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.
by Dave Williams | Aug 2, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Environmental groups are challenging a state-issued permit to allow a wood pellet manufacturing plant in Telfair County to double its pollutant emissions without meeting federal requirements.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) approved a modification of Telfair Forest Products’ air-quality permit last month without requiring the company to install legally required pollution controls or conduct air impact analyses.
“EPD got this one wrong,” said Jennifer Whitfield, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which filed the challenge with Georgia’s Office of Administrative Hearings. “Twice, we gave regulators detailed explanations about why this permit request is illegal and dangerous for citizens of Telfair County, and they chose to look the other way.”
The biomass industry is booming in Georgia, the nation’s No.-1 state for forestry. Wood pellets produced by cutting down trees are shipped overseas to countries in Europe and Asia, where they are burned for power.
Wood pellet plants often are located near low-income communities of color, to the dismay of environmental justice advocates. On the other hand, they create jobs in rural counties that typically struggle with high unemployment rates.
The SELC filed the challenge on behalf of Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) and the state chapter of the Sierra Club.
“Clean air is a basic human right,” said Codi Norred, GIPL’s executive director. “It is unacceptable to harm the health and wellbeing of Georgians, especially those overburdened by the effects of climate change and pollution.”
by Dave Williams | Aug 2, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers are having second thoughts about switching the University System of Georgia from a quarter to a semester system back in 1999.
A state House study committee will begin meeting soon to take a fresh look at whether both the university system and the Technical College System of Georgia – which moved to semesters in 2011 – should switch back to quarters.
“There’s no preconceived outcome here,” said Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, chairman of the House Higher Education Committee and a member of the study committee. “It’s just to assess the situation and some of the things that could be impacted if we were to change this. … We know some significant work would have to go on.”
When the switch from quarters was made, arguments in favor of going with a semester system included aligning Georgia’s university system with the approximately 70% of the nation’s colleges and universities operating on semesters. That made transfers within and across systems easier.
Greater administrative efficiencies and reduced administrative costs also were anticipated.
But a quarter century later, legislative leaders say they see a downside to semesters.
“The conversion from the quarter system to the semester system has resulted in longer terms with more classes and fewer graduation cycles,” according to the language of a resolution the House passed unanimously in March to create the study committee. “Some question whether semesters are the better option for students or for workforce development.”
The ramifications a quarter system could have for Georgia’s workforce shortages is a key driver in the decision to revisit whether to switch back to quarters. The current semester system leads to two graduating classes each year, while a quarter system would yield at least three, thus getting graduating students into the workforce faster.
“An expeditious path to entering the workforce is an important consideration for those looking to graduate from one of our fine institutions of higher learning, as well as those looking to hire those graduates,” Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, told the website State Affairs in June. Blackmon couldn’t be reached by Capitol Beat this week.
Switching from semesters to quarters couldn’t be accomplished overnight.
Martin said complications that would have to be worked out include how to coordinate the university and technical college systems’ quarters with Georgia’s high schools, which would continue to operate on the semester system.
University system administrators also would have to figure out how to handle the Christmas holiday break, which would occur during the middle quarter rather than between the first and second semesters, Martin said.
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” he said.
Besides Blackmon and Martin, the House study committee will include three other lawmakers: Reps. Mike Cheokas, R-Americus; Ginny Ehrhart, R-Marietta; and Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta. The panel also will include Ashwani Monga, the university system’s executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, selected last month to serve as interim president at the University of West Georgia; and Ray Perren, deputy commissioner for technical education at the Technical College System of Georgia.
