A Georgia developer is proposing a casino resort on Lake Hartwell.
ATLANTA – Supporters of legalizing casino gambling in Georgia have failed to make headway in the General Assembly year after year for the last decade amid intense opposition from religious conservatives.
But this year’s push features a different wrinkle. A Georgia developer who helped build The Battery, a mixed-use complex in Cobb County that includes the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park, recently released renderings of three proposed casino resorts around the state, injecting tangible details into an issue that has been debated more often in broad generalities.
“It gives a hometown flavor to have somebody in Georgia who would be a frontline player,” said state Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, co-sponsor of a constitutional amendment to legalize casinos in Georgia introduced in the state House of Representatives late last month.
Smyre’s hometown is the site of one of the casinos proposed by Rick Lackey, founder of Atlanta-based City Commercial Real Estate. It would be built along the Chattahoochee River.
Lackey also is eyeing sites along Interstate 85 in Lavonia near the South Carolina line and along I-95 in Midway south of Savannah. Besides casinos, the resorts would include luxury hotels, entertainment venues and retail shopping.
Siting casinos along Georgia’s north-south interstate highways is key to attracting tourists, Lackey said.
“There are people who drive through Georgia on I-75, I-85 or I-95 on their way to Florida,” he said. “At some point, they’re going to stop and get gas, a Chick-fil-A sandwich and go to the bathroom. We don’t have anywhere for them to stop and stay.”
A casino resort in Columbus would be located along the Chattahoochee River.
House Resolution 30 calls for a statewide referendum asking voters to authorize a “limited number” of casino resorts. If two-thirds of the state House and Senate vote for the constitutional change, it would land on the statewide ballot in November of next year.
While previous efforts to get casino gambling through the legislature have fizzled, Lackey said Georgia’s economic plight amid the coronavirus pandemic makes this year different. Casinos offer tens of thousands of jobs – both temporary construction and permanent – and hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment, he said.
“In the past, Georgia had very low unemployment and very high tax revenues,” Lackey said. “Now, we don’t. We have a need for jobs and increasing tax revenues.”
Under House Resolution 30, a portion of the proceeds from casinos would go toward the HOPE Scholarship and other tuition and grant programs at both public and private colleges and universities as well as Technical College System of Georgia campuses.
While the Georgia Lottery Corp. just reported record profits for the last six months of 2020, lottery ticket sales are failing to keep pace with the demand for scholarships, which has opened up a $300 million hole in HOPE funding, said Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, the resolution’s chief sponsor.
For Stephens and other supporters, the need to prop up the HOPE program provides a powerful argument for legalizing casinos.
Stephens said another advantage to the legislation is that casinos would not be able to set up shop where they’re not wanted. If voters statewide approve the constitutional amendment, a second local vote would be required to build a casino in a city or county, the same requirement the General Assembly imposed on Sunday sales of alcohol 10 years ago.
“Citizens are going to have to ask for it before it’s even considered,” Stephens said.
Supporters of legalized gambling have gotten off to a head start in selling Lavonia, Columbus and Midway on casinos. City councils in all three communities have endorsed putting resort casinos in their midst.
A casino resort on the Georgia coast would be built along I-95 in Midway.
In Lavonia, Lackey’s company has a 500-acre site along Lake Hartwell under a lease agreement. About 8.6 million people live within a two-hour drive, and 37.6 million can get there within five hours.
“It would be a perfect place,” said state Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, another cosponsor of House Resolution 30.
Metro-Atlanta’s six million residents enjoy easy access to Columbus via interstates 20 and 185, and the city lies along a popular route to the Gulf Coast beaches.
The planned casino site in Midway is adjacent to and just east of I-95. Up to five million people live within a two-hour drive.
“It’s basically suburban Savannah,” Lackey said.
The House has yet to hold a hearing on House Resolution 30.
Powell said the casino measure should be combined with legislative proposals to legalize sports betting and pari-mutuel betting on horse racing into one giant constitutional amendment. As it stands now, a sports betting bill before the House is in the form of a statute rather than a constitutional change.
There’s also Gov. Brian Kemp to consider. The governor is “not a big fan” of legalizing gambling in Georgia and could veto anything that comes out of the General Assembly as a standalone bill.
Constitutional amendments, however, bypass the governor and go directly to the voters.
Polls have shown strong support among the public for legalized gambling.
“They’re ready to go,” Stephens said.
“For too long, we have allowed this to linger,” Smyre added. “It’s time to fish or cut bait.”
ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia continued to decline last week, as the state Department of Labor worked to implement system changes allowing benefits authorized by legislation Congress passed in December.
