by Ty Tagami | Jun 12, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Some Georgia lawmakers have been trying for years without success to raise Georgia’s tax on cigarettes, but some think cuts at the federal level may finally stir interest in their cause.
State Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, said she’s been trying for five years to get the Republican-led Georgia House of Representatives interested in a study committee on the issue, and leadership finally relented.
The House Study Committee on the Costs and Effects of Smoking met for the first time Thursday. Members heard from smoking cessation advocates, including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, American Lung Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
They learned that, yes, cigarettes are still extraordinarily harmful to health — and that raising the cigarette tax would both discourage smoking and help to pay for the health consequences for those who keep smoking.
There are at least 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, said Danna Thompson, a regional director of advocacy for the American Lung Association, and 69 of them are known to cause cancer.
Nine out of 10 lung cancer deaths are due to smoking, which also is known to cause obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and coronary heart disease, among others, she said.
“Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body,” Thompson said.
The lawmakers also learned about the financial impact for everyone, due to rising health care costs and reduced productivity at work when smokers get sick.
Experts said Georgia is spending hundreds of millions more on Medicaid for people sickened by smoking than it gets from the cigarette tax.
Only Missouri charges a lower tax than Georgia for a pack of 20 cigarettes, said Andrew Lord, a lobbyist for the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology. Georgia’s tax is 37 cents a pack, Lord said, adding that raising it to $1.37 would generate between $400 million and $500 million.
That still wouldn’t close the gap on medical costs, according to Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
The cigarette tax currently generates about $115 million a year, and Georgia is spending about $850 million a year on Medicaid costs attributable to smoking, he said.
Kanso added that Georgia has plenty of room to raise the tax. New York state has the highest tax, at $5.35 per pack.
Au, a medical doctor, is leading the charge for a tax increase, which is a dubious prospect in a legislature led by Republicans who generally oppose taxes.
However, she has some GOP allies. A handful of Republican senators signed a 2019 resolution encouraging the House, which writes the budget, to raise the cigarette tax to at least the national average to help offset indigent health care costs.
And Au has three Republican signatures on House Bill 83, introduced this year, to raise the tax to 57 cents per pack. She said in an interview that federal budget cuts may be undermining the traditional GOP opposition to tax hikes.
The easiest way to kill a bill is to ignore it, she said, so the approval of the study committee is a sign of receptiveness to her idea.
“The fact that they’re letting us talk about it … shows a level of investment and interest that we did not have before,” Au said.
Federal cuts are already having an impact.
The Georgia Department of Public Health confirmed that it eliminated its Tobacco Use Prevention Program last month due to federal cuts. However, a spokeswoman said “core” tobacco and vaping prevention and cessation programs, including the Tobacco-Free Schools and the Georgia Tobacco Quitline, were still operating.
Courtlandt Fouche, the former director of the program, said the loss of $2 million from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention far outweighs the $750,000 the state directed to the program from the national tobacco lawsuit settlement fund.
Fouche said he and his four managers were let go. One handled youth prevention, another cessation in general, another second-hand smoke exposure and the fourth program evaluations.
Their outreach to children, adults and local public health districts helped hundreds, even thousands, quit smoking, he said, adding, now, those relationships are “completely lost.”
by Ty Tagami | Jun 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The University System of Georgia Board of Regents held a final vote Wednesday to confirm Christopher “Mike” Johnson as president of the University of West Georgia.
The chief of staff for the University of Houston (UH) and the UH system will succeed the Carrollton university’s interim President, Ashwani Monga, on Aug. 1.
Monga will return to his permanent role as the university system’s executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer.
The Regents had already voted in late May to name Johnson the sole finalist for president after a seven-month national search.
System Chancellor Sonny Perdue said the vote marked “an exciting new chapter” for the university, home to 14,400 students, with more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs and with classes beyond the Carrollton campus, in Douglasville and Newnan.
“It’s a true honor to be named president of the University of West Georgia, and I’m grateful to Chancellor Perdue and the Board of Regents for their trust in me,” Johnson said.
The U.S. Marine Corps veteran holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from The Citadel, a master’s degree in higher education from George Mason University, and a doctorate in higher education leadership and policy from the University of Houston’s College of Education.
Johnson previously served as director of development for military programs at Purdue University, where he helped secure over $40 million in gifts, a statement from the Regents’ office said. He also worked with the UH system, state legislators, faculty and others to help secure over $20 million toward establishment of a college of medicine there.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
UPDATE: this article now includes comment from one of the companies that was sued
ATLANTA – When Regina Brinson reached the middle of the aluminum walkway, she heard it crack and watched in horror as it broke just in front of her feet, plunging the elderly people ahead of her into the fast-moving water.
Soon, her portion of the gangway to the Sapelo Island ferry was in the water, too, and the current was carrying her downstream.
Brinson described her experience of the Oct. 19 tragedy that killed seven people during a news conference Wednesday. Her attorney, well-known civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, called the conference to announce his firm was filing a “multimillion-dollar” lawsuit against the companies involved in designing, engineering and building the gangway in 2022.
