ATLANTA – Mutual fund company Green Century Management has filed a third shareholder proposal asking a prominent company to address risks associated with a plan to mine titanium near the Okefenokee Swamp.
Atlanta-based The Home Depot Inc. is a leading retailer of titanium dioxide-based paint.
“Home Depot acknowledges that sustainability efforts make its business stronger, more agile, and more resilient,” Green Century President Leslie Samuelrich said Wednesday. “A permanent commitment to protect the Okefenokee would do just that.”
The Home Depot shareholder resolution follows shareholder measures filed earlier in November aimed at Chemours, which manufactures and sells chemicals including titanium dioxide, and Sherwin-Williams, a major carrier of titanium dioxide-based paint.
While Home Depot has confirmed that its primary paint suppliers do not currently have plans to source titanium dioxide from the proposed mine, the company has not made a public commitment regarding future titanium sourcing.
Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals is seeking state permits to mine titanium dioxide on Trail Ridge, the Okefenokee’s eastern hydrologic boundary.
While company executives have said the project would not harm the swamp, scientific studies have concluded the proposed mine would significantly damage one of the world’s largest intact freshwater wetlands by drawing down its water level and increasing the risk of drought and fires.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division has received more than 100,000 public comments opposing the mine. A poll released last year found nearly 70% of Georgians oppose granting permits for the project.
“Mining has no place at an ecological gem like the Okefenokee,” said Annie Sanders, director of shareholder advocacy with Green Century. “With headquarters in the Okefenokee’s backyard, Home Depot has a unique opportunity to bolster its environmental image with customers, employees, and shareholders.”
The proposed Georgia House map would pair four sets of incumbents.
ATLANTA – The General Assembly’s special redistricting session kicked off Wednesday with legislative Democrats and redistricting watchdog groups assailing Republican-backed proposed maps for both the state House and Senate as unfair to Black voters.
Both maps comply with a federal court ruling last month that declared the maps the legislature’s GOP majorities drew two years ago violated the Voting Rights Act.
The proposed state Senate map would add two Black-majority districts, while the House map would add five, as U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ordered in a lawsuit filed by civil rights and voting rights groups.
But Democrats argued both maps would make changes well beyond the House and Senate districts the court order identified as being in violation of the voting rights law.
Senate Democrats released an alternative map this week that would alter only the boundaries of the 10 districts Jones targeted in his ruling, said Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain. The Democrats’ map would bring almost 150,000 Black residents now living in white-majority Senate districts into Black-majority districts, she said.
“Democrats did what the court ordered within the confines of the court order,” Butler said. “Unfortunately, the (Republican) proposal fails to do so.”
On the other hand, the Republican-backed Senate map extensively redrew 15 districts, including districts that are not in areas Jones identified in his ruling, added Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta. Parent’s Senate district is one of two white-majority districts served by Democratic senators the new GOP map would eliminate.
“Many Georgians are shifted around unnecessarily,” she said. “It’s a shell game that’s not really giving Black voters more opportunity,”
Democrats and members of redistricting watchdog groups had similar complaints about the House map. Ken Lawler, chairman of Fair Districts GA, a nonpartisan organization that encourages fairness and transparency in redistricting, said the Republican House map strays far beyond creating five Black-majority districts to redrawing districts in areas not targeted in the court ruling purely for partisan gain.
“Partisan gerrymandering may be legal in this country, but it’s absolutely wrong,” Lawler said.
Others objected to the House map pairing four pairs of incumbents against each other, all in parts of the state not identified by Jones as violating the Voting Rights Act.
The map pits three sets of Democrats: Reps. Teri Anulewicz and Doug Stoner in Cobb County, Reps. Becky Evans and Saira Draper in DeKalb County, and Reps. Gregg Kennard and Sam Park in Gwinnett County. In the one Republican pairing, Reps. Beth Camp and David Knight would face off against each other in a district that includes all of Pike County and parts of Spalding and Lamar counties.
“Comply with the court order without doing unnecessary changes for partisan gain,” Janet Grant, Fair District GA’s vice chair, urged members of the House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee Wednesday.
The special session will continue through this week and for part or all of next week. Jones’ ruling gave the General Assembly until Dec. 8 to redraw both legislative maps as well as Georgia’s congressional map.
ATLANTA – Georgia House Republicans released a redistricting map for the lower legislative chamber Tuesday that adds the five additional Black-majority districts ordered by a federal judge last month.
