by Dave Williams | Aug 19, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – For the second time this month, the Republican-controlled State Election Board approved a change to Georgia’s election rules critics say could make it easier to delay the official vote count this fall.
The change, which passed 3-2, requires local election officials to submit to the secretary of state a report reconciling the total number of ballots cast in each precinct with the total number of voters who received credit for voting before election results can be certified.
The rules change’s supporters on the board argued local election officials should have the right to a hand recount of votes before they sign a legal affidavit certifying an election. The board’s three Republican members made the same argument earlier this month when the board voted 3-2 to require election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into whether votes have been counted accurately before they certify election results.
Board member Janice Johnston described the rules changes as a way to strengthen the integrity of the elections process by encouraging accuracy and fairness.
But opponents warned the rules changes could set the stage for Republicans in Georgia to sow chaos following the November presidential election if former President Donald Trump fails to carry the state’s 16 electoral votes.
“Trump and his MAGA allies have taken over the Georgia State Election Board to try and give a veneer of legality to their illegal scheme to disrupt the certification of Georgia’s 2024 election results,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight, a voting-rights organization founded by two-time Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams. “It’s all with the goal of helping Trump win the Peach State, even if he doesn’t earn a majority of Georgians’ votes.”
Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, the only Democratic appointee on the board, said it’s too late in the 2024 election cycle for the board to be considering changing the rules. County election offices already have begun accepting applications for absentee ballots, she said.
Others questioned the legal authority of the board to make such changes without the approval of the General Assembly.
“To safeguard our elections, we urge the State Election Board to operate with full transparency and in accordance with Georgia law,” wrote the Democracy Defense Project, a bipartisan group formed recently by former Govs. Nathan Deal and Roy Barnes, former U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.
“Making substantive changes to the way votes are counted and certified without legislative action will undoubtedly foster chaos and undermine the confidence that Georgians have in the democratic process. Integrity and foresight must supersede partisanship and haste in the weeks ahead.”
But board member Janelle King, who voted for the rules changes, said most of the opposition has come from those who have warned about potential negative consequences that have yet to occur. She said she’s concerned about discrepancies in vote totals that she said did occur during the 2020 election cycle.
“There were issues. There are (local election) boards that are not confident,” King said. “It’s important that we address what we know occurred.”
by Dave Williams | Aug 19, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The federal government has given Georgia the go-ahead to launch a state-based health insurance exchange proponents say will give Georgians better health coverage and offer health-care providers higher reimbursements.
The new exchange, Georgia Access, will launch Nov. 1, Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday during a roundtable discussion updating the state’s health-insurance initiatives.
“This platform will enable hardworking Georgians to compare their health-insurance options more easily so they can make the decision that best fits their family’s needs,” Kemp said.
Kemp made creating a “Georgia-centric” alternative to the federal version of health coverage provided through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a priority of his administration when he took office in 2019. The General Assembly passed legislation that year that gave birth to two initiatives – Georgia Access, the state-based health-insurance exchange, and Georgia Pathways, a limited expansion of the state’s Medicaid program.
On Monday, Kemp said the two initiatives are providing coverage to more than 714,000 Georgians with incomes below 138% of the federal poverty level. Of that number, 400,000 who were previously on Medicaid are now enrolled in a commercial insurance plan through Georgia Access, he said.
Enrollment growth in Georgia Access is outpacing the national average by 30%, state Commissioner of Insurance John King said.
“We are restoring control over our health coverage to the people of Georgia,” he said.
Russel Carlson, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health, which runs the Georgia Pathways program, said the agency launched a public outreach website Aug. 1 to provide information on the initiative. The site has generated 68,000 visits in just its initial weeks, he said.
“I’m very optimistic about the months ahead,” he said.
Republican Kemp’s efforts in the health-insurance space have long gotten pushback from Democrats advocating a full-blown expansion of Medicaid under the ACA, as 40 other states have done.
But Kemp said his state-based approach has proven the better choice.
“We have covered more Georgians with better insurance at lower costs,” he said. “Those facts are clear and undeniable.”
by Dave Williams | Aug 19, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue is asking the U.S. Department of Education to delay processing federal student aid applications because of the botched rollout of a simplified application website.
The simplified website for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was launched last December following a two-month delay supposedly to fix glitches. But when the new system finally went online, students and their families quickly found flaws, including limited hours of availability and the loss of saved information.
“By almost all accounts, the launch of the simplified FAFSA can only be categorized as an abject failure,” Perdue wrote in a letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona dated last Friday.
“It has had unprecedented levels of ongoing and new issues that will delay aid and negatively impact students and campuses in ways we do not yet fully know. It has stretched our campus financial aid offices to the limit. … What upsets me most, however, is the impact this failure is having on thousands of students here in Georgia and across the nation who have done absolutely nothing wrong.”
Perdue is asking the feds to extend a reporting deadline for schools to July 1, 2025, and to delay the release of the 2025-26 FAFSA “until all component systems and services are fully functional and ready to be delivered.”