Dozens were reportedly on it that afternoon, preparing to take a ferry operated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources from the Marsh Landing Dock back to the mainland when the 80-foot structure buckled and collapsed.
“When people put profit over safety, you have the traumatic loss like she and her cousin Jeff Thomas had,” Crump said at the gathering outside the visitor center of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historical Park.
Thomas’ father, Brinson’s uncle, died that day.
The setting for the news conference was deliberate because Crump’s clients — 30 people who were injured or related to four of the dead — are descendants of West Africans who were enslaved on that barrier island. The tragedy unfolded during their annual Sapelo Cultural Day, a celebration of the island’s historic Gullah Geechee community.
“I wonder, honestly, if this case would have gotten more attention if it were all elderly white people,” Crump said, adding, “Black tears are just as valuable as white tears.”
Crump, who has offices in Decatur and in seven other cities across the country, has won clients millions of dollars in high-profile, race-related lawsuits. Among those he has represented are the families of Ahmaud Arberry, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Brinson held a crumpled tissue in her right hand, her eyes red, as she recounted the worst part of her story. While floating downstream, she spotted her uncle Isaiah Thomas in the water next to her. She told him to grab her hand, and he did. But he also clutched at her collar, dragging her beneath the surface.
Brinson, who said she cannot swim, said God told her what she had to do next: go up for air!
“I’m underwater, peeling finger by finger by finger off my shirt, having to release my uncle,” she said. Once free, she broke for the surface, then saw him float by. She was distraught as she dog paddled toward shore, thinking, “Oh my God, what did I do?”
Crump said she did nothing wrong, that the companies responsible for the gangway forced her to choose survival.
In addition to Thomas’ family, Crump’s lawyers are representing the families of Jacqueline Crews Carter, Cynthia Gibbs, and Carlotta McIntosh, who also died that day.
Crump said the lawsuit only targets companies responsible for the gangway. So far, he said, the state of Georgia is not a defendant.
Collaborating attorney Jeffrey Goodman, a Philadelphia lawyer known for handling product liability and structural collapse cases, said the gangway should have been able to support 100 pounds per square foot but was instead designed to hold less than a third of that.
The suit was filed Tuesday in Gwinnett County. Goodman said that venue was chosen because Gwinnett is the base of one of the defendants, Centennial Contractors Enterprises, which he characterized as “right in the middle of what went wrong.”
Centennial said in a statement that the company doesn’t comment on pending legal proceedings but said the “underlying facts” of this case were still being investigated.
“Our deepest sympathies are with those who lost loved ones or were injured,” Centennial said.
Other lawyers are representing survivors of the other three who died that day — William Johnson, Jr., Queen Welch and Charles Houston — as part of the same lawsuit.
Houston’s daughter, Heather Houston-Meeks, is represented by the national injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, which said she was on the gangway with her father when it broke.
The firm previously represented four victims of a 2022 incident in which a boat ramp in St. Marys 75 miles south of Sapelo Island collapsed, injuring several people.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 10, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Democrat running for the Georgia Public Service Commission failed Tuesday to convince a judge to let him stay on the ballot after Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ruled that he did not live in the district where he was running.
Daniel Blackman was among four Democrats running in the June 17 primary for the District 3 PSC seat currently held by Republican Fitz Johnson. But late last month, Raffensperger kicked Blackman off the ballot after declaring that he had failed to prove he had established residency in the district in time to satisfy the legal requirements for candidacy.
Blackman had said he moved last fall to Fulton County, which is in the 3rd District, but Raffensperger observed that his wife had remained in Forsyth County, which is not.
Raffensperger considered that and other evidence in disqualifying Blackman, who then appealed to Fulton County Superior Court.
Fulton Judge Ural Glanville quickly issued a stay on Raffensperger’s decision. But at the conclusion of a follow-up hearing Tuesday that lasted for more than an hour, the judge said he had decided to rule against Blackman’s petition.
“The secretary’s decision did in fact properly apply Georgia law,” Glanville said.
PSC District 3 includes Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton counties. The decision leaves three Democrats on the primary ballot for that seat: Keisha Sean Waites, who has served in the state House of Representatives and on Atlanta City Council; Peter Hubbard, a clean energy advocate; and Robert Jones, who has worked in energy and telecommunications.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
DALTON – By the time nearly 1,700 Republican delegates were driving away from their annual state convention, a vigorous storm had descended on Dalton, rocking cars, dislodging a glass door at the convention center entry and tearing a flag off one of the poles outside.
Party stalwarts fear another kind of storm could tear at GOP unity as a momentous election year approaches.
But despite some discontent, the delegates voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Josh McKoon as their chairman. Otherwise, nothing earth-shaking happened. A resolution to bar Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger running as a Republican did pass, but McKoon later said it was probably not legally enforceable.
