2020.
If the 11th Circuit agrees with the district judge on SisterSong v. Kemp, Georgia could then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may then look at the law’s constitutionality and reexamine the precedent of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion on demand.
The Mississippi case coming before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 1 is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which has the potential to challenge Roe v. Wade. The case has drawn more than 1,000 friend-of-the-court briefs so far from groups on both sides of the issue.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
