Adelson also has a history of throwing money around in political races. He pumped at least $10 million into the Gingrich campaign and, after Mitt Romney wrapped up the GOP nomination, gave another $10 million to Restore Our Future, the super PAC that supported Romney’s run.

Reports are surfacing in media outlets both partisan and independent that Adelson could become a player in Georgia’s race to replace Saxby Chambliss in the U.S. Senate.

Kent Cooper of Roll Call filed an article over the weekend raising the possibility of Adelson’s involvement in the GOP primary and detailing some of the local connections:

One of his [Adelson's] vehicles was Independence Virginia PAC, a super PAC, spent $4,921,410 against U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corporation contributed $4 million to the super PAC.

Independence Virginia PAC, whose treasurer was Paul Bennecke, filed a termination report on Friday that showed it paid Jenson Strategic Partners of Atlanta, Georgia, $10,000 on 3/20, and transferred the $41,706 in remaining funds on 4/30 to Rise and Shine America Inc., a non-profit organization, in Johns Creek, Georgia.

The organizer and registered agent for Jenson Strategic Partners is Paul Bennecke. Bennecke was the political director for State Senator Sonny Perdue’s successful race for Governor in Georgia. The limited liability company was formed in 2013.

Rise and Shine America Inc. has a registered agent listed as Douglas Chalmers Jr, of Johns Creek, Ga. The chief executive officer is listed as Harry “Chip” Lake III of Atlanta, Ga. Chalmers, a Republican, of Political Law Group, specializes in federal and state political law and tax-exempt organizations. He previously was at McKenna, Long & Aldridge LLP. He also held an appointed Board position under Gov. Sonny Perdue. Another lawyer at the firm, Rebecca Sullivan, served as Executive Counsel to Gov. Sonny Perdue.

The chief executive officer of Rise and Shine America Inc. is Harry “Chip” Lake, III. Lake worked for Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) from 2005 to 2011. He also was paid travelling expenses in 2011 by Rep. Douglas Collins (R-Ga.).

Independence Virginia PAC also paid Red Clay Strategies of Atlanta, Georgia, $62,545 in 2012 for solicitation and fundraising expenses. Paul Bennecke was a founding principal of Red Clay Strategies.

That Roll Call article has already been picked up by Georgia GOP websites like ZPolitics and Todd Rehm’s Georgia Pundit. It also caught the attention of Patrick Cleburne at VDARE.com, a right-wing, anti-immigration website that quickly came to the conclusion Adelson would use his money to help the pro-immigration “Treason Lobby” buy the Senate race:

The impact this is having in Georgia needs to be thought about. Every political consultant in the State will have figured out that if he can find a suitably obedient candidate the dollars will flow. Likewise the candidates. Those who are Patriots will be intimidated and discouraged by the wall of money blocking their path.

This is the Sheldon Adelson who declared “I’m basically a Social Liberal” in the December Wall Street Journal Infomercials in which he publicly endorsed Amnesty (for the first time as far as I know).

I repeat what I said then:

• Sheldon Adelson is the enemy

• Any pol who wants/takes money from Adelson is the enemy

• With these fantastic amounts of money on offer, any elected official is extremely likely to be corrupted quickly.

• The only hope is the legendary self-organizing capacity of the historic American nation— the awareness and anger of the grassroots.

All of this is rank speculation at the moment, but it appears that a very interesting Senate Republican primary has the potential to become even that more interesting if it turns out to be true that Adelson really is going to get involved in it.

A Senate primary featuring colorful candidates like Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey would be guaranteed to draw national attention under any circumstances. When you add to it the possibility of millions of dollars being contributed by a casino magnate, on top of exotic conspiracy theories by fringe websites, then you really do have what will probably be the most compelling political race in the country next year.

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

Last week, the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) held a public hearing to solicit comments on the draft wastewater permit for King American Finishing (KAF) located in Screven County. The hearing was held at the Effingham County High School in Springfield and, although I was not there, I understand it was well attended.

