ATLANTA – President Joe Biden has announced his intent to nominate former state Rep. Calvin Smyre to represent the United States at the 78th Session of the United Nations later this month.
The Columbus Democrat served in the Georgia legislature for 48 years, including a stint as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He left the Gold Dome last year after Biden nominated him U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, an appointment that was later changed to ambassador to the Bahamas. The U.S. Senate has yet to confirm the nomination.
“This momentous announcement is a testament to … Representative Smyre’s enduring commitment to diplomacy, equality, and the wellbeing of people both within Georgia and across the globe,” the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus wrote in a statement released Monday.
“The former dean of the Georgia General Assembly has served the state of Georgia and the nation for over four decades. Now, he’ll be able to take his gifts and knowledge of helping the least and left out on the international stage.”
Elected to the Georgia House in 1974 at the age of 26, Smyre held numerous leadership positions over the years. He served as the first Black chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party and the first Black governor’s floor leader in the General Assembly.
Smyre chaired the powerful House Rules Committee before Republicans took control of the chamber in 2004.
His legislative record is highlighted by the critical role he played in replacing Georgia’s segregation-era state flag featuring the Confederate battle standard and by his sponsorship of legislation making Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a state holiday.
More recently, Smyre was a key player in the passage of a hate crimes law in Georgia in 2020 and the repeal of the state’s 1863 citizens arrest law after the murder of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery by three white men.
Smyre also has been active in national Democratic politics, co-chairing Bill Clinton’s Georgia presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. He also served the Al Gore presidential campaign in 2000 as a deputy.
A banker, Smyre retired in 2014 as executive vice president of corporate affairs of Columbus-based Synovus Financial Corp. and president of Synovus Foundation.
The 78th Session of the UN General Assembly will run from Sept. 18 through Sept. 26.
ATLANTA – The longest serving member of the General Assembly is about to leave the legislature for a post in the Biden administration.
President Joe Biden nominated Georgia Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, Wednesday as U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
Smyre, elected to the House in 1974 at the age of 26, has held a number of leadership positions over the years. He is currently chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and served as the first Black chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party.
Smyre chaired the powerful House Rules Committee before Republicans took control of the chamber in 2004. He remains a member of that committee as well as the House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for producing state budgets every year.
His legislative record is highlighted by the critical role he played in replacing Georgia’s segregation-era state flag featuring the Confederate battle standard and by his sponsorship of legislation making Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a state holiday.
Smyre also has been active in national Democratic politics, co-chairing Bill Clinton’s Georgia presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. He also served the 2000 Al Gore campaign as a deputy.
A banker by profession, Smyre rose through the ranks at Columbus-based Synovus to his current role as executive vice president of corporate external affairs. He also serves as president of the nonprofit Synovus Foundation.
“If confirmed, I look forward to advancing the interests of the United States in the Dominican Republic and our relationship with the Dominican government,” Smyre said in a prepared stastement. “As a longtime businessman and public servant, I will bring my background and experience to continue the significant work with an important economic partner in the Caribbean.”
Smyre would become the second Georgia legislator in recent years to serve as a U.S. ambassador. Former Democratic state Sen. David Adelman was U.S. ambassador to Singapore from 2010 until 2013.
On the Republican side, Atlanta lawyer and longtime Georgia GOP insider Randy Evans served as ambassador to Luxembourg from 2018 until early this year.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Former House Speaker David Ralston, who died last week, will lie in state under the Gold Dome in Atlanta on Tuesday and Wednesday (photo: Rebecca Grapevine).
ATLANTA – Legislators from across Georgia and across party lines gathered underneath the Gold Dome Tuesday to pay tribute to former House Speaker David Ralston, who died last week and will lie in state at the Capitol until Wednesday morning.
“He was a loyal friend through times of victory and loss,” Gov. Brian Kemp told the assembled mourners, who included Ralston’s family members as well as many state lawmakers.
“At times, he governed the House with an iron fist but also a big soft heart. That is why he was so respected and admired.”
“Those who frequently disagree with each other can still come together to achieve extraordinary things,” Kemp said of Ralston’s approach to politics.
Kemp listed some of Ralston’s key accomplishments: A mental health reform bill passed earlier this year, a 2020 hate crimes bill, and a 2015 transportation funding package.
