by Ty Tagami | Aug 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Another Democrat has entered the contest to succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia’s highest elected office, a candidate with a history of winning statewide, albeit a while ago.
Michael Thurmond, who has held a wide variety of local and state elected positions, announced his bid for the governor’s office Wednesday.
He said he will be running on “a record of competence and service to the people in the state.”
Several Democrats are running for governor, but the biggest names are former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and current state Sen. Jason Esteves, who is also from Atlanta and was previously an elected school board member there.
Unlike them, Thurmond, 72, has appeared on ballots across the state.
His political fortunes rose from a foundation as a state representative decades ago when Democrats led the General Assembly. Then-Gov. Zell Miller, a Democrat who would later become a Republican, appointed him to lead the state Division of Family and Children Services.
Thurmond would parlay that into statewide electoral wins as a Democrat for labor commissioner in 1998, 2002, and 2006, leading the office during the Great Recession. He was a lonely successful statewide Democrat when Republicans, including then-Gov. Sonny Perdue, were sweeping the ballot.
Once out of statewide politics, Thurmond shifted to local office. The DeKalb County school board hired him as superintendent in 2013 to handle a governance and financial crisis. He would later win two terms as CEO of DeKalb County, leaving office this year after term limits prohibited another run.
Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face a statewide electorate that has continued to skew Republican, although the state’s two U.S. senators have won as Democrats.
Two leading Republican gubernatorial candidates are state Attorney General Chris Carr, who entered the race last year, and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who joined it last month.
Both are campaigning on issues such as immigration that appeal to President Donald Trump’s base of voters.
Thurmond said he hopes to get beyond “hyper-partisan” politics and sees an opening on issues such as education and medical care, noting that Georgia has among the worst records for infant and maternal mortality in the country.
Georgia consistently ranks as a top state for business but has room for quality-of-life improvements, Thurmond said, adding that he thinks his relationships with lawmakers in the GOP-led General Assembly would help him as a Democratic governor who wants to do things like expand Medicaid.
“I believe Georgia is underachieving,” he said. “We can do better, but we can’t do better when we are basically imprisoned in this world of hyper-partisan politics.”
by Dave Williams | Aug 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A plan to add toll lanes along Georgia 400 in Fulton and Forsyth counties is getting a big boost from the federal government.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Tuesday announced a loan of up to $3.89 billion to help build the project. The money is being awarded through the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) Congress passed in 1998, the largest loan to a single borrower in the program’s history.
The State Transportation Board approved the project last August as a public-private partnership between the Georgia Department of Transportation, the State Road and Tollway Authority, and a consortium of several road-building and engineering companies. SR400 Peach Partners submitted the winning bid at $4.6 billion.
The project will add two new toll lanes in both directions along a 16-mile stretch of Georgia 400 from the North Springs MARTA station in Fulton County to one mile north of McFarland Parkway in Forsyth County. When opened to traffic in 2031, the new lanes are expected to reduce delays by more than 19,000 hours each day, or about 15 minutes per traveler, while reducing crashes by an estimated 8%.
“We are excited to celebrate Georgia being home to the largest public-private partnership in USDOT history,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday. “Georgia’s logistics and transportation network is a major selling point to job creators, and this approved financing will make it easier for hardworking Georgians to commute.”
As with other toll-lane projects the state DOT has built, the new lanes will be optional for drivers willing to pay a toll to speed up their trip. Tolls will vary according to the level of traffic.
Under the public-private partnership model, Peach Partners will recover its investment in financing and building the project from toll revenue.
“Securing TIFIA federal credit assistance is an essential milestone for the SR400 Express Lanes project,” said Javier Gutierrez, CEO of SR400 Peach Partners. “Thanks to this loan, this critical project will become a reality, improving safety and mobility in the greater Atlanta metro area for generations to come.”
The project also features a transit component. Peach Partners will contribute $75 million toward improvements needed to serve about 12 miles of the Georgia 400 corridor with a bus rapid transit system to be run by MARTA.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — In Georgia, people can be held responsible for false imprisonment if they get police to arrest someone who did nothing wrong.
A former DeKalb County commissioner learned that costly lesson Monday in federal appeals court when judges sided with two women who are seeking $100,000 in damages and legal costs.
The story almost writes itself.
“This appeal is about a man who lost his wallet and, shortly after, his solvency. We begin with the wallet. We then turn to his bankruptcy,” starts the opinion of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It continues: “On July 12, 2012, Stanley Watson, a DeKalb County commissioner, entered the Tanqueray Lounge in Decatur, Georgia, and saw Shenekka Bradsher sitting at the bar.”
Things went downhill quickly.
