Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church (Credit: Warnock for Georgia)
ATLANTA – A second poll of Georgia’s free-for-all U.S. Senate race shows Democrat Raphael Warnock in the lead over Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville.
Warnock, pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, drew the support of 36.2% of Georgians surveyed in a poll released Friday by WSB-TV and Landmark Communications.
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp late last year to succeed retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson on an interim basis, is second at 25.8%, followed by Collins at 23.3%.
A poll published Sept. 29 by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute was the first to show Warnock in first place.
As a special election contest, the race between Warnock, Loeffler and Collins did not feature any primaries. Thus, it is open to Republicans, Democrats and independents, and 21 signed up to run.
With such a crowded field, no one is likely to win more than 50% of the vote on Nov. 3. if that’s the case, a runoff between the top-two finishers would be held in early January to decide who will fill the remaining two years of Isakson’s six-year term.
The Landmark poll also showed the race for Georgia’s 16 electoral votes between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden remains tight.
Republican Trump leads with 48.6% of the vote to 46.8% for Democrat Biden. That’s well within the poll’s margin of error of 4%.
Georgia’s other U.S. Senate contest also remains essentially tied due to the poll’s margin of error. Incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue leads with 47% of the vote, with Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff close behind at 45.5%.
Libertarian Shane Hazel polled just 1.5% of the vote, but he could attract enough votes on Election Day to force a runoff between the two major-party candidates.
The poll of 600 likely Georgia voters took place on Oct. 7.
The Nathan Deal Judicial Center in downtown Atlanta (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Voters in Clarke and Oconee counties will have the opportunity Nov. 3 to elect a district attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit instead of having to wait until November 2022.
The Georgia Supreme Court Thursday ruled unconstitutional a state law that allows a district attorney appointed by the governor to serve beyond the remainder of the unexpired four-year term of the prior district attorney without an election.
Former state Rep. Deborah Gonzalez filed paperwork to run for the post after former District Attorney Ken Mauldin resigned last February and Brian Patterson took over on an acting basis.
But Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ruled Gonzalez could not run because the next election for that position isn’t scheduled until two years from now.
Gonzalez and four other registered voters sued Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp in federal court in May. The court sided with Gonzalez, ruling the Georgia Constitution “requires the appointed district attorney to run for re-election at the general election prior to the expiration of the existing term of office.”
Kemp and Raffensperger appealed to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which referred the case to the Georgia Supreme Court.
In Thursday’s ruling, the court declared the state law violates Paragraph I (a) of the 1983 Georgia Constitution.
“The final sentence of Paragraph I (a) says simply, ‘Vacancies shall be filled by appointment of the governor.’ It does not say appointments to fill vacancies do anything to change the existing, four-year term of office held by the district attorney who vacated the office before the end of that term,” Chief Justice Harold Melton wrote for the court.
“Accordingly, when the governor’s appointee fills a vacancy in an office of district attorney, he or she steps only into the remainder of the unexpired fixed four-year term for the office.”
ATLANTA – Initial unemployment claims in Georgia experienced an uptick last week, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
For the week ending Oct. 3, 44,874 Georgians filed first-time unemployment claims, an increase of 1,348 over the previous week.
Since mid-March, when the coronavirus pandemic began forcing businesses to close and lay off workers, the labor department has processed more than 3.8 million initial jobless claims, more than during the last eight years combined.
Overall, the state has paid out almost $14.8 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits since COVID-19 set in.
Within that total is more than $1 billion in payments through the federal Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) program, which President Donald Trump launched in August after an earlier program expired at the end of July. While the previous program was providing jobless workers weekly supplements of $600, the LWA initiative pays out $300 per week in unemployment benefits.
With so much financial assistance going out, the state agency reminded claimants this week to accurately report earnings each week, especially those who are working part-time and continuing to file for unemployment benefits. Unreported wages could cause an overpayment of benefits that would require a claimant to pay back the money.
“We want to make sure claimants are receiving accurate payments each week,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said Thursday. “Factual reporting is critical to avoid overpayment situations when claiming weekly unemployment benefits.”