I also understand that the majority, if not all, of the people in attendance were opposed to the permit being issued.

Add me to that list.

In a letter dated May 10, 2013, I have informed EPD that I am opposed to the issuance of the proposed permit.

The proposed wastewater permit is the second issued to KAF since May 2011, when more than 38,000 fish, along with other wildlife such as alligators, turtles and birds, died in the largest recorded aquatic environmental incident in Georgia history. The dead fish and other wildlife were located downstream from the discharge pipe of King America.

Since the time of this ecological disaster, the events and actions of EPD have been well documented:

• Since 2006, KAF had been operating two flame retardant lines and had increased their wastewater discharge without getting the proper permits or disclosing it to EPD.
• Although EPD had inspected KAF several times after the fire retardant lines were installed, they were not detected by EPD.
• Under a consent order signed by EPD and KAF in September of 2011, KAF is only required to complete approximately $1 million in environmental projects on the Ogeechee River.
• In August of 2012, a wastewater permit was issued by EPD and subsequently withdrawn, citing the need for KAF to complete an antidegradation analysis, demonstrating that the lowering of water quality is necessary to accommodate important socioeconomic benefits.

That brings us to where we are today. EPD will accept written comments up until the close of business on May 15. The proposed permit will be reviewed and likely issued in late July or August.

So why am I opposing it now?

Simply put, the public’s faith in EPD’s competency and ability to protect our environment and property owners has diminished to the point that they get a vote of no confidence.

My dealings with EPD dates back to my service as mayor of the City of Pooler in the mid 1990’s when we were establishing the groundwork for the tremendous growth that Pooler continues to experience today.

At that time we fought many battles with EPD trying to get water withdrawal permits for our growing city and found it to be extremely difficult to work with them.

While serving in the Georgia state legislature in 2006, we reached an agreement with then EPD director Dr. Carol Couch to send notification via registered letters to property owners whose land had been reclassified as a result of flood map revisions. The agreement was nixed after Dr. Couch left and a new director was named.

However, while trying to implement this notification process it was discovered that the flood maps used by EPD and county digest maps identifying property owners would not overlap and therefore property owners could not be identified.

As a result of this dilemma, I sponsored legislation creating the Georgia Geospatial Commission, a group of volunteers from public agencies, universities and government who would work to coordinate and compile geographical information in our state.

After three successful years, the Commission sunset last June and this year I sponsored SB 11, recreating the Commission to continue its fine work.

Citing the objections of state agencies, and although it passed in the State Senate unanimously, SB 11 was vetoed last week.

EPD’s handling of the Ogeechee River disaster has been horrible. Communication with local legislators has been non-existent and citizen outcry has been brushed off as fanatical.

It is because of this pattern of poor communication and performance that EPD has earned a vote of no confidence by the public and the reason I oppose this permit at this time.

During my years of public service, economic development has been one of my proudest accomplishments.

Jobs are important to our state and so is our environment. KAF and our environment can and will co-exist. As a conservative, I believe there is no contradiction between protecting our environment and supporting the economy- we can and will do both.

Before any permit is approved, EPD must do a better job of communicating to elected officials and especially to our citizens and instilling in all of us the confidence that they can adequately guarantee the safety of our taxpayers, property owners and environment.

First, there was an analysis by the Associated Press of voting data from the 2012 presidential election that showed a higher turnout among black voters than the other demographic groups.

As reported by the AP’s Hope Yen:

America’s blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.

Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.

Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year’s heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president. . . .

Unlike other minority groups, the rise in voting for the slow-growing black population is due to higher turnout. While blacks make up 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of total 2012 votes cast, according to exit polling. That was a repeat of 2008, when blacks “outperformed” their eligible voter share for the first time on record.

Latinos now make up 17 percent of the population but 11 percent of eligible voters, due to a younger median age and lower rates of citizenship and voter registration. Because of lower turnout, they represented just 10 percent of total 2012 votes cast. Despite their fast growth, Latinos aren’t projected to surpass the share of eligible black voters until 2024, when each group will be roughly 13 percent. By then, 1 in 3 eligible voters will be nonwhite.

