by Dave Williams | Oct 19, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Vice President Kamala Harris sharpened her attacks on former President Donald Trump Saturday night at a Get Out the Vote campaign rally in Atlanta.
Democrat Harris warned that Republican Trump intends to implement a menu of initiatives contained in Project 2025, published by the conservative Heritage Foundation last year. She said the list includes tax cuts that would primarily benefit the wealthy, cuts to Medicare and Social Security, repealing the Affordable Care Act, and tariffs on a host of foreign-made products that would drive up prices.
“It’s a detailed and dangerous blueprint for what Donald Trump will do if he’s elected president,” Harris told cheering supporters at the Lakewood Amphitheater.
Beyond Project 2025, Harris drew a sharp contrast between the two presidential candidates’ positions on abortion. She blamed Trump for a wave of severe abortion restrictions many states have passed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion because he appointed three of the justices on the winning side.
“More than one in three women live in a state with a Trump abortion ban … every state in the South including Georgia,” she said.
Harris brought up the death two years ago of Amber Thurman, a pregnant Georgia woman who died after seeking an emergency abortion. Medical care for Thurman was delayed because her doctors were worried about violating Georgia’s six-week abortion ban.
Thurman’s parents were in the audience at Saturday night’s rally.
“I promised Amber’s mother that we will always remember her story and speak her name,” Harris said.
Harris also went after Trump for remarks the former president made recently that he considers “the enemy from within” in America more dangerous than foreign adversaries.
“He says he would use the American military to go after American citizens,” she said.
Harris also pledged to promote an “opportunity economy” that would include a $6,000 tax credit for parents in the first year of their child’s life, a tax deduction of up to $50,000 for new small businesses, expanding Medicare coverage to help cover the cost of home health care for seniors, and a middle-class tax cut for 100 million Americans.
“I come from the middle class and will never forget where I came from,” she said.
Before Harris spoke, Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Usher warmed up the crowd.
“We have an opportunity to choose a new generation of leadership for our country,” he said. “We need everyone to get out and support this campaign.”
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign called Harris’ appearance in Georgia a “desperate, last minute plea” to win the state’s 16 electoral votes.
“Georgia families remember what life was like four years ago – lower prices, more money in our pockets, no wars and a closed southern border,” said Morgan Ackley, Georgia communications director for Trump.
“Georgia will vote to send President Trump back to the White House this November.”
Harris did not mention illegal immigration during her 30-minute speech. Trump has made the need for border security a signature issue of his campaign.
In past interviews and speeches, Harris has criticized Trump for urging congressional Republicans to kill a bipartisan immigration reform bill earlier this year so he would be able to run on the issue.
by Dave Williams | Oct 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia is among only seven “battleground” states this year, where the presidential election is too close to call and the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are spending most of their time.
But Peach State Republicans believe they will still be in control of both the state House and Senate when the dust settles from the Nov. 5 General Assembly contests.
“It’s very difficult to maintain a majority in a 50-50 state,” said Brian Robinson, a former top aide to former GOP Gov. Nathan Deal and a consultant to Georgia House Republicans this year. “But Republicans are confident they will be able to maintain their majority.”
Democrats have been making inroads in Georgia in recent years thanks to the state’s increasingly diverse population. Ethnic minorities, including Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans, have tended to vote for Democrats.
Two years ago, Democrats gained one seat in the Georgia Senate and two in the House. During the 2020 election cycle, Georgians elected two Democrats to the U.S. Senate, and Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992.
But the 2022 results still left Republicans holding 101 House seats to 79 for the Democrats, which shrunk to 78 in July of last year when then-Democratic Rep. Mesha Mainor switched to the GOP. The 2022 elections also left Republicans in firm control of the state Senate, 33-23.
Next month’s elections are expected to yield further small gains for the Democrats. In the House, Mainor’s seat – with a white voting-age population of only 34% – is likely to remain in Democrats’ hands.
