by Ty Tagami | Jul 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — People who want to influence Georgia’s next elections have already poured millions of dollars into the 2026 governor’s race and other statewide campaigns.
Campaign finance reports filed by the midnight deadline Tuesday show Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr had each attracted about $3 million from donors for their respective gubernatorial campaigns for the first half of the year.
However, Jones exploited a 2021 state law to bolster his campaign by another $10 million. That boost from his own pocket to his WBJ Leadership Committee — he is an executive in a family-owned oil company — put him far ahead of Carr, not to mention the Democrats in contention.
The Republican-sponsored law allows Georgia’s governor and lieutenant governor to raise unlimited sums in leadership committees. Only a handful of others, including leading lawmakers from both parties and the winners of the gubernatorial and lieutenant governor primaries, enjoy the same advantage.
On the Democratic side, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and state Sen. Jason Esteves, a former member of the Atlanta school board, had each raised just more than $1 million. State Rep. Derrick Jackson from Tyrone raised less than a tenth as much.
Carr’s decision to run for governor has led two Republican state senators to contest his seat. Bill Cowsert from Athens and Brian Strickland from McDonough had each raised about half a million dollars. Cowsert brought in about $100,000 more than Strickland, netting $531,000. No Democrat reported raising money for that race.
Jones’ bid for governor has led four state senators to raise money to campaign for lieutenant governor. As in the governor’s contest, Republicans held a commanding lead.
Steve Gooch, a Dahlonega Republican who recently stepped down as the Senate’s majority leader, raised $1 million. John F. Kennedy of Macon, who outranked Gooch as the Senate’s president pro tempore until he also stepped down, raised $819,000. And Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, gathered $759,000.
Tillery has not yet formally announced his bid for lieutenant governor, but his campaign said that will happen in the coming weeks.
The only Democrat to raise six figures for the lieutenant governor’s contest was Sen. Josh McLaurin of Sandy Springs, who drew $118,000 in contributions.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – About 66,000 Georgians will get cancer this year, and 19,000 of them will die.
That sobering estimate by the American Cancer Society explains why state lawmakers decided to study the disease this summer in an attempt to reduce the rate.
“We are above the average for the nation,” Dr. Jorge Cortes, director of the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University, told legislators assembled at his university Wednesday. Cortes said Georgians are getting – and dying from – lung, prostate, breast and colorectal cancer at rates exceeding the national average.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Georgia, according to testimony from the state Department of Community Health (DCH). It is the number one killer of people ages 1-19, said Dr. Doug Graham, chief of the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
What can lawmakers do about it?
For one thing, they can knock down barriers to cancer screening.
At prior hearings of the House Study Committee on Cancer Care Access in May and June, they learned that cancer care is hard to come by in rural areas, as the medical payments system squeezes smaller service providers. Rising costs and inadequate transportation contribute to lack of access to care.
The later cancer is detected, the deadlier it gets. It also becomes costlier to treat, driving up health-care costs for everyone.
Lawmakers heard repeatedly about how medical industry consolidation is exacerbating lack of access by forcing patients to drive farther to find a specialist.
Dr. Harsha Vyas, who has a small medical office in Dublin, asked study committee members to address what he sees as a systemic problem in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries: pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs.
“They’re middlemen in the health-care system created by insurance companies,” Vyas said. “They dictate all sorts of things they shouldn’t be dictating. … Just three PBMs control 80% of the drug market in the country. If that’s not monopoly, I don’t know what else is.”
Vyas said insurers have too much control over what doctors prescribe though a system called pre-authorization, and he said reimbursement rates for clinics like his are too low.
“We need to keep them accountable,” he said. “I can’t call them to the table. “You guys can, and you’ve got to ask them the tough questions.”
No insurance companies were represented at Wednesday’s hearing, but a DCH staffer explained how Medicaid is managed in Georgia through contracts with management companies.