That national voting trend identified by the Associated Press can also be seen here in Georgia’s voter registration numbers.

In February 2003, white voters comprised 70.4 percent of the state’s 4.78 million registered voters, while blacks accounted for 26.6 percent of registered voters. The remaining 2.9 percent of registered voters classified themselves as Asian, Hispanic or “other.” In all, less than 30 percent of the state’s registered voters were non-white.

Ten years later, white voters make up just 58.7 percent of Georgia’s 6.12 million registered voters, while blacks comprise 29.9 percent of the voters. The voters classifying themselves as Asian, Hispanic or “other” now account for 11.2 percent of the state’s registered voters. The combined non-white voters have seen their share of the registration total increase to 41.2 percent.

This effectively means that each year the percentage of white registered voters in Georgia drops by about one point, while the percentage of non-white voters increases by about one point.

The Census Bureau issued its report this week on the 2012 election data that confirms AP’s analysis and includes these points of interest:

For the first time ever, the black voter turnout rate in a presidential election exceeded the white voter turnout rate—66.2% versus 64.1%. While the presence of Barack Obama on the ballot in 2008 and 2012 no doubt contributed to the narrowing and reversal of what had been a longstanding black-white turnout gap, the rise in the black turnout rate pre-dates his candidacies . . .

Hispanics continue to punch below their weight. Much was made right after the November election about the clout of the Hispanic vote (by, among others, the Pew Research Center). But the new Census Bureau data show that Hispanics’ turnout rate—just 48%—was far below that of whites (64.1%) or blacks (66.2%). It also fell nearly two percentage points below the Hispanic turnout rate in 2008, which was 49.9%. Because of population growth, the number of Latinos who voted for president increased by about 1.4 million from 2008 to 2012, to a record 11.2 million, but the number of Latinos who were eligible but chose not to vote increased even more—by 2.3 million—from 9.8 million in 2008 to 12.1 million in 2012. . . .

. Despite the low turnout rates for Hispanics, their high share of the under 18 population of the U.S. means that, by dint of generational replacement, they will become a more important voting bloc in future elections. Hispanics are 17% of the total U.S. population, but 24% of the under 18 population. Each year, an estimated 800,000 Latino youths turn 18. The overwhelming share is U.S-born citizens, and thus automatically eligible to vote once they enter adulthood. . . .

Non-whites were 26.3% of all voters in the 2012 election, a record high share. But they compose an even higher share of all U.S. adults age 18 and older—33.9%. By 2020 this share will rise to 37.2%, and by 2060 it will be 54.8%, according to Census Bureau projections. If the racial voting patterns from the 2012 election persist, the electoral playing field for future Republican presidential candidates will become increasingly difficult. (GOP candidate Mitt Romney received just 17% of the non-white vote.)

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

We are all human and we all make mistakes, so politicians are not unique. I have often observed, however, that elected officeholders can be extremely reluctant to admit they have made a mistake and try to fix it.

That’s why it was so heartening to see the governor and the General Assembly recognize a bad mistake they made two years ago and attempt to fix that error in this year’s session.

The misjudgment involves HOPE Grants, financial aid that is provided through Georgia Lottery revenues to students who take job training courses at the state’s network of technical colleges.

HOPE Grants help students pay the tuition for classes that teach them the skills necessary to find a new job or get their working life off to a successful start. Although the grants come from the same pot of money that funds HOPE Scholarships in the University System, HOPE Grants are a different form of financial aid aimed at a different kind of student.

Gov. Nathan Deal has said the state will need 250,000 more college graduates by 2020 to meet Georgia’s growing workforce needs. About 50,000 of those graduates will have to come from the technical colleges.

In 2011, when Deal and the Legislature were developing a bill to stabilize the financially troubled HOPE program, one of the changes they made was to raise the grade point average required for a HOPE Grant from the 2.0 level to the 3.0 level.

