ATLANTA – The two Republicans who made the June 18 primary runoff in Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District agreed on more issues than they disagreed on during a debate Sunday sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club.
Former state Sen. Mike Dugan and Brian Jack, an aide to former President Donald Trump, agreed on the need to secure America’s southern border, change the way the U.S. is sending military aid to Ukraine, and curb spending on student loans.
Dugan, who served two terms under the Gold Dome as Senate majority leader before leaving the General Assembly earlier this year to run for Congress, called illegal immigration a public safety, humanitarian, and national security issue.
But Dugan said there is a need for Congress to pass immigration reform after securing the border.
“We need new people coming into this country, skill sets we don’t have readily available,” he said.
Jack said stopping illegal immigration should be a priority over continuing to spend money on weapons to send to Ukraine.
“I’d rather see funding to secure our southern border,” he said.
Both candidates suggested the U.S. should adopt a lend-lease program to aid Ukraine, modeled after what America did to help Great Britain during the early stages of World War II.
The two also took a hard line on federal funding for student loans.
“We should do everything we can to remove the federal government from the business of education,” Jack said.
“Nobody is forced to take a student loan,” Dugan added.
While Dugan and Jack agreed during much of the debate, the gloves did come off at times. Dugan accused Jack of being a Washington, D.C., insider with no experience holding elective office whose campaign is being funded largely with donations from out of state.
“Eighty percent of my money comes from Georgia,” Dugan said. “It’s important, if we’re going to represent the 3rd District, that the funding come from the 3rd District.”
Jack touted his endorsement by Trump and by two of his opponents in last month’s primary who didn’t make the runoff: former state Sen. Mike Crane and former state Rep. Philip Singleton.
“That shows an ability to work across a different spectrum,” Jack said.
Jack criticized Dugan for voting in 2015 in favor of a $900 million transportation funding bill, which Jack called the largest tax increase in Georgia history.
Dugan responded that he voted for tax cuts that returned $2 billion in excess revenue to Georgia taxpayers.
The two candidates also promised not to use the congressional seat to shine a spotlight on themselves in the manner of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome. Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-West Point, who is vacating the 3rd District seat at the end of this year, set a low profile during eight years in Congress.
“My goal is to get stuff done, not go up there and be a TV star,” Dugan said.
Jack noted that his name did not show up in the media when he was working in the Trump administration.
“I put my head down to try to do the job for the American people,” he said.
The winner of the Republican runoff will face Democrat Maura Keller in November. The heavily Republican 3rd Congressional District in west-central Georgia stretches from Paulding and Polk counties south to Columbus.
ATLANTA – Legislation offering significant pay raises to coroners in Georgia passed the state House of Representatives overwhelmingly this year but ran out of time to get through the Georgia. Senate.
But supporters say the need is urgent, and they’re planning to raise the issue again when the General Assembly convenes under the Gold Dome for the 2025 legislative session.
“The legislature has not addressed pay for coroners in over 30 years,” said Dawson County Coroner Ted Bearden, chairman of the Georgia Coroners Association’s Legislative Committee. “We’re working with an antiquated system. … It needs to be fixed.”
As the system has evolved over the years, coroners in counties with vastly different populations and, thus, a huge discrepancy in the number of cases they’re called on to handle, often are being paid the same, Bearden said.
The coroner system is pervasive in Georgia. Only four large counties – Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett – use significantly more expensive medical examiners.
“A lot of coroners who have been doing it for years are going to retire,” Bearden said. “You are not going to be able to find qualified people for the pay it currently pays.”
The House passed legislation this year aimed at replacing that current hodge-podge by upgrading coroner to a full-time position and setting a range of salaries depending on the population of the county they serve.
The minimum salary for coroners under the measure would be $35,000 per year. Minimum salaries would go much higher for coroners in the largest counties that use coroners. Under current law, coroners in counties with populations of fewer than 35,000 earn no more than $3,600 annually.
Deputy coroners would be paid $250 for each case they handle, up from the current $175.
“We’re trying to update the pay scale to minimum standards,” Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, told members of a Senate committee during a hearing on the bill in March. “The vast majority of counties I represent are already paying their coroners well above this minimum standard.”
But lawmakers heard an earful during this year’s legislative session from county officials and their advocates worried about how pay raises for coroners would affect their tight budgets.
“They tell me they’re not prepared, they can’t afford it, that it’s not in their budget,” said Sen. Mike Hodges, R-Brunswick, a member of the Senate committee that heard testimony on the bill.
Todd Edwards, deputy director of governmental affairs for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, questioned giving big pay raises to coroners in small rural counties. He said coroners already get the same cost-of-living raises that go to state employees.
“How many death cases are there in rural counties?” Edwards said. “Is it really a full-time job? A lot of them are probably full-time funeral home directors.”