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, who chairs the Senate Democratic Caucus, said her party’s top target is Republican Shawn Still, R-Norcross, whose 48th Senate District has a minority voting-age population of more than 45%.
There’s also the baggage of Still having been among the Republican “fake” electors indicted in the Georgia election interference case against Trump. Still and others in that group have said they acted on the advice of GOP lawyers to preserve Trump’s legal options as he pursued a lawsuit challenging the 2020 results in Georgia.
A key reason Republicans expect to minimize their losses in the General Assembly this year despite the state’s changing demographics is that the GOP was in charge of redrawing Georgia’s congressional and legislative maps during last year’s redistricting session.
The House map pitted four sets of incumbent Democrats against each other, prompting two incumbents to decide not to seek reelection rather than oppose another Democratic incumbent. Two others ran against each other in the May primaries, and another lost her primary to a Democratic newcomer.
In the Senate, Democrats accused Republicans of partisan gerrymandering by going beyond the areas a judge had identified as in need of redrawing to reduce Black voting strength in several other districts.
“(Republicans) did whatever they could,” Parent said. “But it wasn’t foolproof.”
While the maps redrawn by the General Assembly’s Republican majorities likely will hold the Democrats to minimal gains in the state House and Senate, no changes are expected in the makeup of Georgia’s congressional delegation.
The congressional map the legislature adopted last year essentially swaps the 6th and 7th congressional districts.
It converts the Republican-leaning 6th District into a more heavily Republican 7th District that abandons increasingly diverse Gwinnett County and runs north through GOP-friendly Forsyth, Dawson, and Lumpkin counties. The old 7th District, meanwhile, has been shifted into a 6th District in heavily Democratic south and central Fulton County, southern Cobb County, eastern Douglas County, and northern Fayette County.
As a result, incumbent U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, is running for the 6th District seat, and incumbent Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee, is running in the 7th District. The bottom line is expected to leave Republicans holding nine of Georgia’s 14 congressional seats to five for the Democrats.
by Dave Williams | Oct 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – More than 1 million Georgians have cast their ballots during the first four days of the early voting period, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office reported Friday.
“We have done it! We crossed the 1,000,000 voter mark at around 11:50am. Amazing turnout! So happy for the counties and the voters! Let’s keep it going,” Gabriel Sterling, the agency’s chief operating officer, posted on social media.
The record numbers of early voters are occurring despite the impact of Hurricane Helene late last month in South Georgia and the Augusta region. Raffensperger told reporters early this week that local election officials in the affected areas managed to overcome disruptions from the storm and got their early voting locations prepared in time for the start of early voting on schedule.
On Tuesday, the first day of the early voting period, more than 300,000 ballots were cast, starting the record momentum that has carried through the week and allowed Georgia to eclipse the 1 million mark on Friday.
Georgia is one of seven “battleground” states in this year’s presidential election, along with Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the Middle Atlantic and Midwest; and the Sunbelt states of North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona.
Former President Donald Trump holds a small lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia, according to a number of polls.
Early voting in Georgia will continue through Nov. 1, four days before the Nov. 5 election.
by Dave Williams | Oct 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing an expansion of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, including land currently held by a company looking to open a titanium mine near the swamp.
The federal agency is seeking public comment on the plan to add about 22,000 acres adjacent to the existing refuge, according to a news release issued Friday.
“If adopted, the proposed minor boundary expansion would enable the service to work with willing landowners to explore voluntary conservation actions, including potential acquisition, that would further protect the refuge’s globally significant freshwater wetland system and wildlife habitat,” the news release stated.
Proposed state draft permits that would allow Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals (TPM) to mine titanium oxide along Trail Ridge on the Okefenokee’s eastern rim have drawn widespread opposition. Scientific research has shown a mine would threaten the swamp’s water levels, increase wildfire risks, harm wildlife, and release toxic contaminants into nearby surface and groundwater.
Twin Pines officials say the project would not harm the largest blackwater swamp in North America.