And no one unexpectedly declared their candidacy for the U.S. Senate or for the smorgasbord of other seats that have opened up, or appear to possibly be open, as the incumbents either launch or consider a run for higher office.
Up for grabs next year are the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, and probably the office of lieutenant governor. The national Republican Party is also targeting the Senate seat now occupied by Democrat Jon Ossoff.
In Ossoff, the delegates found a unifying cause, with leaders labeling him a liberal extremist and, in the words of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, a “spoiled brat.”
Greene was allotted more time than anyone else, talking for about 40 minutes to close out the speeches Saturday before candidates for party office took the stage.
Greene has ruled out a run for Ossoff’s seat but when asked in an interview if she was considering a run for governor next year, the final year for term-limited Republican Brian Kemp, Greene said she is “always keeping my options open.” She said she needs to consult with family, friends and supporters, “so I don’t have a time frame, but it is something I will think through.”
Others said to be considering higher office, including Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the Republican who presides over the state Senate, and members of Congress besides Greene, also spoke without revealing their plans.
This election year is the quiet one before next year’s storm. The only major race is for two seats on the state Public Service Commission (PSC), Georgia’s Republican-led utility regulator.
Both Tim Echols, one of the GOP incumbents, and Republican challenger Lee Muns fretted over turnout during this early voting period before the June 17 primary.
“I don’t want to start this convention off being a Debbie Downer, but I’m having trouble getting my own relatives to go to the polls,” Echols said to a small crowd as the convention got underway Friday afternoon.
Ideological purity was a through-line of the convention, with assertions of loyalty to President Donald Trump, opposition to everything transgender (God made only two genders), support for Israel, opposition to the state income tax and a commitment to energy dominance.
“The very first words that God spoke to us in his word is, ‘Let there be light,'” said Tricia Pridemore, who serves on the PSC. “Think about that.”
John King, the elected state insurance and safety fire commissioner who is running in the GOP primary for Ossoff’s Senate seat, said on Friday that Trump had sent him to secure the border with Mexico when he was a major general in the U.S. Army National Guard, a role he retired from two years ago.
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons, the first elected official to announce for Ossoff’s seat, praised Trump and his energy policy while criticizing Ossoff for his positions on immigration, transgender policy and Israel.
Another potential candidate for that Senate seat, U.S. Rep. Michael Collins, R-Jackson, said in an interview that he was not close to deciding on a run. But his speech on stage Saturday was preceded by a recording of hip hop music overlaid with Trump’s voice, and he wore a white ball cap that said, “Gulf of America.”
“Like God, we’ve got Donald Trump’s back, and we are going to continue to make America great,” Collins said. He asserted Georgia is a “red” state, adding, “We’re going to send that trust fund boy Ossoff home, and we’re going to put us a solid conservative in that seat.”
No declared candidate for governor spoke, although Jones talked about state Senate passage of conservative legislation under his watch, and he shared an anecdote about Trump answering his phone calls within a ring or two.
Attorney General Chris Carr, who has announced he is running for governor, did not speak, though he did hold a rally at a nearby pizza spot Friday.
There were also candidates up on stage, both announced and presumed, for the seats currently held by Jones and Carr.
John F. Kennedy, a Republican state senator from Macon, said he was running for Jones’ lieutenant governor seat even though Jones has not yet announced he’s leaving it to run for governor. Kennedy, the Senate president pro tempore, had tipped his hand a couple of weeks ago by registering to raise money to campaign for the office, as had Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia. Tillery spoke about his unsuccessful bill that targeted “debanking” but didn’t openly declare he was running for lieutenant governor.
Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, who declared for Jones’ seat in mid-May, claimed credit for creating an “America First” car tag for Georgia. “We need to defend the America-First agenda that President Trump ignited,” the Senate majority leader said. (Both Kennedy and Tillery co-sponsored the bill, which Kemp signed into law).
Gooch also said it is time to eliminate Georgia’s state income tax.
Greene said Georgia should eliminate the income tax, too, and she said the state should deal with homelessness by reopening mental hospitals.
Greene also acknowledged “a little bit of a quarrel going on,” which would later manifest in booing when party leaders announced that the voting to select the chairman and other party leadership positions would be conducted with electronic “clickers” rather than the paper ballots prepared by a contingent in orange vests.
“This convention has been rigged,” said Norine Cantor, a candidate for second vice chair, who said the party lacked morals and values.
When Kylie Kremer, a candidate for another leadership post, said the way the party was being run was a “disgrace,” many in the crowd roared their approval. “You guys have no idea what a functioning party looks like because this is all you know,” she added.
Neither won a place in party leadership.
McKoon handily won re-election, taking nearly 64% of the 1,666 votes clicked for the chairmanship.
After the convention, he said paper ballots would have been too slow, though he said the state has the resources to pull off an election with paper.
McKoon shrugged off the controversy.
“I really appreciate the confidence of the delegates here in Dalton,” he said. “To win by a two-to-one margin is really pretty humbling.”