Three of the new Black-majority districts are in the southern and western portions of metro Atlanta, areas of the state U.S. District Judge Steve Jones focused on when he ruled the legislative districts the GOP-controlled General Assembly drew two years ago violate the Voting Rights Act. Black voters tend overwhelmingly to support Democratic candidates.
One of those districts is in Douglas County, and two others are in Henry and Clayton counties, all areas that have seen a large increase in its Black population since the 2010 Census.
A fourth new Black-majority district is in the Macon area, and a fifth is in the Milledgeville area.
The proposed House map modifies the boundaries of 56 of the 180 House districts, stretching from Cobb and Gwinnett counties south through the metro region to Houston and Peach counties south of Macon.
A proposed redistricting map state Senate Republicans released on Monday also is in keeping with Jones’ order, adding two Black-majority districts to the upper chamber.
The judge also has ordered the General Assembly to create one additional Black-majority congressional district.
Lawmakers will convene under the Gold Dome Wednesday for the court-ordered special redistricting session. They’ll have to act quickly to meet the Dec. 8 deadline Jones set for them to complete their work.
ATLANTA – All five current or former living first ladies said goodbye Tuesday to “one of the truly good people in this world,” as a former aide to Rosalynn Carter described the former first lady during a memorial service at Emory University.
President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton accompanied First Lady Jill Biden and former First Lady Hillary Clinton to the service at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church on the Emory campus. They sat beside former first ladies Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, and Melania Trump.
Rosalynn Carter died Nov. 19 at the age of 96 at the home she shared for decades with former President and former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter. Despite having entered hospice care last February, Carter, who turned 99 last month, traveled to Atlanta from the couple’s home in Plains to attend Tuesday’s service.
Friends and relatives of Mrs. Carter praised her commitment during and after her time at the White House to causes from mental health to caregiving to eradicating disease in poverty-stricken Third World countries.
But to son Chip Carter, her contributions were personal. He credited her with convincing him to enter treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, literally saving his life.
“My mother was the glue who held the family together through the ups and downs and thicks and thins,” he said. “She believed in us and took care of us.”
Journalist Judy Woodruff, who became a friend of Mrs. Carter after covering her career at her husband’s side both in the Governor’s Mansion and the White House, said she revolutionized the part first ladies play in American government and politics.
“What we witnessed was a first lady who saw her role as going well beyond the essential warm and welcoming host to being a close and trusted advisor, in essence an extension of the president himself,” Woodruff said.
Longtime aide and friend Kathryn Cade talked about the extensive contributions Mrs. Carter made after leaving Washington.
“The issues that claimed her time and attention – mental health, support for caregivers, childhood immunization, problems of the elderly … were not glamours or sexy causes, yet she brought leadership to problems that impact millions,” Cade said.
Grandson Jason Carter, who following Jimmy Carter’s example by serving in the state Senate and running for governor in 2014, credited his grandmother with building the Carter Center “from an idea into a powerhouse for human rights.”
In perhaps the most poignant moment of Tuesday’s service, daughter Amy Carter read from a love letter her father wrote to her mother 75 years ago. She said she did so because he wasn’t able to address the gathering. The couple was married for 77 years.
Georgia’s current political leaders also attended Tuesday’s service, including Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp, and Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
Mrs. Carter will be laid to rest Wednesday in Plains.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp’s chief of staff is headed to an executive position with Georgia Power.
The Atlanta-based utility Tuesday named Trey Kilpatrick senior vice president of external affairs effective Jan. 15.
Kilpatrick became Kemp’s chief of staff in 2020 after serving the late U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in various roles, including deputy chief of staff. Before that, he was vice president for an Atlanta-based investment firm.
“Trey has an obvious passion for helping Georgia grow and thrive, serving all of its citizens and making our communities better,” said Kim Greene, Georgia Power’s president, chairman and CEO. “That’s a passion he and all of us at Georgia Power share.”
Kemp wished Kilpatrick well in his new role.
“Over the last three years, Trey’s dedicated leadership as chief of staff has enabled our administration to deliver on the promises I made to the people of our state and keep Georgia the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” the governor said.
Kemp announced that Lauren Curry, his deputy chief of staff, will take over as chief of staff effective Jan. 15, becoming the first female to step into that role on a permanent basis in Georgia’s history. Brad Bohannon, currently the Kemp administration’s director of government affairs and policy, will become deputy chief of staff.