There is precedence for adding to the wildlife refuge to head off proposed mining, said Josh Marks, president of Georgians for the Okefenokee, who led a successful effort to stop DuPont’s mining project at the swamp in the 1990s.
“Having helped with the last major addition to the refuge in 2003, which was the product of the DuPont company deciding to donate its land for conservation instead of mining it, I know first-hand the importance of public/private partnerships for securing the integrity of the Okefenokee,” Marks wrote in an email to Capitol Beat.
“Now that the federal government has taken this critical step in the face of this latest mining threat, it’s now Governor (Brian) Kemp’s turn to stop the review of TPM’s permit application and instead join in helping permanently protect Georgia’s greatest natural treasure.”
A poll a Washington, D.C.-based research firm conducted last June found strong opposition to issuing permits for a mine next to the Okefenokee.
Bipartisan legislation aimed at stopping the mine has been introduced in the General Assembly but has failed to win passage. Also, at least 19 local governments across Georgia have passed resolutions calling for protecting the Okefenokee.
Public comment on the proposed expansion of the refuge must be submitted by Nov. 18 via email to [email protected]. In addition, a public meeting on the proposal will be held Oct. 29 from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Charlton County Annex Auditorium in Folkston.
by Dave Williams | Oct 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Fulton County Superior Court judge has invalidated seven changes to state election laws the Republican-controlled State Election Board (SEB) adopted in recent weeks.
In an 11-page ruling handed down this week, Judge Thomas Cox Jr. declared the board lacked the legal authority to adopt the rules.
“All rules enacted by the SEB must be consistent with the Existing Election Code and the Georgia Constitution,” Cox wrote. “Stated another way, the SEB’s authority can only extend to ‘adopt rules and regulations to carry into effect a law already passed’ or otherwise ‘administer and effectuate an existing enactment of the General Assembly.’ “
Cox’s ruling, dated Wednesday, came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, a Georgia-based advocacy group headed by former Republican state Rep. Scot Turner.
It followed two similar decisions handed down earlier in the week by Fulton Judge Robert McBurney that invalidated two of the new SEB rules requiring counties to hand-count the number of ballots cast at polling places on Election Day and allowing local election officials to delay certifying results in order to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” if they suspect voter fraud. McBurney wrote that the rules were adopted too close to Election Day.
Wednesday’s ruling applied to both of those rules in addition to five others the SEB’s three-member Republican majority has passed since August that would:
- give county election board members access to all election-related documentation created as the election was being conducted.
- require signatures and photo IDs to accompany absentee ballots.
- provide video surveillance and recording of absentee ballot drop boxes after the polls close.
- expand designated areas for poll watchers.
- add new requirements for county election boards in reporting absentee ballot information.
The three Republican SEB members who supported the rules changes said they would restore public confidence by restoring fairness and integrity to the electoral process.
But opponents – including Democrats and some Republicans – accused the three of seeking to sow confusion into the counting of ballots by delaying certification of results, potentially to the benefit of former President Donald Trump.
Georgia First, a bipartisan nonprofit group that supports election access and security, praised this week’s rulings.
“As a lifelong Georgian and Republican, I, along with our cross-partisan Georgia First board members, have been deeply troubled by the continued misconduct and ill-informed, conspiracy theory-fueled rulemaking efforts of Election Board members,” said Natalie Crawford, executive director of Georgia First and a former member of the Habersham County Commission.
“Their actions threatened to cause electoral chaos, reflect poorly on the integrity of our state’s highly regarded electoral processes, and undermine trust in our democratic institutions. Ideology is not more important than facts and the law.”
Republicans vowed to appeal the court decisions as an example of judicial overreach.
“By overturning the Georgia State Election Board’s common-sense rules passed to safeguard Georgia’s elections, the judge sided with the Democrats in their attacks on transparency, accountability, and integrity of our elections,” said Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee. “We will not let this stand.”