Edwards also argued that decisions on coroners’ salaries should be made through local legislation rather than a statewide bill.
But Bearden called that a “terrible” idea.
“If a county does local legislation, it takes another piece of local legislation to change it,” he said.
The Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee ended up approving the House bill, including an amendment that moved its effective date back to the beginning of 2026 to give counties time to plan for the financial hit. But the bill never reached the Senate floor during the hectic final day of this year’s session.
Bearden said he and other supporters of raising coroners’ salaries are planning to reintroduce the legislation next year, probably with few changes.
“The state has two choices: Keep the coroner system or go to a statewide medical examiner system,” he said. “Everything would go to the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They can’t keep the investigators they have now handling the caseload as it is.”
ATLANTA – A group of conservative Republicans opposed to Donald Trump released a $2 million ad campaign in Georgia and 11 other states Friday urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the former president’s bid for “absolute immunity” from prosecution.
The campaign by Republicans for the Rule of Law features testimonials from more than 25 self-identified conservatives arguing why any ruling in favor of Trump would place any president above the law for crimes committed while in office.
Under such a ruling, a president would even be entitled to order the assassination of his political opponent, as Trump’s legal team argued before the court.
“Our constitutional system is predicated on legal accountability and equal justice under the law, even for presidents and past presidents,” said Sarah Longwell, the group’s executive director.
“Conservatives feel this in our bones: No man or woman is above the law. In this case, that means rejecting the ‘absolute immunity’ claim.”
Trump’s lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to prohibit Special Counsel Jack Smith from prosecuting the former president for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and on charges of retaining classified documents at his Florida home after leaving office.
Two other criminal cases against Trump – his conviction last week in New York of falsifying business documents to cover up hush-money payments in connection with a sexual relationship with a former porn actress and a pending election interference prosecution in Georgia – involve state charges.
The ads will air on digital and streaming platforms, including YouTube and Hulu, through June 23. The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of its term late this month or early in July.
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia Board of Regents Thursday named a veteran of the university system as the sole finalist for president of Augusta University.
Russell Keen has worked in the system for the last 22 years, including the last nine years as the university’s executive vice president for administration and chief of staff to AU President Brooks Keel, who will retire at the end of this month.
Before 2015, Keen served in several administrative positions at Georgia Southern University, his alma mater. He also worked as the major gifts officer at the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia.
“As a native of the Augusta area, Dr. Keen understands the challenge of maintaining AU’s momentum in the climb from good to better to best as a research university and innovator in medical higher education,” system Chancellor Sonny Perdue said.
“Russell has a tremendous history within our system and is dedicated to fiscal management and student success. His combination of skills and energy will keep the university on track to being a world-class institution.”
“My time on campus and in Augusta has prepared me for a seamless transition into this role, and I would be honored to continue the legacy of a president I consider a mentor,” Keen added. “I’m wholeheartedly vested in advancing the university’s success through its current initiatives and into its next chapter.”
Keen holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in higher education administration from Georgia Southern. He earned a doctorate in higher education management from UGA.
The regents will take a final vote on the AU position no sooner than five days from Thursday’s naming of a sole finalist.
JEKYLL ISLAND – Inflation will drive support for former President Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones predicted Thursday.
“2020 was the personality vote,” Jones, the first Georgia elected official to back Trump’s first campaign for president in 2015, said during a luncheon speech at the Georgia Press Association’s annual conference. “2024 is going to be a pocketbook vote.”
Jones cited the high price of gasoline and other necessities under President Joe Biden as more important to voters in the 2024 election cycle than the concerns over Trump’s character that marked the Republican’s narrow loss to Democrat Biden four years ago.
Indeed, 29% of 1,203 registered Georgia voters who responded to a Quinnipiac University poll earlier this week said the economy is the most important issue in determining how they will vote for president. The state of the economy outranked preserving democracy in the United States and immigration, rated most important by 23% and 14% of those surveyed, respectively.
Jones, who presides over the state Senate, also highlighted a couple of bills the General Assembly passed during this year’s session after years of failure.
He said a private-school vouchers bill Republican leaders steered through the legislature will give parents with children living in neighborhoods with low-performing public schools a chance to send them to a private school if they choose.
“Even the best public schools might not be the best fit for every child,” he said.
Jones also praised lawmakers for passing long-awaited legislation to reform Georgia’s “antiquated” Certificate of Need (CON) process governing the construction of new health-care facilities and the provision of new medical services.
He said rural communities looking to expand health-care access have been blocked repeatedly by the need to undergo an expensive, cumbersome CON review at the state level that forces them to demonstrate a need for a new hospital or medical service in their area.
“I watched a lot of these communities hindered around the state,” Jones said. “Everybody was shocked that we got it done.”
