by Dave Williams | Oct 28, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Former President Donald Trump brought his 2024 presidential campaign to the campus of Georgia Tech in Midtown Atlanta Monday night.
Just eight days before Election Day, the Republican nominee called Georgia critical to a Trump victory over Vice President Kamala Harris on Nov. 5.
“We win this state and we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump said during a rally at Tech’s McCamish Pavilion to a cheering crowd waving “47” signs. The next president of the United States will be the 47th in the nation’s history.
As he has throughout the campaign, Trump put an emphasis on his pledge to secure America’s southern border
“The day I take the oath of office, the migrant invasion ends and the restoration of our country begins,” he said.
But Trump also made some promises of more recent vintage. He said he would push for legislation offering tax credits to family caregivers and making interest payments on car loans fully tax deductible if the vehicle was made in the U.S.
Trump also vowed to cut energy prices in half during his first year in office, making America energy dependent through his “drill baby drill” mantra.
The former president repeated a litany of criticisms of Harris as an incompetent candidate with “radical left lunatic policies.”
At the same time, he pushed back on attacks Harris and other Democrats have leveled at him, that he is a fascist who, at age 78, doesn’t have the energy to serve a second term in the White House.
“I’m not a Nazi,” he said. “I’m not tired. I’ve done this (campaigning) for 58 days in a row, and I’m not tired, not even a little bit.”
Trump also characterized as politically motivated his indictment in Georgia last year on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “They went after their political opponent, and they made me more popular.”
Trump said he was pleased with the record-setting pace of early voting in Georgia but urged his supporters who haven’t yet voted not to get complacent.
“Get out and vote,” he said. “We can’t take any chances.”
While Trump predicted he will defeat Harris, Democrats cited the huge crowd that attended her rally in Clarkston last week as proof positive that her campaign has built energy and enthusiasm in the Peach State.
“As Trump and (Republican vice presidential nominee) JD Vance parachute into our state, Georgians are ready to turn the page on Trump’s extreme Project 2025 agenda,” said Matt Blakely, Georgia rapid response director for the Harris campaign.
by Dave Williams | Oct 28, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Early voting has become the option of choice for many Georgia voters.
As of 12:30 p.m. Monday, more than 2.7 million voters in the Peach State had cast their ballots during the early voting period that began two weeks ago. Combined with 177,192 absentee ballots, more than 40% of active voters in Georgia already have voted.
That Day 15 early voting total shattered the previous record of nearly 2 million for the same day in the 2018 early voting period. Nearly 1.98 million had voted early by Day 15 in 2020, and more than 1.6 million had cast ballots early by the same day in 2022.
“Georgia voters know we’ve made it easy to cast a ballot. It’s really that simple,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday. “Over the past four years, we’ve worked tirelessly to prepare for this election by adding early voting days and investing in infrastructure. … We’re battle tested and ready.”
Statewide, reports of long early voting lines were minimal, although some voters were waiting in line for more than 30 minutes in a few popular voting locations in metro areas.
The early voting period comes to an end this week. The last day for early voting is Friday, four days before Election Day a week from Tuesday.
by Dave Williams | Oct 28, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A leading agriculture industry executive urged Georgia lawmakers Monday to consider a constitutional amendment that would let the state government provide direct financial relief to farmers who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene.
The Georgia Constitution includes a gratuities clause that prohibits the state government from giving gifts to individuals without a benefit to taxpayers in return. Historically, state policy makers have supported the clause as promoting fiscal responsibility and preventing corruption.
But the damage wreaked by last month’s storm on Georgia farmers, ranchers, and foresters was so immense that the state needs the authority to provide direct disaster payments to victims, Will Bentley, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, told members of a Georgia Senate study committee meeting in Cedartown.
Helene caused at least $6.46 billion in losses to Georgia’s agriculture industry, according to estimates from the University of Georgia College of Agriculture & Environmental Science. That included $1.8 billion in direct losses to farms and $1.3 billion in direct forestry losses, Bentley said.
“Farmers need help,” he said. “If there’s ever a time to (abolish or limit the gratuities clause), now would be the time after the biggest ag hit we’ve ever had.”
Bentley said the state needs to act because federal disaster relief tends to be slow in coming. It took two years for federal relief to flow to farmers who sustained losses from Hurricane Michael in 2018, he said.
“If we have a two-year delay this time in recovery dollars from the federal government, we’re going to lose thousands of farms in the state of Georgia,” he said.
Bentley also recommended exempting disaster relief payments from state taxes, as was done in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.