The change worked, in terms of reducing the demand for HOPE Grants, but it worked too well. Student enrollment in the technical college system dropped by almost 24,500 students the year after the GPA requirement was raised and continued to drop in the following year. An estimated 9,000 students lost the HOPE Grant because they could not maintain a 3.0 average.

In technical colleges, as opposed to public universities, a high GPA is not the primary goal for a student. What is more important is that the student learns the job skills being taught by the technical college so that the state has another well-trained worker.

“Technical colleges are different, technical college students are different, the academic setting is different,” said Rep. Stacey Evans (D-Smyrna). “The financial aid that goes to those students should recognize those differences.”

“Technical colleges are our best workforce development tool,” Evans added. “To have technical college graduates, we need technical college attendees.”

Evans, who was able to attend college herself because of a HOPE scholarship, proposed a bill during this past session to change the GPA requirement for a HOPE Grant back to the 2.0 level so that more students would be able to afford job training courses.

Deal recognized the need for the legislation and instructed his House floor leaders, along with Evans as one of the sponsors, to introduce a HOPE Grant bill (HB 372) that reinstated the former 2.0 GPA requirement.

“In recent years, Georgia has seen a large drop in technical college enrollment – much larger than in our University System,” Deal said. “For some students enrolled in a technical school, the loss of scholarship money put higher education out of reach.”

The passage of the HOPE Grant bill provided a good example of bipartisan cooperation in this year’s legislative session. Republicans and Democrats teamed up to pass the bill by overwhelming margins in both chambers.

“This is a good step in the right direction and will undo some of the damage that was done two years ago,” Sen. Jason Carter (D-Decatur) said when the Senate passed HB 372.

The only legislator voting against the HOPE bill was Rep. Charles Gregory (R-Kennesaw), who like Evans represents a Cobb County district but is much more of a political extremist.

Deal signed the bill into law a couple of weeks ago.

“We need more college or technical college degrees in order to attract and fill the jobs of tomorrow,” the governor said at the bill signing. “This additional benefit will provide Georgians with greater access to school at a relatively small cost to the state.”

While the governor didn’t say it, he and the legislators were finally acknowledging and fixing a big mistake they made during the 2011 session.

Let’s hope they can find more mistakes to fix when the General Assembly convenes next year.

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

During a speech on education reform, Bush once remarked: “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”

All too often, the answer to that question has been that Georgia’s kids aren’t learning very much.

There are many reasons why student and teacher performance is so disappointing, but I would argue that much of the fault lies in the people that have been elected to set policy for our public schools.

This problem goes back to the tenure of former state school superintendent Linda Schrenko, who was supposed to improve Georgia’s schools but instead spent her time stealing federal education funds that were then used to pay for a facelift and an unsuccessful political campaign.

Schrenko’s replacement, Kathy Cox, was more honest but, unfortunately, was somewhat lacking in intellectual capacity.

During a revision of the state curriculum, Cox ordered the word “evolution” to be deleted from the science curriculum, along with any mention of the “Big Bang” theory, the theory of plate tectonics, and the concept of the descent of living organisms from a common ancestor.

Those concepts are crucial to the study of biology, physics, and geology, but they were removed from the curriculum because they would have suggested the earth was more than 10,000 years old – and thus upset Christian fundamentalists who wanted biblical creationism to be taught instead.

Cox eventually reversed herself after the public protested and the national media gave Georgia a lot of embarrassing coverage.

A few years later, when the state was being sued for not spending enough money on public schools, one of Cox’s top deputies testified during a deposition that Georgia’s students did not need to take classes in science or social studies to receive an adequate education.

“I think you can do without science,” the Cox aide said under questioning from lawyers. She added later: “I think you can fail social studies and get an adequate education.”

With that kind of leadership at the top, it’s not difficult to figure out why Georgia ranks so consistently near the bottom in academic performance.

I am reminded again of the state’s failings in education with the recent debate among some political factions of the “Common Core” curriculum standards.

This is a set of guidelines that are intended to give students a more rigorous education in English, math, history, science and social studies as they progress through the K-12 public schools. The curriculum standards were drafted by educators from Georgia and 44 other states so that there would be some consistent goals for teaching our children.