After serving for more than a decade in the state Senate, Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, was first elected to the House in 2002. In 2010, he assumed the position of speaker, which he held for more than a decade until his death last week.
“Of all those friends I’ve had the privilege of knowing, David Ralston was unique,” said Len Walker, who was Ralston’s pastor and, prior to that, served with Ralston in the Georgia House of Representatives. “He was one of a kind and I treasure his memory.”
Walker, a Republican who represented Loganville, described how his conversations with Ralston while in the House often started off with legislation but quickly transformed into explorations of deep topics such as theology, life and death.
“I treasured the conversations we had,” Walker said. “He was a friend who would build you up …. [and] make you feel better about what you were trying to do in this state Capitol.”
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, credited Ralston for the passage of a major mental health bill earlier this year.
“We passed a very significant mental health reform bill because of David Ralston’s leadership. It would never have happened without him,” Oliver said. “He was committed from the beginning. I think his cause for reform will go on beyond today.”
Ralston was well known for maintaining a civil atmosphere in the Georgia House.
“Speaker Ralston and I had a unique relationship,” said former Democratic Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus.
Ralston did not shy away from challenges, said Smyre, who was chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Smyre pointed to the former speaker’s success with this year’s mental health reform bill and the 2015 transportation package.
“He loved those heavy lifters,” Smyre said. “Politically, he had a two-way street and not a one-way alley. You could go back and forth with him, reason with him.”
“Though there were major differences under the Gold Dome, there was a sense of civility, that you could disagree without being disagreeable,” Smyre added. “A giant tree has fallen.”
Ralston surprised Georgians earlier this month when he announced he would not run for the leadership position next year. His death followed soon thereafter. House Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington, is expected to succeed Ralston as speaker during the next legislative session, which will begin in January.
Ralston’s body will lie in state in the Rotunda of the state Capitol until Wednesday morning. A funeral service at Fannin County High School Performing Arts Center in Blue Ridge is planned for 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 27.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a comprehensive overhaul of a mental health-care system rated among the worst in the nation.
“Mental health touches almost every family in Georgia,” House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, who has made the bill his top priority this year, told lawmakers before the 169-3 vote. “These are Georgians who are hurting because the mental health-care system has failed them and hopelessness is winning the battle for their future.”
House Bill 1013 would require health insurance companies to treat mental illness the same way they treat physical illness. The parity provision also would apply to Georgia’s Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids programs and to the State Health Benefit Plan for teachers, university system employees and state workers.
The bill also would require care management organizations (CMOs) participating in Georgia Medicaid to dedicate at least 85% of their revenues to patient care and create a service-cancelable loan program to address a shortage of mental health-care workers.
Ralston said the legislation is being supported by $29 million in the fiscal 2022 mid-year budget and the fiscal 2023 spending plan on top of $58 million the General Assembly appropriated for mental health services last year.
The bill stems from two years of work by a state commission formed to find solutions to the funding, workforce development, access and insurance issues that hamper mental health and substance abuse services in Georgia.
The coronavirus pandemic has added a sense of urgency to the issue, with suicides, opioid abuse and Fentanyl overdose deaths on the rise in Georgia.
“There is no holy grail of how do you solve this,” said Rep. Todd Jones, R-South Forsyth, who worked with Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, to shepherd the bipartisan bill through the House Health and Human Services Committee. “[But] we have the ability to at least make a material change. … This is the first step that must be taken.”
Rep. Philip Singleton, R-Sharpsburg, echoed concerns that came up during committee hearings about a provision in the bill that would make it easier to commit mentally ill Georgians to a mental-health facility against their will. But the vast majority of House lawmakers agreed the overall thrust of the measure was well worth supporting.
“This bill is a game-changer,” said Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the House’s longest serving member. “It’s transformational.”
Ralston dropped a strong hint on the state Senate, where the bill now is headed, that he considers the issue too important for the typical give-and-take that occurs between the two legislative chambers.
“Lives are at stake with this bill,” he said. “I hope they will think twice before nitpicking or trying to take apart the work that has been done by this commission.”