Since March 21, the accommodation and food services job sector has accounted for the most first-time unemployment claims in Georgia with 918,930 claims. The health care and social assistance sector is next with 443,855 claims, followed by retail trade with 407,386.
More than 176,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia.com for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume and assisting with other reemployment needs.
ATLANTA – An organization representing Georgia teachers has filed a lawsuit accusing Gov. Brian Kemp and State School Superintendent Richard Woods of mishandling the reopening of public schools amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The suit, filed by the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), seeks a ruling that public-school students have a constitutional right to attend schools that meet basic health and safety standards and that public school districts have a duty to provide a safe work environment for their employees.
“Georgia’s 1.8 million public school students deserve to be safe and healthy in all school settings,” said Lisa Morgan, a kindergarten teacher and the GAE’s president. “Decisions by some of our leaders have led to classroom and school environments that endanger our children.”
Kemp ordered public schools across Georgia to shut down last March as COVID-19 began spreading throughout the state. Students completed the spring semester online.
During the summer, the governor expressed a preference for reopening the schools to in-person instruction but left that decision up to local school districts.
School systems opened in August for the 2021-22 term under various scenarios, from completely virtual to fully in-person to a combination of the two. In many cases, parents within the same schools were given a choice of whether to keep their kids at home or send them to school.
“Educators fully understand the preferred option of in-person instruction,” Morgan said. “We want to be in our classrooms interacting with our students and providing them the instructional experiences we know provide them the best learning opportunities. However, our overriding concern is the welfare and safety of our students.”
The suit names as co-defendants the superintendent and school board members in the Paulding County School District, citing a video a student shot there in August that went viral showing crowded school hallways.
“Public health experts across the country and the world have issued extensive recommendations regarding whether and how schools should reopen,” the suit states. “Schools should only be opened for in-person instruction where levels of COVID-19 transmission in the surrounding community are low.”
The governor’s office doesn’t usually comment on pending litigation, Kemp spokesman Cody Hall said Thursday.
At a news conference Wednesday, Kemp said new positive cases of coronavirus in Georgia have dropped more than 60% from their peak in July, and the two-week positivity average – a key marker to assess the virus’ spread – has fallen by half since August.
The GAE suit was filed in Fulton County Superior Court.
ATLANTA – Jury trials are about to resume in Georgia for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic took hold back in March.
Georgia Chief Justice Harold Melton announced Wednesday he will sign an order Oct. 10 lifting the suspension of jury trials across the state.
Melton issued an order last month authorizing the resumption of grand jury proceedings at the discretion of the chief judge of each superior court after consulting with the district attorney.
Similarly, the new order gives the chief judge of each trial court the discretion “to resume jury trials, if that can be done safely and in accordance with a final jury trial plan.”
For the last five months, a statewide task force made up of judges and lawyers appointed by Melton has been developing guidelines for the safe reopening of in-person court proceedings.
Topics taken up in the guidelines include the use of masks, the reconfiguring of courtrooms and chairs, installation of plexiglass barriers, and the use of markers to ensure social distancing. Also covered are plans for guaranteeing public access to court proceedings, including setting up areas where the public can watch remotely from within the courthouse.
“From the beginning of this emergency – and even earlier – we have been preparing for this day,” Melton said. “We have put into place rigorous safety protocols for grand jury proceedings and jury trials because we understand that the public must have confidence to come and serve on juries. It is paramount to all our judges that our citizens realize that their safety has been thoroughly considered.”
Melton’s order points out that due to the time required to summon potential jurors for service, grand jury hearings and jury trials will not actually start until a month or longer after the process for resuming them begins.
Also, due to substantial backlogs of unindicted and untried cases, as well as public health precautions, proceedings will not occur at the speed they occurred before the pandemic.
“The right to a trial by a jury of our fellow citizens, in both civil and criminal cases, is fundamental to the American justice system,” Melton said.
“To delay that process has made a difficult time more difficult for everybody involved in our justice system – litigants, victims, witnesses, lawyers, judges, and jurors. We must move forward, and I am confident that due to the hard work of so many judges, lawyers, and support staff, we are ready to do so.”
