by Dave Williams | Aug 6, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A lawyer representing several Hancock County property owners asked the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) Tuesday to overturn a hearing officer’s recommendation to let Sandersville Railroad Co. condemn 43 acres through eminent domain.
The freight rail line is seeking to use the state’s eminent domain power to acquire the land for the Hanson Spur, which would be used to ship locally mined granite, farm products and timber along a CSX line to markets.
Some of the properties have been in the affected families for generations. One owner inherited their land from an ancestor born into slavery, while another family has owned their property since the Civil War.
The hearing officer ruled in April that the project would serve a legitimate public purpose and, thus, eminent domain would be justified.
But the company has failed to demonstrate the project either would benefit the public or that other alternatives wouldn’t accomplish its purpose, Bill Maurer, a senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm based in Arlington, Va., told the PSC.
“This commission got remarkably little information, remarkably few documents for a project this size,” Maurer said. “We believe it is impossible for the commission to find this is a legitimate purpose because we simply do not know enough about this project.”
But Robert Highsmith, the lawyer representing the company, said the state law governing eminent domain doesn’t require such details as a feasibility study, a noise impact analysis or an economic analysis of the project’s value.
Highsmith also argued that eminent domain exists in state and federal law for good reason.
“Every condemnation is a failure of a private negotiation for sale but a recognition that a public use and a public need is enough to justify the exercise of eminent domain,” Highsmith said. “Without it, we wouldn’t have airports, we wouldn’t have roads, we wouldn’t have railroads.”
Maurer and Highsmith also clashed over whether the Hanson Spur project would benefit the public.
“This project is not about meeting a public need, nor is it about providing a necessary service to the public,” Maurer said. “It arises for one reason and one reason only: the private want of private companies for more money.”
Maurer went on to the argue that reforms to Georgia’s eminent domain law the General Assembly passed in 2006 explicitly state that economic development does not constitute a public purpose for a project.
But Highsmith said that same 2006 law also states that business conducted by railroads qualifies as a public purpose.
“(The spur) opens a channel of trade, and that channel of trade is going to be used by multiple customers,” he said.
Highsmith said five business owners who plan to use the spur provided testimony to the hearing officer.
A lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center also addressed the commission, arguing the spur would have an impact beyond the specific property owners affected by the project. Jamie Rush spoke on behalf of the No Railroad in Our Community Coalition.
“Members have an interest in seeing this historically and predominantly Black neighborhood maintain its nature and character, including preventing increased industry and environmental burden on its residents,” she said.
Maurer asked the commission to at least stay any eminent domain order the PSC approves until after the case has been litigated in court.
Highsmith countered that a stay isn’t necessary because the project could not be built until negotiations establishing just compensation for the properties are completed.
by Dave Williams | Aug 6, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp urged coastal Georgians Tuesday to stay off the roads so cleanup crews can take advantage of a lull in the heavy rains and flooding brought by Tropical Storm Debby.
“Do not let this storm lull you to sleep,” Kemp said during a news conference at the State Operations Center in Southeast Atlanta. “Models show the rain will come back. Give us time to clear the roads and get power back on.”
Debby made landfall Monday in the Big Bend region of Florida as a Category 1 hurricane before being downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved slowly across South Georgia and into South Carolina. Four people were killed in Florida, and a 19-year-old man died in Moultrie when a tree fell on his home.
President Joe Biden issued a federal disaster declaration for Georgia Monday night. Kemp said the order was for evacuation and sheltering purposes only, although only a few nursing homes and senior living facilities in the storm’s path were evacuated.
“We never anticipated high winds for an extended period of time,” said Chris Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management/Homeland Security Agency (GEMA). “We knew this was going to be a water event.”
Indeed, the slow moving storm dumped heavy rains on South Georgia, along the coast, and up through Augusta throughout Monday and into Tuesday. Kemp said Debby could circle back from South Carolina and drop an additional four to five inches of rain on coastal Georgia, according to one storm model, and up to eight more inches under a second model.
“I don’t believe this storm is done with us yet,” Kemp said. “This event is not over.”
About 47,000 Georgians were without electricity Tuesday morning, as utility crews sought to restore power while the rain slackened. The ports of Savannah and Brunswick were closed on Tuesday.
Maj. General Dwayne Wilson, adjutant general of the Georgia National Guard, said about 300 members of the Guard have been deployed along the coast and up to Augusta. An executive order Kemp issued on Monday authorized the Guard to deploy up to 2,000 troops.
Will Lanxton, a meteorologist with GEMA, said the additional rainfall forecasters are expecting could still be affecting Coastal Georgia as late as Thursday and Friday.