The Common Core standards have sparked a growing controversy in which some political figures are demanding that they be junked because they are supposedly part of a conspiracy by the Obama administration and assorted radicals to carry out a federal takeover of education.

State Sen. Bill Ligon (R-Brunswick) introduced a bill this year that would have prohibited the Georgia Board of Education from implementing these curriculum standards, but the legislation went nowhere.

Elected officials and GOP activists from Cobb County have now joined the fight, calling for Georgia to reject the standards because they are the product of “liberals” and “communists” working in cahoots with the White House.

Gov. Nathan Deal, to his credit, has pushed back against the madness. During a trip to Cobb County for an unrelated bill signing, the governor was asked by a local reporter about the curriculum standards.

Deal defended the standards and pointed out that they were developed by state-level educators. “The federal government did not mandate it, they did not control it, they did not dictate its content,” Deal said.

Conservative political figures like Deal, former governor Sonny Perdue and current school Supt. John Barge all support the idea of Common Core standards. But we are now being told that they are part of some radical scheme to bring about federal control of education.

It’s absurd and silly, of course, but it is another example of how there are too many people who shirk their responsibility to give our kids a decent education. We are a poorer state because of it.

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

There is still roughly one year to go before qualifying is even held for the 2014 primary elections, but each of those U.S. House members is already sitting on a pile of campaign cash that exceeds or is near the $2 million level.

Kingston, a 20-year House veteran from Savannah, said his latest campaign disclosure report that he raised more than $843,000 during the first quarter of 2013 and now has a campaign stash of $1.75 million.

That’s an impressive amount, to be sure, but he hasn’t quite caught his colleagues. Price reaised more than $541,000 during the first quarter and had $2.07 million in cash that could be used in a Senate race.

As awe-inspiring as those totals might be, they still trail behind Gingrey, the former obstetrician from Cobb County.

Gingrey pulled in more than $666,000 during the first quarter and now has the jaw-dropping total of $2.4 million that he can spend in his effort to replace Saxby Chambliss.

There’s still another year for candidates to raise more funds from big contributors for that Senate race. By the time it’s all over they’ll have spent so much campaign cash that they’ll probably revive Georgia’s stagnant economy all by themselves.

It’s virtually certain that Gingrey and Kingston are going to run for Saxby Chambliss’ Senate seat, the unknown factor is Price, who has said he will disclose sometime in May deadline whether he will get in that Republican Senate primary or not.

The fourth Republican House member in the Senate race, Paul Broun of Athens, would be classified as the non-moneybags candidate in this race

Broun, who was the first person to actually announce their candidacy for this race, reported contributions of about $209,000 during the most recent reporting period and had just $217,136 in his bank account as of March 31.

Broun supporters should not worry about that, however – he has a history of running campaigns on a shoestring.

Broun went heavily into debt when he won his first House race in 2007. In 2008, while running for a full House term, he burned through his congressional staff budget by spending most of it to print and send literature to potential voters prior to the election. He still won that race going away. A lack of money is not a problem for Congressman Broun.

There will be a Democrat in this race as well, but the identity is yet to be determined.

U.S. Rep. John Barrow of the 12th Congressional District, who’s claimed three different hometowns in the past decade as Republicans kept redrawing his district boundaries, doesn’t have a lot of money like the GOP frontrunners. He had to spend essentially everything he had to defeat a Republican opponent and hang on to his House seat last November.

Barrow has always been an effective fundraiser, however, and he was already bouncing back in the first quarter, raising a respectable total of $416,000. He will be able to raise more if he decides to commit to the Senate race.

Waiting in the wings, possibly, is Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former senator Sam Nunn. If Nunn decides to enter the Democratic Senate primary, her famous father will help her raise tons of money. Barrow will probably bow out at that point and run for the House again.

Karen Handel, the former secretary of state and unsuccessful candidate for governor three years ago, may be a factor in the Republican primary.