This story isavailable through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Early voting for November’s city elections began this week, and while only a handful of Georgia’s municipalities are holding contested mayoral elections, Atlanta’s will undoubtedly have the most impact throughout the state.
“Lots of groups rate Georgia very highly as a business-friendly state, and Atlanta as a forward-looking city,” said Tom Smith, an economics professor at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. “Atlanta’s mayors have historically been very aggressive in what the city has to offer businesses, making sure those workers are protected, and that they have access to housing, libraries and roads.
“People underestimate the mayor’s overall impact in coordinating and creating relationships with the state’s domestic and international partners.”
In a shocking move earlier this year, incumbent Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced she would not seek reelection, thus setting up a wide-open race that brought out more than a dozen hopefuls, including Bottoms’ predecessor, former Mayor Kasim Reed.
Also running are Atlanta city councilmen Antonio Brown and Andre Dickens, city council President Felicia Moore, real estate investor Kirsten Dunn, attorney Sharon Gay, nonprofit founder Kenneth Hill, insurance executive Rebecca King, legal scholar Walter Reeves, businessman Roosevelt Searles III, public accountant Richard Wright, and Glenn Wrightson, Nolan English and Mark Hammad.
Like many other major American cities, Atlanta was hammered by the effects of the coronavirus as well as a spike in violent crime and civil unrest. In a survey released this week by the personal finance website WalletHub, Atlanta ranked No. 1 among 50 American cities with the highest increase in homicide rates during COVID.
“The last three years have not been at all what I would have scripted for our city,” Bottoms said on May 7.
The mayor cited a major cyberattack on city offices in her first months in office and a federal investigation into corruption under Reed. She also blamed former president Donald Trump.
“There was last summer,” Bottoms said. “There was a pandemic. There was a social justice movement. There was a madman in the White House. It is abundantly clear to me today that it is time to pass the baton on to someone else.”
During the 2020 presidential election, Bottoms was seen as a rising star in Democratic Party politics and was briefly mentioned as a possible running mate for Joe Biden. After Biden picked Kamala Harris as his vice presidential choice, Bottoms was also rumored to be in line for a top Cabinet position.
Earlier this week, Bottoms’ hopeful successors met in a televised debates in which they clashed over crime, ethics and other issues. The debates were part of the Atlanta Press Club Loudermilk-Young debate series and were aired over Georgia Public Broadcasting stations.
Brown, Dickens, Gay, King, Moore, Reed and Wright have scored highest in recent polls, and a runoff is all but assured.
Reed continues to be dogged by allegations of corruption during his previous two terms as mayor but is assuring voters he has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Moore in particular has made Reed’s tenure a central theme of her campaign.
“People jailed, indicted, awaiting trial. Thirty million dollars and counting for [Department of Justice] responses, and it keeps going,” Moore said to Reed during the debate. “The tone is set from the top, criminals like your melody. Why should Atlanta voters believe that you are singing a different tune?”
“The bottom line is I never dishonored my office and I kept my word to the people of Atlanta,” Reed responded.
Atlanta’s new mayor will also have to deal with a movement in the wealthy residential and financial district known as Buckhead to form its own city.
A proposed city of Buckhead would carve out about 25 square miles – or about 18% of the city of Atlanta’s land area – as well include about 20% of the city’s population. It would also cost Atlanta more than $250 million in property, sales and lodging taxes, as well as business license revenues. The General Assembly is expected to address the cityhood proposal during the 2022 legislative session beginning in January.
Many of Georgia’s other contested mayoral races are inside metro Atlanta, including the cities of Marietta, Sandy Springs, Dacula, East Point, Fairburn, Johns Creek, Roswell, South Fulton, Stone Mountain and Tucker.
On the edge of the metro area are contested mayor’s races in Braselton and Sugar Hill. Voters in Warner Robins in Middle Georgia also will choose a mayor.
Voters in Columbus will decide a 1% special-purpose local-option sales tax that would collect $400 million over 10 years for public safety and governmental projects.
And a special election will be held in Chatham County to fill the state House seat that became vacant with the death of Rep. Edward “Mickey” Stephens, D-Savannah. Five candidates are seeking the seat.
Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the dean of the General Assembly, is awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation as President Joe Biden’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic. A special election has not yet been called to replace him, should the Senate approve his nomination.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