Graham, from Children’s Healthcare, said cancer in children is connected with genetic syndromes, birth defects and maternal age. But there are other correlations that are within parents’ control: breastfeeding and maternal vitamins are associated with reduced child cancer risk.
Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville, the committee’s chairman, said he and other lawmakers are working on drug pricing and other issues. He wrapped up the committee’s listening tour by saying the General Assembly will continue to study cancer care access.
“I think we’re just at the beginning and scratching the surface of what we can do,” he said.
by Dave Williams | Jul 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Two cold storage companies have broken ground on a $60 million cold storage facility being built in Darien, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday.
PermaCold Logistics is being undertaken by cold storage builder and developer Ti Cold and Karis Cold, a private investment and development company with expertise in the cold storage industry. The first phase of the project is expected to create 50 jobs upon completion.
“Today’s announcement is the largest known economic development win for McIntosh County, marking another success for rural Georgia,” Kemp said. “Companies like Ti Cold, Karis Cold, and PermaCold Logistics, as well as our reliable and fast-growing ports and highway systems, support logistics industry jobs in every corner of the state.”
“We’ve had the privilege of building in Georgia many times over the years, and we’re thrilled to be working in McIntosh County,” added Sam Tippmann, founder and CEO of Ti Cold. “The support we’ve received has been incredible – from the state officials to the team in McIntosh County and the city of Darien.”
The new facility is located at Tidewaters Industrial Park, a Georgia Ready for Accelerated Development (GRAD) site in Darien. The state’s GRAD program allows fast-tracking of industrial construction projects.
The facility will feature a flexible design that maintains temperatures ranging from 40 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 10 degrees. Structural steel pallet racks will accommodate more than 30,000 pallet positions.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce team worked on the project in partnership with the McIntosh County Industrial Development Authority, the Georgia Ports Authority, Georgia EMC, and Georgia Power.
by Dave Williams | Jul 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – South Georgia soon will become home to the largest illegal immigrant detention center in the country.
The D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Charlton County will become part of the Folkston Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Centre under a $47 million contract county and federal government officials reached in June.
The nearly 3,000-bed facility – up from its current capacity of almost 1,100 beds – would bring about 400 jobs to the area, Coastal Georgia’s congressman said.
“With this expansion, Georgia will strengthen its status as a national leader in the fight to secure our southern border,” said U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter, R-Savannah. “I’m proud to have worked with Charlton County to get the D. Ray James Correctional Facility expansion over the finish line, which will bring jobs and economic growth to our region.”
The city of Folkston will receive $600,000 a year in revenue from water and sewer services provided to the facility.
President Donald Trump’s big budget bill the Republican majorities in Congress passed last week includes $45 billion to build new immigration detention centers, a 265% annual increase. Trump has made immigration enforcement and detention a major priority of his second-term administration.
by Dave Williams | Jul 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state closed out fiscal 2025 at the end of last month with a slight increase in net tax collections compared to fiscal 2024, Gov. Brian Kemp reported Tuesday.
Net tax revenue for the 12 months ending June 30 was up $197.4 million over the previous fiscal year, an increase of 0.6%. Gross tax receipts compared to the previous fiscal year were significantly higher, reflecting two and a half months during the fall quarter of fiscal 2024 when Kemp suspended collection of the state sales tax on gasoline and other motor fuels.
Net tax revenue for June was up 4.1% over June of last year. Individual income taxes rose by 12.5% last month, as tax return payments soared by 118% and refunds issued by the revenue agency fell by 4.3%.
Net sales tax collections increased by 2.8% last month compared to June of last year.
On the other side of the ledger, corporate income taxes dropped in June by 9.8%, a result of corporate tax payments declining by 4.0% and tax refunds increasing by 157.5%. While individual taxes make up the lion’s share of tax payments to the state, the smaller corporate tax collections typically are more volatile month to month.
Motor fuel tax revenues fell slightly in June – by 0.3% – compared to the same month a year ago, a number that’s likely to rise as Georgians hit the highways in July for summer vacations.