If Price decides not to run for the Senate, Handel could well become a challenger to Broun, Kingston and Gingrey. If Price does run for the Senate, Handel could easily switch lanes and run for Price’s 6th District House seat.

There are lots of strategy sessions to be held and decisions to be made before we know what the final field will be for the Senate race.

The one thing we do know is that there will be boxcars full of money spent on this race – more money than we have probably ever seen in a Georgia political race.

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson were not voting for passage of the bill, which would expand the system of background checks to try to keep firearms away from convicted felons and the mentally deranged.

They were merely taking a procedural vote to stop a filibuster so that senators could at least talk about the gun control bill during floor debate.

“I think it deserves a vote up or down,” Isakson said in a TV interview.

The gun control measure, as weak as it is, probably will not make it to a final vote because of a filibuster by Senate Republicans. Even if the bill somehow were adopted by the Senate, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would be likely to kill it.

Because they voted for the piddling step of allowing debate on the bill, Chambliss and Isakson set off a firestorm of hostility among Georgia’s more conservative Republicans, who felt they had been betrayed.

Here’s one of the milder comments from a conservative website: “Since the Democrats have a clear majority, senators like Johnny Isakson should just stay home . . . When confronted with bad legislation, especially bills that violate the Bill of Rights, the only way to obstruct them is by getting your hands dirty with a filibuster. If you’re not up to the task, then go back to Georgia and run for your county school board.”

That anger among the base won’t bother Chambliss, because he announced a while back he isn’t running for reelection. It could cause some grief for Isakson, however, if he decides to run for another term in 2016.

Isakson’s stand is an interesting one in a state where even talking about gun control will earn you not only criticism but threats on your life.

It was just a year ago that state Rep. Ann Purcell (R-Rincon), as the chair of a legislative committee, would not let out of committee a bill allowing people to carry guns in public without having to obtain a permit.

She received death threats from gun carry activists that were so severe the GBI was called in to investigate. Purcell also decided against running for another term in the Georgia House.

I wondered if Isakson’s decision to allow debate on the current gun bill was an early sign that he had decided not to run again in 2016. One of his top supporters quickly told me that was not the case.

“Johnny has made it clear he intends to run in 2016,” said the Isakson supporter. “I’m currently organizing a fundraiser for his 2016 campaign that will take place later this month.”

“This far in advance of the 2016 primary and general election, I doubt seriously if his actions or his vote will make much difference when he stands for re-election,” the supporter said. “And, frankly, that may be a shame, because he is right.”

Say what you will about Isakson, he is savvy enough politician to know when the electoral landscape is shifting.

More and more of his Republican supporters live in suburban areas where parents worry about the dangers of random gun violence toward their kids. Fewer and fewer voters live in rural areas where guns and hunting are an ingrained part of the culture.

Gov. Nathan Deal could face a choice similar to Isakson’s next year.

The General Assembly considered but ultimately did not pass a bill in the recent session that would have opened up college campuses and K-12 schools to guns and would have made it easier for mentally ill persons to obtain firearms permits.

Gun carry advocates will be back lobbying for that bill’s passage next year and I strongly suspect it will pass.

Deal by then will be in the middle of a vigorous reelection campaign. The governor will have to decide whether he wants to sign a bill that could bring on gun violence among school kids and college students, or whether he can survive the political damage that would result if he vetoes it.

Isakson decided to stand up to that faction within his party. What will the governor do?

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

Georgia’s highways are jam-packed with congestion and crumbling into disrepair.  Our elected leaders say there just isn’t enough money to fix them.

Georgia has had to close crime labs and reduce the number of state troopers patrolling our highways because our elected leaders say they just don’t have enough money to pay for them.

Interestingly, our elected leaders had no trouble finding $800 million in tax money to build a new stadium for Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, a billionaire who is already one of the wealthiest residents of Georgia.

It’s all a matter of how you set your priorities.  For many of our elected officials, it’s more important to stroke the ego of an NFL franchise owner than to fix our roads or give our kids a decent education.

