Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators said Tuesday they are still working to include a massive Medicaid expansion provision in the Senate’s final spending bill.
“We are united in this push and to doing everything we can to ensure that our constituents who lack health insurance, have access to health care and to close the circle on the Affordable Care Act by ensuring that folks are not suffering or dying, simply because the state government has decided not to expand Medicaid,” said U.S. Jon Ossoff.
Georgia remains among 12 Republican-run states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid, with former Gov. Nathan Deal and current Gov. Brian Kemp citing the program’s costs.
Kemp prefers a more limited expansion, which the Trump administration approved last year. But the Biden administration has put that plan on hold because of concerns it includes a work requirement for Medicaid recipients.
Ossoff said both he and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock have spoken to U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, several times to secure his support. Manchin and U.S. Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Arizona, have expressed serious reservations about the size and cost of President Joe Biden’s $3.7 trillion spending and infrastructure plan.
“Health care is a human right in every state,” Warnock said. “Your ability to access health care ought not to be based on personnel. The Affordable Care Act is the law, and Medicaid saves lives.”
Georgia Democrats have pushed for Medicaid expansion since then-President Barack Obama steered the Affordable Care Act through a Democratic Congress in 2010 with no Republican votes.
Ossoff and Warnock declined to comment on whether they would support Biden’s massive infrastructure spending bill if Medicaid expansion was not included in the final version.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Herschel Walker, the UGA football legend who is running for the Georgia GOP Senate nomination, got two big endorsements from Capitol Hill this week.
On Monday, Walker was endorsed by U.S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. Thune, as Senate Whip, is the No. 2 Republican in the Senate.
Thank you @SenJohnThune for your support! The road to taking back the Senate runs through GEORGIA and I look forward to working with you in Washington! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/fd3GHy4uAu
Then on Wednesday, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed Walker’s first-ever political campaign.
“I am happy to endorse Herschel Walker for U.S. Senate in Georgia,” McConnell said. “Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate. I look forward to working with Herschel in Washington to get the job done.”
Thank you Leader McConnell for your endorsement. As I have said from the beginning, I am laser focused on bringing people together to win this seat back for GEORGIA and for America. #UnitedWeStand#DividedWeFallpic.twitter.com/0wJiuxss3W
McConnell is the sixth U.S. senator to endorse Walker, who has also been endorsed U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri); Steve Daines (R-Montana); Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina).
Walker is seeking the chance to face Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in November 2022. Georgia is widely seen as a battleground state that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, which is currently deadlocked between Republicans and Democrats in a 50-50 split.
Walker has already been endorsed by former president Donald Trump, and debuted his campaign at a Trump rally in Perry earlier this year. Walker once played for Trump’s New Jersey Generals in the now-defunct USFL.
Back in September, Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, who is also running for the GOP Senate bid, announced the endorsements of 55 state Republican lawmakers.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Cobb County can expect an economic windfall of at least $5 million each night that Truist Park hosts the World Series, says an Emory economic and business professor.
“It could go up to about $10 million per night, but that figure might be on the high side,” said Tom Smith of the Goizueta Business School. “But I think you’re looking at somewhere between $15 million and $30 million if all three of the scheduled games are held.”
Games three and four of the World Series between the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros are set for Friday and Saturday at Truist Park, with a potential game five set for Sunday.
On Tuesday night, the Braves took game one in Houston by a final score of 6-2. Game two is set for Wednesday night at Minute Maid Park.
The Astros and Washington Nationals played in the 2019 World Series, which was the last Major League Baseball championship to be held before live, sold-out crowds before the pandemic. In 2019, Destination DC, the official destination marketing organization for Washington, D.C., was estimating an economic impact of $6.5 million with two home games at Nationals Park.
Smith said the series won’t have as much economic impact on the rest of metro Atlanta other than Cobb County.
“When you have an event taking place in town and most of the people going to the game live in the area, there’s just a transferring of spending from one activity to another,” Smith said. “Instead of going to Ponce City Market in Midtown, you go to the Battery.”
The Battery is also holding watch parties for the series when it is played in Houston, which Smith called an amazing opportunity for those businesses.
“These are days when usually there hasn’t been anything else going on at this time of year,” he said. “It’s going to be insane there. You’re going to have 50,000 to 100,000 people in your backyard for a few days in October.”
The Cobb Chamber of Commerce doesn’t have a predicted economic impact from the games, but President and CEO Sharon Mason said all of the hotels in the Cumberland Community Improvement District (CID) are sold out.
In 2018, the chamber commissioned a Georgia Tech economic impact study that showed the Braves bring more than $18 million into the immediate area around the stadium, an area that does not include the CID.
Of that amount, $14 million goes to Cobb schools, Mason said, and $4 million goes to the local government.
“In the long run, spending public money on a new stadium brings very little in return to the local community,” Smith said. “Most of the new stadium’s benefits go back to the team leasing the facility. It’s usually a very challenging task to find significant benefits for a community that’s funding the stadium.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – State health officials said Monday that 50% of all Georgians, or 5,154,793 residents, are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers individuals have been fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose of a two-dose series (Moderna or Pfizer) and two weeks after a single-dose vaccine (Johnson & Johnson).
More than 56% of Georgians have received at least one dose of COVID vaccine, according to the state Department of Public Health.
“Having 50% of Georgians fully vaccinated is a positive step toward ending the COVID-19 pandemic in the state,” Commissioner of Public Health Dr. Kathleen Toomey said.
“However, COVID-19 continues to spread in Georgia, particularly in areas of low vaccination rates, causing severe illness and death – deaths that are preventable.”
As of last week, all three COVID vaccines – Pfizer, J&J and Moderna – have been given Emergency Use Authorization for booster doses for some individuals. Third doses and booster doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to nearly 120-thousand Georgians.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA –The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia filed an amicus brief on Monday with the state Supreme Court arguing a state law that led to a legislator’s arrest back in 2018 is unconstitutional.
The state law under which police made these arrests bans any speech that “may reasonably be expected to prevent or disrupt a session or meeting of the Senate or House of Representatives” as well as any “loud” or “abusive language” in the Capitol building.
Williams, a Democrat who now represents Atlanta’s 5th Congressional District, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing the statute violates both the U.S. and Georgia constitutions. However, the federal district court sent the case to the Georgia Supreme Court requesting that it to rule first whether the statute violates the state constitution.
The ACLU’s amicus brief was filed on behalf on several organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, the state NAACP and Planned Parenthood Southeast.
“Georgians must be able to speak their minds in the state Capitol building, the seat of our democracy,” said Sean Young, legal director of the ACLU of Georgia. “Our amicus brief asks the Georgia Supreme Court to enforce the robust speech protections of the state constitution and strike down this overbroad criminal statute.”
Young said while the statute criminalizes the disruption of legislative meetings in the Capitol, it also unconstitutionally criminalizes expressions of speech in the building even when they do not disrupt anything.
“The highest courts of 10 other states that have similar provisions in their state constitutions have agreed that this language provides greater protections than the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections,” Young said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