He bought her drinks and asked her to go home with him. She felt insulted and called him “big” and “greasy.”
When Watson couldn’t find his wallet, he accused her and her friend Zarinah Ali of stealing it.
He then got an off-duty police sergeant who was providing security to arrest Bradsher, the opinion says. Watson, whom the opinion says was “intoxicated,” “belligerent,” and “irate,” then briefly drove away despite the officer’s concerns about his condition. Watson returned, then a lieutenant arrived and called a major who told the lieutenant to tell the sergeant to let someone take Watson home. Watson wanted them to arrest Ali, and they told her to remain on the scene.
The sergeant wrote in his incident report that “circumstances beyond his control” prevented his arresting Watson, adding that he did not “feel right” arresting Bradsher, whom he released with a warning.
A video of the incident shows Watson threatening to call the police chief and threatening the bar with the loss of its food certification.
The next day, Watson found his wallet in his car.
The women sued, Watson filed for bankruptcy, the case got hearings in bankruptcy court and district court, then made its way to the appeals court.
The appeals court concluded that the bankruptcy court did not err in finding Watson had “willfully and maliciously” caused the confinement of the women.
The women also received a judgement against Watson for slander, but the bankruptcy court determined that Watson didn’t have to pay that $50,000. However, he remains liable for the $100,000 stemming from false imprisonment.
The moral of this story: it’s safe to relay facts to an officer and share an opinion that a person should be arrested. But one may be held liable for false imprisonment if one “actively instigates or procures” an arrest.
by Dave Williams | Aug 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia energy regulators voted unanimously Tuesday to hold hearings this fall on a Georgia Power request to certify 9,900 megawatts of new power generating capacity environmentalists say would rely heavily on harmful fossil fuels.
The plan calls for adding about 8,000 megawatts of capacity by building new gas-burning turbines at Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen near Cartersville, Plant Wansley near Carrollton, and Plant McIntosh near Rincon. The utility’s “all source” request for proposals also would include purchasing gas produced at existing plants, construction of new battery energy storage systems (BESS), and company-owned BESS paired with solar power.
Another 1,866 megawatts of new generating capacity would come by buying gas from existing plants as well as new BESS project and company-owned BESS paired with solar.
More than 80% of the new capacity would be used to meet a growing demand for electricity to serve power-hungry data centers that are springing up across Georgia.
“Georgia Power and its parent – Southern Co. – want to heat up the planet, pollute our air, and make their customers pay for it,” said Adrien Webber, director of the Sierra Club’s Georgia chapter. “This proposal is not in the best interests of Georgia Power’s customers or our environment, and if we had a Public Service Commission (PSC) that actually worked for the public, it would be dismissed as unreasonable.”
The PSC voted last month to freeze Georgia Power’s base rates for the next three years, exempting only costs the company incurred recovering from the damage Hurricane Helene wreaked in Georgia last September. The commission also adopted a resolution last January prohibiting Georgia Power from passing on the costs of serving new large-load customers including data centers to residential customers.
But critics argued the resolution was full of loopholes. Instead, they supported legislation introduced in the Georgia Senate this year by Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, to codify that requirement into state law. However, the bill failed to gain traction in the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee amid opposition from Georgia Power.
The first set of hearings before the PSC will take place in October followed by a second round in early December. The commission is scheduled to vote on the certification request Dec. 19.
by Dave Williams | Aug 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is supporting a new lawsuit brought by a gun-rights organization challenging a Savannah ordinance restricting the storage of firearms inside the city.
The ordinance, approved by the Savannah City Council in April of last year, prohibits storing guns in unlocked vehicles, with violators subject to a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail. Passage of the ordinance followed an outbreak of stolen firearms in Savannah, most taken from unlocked vehicles.
In a brief filed last week, Carr wrote that the ordinance is superseded by a state law prohibiting local governments from regulating the possession, transport, or carrying of firearms.
“This misguided attempt to punish law-abiding Georgians does absolutely nothing to address crime, and it won’t hold up in court,” Carr said. “No matter how much the mayor disagrees with our laws, he cannot openly infringe on the Second Amendment rights of our citizens. Progressive politics aren’t a defense for government overreach.”
Carr sent a letter to Savannah officials last year shortly after the ordinance was adopted recommending that the city rescind its action and warning of potential civil liability.
Mayor Van Johnson answered defiantly a short time later that he was sticking by the ordinance.
“We say, ‘Sue us,’ ” he said. “We’ll go to the (U.S.) Supreme Court. … We have some of the best lawyers.”
The new lawsuit was filed in Chatham County Superior Court by Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun rights nonprofit based in Sacramento, Calif.