Additional requirements in the bill must be integrated into labor department systems before eligible payments can be released. Among other things, the new requirements include additional proof of employment and increased identification verification.
The agency encourages claimants to continue to request weekly payments for those who have exhausted benefits or are waiting on determinations on eligibility.
Last week, initial unemployment claims in Georgia fell by 801 to 27,215.
Since the coronavirus pandemic struck Georgia last March, the state has paid out almost $17.8 billion in unemployment benefits to more than 4.3 million Georgians, more than the last nine years combined before the COVID-19 era.
Meanwhile, Georgia has become a victim of its own success in that the State Extended Benefit (SEB) program is ending with the week of Feb. 6 because of declines in the unemployment rate.
The SEB program becomes available when a state meets the unemployment rate threshold for a designated period and ends when the unemployment rate decreases below the threshold.
“Georgia has experienced a decrease in the unemployment rate over the past few months as the economy has stabilized and people are getting back to work,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said Thursday.
“However, the timing is not optimal as we continue to implement the many complicated programs passed by Congress. Every time a change is made, we must reprioritize programming to meet the requirements issued by the [U.S. Department of Labor].”
The job sector accounting for the most first-time unemployment claims in Georgia last week was accommodation and food services with 6,345 claims. The administrative and support services sector was next with 3,280 claims, followed by manufacturing with 2,434.
More than 177,000 jobs are listed online at https://bit.ly/36EA2vk for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Thursday walked back many of the controversial remarks and social media postings that have made the freshman Republican from Northwest Georgia a political lightning rod.
But Greene’s 10-minute speech on the House floor didn’t stop majority Democrats from passing a resolution 230-199 to strip her of assignments to serve on the House Budget and Education and Labor committees. Eleven Republicans joined the Democrats in supporting the resolution.
Greene, R-Rome, described herself to her new colleagues as a wife, mother and successful business owner who didn’t get involved in politics until the election of former President Donald Trump.
She said her belief that Trump would act to curb abortion and illegal immigration and get the U.S. out of foreign wars led her to begin researching the internet, where she stumbled upon QAnon, a far-right group that traffics in baseless conspiracy theories.
Greene said she has since learned that QAnon spreads lies, that the 9-11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon did happen and that the school shootings in Connecticut and Florida were real.
In previous remarks and social media postings, she has praised QAnon for patriotism, questioned whether a jet plane flew into the Pentagon and stated the school shootings were staged to create momentum for gun control legislation.
But on Thursday, Greene said she made those comments before she decided to run for Congress and blamed “big media companies” for using them to mischaracterize her.
“I never once said during my entire campaign … any of the things I’m being accused of saying today,” she said. “These were words of the past. These things do not represent me, my district or my values.”
But Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., chairman of the House Rules Committee, which brought the resolution to the House floor, said Greene’s “disgusting rhetoric” cannot be tolerated if the House is to maintain a “standard of decency.” He pointed particularly to Greene’s “liking” of a tweet in 2018 advocating the assassination of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Serving on a committee is not a right but a privilege,” McGovern said. “When someone encourages violence against a member, they should lose that privilege.”
Greene’s Republican defenders said stripping her of her committee assignments would mark an unwise precedent, the first time one party has moved to take away the assignments of a member of the other party.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the Rules Committee’s ranking Republican, warned Democrats could get a taste of the same medicine the next time Republicans capture a majority in the House.
“I find the comments made by the representative in question before she was elected to Congress to be deeply offensive,” he said. [But] if we open this Pandora’s Box … it runs the risk of getting into a tit-for-tat exchange that could cripple the operations of this House now and in the future.”
Cole and other Republicans also argued Greene was being punished without the benefit of a hearing before the House Ethics Committee.
“She and every other member of this body should be entitled to due process,” said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Tifton.
But McGovern said a hearing into whether what Greene did merits punishment is unnecessary.
“Look at her social media posts. It’s all there,” he said. “They go well beyond anything we’ve ever seen from a member in this body.”
McGovern also pointed to Greene’s fundraising activities since taking office last month as evidence that she is not apologizing for what she has said and posted. Last month, Greene said she had raised $1.6 million due to the media publicity surrounding her controversial remarks.
Greene trounced Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal in Georgia’s heavily Republican 14th Congressional District last fall after he had dropped out of the race. She defeated neurosurgeon John Cowan for the GOP nomination in August by a margin of 57% to 43%.
ATLANTA – Georgia Senate budget writers voted Thursday to give the state Department of Labor some help handling an unprecedented deluge of unemployment claims stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $26.3 billion mid-year budget that adds $49,729 to hire a chief labor officer to oversee unemployment insurance requests, including financial audits.
