ATLANTA – The two major party candidates for lieutenant governor released their first ads of the general election campaign Wednesday, and they couldn’t be more different in tone.
State Sen. Burt Jones, R-Jackson, (above right) went the biographical route with an ad describing growing up in rural Georgia, where he learned “small-town values.”
Democrat Charlie Bailey (above left) countered with an ad attacking Jones as a “poster boy for extremism” for participating in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Jones touted his background as a job-creating small business owner and pledged to support two platform planks long favored by many Republicans: ending Georgia’s income tax and making sure parents are in charge of their children’s education.
The GOP-controlled General Assembly passed the Parents’ Bill of Rights this year establishing a process for giving parents input into curriculum decisions.
However, the legislature has been content to reduce the state income tax rate rather than get rid of the tax amid opposition from some Republican leaders to eliminating it entirely.
Bailey’s ad calls attention to Jones’ participation with 15 other Georgia Republicans in an alternate slate of electors that in December 2020 sought to reverse the outcome of the November presidential contest that saw Democrat Joe Biden carry Georgia over Republican incumbent Donald Trump.
Jones’ role led to his being stripped of a Senate committee chairmanship in January of last year along with two other Senate Republicans who served as alternate electors.
Bailey also charged Jones with publicly opposing abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. However, a Jones campaign spokesman later told Axios he supports those exceptions.
The Jones campaign is spending $1.5 million on his ads, which will run statewide across broadcast, cable, and digital platforms.
Bailey’s campaign is spending a bit less, with an ad budget in the six figures.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The ex-husband of former Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (GVRA) counselor Karen C. Lyke has pleaded guilty to conspiring with her in a multi-year scheme to steal more than $1.3 million.
Kevin M. Gregory, 40, of Toledo, Ohio, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee to one count of conspiracy to commit federal program theft.
Gregory and Lyke, 37, who pleaded guilty last month, admitted forging educational records by creating fake students with non-existent disabilities and illnesses to obtain tuition assistance from the state agency.
The pair used the names of friends and relatives to fake medical records to create the appearance that 13 fake students qualified for the grant funds. They claimed the fake students suffered from disabilities or illnesses including AIDS, cancer, psychosocial impairments, or muscular dystrophy.
“Gregory and Lyke exploited a government program designed to empower some of the most vulnerable Americans to achieve their educational and vocational goals,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said. “Driven by greed, Gregory and Lyke … swindled taxpayers out of more than $1.3 million.”
Lyke served as a GVRA counselor in the agency’s Norcross office from June 2015 until March 2019.
Based on false documentation, the two caused more than 230 checks to be mailed to the fake students. Gregory and Lyke either deposited the checks into their own bank accounts or gave them to the fake students to be deposited.
The fake students then funneled most of the funds back to Gregory and Lyke.
Gregory and Lyke used the stolen funds to pay for various personal expenses, including cars, jewelry, high-end guitars, and the down payment on a new home.
The two also conspired to steal at least seven computers valued at about $32,000. They kept one for personal use and sold the rest.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Republican U.S. Senate nominee Herschel Walker, a staunch opponent of abortion, is denying a media report that he paid for an abortion for a girlfriend in 2009.
But his son reacted to Walker’s response to the story The Daily Beast posted on its website Monday by calling his father on Twitter a liar and hypocrite.
The elder Walker told FOX News host Sean Hannity Monday night the story is “a flat-out lie” concocted by supporters of incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.
“They’ll do anything to win this seat,” Walker said. “They want to make it about everything else except the true problems we have in this country: inflation, the border wide open, crime. They don’t want to talk about that, so they’re making up lies.”
Walker is vowing to sue The Daily Beast for defamation.
Meanwhile, his 24-year-old son, Christian Walker, criticized his father on Twitter after The Daily Beast posted the abortion story. The younger Walker said he has been mostly absent from the campaign trail because his father has not owned up to his past.
“I did one event last year when we were told he was going to get ahead of his past and hold himself accountable,” Christian Walker said. “That never happened.”
Warnock’s campaign has been running ads featuring Herschel Walker’s ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, describing how he held a gun to her head.
Walker has said he is accountable for his past violent behavior but that he was struggling with dissociative identity disorder at the time, a mental illness about which he later wrote a book.
The younger Walker, who has gained a reputation as a conservative influencer, said the family tried to talk Herschel Walker out of running for the Senate because of his violent past.
Christian Walker took his father to task for posing in campaign ads as a “family man.”
“You don’t get to pretend you’re some moral family guy,” the younger Walker said. “Talk policy. Do not lie.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation
ATLANTA – Georgia Power has settled a lawsuit filed by one of its utility partners in the nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle over allocating the costs of finishing the long-delayed, overbudget project.
The Atlanta-based utility has agreed to pay the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) at least $76 million based on the current capital cost forecast for completing the construction of two additional nuclear reactors at the plant south of Augusta.
The two units originally were expected to go into service in 2016 and 2017. But the work was delayed by a variety of factors, including the bankruptcy of the original prime contractor and disruption to the construction workforce during the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest forecast calls for the first of the new reactors to begin operating during the first quarter of next year, followed by the second reactor in the fourth quarter of 2023.
MEAG sued Georgia Power last June asserting its right to trigger a 2018 agreement freezing its capital costs for the project. Originally expected to cost $14 billion when the state Public Service Commission approved the expansion in 2009, the price tag has more than doubled.
The MEAG action followed a suit filed by Oglethorpe Power, another minority partner in the project.
Oglethorpe owns 30% of the Vogtle expansion project, while MEAG’s share is 22.7%. Georgia Power, the largest of four utility partners, holds a 45.7% ownership share. Dalton Utilities has a tiny 1.6% stake.
Under the 2018 agreement, when the project costs reach a certain point, the minority partners are allowed to reduce their ownership share in exchange for Georgia Power picking up 100% of the remaining costs to complete the project.
Under the settlement, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late last week, MEAG will retain full ownership of its project share. Georgia Power will pay 20% of any additional costs MEAG incurs beyond the current project capital cost forecast.
The agreement between Georgia Power and MEAG does not resolve Georgia Power’s ongoing legal disputes with Oglethorpe and Dalton Utilities. Georgia Power’s potential exposure in those cases is up to $165 million, according to the company’s filing with the SEC.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign reported another prolific fundraising quarter Monday.
Warnock, D-Ga., raised more than $26.3 million during the third quarter of this year, easily eclipsing the $17.2 million his campaign brought in during the second quarter.
“There is undeniable momentum in Georgia to reelect Reverend Warnock to the U.S. Senate, and tens of thousands of grassroots donors are helping to propel our campaign across the finish line in November,” said Quentin Fulks, Warnock’s campaign manager.
Warnock received contributions from more than 340,000 individual donors during July, August, and September. The campaign reported $13.7 million cash on hand as of Sept. 30.
Republican Herschel Walker, Warnock’s opponent, had not revealed his latest campaign fundraising results as of Monday. Candidates for the U.S. House and Senate have until Oct. 15 to file third-quarter fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission.
Walker, the former University of Georgia football star, reported raising nearly $6.2 million during April, May, and June.
Walker also has gotten some help from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the Senate GOP’s official campaign arm.
With the tight Georgia Senate race among a handful that could decide whether Democrats maintain control of the Senate, the NRSC has been running attack ads against Warnock.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