Gov. Nathan Deal and the Legislature, working in concert with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and the City Council, made it possible for Arthur Blank to get that very generous gift of tax money for his new stadium.

A series of independent polls showed that the state’s voters, by a large margin, did not support the idea of using hotel-motel tax revenues to pay for a new stadium that would benefit a private business.

Deal arranged for the matter to be shifted to the Atlanta City Council and the city’s economic development arm, Invest Atlanta.  Those entities voted to issue $200 million in construction bonds that will be paid off from the hotel-motel tax revenues.  Over a 37-year period, the city is committed to spend another $600 million from those tax revenues to maintain and repair the Falcons’ new stadium.

“The city will use ‘only’ $200 million of scarce public money for construction of a facility to benefit the Falcons, up front,” said William Perry of Common Cause Georgia. “But another $680 million will ultimately go to the stadium for largely the same purposes – improving Arthur Blank’s equity value in the Falcons franchise.”

Sweet deals don’t get any sweeter than this.

It’s not as if Blank needs the money.  Forbes magazine lists him among the 400 wealthiest Americans with a net worth estimated at $1.6 billion.  He could easily form a business syndicate to build a new stadium himself and keep all the money made from operating it.

Why should he bother?  Blank essentially can back his limousine up to the state treasury, open the trunk and say, “Fill her up.”  Our state and city leaders are happy to shovel in the tax dollars.

This is really a sordid giveaway of public funds in a state that already has a disreputable image of corporate and political greed.

It is said that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was once a newspaper that occasionally produced real journalism.  On the stadium deal, however, the AJC turned itself into a corporate cheerleader for the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons.

When the paper reported on the final vote approving the issuance of stadium bonds, the article failed to mention that Arthur Blank is a member of the Cox Enterprises’ board of directors.  Cox Enterprises is a rather large corporation whose media holdings include the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

There are some who had the integrity to stand up against this outrageous tax fund bonanza for a private business venture.

Rep. Mike Dudgeon (R-Johns Creek) consistently questioned the wisdom of the giveaway, writing in an op-ed column:

“It is very difficult to justify to our citizen, who is under enormous economic pressure himself, that there is no money for his kid’s teacher, none to widen the nightmare two-lane road he commutes on, none to fund a drug court to keep his young adult son out of jail for a first offense, but we can help fund a $1 billion stadium which primarily benefits a very lucrative business.”

Dudgeon added:  “This kind of contrast makes people perceive that their tax money is not being used wisely and the system is rigged.”

Julian Bene was the only board member of Invest Atlanta who voted against the issuance of the stadium bonds.

“What do we get from this in terms of jobs?” Bene asked. “My perception is that we’re switching one stadium for another and that we don’t get an additional amenity for the city.”

Bene acknowledged that his vote in opposition was a “futile gesture, but someone has to do it.”

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

On the final night of the session, as exhausted lobbyists worked the rope lines one last time talking to lawmakers, major legislation involving water rights, abortion, and gun carry laws failed to reach final passage.

The biggest environmental battle of the session involved the Flint River, a major source of water in Southwest Georgia, particularly for farmers who need the water for crop irrigation.

Sen. Ross Tolleson (R-Perry) introduced SB 213 to update the Flint River drought protection act that was implemented more than a decade ago.

SB 213 would have allowed the state to invest in augmentation projects where extra water is pumped into underground aquifers that would later be released back into the Flint River during a drought period to increase downstream flows.

Critics of the bill protested that augmentation would contaminate the aquifers. They also argued that SB 213 would give the state or a private company ownership of the stored water and threaten the rights of downstream residents by prohibiting them from withdrawing any of those augmented water flows.

There was a furious lobbying effort between business groups who saw the bill as a way to secure more water for Metro Atlanta developers and businesses. Environmental organizations lobbied just as strongly against it.

Shortly before midnight Thursday, as the House was preparing to wind down the session, Speaker David Ralston said: “We have one more matter to consider from the rules calendar, a bill that has been postponed.” Ralston, who appeared to be dead serious, asked House Clerk Robbie Rivers to read SB 213, presumably as a prelude to a floor vote.