While getting rid of the gratuities clause in Georgia undoubtedly would be controversial, Senate Majority Caucus Chairman Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, said the idea is worth considering.
“If it’s a matter of putting food on the table and helping the No.-1 industry in the state … we need a serious discussion and debate,” he said.
Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, chairman of the Senate Study Committee on Preservation of Georgia’s Farmlands, said he plans to hold one more meeting this fall before the panel issues its recommendations for the full Senate to take up during the 2025 General Assembly session starting in January.
by Dave Williams | Oct 25, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A South Georgia woman has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for her role in a scheme to defraud the state Department of Labor out of more than $30 million in unemployment benefits.
According to court documents, Tyshion Nautese Hicks, 32, of Vienna and seven co-conspirators filed more than 5,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims from March 2020 through November 2022, a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
To perpetrate the scheme, the defendants created fictitious employers and fabricated lists of employees using information from thousands of identify theft victims, then filed fraudulent unemployment insurance claims on behalf of those nonexistent people on the labor department’s website.
They then caused the benefits to be disbursed via prepaid debit cards mailed to addresses of their choice, many of which were in Vienna and Cordele.
Hicks pleaded guilty last February to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Her co-conspirators already have pleaded guilty or been sentenced.
The scheme was one of the largest episodes of COVID fraud ever prosecuted, said Nicole Argentieri, head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
“The defendant and her co-conspirators exploited a program designed to alleviate pandemic-related economic hardship to enrich themselves at the expense of federal taxpayers,” Argentieri said Friday. “Yesterday’s sentence underscores the department’s commitment to investigating and prosecuting those who steal from the public.”
In addition to the prison sentence, Hicks was ordered to serve three years of supervised release following the prison term and pay restitution in an amount yet to be determined.
by Dave Williams | Oct 25, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – For more than a decade, Georgians have been able to sign up for health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the federal government’s healthcare.gov website.
That’s about to change. Starting Nov. 1, a new state-based exchange – Georgia Access – will replace healthcare.gov as Georgia becomes the 20th state to trade in the federal exchange for a state-specific model.
“The ACA envisioned that each state would operate their own exchange,” said Whitney Griggs, health policy director for the nonprofit Georgians for a Healthy Future. “States know best how to reach their residents. … (Georgia) has a real opportunity to create something better than healthcare.gov.”
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services approved a waiver in August allowing the state to launch Georgia Access. The state-based exchange will give the Georgia insurance department more flexibility to pursue innovative solutions, John King, the agency’s commissioner, said at the time.
“We are restoring control over our health coverage to the people of Georgia,” King said.
But Griggs said some aspects of ditching healthcare.gov for a state-based model are cause for concern. She said Georgia’s decision to sign up enrollees to Georgia Access through web brokers or insurance companies as well as the program’s own website could lead “bad actors” to enroll people in coverage plans that are not ACA-compliant.
“Other states are really pushing enrollment through their own websites,” Griggs said. “Georgia is going to be the only state relying on this model so heavily.”
But Cheryl Gardner, executive director of Georgia Access, said the direct-enrollment approach is one of the program’s advantages. She said more than 15,000 licensed and certified agents will be available to help steer enrollees toward the best coverage options for them.
“Agents offer consumers localized help and a personalized customer experience,” Gardner said. “They are integral in our mission to providing multiple pathways for consumers to enroll in health coverage and to reducing the number of uninsured residents in Georgia.”
Griggs said she’s also wary of the technical components that will have to fall in place for Georgia Access to successfully enroll the approximately 400,000 Georgians eligible for coverage who don’t have it. She and other health-care advocates who have worked in the field for years have long memories of the glitches that occurred when healthcare.gov was first rolled out in 2013.
“I still have PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) from trying to use the (federal) exchange,” Griggs said.
To address any trepidation that might occur with the new state-based exchange, Georgia Access will offer a preview of the program’s 2025 health insurance plan offerings beginning Oct. 28 at GeorgiaAccess.gov.
“We want the enrollment process to be as convenient and accessible as possible for Georgia consumers,” King said. “Plan preview provides consumers an opportunity to browse and determine which plan best fits their wallets and needs before open enrollment begins.”
Griggs said she is optimistic Georgia Access won’t go through the same growth pains as healthcare.gov experienced in its early days.
“Now, the technology is so commonplace,” she said. “People are used to using these websites.”
Coverage through Georgia Access will begin on Jan. 1 for those who select a plan by Dec. 16. For more information, visit GeorgiaAccess.gov or call the Georgia Access Contact Center at 888-687-1503.