“The employees, who have been working long hours, [should] have the resources, direction and management they need to make sure they’re in the best position to do their jobs,” said committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia.
The state has paid out more than $17.5 billion in state and federal benefits to more than 4.3 million Georgians since COVID-19 struck Georgia nearly a year ago, more than the last nine years combined.
The volume of claims has inundated the labor department, forcing the agency to bring on additional employees and redirect some current workers from other responsibilities to processing claims.
A backlog in handling claims prompted a lawsuit last month filed by a half dozen unemployed Georgians seeking a court order requiring the labor department to process claims in a timely manner.
The additional position senators added to the mid-year budget is subject to approval by the General Assembly in separate legislation.
For the most part, the Senate committee signed off on mid-year spending additions recommended by Gov. Brian Kemp to restore cuts in the fiscal 2021 budget the legislature adopted last June. State tax revenues have been coming in higher than expected despite the pandemic-driven economic downturn, giving lawmakers leeway to ramp up spending.
The mid-year budget restores $567 million in cuts imposed last year on K-12 schools and $70 million to fully fund enrollment growth at Georgia’s public colleges and universities. It also includes $20 million the governor requested to expand broadband connectivity in rural Georgia.
“That broadband money will help rural areas that we know now are not connected,” Tillery said.
The committee also supported changes the state House of Representatives made to Kemp’s mid-year budget, including $39.6 million for new school buses, which have been doing triple duty during the pandemic, transporting students, carrying meals to students taking classes online and serving as WiFi hot spots in areas with inadequate wireless service.
Senators also endorsed a House proposal to use existing funds to give correctional officers in the state prison and juvenile detention systems a 10% raise effective April 1. Both workforces are suffering extremely high turnover rates.
The Senate committee approved some budget additions of its own, redirecting $11 million in bond financing to the Department of Public Health for technology improvements to help the agency track Georgia’s COVID-19 response.
“This is an unprecedented point in time,” said Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta. “We’re doing what we can to help in their efforts to protect Georgia.”
Senators also added $92.2 million to the $52.7 million the House had put up to fund road construction projects and $200,000 to the $286,000 the House had put toward the Department of Public Health’s budget. The additional funds would let the agency hire five new managers to help with the COVID-19 response, rather than the three positions the House had funded.
The Senate panel also kicked in $1.25 million to the $1.75 million the House had appropriated to help the Georgia Agricultural Exposition Authority offset losses from the pandemic. The facility in Perry was forced to cancel the annual Georgia National Fair last fall because of COVID-19.
The full Senate is expected to take up the mid-year budget early next week.
The late Congressman John Lewis (Official U.S. House photo)
ATLANTA – A resolution calling for placing a statue of the late Congressman John Lewis inside the U.S. Capitol cleared a committee in the Georgia House of Representatives Wednesday.
The resolution would create an eight-member committee to decide where in Georgia to relocate a statue of Confederate politician Alexander Stephens that the Lewis statue would replace.
Stephens, who served as vice president of the Confederacy, is one of two Georgians whose statues are located inside the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, which features two statues from each state.
Statues of Confederate political and military leaders have been demolished or relocated across the country during the last couple of years because of their connections with racism and slavery.
Lewis, a Democrat from Atlanta, died last summer at the age of 80. He represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District for more than 30 years after serving as a civil rights activist. He was beaten severely by Alabama state police in 1965 while on a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., an incident that came to be known as Bloody Sunday and was instrumental in congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year.
On Wednesday, some members of the House committee with jurisdiction over state properties questioned the process that led to the resolution.
Rep. Jodi Lott, R-Evans, said she was surprised that Lewis was selected for the honor before the committee proposed in the resolution has been formed.
“Hank Aaron’s name has come up for being an incredible unifier,” she said, referring to the Atlanta Braves baseball great who died last month. “Politicians don’t tend to be considered as unifiers.”
Another committee member suggested former Congressman and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young should have been considered.
Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, the resolution’s sponsor, said he at first thought of suggesting a statue honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. However, there is already a statue of King at the U.S. Capitol, he said.
“I think Rep. Lewis would be a good example,” Williams said.
Besides determining a suitable site to relocate the Stephens statue, the proposed committee would select a sculptor for the Lewis statue.
The committee also would be responsible for overseeing the costs of designing and creating the statue, transporting it to the U.S. Capitol, removing and relocating the Stephens statue and the ceremony unveiling the new statue. All of the money would be raised privately.
The committee will be given until Dec. 1, 2022, to carry out its assigned tasks.
The resolution, which now moves to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote, enjoys strong bipartisan support. Its cosponsors include House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge; House Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington; House Minority Leader James Beverly, D-Macon; and Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the House’s longest serving member.