“This weekend looks good for recovery efforts,” he said.
by Dave Williams | Aug 5, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has fined the Georgia Republican Party $14,500 for failing to report a contribution from a nonprofit during the 2021 U.S. Senate runoff elections.
The fine settled a complaint lodged by Common Cause Georgia and the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center Action targeting an “in-kind” contribution the group True the Vote made to the Georgia GOP.
Federal law prohibits corporations from making contributions to federal candidates and political parties. But in this case, True the Vote and the state Republican Party collaborated on election-related activities – including challenging voter eligibility and monitoring drop boxes – and failed to report those activities as in-kind contributions.
The FEC initially dismissed the complaint, resulting in a federal lawsuit Common Cause Georgia filed in late 2022, with Campaign Legal Center Action as counsel.
After the court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor and remanded the case back to the FEC, the commission reversed its decision and sided with Common Cause Georgia.
“We are pleased that the FEC is finally shining a light on this illegal coordination scheme by requiring the Georgia Republican Party to disclose the contributions it received from True the Vote,” said Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia.
“Georgia voters need reassurance that their right to vote will always be respected and that our federal institutions won’t neglect their duties to enforce the law. That is why we will continue to fight for accountability and transparency from the FEC.”
Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock were elected to the U.S. Senate in those 2021 runoff elections, defeating incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively.
by Dave Williams | Aug 5, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp has activated up to 2,000 Georgia National Guard troops to aid the response to Hurricane Debby, which made landfall Monday morning in the Big Bend region of Florida as a Category 1 storm.
With sustained winds of 80 miles per hour, the hurricane is expected to bring heavy rains and flooding as it sweeps across South Georgia.
The National Hurricane Center is predicting six to 12 inches of rain for the Golden Isles along the Southeast Georgia coast, and potentially up to 20 inches of rain, The Brunswick News reported.
“Potentially historic heavy rainfall across Southeast Georgia and South Carolina through Friday morning will likely result in areas of severe and widespread flash and urban flooding,” the hurricane center reported.
The heaviest rainfall was expected from Monday morning through Tuesday night.
A tropical storm warning has been issued for parts of Coastal Georgia and the Lowcountry of South Carolina, with Debby expected to become a tropical storm by Monday night as it moves over land.
by Dave Williams | Aug 4, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Former President Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, his presumptive Democratic opponent, at a weekend rally in Atlanta while criticizing Gov. Brian Kemp for refusing to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential results.
In a rousing 90-minute speech to cheering supporters, Trump assailed Harris as a “California socialist” who has failed to secure America’s borders in her role as the White House’s “border czar.”
“Ninety-four days from now, we’re going to win the great state of Georgia in an epic landslide,” Trump declared during Saturday’s rally at the Georgia State University Convocation Center, the same venue where Harris had led a rally four days earlier. “We’re going to evict this radical incompetent administration from the White House.”
Seizing upon the immigration issue, Trump pledged to make the nation’s borders secure again, as they were he was president.
“On Day One, we will seal the border, stop the invasion, and send the illegal aliens back home,” he said.
Trump also addressed violent crime in Georgia and America, a key theme of his campaign ads, and tied it to illegal immigration. Specifically, he cited the murder last February of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed while jogging on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. A 26-year-old Venezuelan man allegedly in the country illegally has been charged with the crime.
“Kamala Harris let in a savage monster who murdered Laken Riley,” Trump said. “Laken’s blood is on Kamala Harris’ hands.”
Trump also criticized fellow Republican Kemp for refusing to call a special session of the General Assembly to address allegations of election fraud after Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated Trump in Georgia four years ago. Dozens of court rulings in Georgia and other states found no widespread fraud.
On Saturday, Trump accused Kemp of being disloyal after then-President Trump endorsed Kemp in his first run for governor in 2018.
The former president also went after GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused to help Trump “find” 11,780 votes in an infamous phone call early in January, 2021.
“The two of them are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win,” Trump said.
Trump’s running mater, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, preceded Trump to the podium, echoing Republican campaign ads attacking Harris as too liberal to appeal to American voters.
“America is never going to elect a San Francisco liberal who is so far out of the mainstream,” Vance said.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) put out a press release in advance of the rally accusing the Trump-Vance ticket of pushing an “extreme agenda” that voters will see through.
“Vice President Kamala Harris is the only candidate in this race who is prioritizing Georgia’s working families and fighting to restore Georgians’ reproductive freedom in the wake of a draconian abortion ban only made possible by Trump,” DNC spokesperson Cameron Niven said.
It looks like voters will get a chance to compare the two candidates on the same stage. While final details have yet to be worked out, Trump said he is open to debating Harris.