“I commend the actions of Congress to simplify the financial aid process for students,” Perdue continued. “However, given the issues with the launch, to expect institutions to continue to operate, serve students and families and fulfill their core mission in this environment is unreasonable, unfair and wrong.”
by Dave Williams | Aug 16, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s forestry industry is a victim of its own success.
Advanced genetics leading to fast-growing trees and a favorable climate have combined to make Georgia the No.-1 forestry state in the nation, a $42 billion industry responsible for 143,000 jobs.
But with pulp and paper mills going out of business in large numbers due to intense foreign competition, demand for timber is on the decline. As a result, prices for wood are down to levels not seen since the 1970s.
Those are the dynamics behind a push to find new markets for Georgia’s oversupply of wood in innovative clean energy industries ranging from cleaner aviation fuel to mass-timber building construction to electric-vehicle batteries.
“Georgia is uniquely positioned,” Marshall Thomas, president of F&W Forestry Services in Albany, told members of a state Senate study committee Aug. 13. “We can add jobs and tax base and position Georgia as a leader in the transition to a green economy.”
The Senate Advancing Forest Innovation in Georgia Study Committee was formed this year to look for ways the state can encourage investment in sustainable forest products that will generate demand in the future.
Senate President Pro Tempore John Kennedy, R-Macon, the committee’s chairman, said he saw one of those options on a state-sponsored trade mission to France last year: sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a biofuel that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions up to 85% compared with conventional petroleum-based jet fuel.
The European Union will require commercial aircraft to burn at least 6% SAF by 2030, a percentage that will increase gradually each year until it reaches 70% in 2050.
One company active in Georgia, Lanzajet, is already producing 120 million gallons of SAF per year, Andres Villegas, president and CEO of the Georgia Forestry Association, told the study committee.
But much more is needed. Villegas said a supply of 3 billion gallons of SAF will be needed to replace fossil fuels in commercial aircraft by 2030, and 35 billion will be required by 2050.
Another innovative use of wood in its infancy is mass timber construction of either multi-family residential or office buildings made with wood to replace more carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel. The first commercial building in Georgia constructed with mass timber is at Atlanta’s Ponce City Market, made from southern yellow pine timber grown in rural Georgia.
“These types of projects allow us to connect urban and rural,” Villegas said.
Researchers also are exploring ways to convert southern pine into anodes for electric-vehicle batteries, important components of battery cells. The state has invested $3 million into that research, said Tim Lowrimore, executive director of the Georgia Forestry Commission, a state agency that works to protect and conserve the state’s forest resources.
The study committee will consider how the state could help foster innovative uses for wood products over the course of several meetings this summer and fall.
The General Assembly has become more reluctant in recent years to approve tax credits aimed at supporting various industries because of the loss in tax revenue. But tax credits offer an opportunity to open up innovative markets that would support new forestry jobs, said Sen. Russ Goodman, R-Cogdell, a member of the study committee and chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee.
“We’re growing 50% more trees than we’re utilizing,” Goodman said. “We’ve got to create markets.”
Lowrimore said the state could be doing more to promote mass timber construction by embracing the technology for construction of public buildings.
“Why isn’t every public facility at least evaluating (mass timber)?” added Larry Spillers, chairman of the Georgia Forestry Commission’s board of directors, a tree farmer who owns 2,000 acres primarily in Crawford County.
Spillers said state policy makers shouldn’t forget about existing industries operating in the forestry space in the rush to foster innovative uses of Georgia’s wood. For example, pulp mills can be retrofitted to produce sustainable aviation fuel, he said.
“We can support our existing businesses,” Lowrimore told study committee members. “But we also have the capacity to do more. … To get where we want to be, you as state leaders have to be committed to make it happen.”
The committee is due to report its findings to the full Senate by Dec. 1.
by Dave Williams | Aug 16, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has hired a former Cobb County assistant district attorney to head the first statewide Organized Retail Crime Unit.
Timothy Ruffini will oversee a team of prosecutors and investigators targeting criminal networks engaged in recurring thefts and acts of violence against Georgia businesses.
“Tim is a talented prosecutor whose knowledge and experience will prove essential as we work to combat organized retail crime throughout our state,” Carr said Friday.
“With our new statewide Organized Retail Crime Unit, we will continue to serve as a force multiplier by working with all levels of law enforcement to dismantle these increasingly violent and brazen networks once and for all.”
The new unit will be housed in the attorney general’s Prosecution Division, which also includes units aimed at gangs, human trafficking, and white collar and cyber crime.
Georgia businesses lose more than $3 billion a year to retail theft. A national study released in 2021 showed that nearly 76% of retailers reported physical assault against an employee as a result of organized retail crime, while 41% reported attacks involving a weapon.
In Cobb County, Ruffini was assigned to the Marietta, Cobb, and Smyrna Organized Crime Task Force Narcotics Unit. Before that, he served as an assistant district attorney in Chatham County.
The fiscal 2025 state budget includes $1.4 million to launch the new retail crime unit.