Ralston then smiled and said, “Just kidding.” The Flint River was safe for another year.

An attempt by ultraconservative members of the Georgia Senate to restrict abortions was itself terminated on the final day.

The Senate took a routine bill involving the Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s flex benefits plan and amended it to prohibit the use of state tax funds to pay for abortions through the State Health Benefits Plan, which provides health insurance for teachers and state employees.

The bill had to go back to the House for agreement, but Ralston never called it up for a vote and the bill died. Gov. Nathan Deal has indicated he may issue an executive order that would prohibit the State Health Benefits Plan from covering abortion procedures.

SB 101 was a controversial measure to legalize the carrying of firearms in more public places and to allow persons treated for mental illness to obtain a gun license.

The House version of SB 101 would have allowed license holders to carry firearms in courthouses, government buildings, bars, college campuses, K-12 schools and churches. This was favored by the state organization Georgia Carry. The Senate passed a more cautious version that was supported by the NRA.

Rep. Alan Powell (R-Hartwell), whose Public Safety Committee crafted a bill combining elements of the House and Senate gun bills, told his colleagues that the bill was dead and blamed the measure’s defeat on the Senate leadership and the Board of Regents.

“Everybody knows that there was one issue, and that was the campus carrying provision,” Powell said. “We were fighting uphill; the fourth branch of government was fighting against us. The Board of Regents has been opposed from Day One and yes, they’re the fourth branch of government.”

Chancellor Hank Huckaby and the Board of Regents strongly opposed the proposal to allow guns on college campuses. The University System’s lobbying team worked quietly but effectively to holster that particular provision.

Huckaby also had the governor’s ear on the campus carry issue as well as assistance from the Senate negotiators who kept watering down the campus carry provision until the House gave up on getting a bill.

This is an issue that will keep coming up in future legislative sessions, of course.

“When you come back next year, you may very well have an opportunity to deal with this again,” Powell said in that final speech. “I want to say what a great session it’s been and all I can say is, take your pistol.”

© 2013 by The Georgia Report

Sometimes legislation is visionary and sometimes it is timely, but rarely is legislation as antiquated and anti-competitive as is the case with HB 657.

This proposed legislation will authorize the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to select a “community solar provider” to be the sole developer of solar generation facilities throughout Georgia. Rather than eliminating existing regulatory and legislative barriers to developing competitive renewable energy generation in Georgia, HB 657 would create a new regulatory framework where the PSC would select and regulate one company to develop large scale solar power projects.

The selection of only one community solar provider will mean the company selected will become the de facto monopoly solar provider in Georgia. Not since the early 20th century has the Georgia Legislature created a utility monopoly, and what’s worse is that there is no need to create this new artificial government regulatory model to encourage the development of solar or renewable energy in Georgia.

It’s happening today, and more than 1,000 bids were recently received in response to the new Georgia Power Advanced Solar Initiative approved by the PSC in 2012. (See PSC Docket No. 36325.) Solar development is ready to explode in Georgia and doesn’t need to be restrained and regulated by HB 657.

While consumer participation under HB 657 is voluntary, it does mandate that “an electric utility is required to purchase from the community solar provider” solar power. Rather than letting the free market determine who will purchase solar power and at what price, HB 657 directs the PSC to set the minimum amounts of electric energy an electric utility must purchase, determine how consumers will participate in the program and set the rates for the sale of solar power to the electric utilities.

After years of deregulating local telephone and natural gas service this regulation of a new utility industry flies in the face of current utility business trends and consumer interests.

Giving HB 657 a positive sounding name does not change the essential purpose of this legislation, to create a new regulated monopoly solar utility in Georgia. Rather than more regulation, the Georgia Legislature needs to consider less regulation of a fast-growing new industry which can provide genuine benefits to individual consumers and support national energy independence.

Good intentions may have motivated the drafting of HB 657, but it won’t produce good results for Georgia or Georgia consumers.