These winners and losers are typically defined by what they did to gain or lose political power.  I have modified that concept to decide who would be on my list:  in Georgia politics, winning and losing depends on who ultimately ends up with the money.

One of the biggest groups of winners in 2011 was Gov. Nathan Deal, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, and the state’s business leaders who were lobbying to expand the Georgia ports facilities by dredging the Savannah River.

This group still hasn’t figured out how to get the federal government to pay for most of the $600 million project, although I’m sure they will be successful at some point.  They were able, however, to overcome a major regulatory obstacle presented by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (known as DHEC for short).

DHEC in September denied an important environmental permit that was needed for the river dredging project to move forward.  The prospects for the mega-project, which has also been under steady attack from environmentalists who say the dredging will harm the river bed and nearby estuaries, did not look very bright.

On Oct. 28, however, a fundraiser was held in Atlanta for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley that was hosted by Eric Tanenblatt, a Republican power-broker who’s a former chief of staff to then-governor Sonny Perdue and a major supporter of such figures as George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.

Haley, who took home at least $15,000 from that Atlanta event, appoints and controls DHEC’s governing board.  Less than two weeks after the fundraiser was held, the DHEC board reversed the agency’s earlier denial and voted to issue the environmental permit.

It was a nice haul for Haley, although she’s now stirred up a huge, stinking pot of excrement in her home state and has seen her approval numbers sink faster than the Titanic.  It was an even bigger win for the Georgia officials who support the $600 million harbor expansion.

Officials of the Georgia Power Co. also had a big year before the Public Service Commission, which at one point was considering a proposal to require Georgia Power to pay a financial penalty if there were major cost overruns on the two nuclear reactors being built at Plant Vogtle.

The PSC had good reason to think about a risk-sharing proposal.  The first time Georgia Power built nuclear generators at Plant Vogtle, the cost ballooned from initial estimates of $660 million to more than $8 billion.

Georgia Power officials, however, said they would not agree to share the financial risks of the latest nuclear project.  Their lawyers said “no” throughout a series of appearances before the regulatory agency and kept saying “no” until the PSC finally gave up and scrapped the plan.

If there are any cost overruns on the $14 billion Vogtle project, the expense will be borne by Georgia Power’s customers and not by its executives or shareholders.  The utility giant was a giant winner in this regulatory game.

Two Georgia politicians who took themselves off the hook for some major financial obligations in 2011 were Congressman Tom Graves of Gordon County and state Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock.

Graves and Rogers borrowed $2.2 million from the Bartow County Bank several years ago to buy and renovate a fleabag hotel in Calhoun known to locals as the “Methamphetamine 6.”  In 2010, the bank sued Graves and Rogers for defaulting on the loan.

In addition to skipping out on the loan, the bank alleged in its lawsuit, Graves made a “fraudulent transfer” of property he owned in Gordon County “with the intent to defraud lender in the collection of obligations owed by Defendant Graves.”

There is a word that is generally used to denote people who don’t pay a sum of money that they are legally obligated to pay.  That word is “deadbeat.”  In the course of filing the various court papers associated with this particular litigation, Graves’ lawyers used a version of the deadbeat defense to argue that the whole affair was really the bank’s fault: the bankers should have known they were lending money to someone who would try to sandbag them on the repayment.

Here’s how the Chattanooga Times-Free Press reported it:

Bloom [Graves’ lawyer] did not return messages, but in the court documents he says the bank is “simply wasting the court’s time and resources in attempting to enforce personal guaranties against individuals it clearly knows to be unable to perform under those guaranties.”

He argues that, based on legal precedents, if the loan is based on personal guarantees banks must ensure the borrowers are capable of repaying the money before agreeing on a loan. He argues the agreement never was valid to begin with because the bank knew that Rogers and Graves, a champion of fiscal responsibility in Washington, could not back up their personal guarantees. Bloom quotes the deposition from bank Vice President Alan Black in which Black acknowledges “I knew that they didn’t have $2.2 million, no.”

In the midst of all this legal wrangling, the Bartow County Bank collapsed and was sold off by regulators. The bank’s former chairman later told a reporter that the loan to Graves and Rogers “was one of the larger loans, and it contributed significantly (to the bank’s failure).”

The financial institution that acquired Bartow County Bank continued the efforts to collect on the loan, but finally reached a settlement with the two lawmakers in August.  The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but I would bet the amount involved was much less than the original $2.2 million loan.

Graves and Rogers were the winners.  The Bartow County Bank was the ultimate loser.

[I’ll inject a note of media criticism here.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for some reason, fell asleep on the Graves-Rogers default story and slumbered through most of the litigation, never giving this the attention it deserved in the traditional media.  The one reporter who really dug into it was Andy Johns of the Times Free-Press, who dutifully read through the reams of documents filed at the Gordon County courthouse and came up with some fascinating nuggets of information.  It’s intriguing to think what would have happened if the AJC had taken a similar interest in this story.]

A big loser in Georgia politics during 2011 was former governor Sonny Perdue, who made not one but two unforced errors in the race to determine a Republican nominee for president.

Perdue was an early endorser last spring of Newt Gingrich, but got nervous and jumped ship within a few weeks after Gingrich’s campaign started imploding under the weight of media stories about his charge accounts at Tiffany’s and the departure en masse of his campaign staff.

The ever-astute Perdue was convinced he had now picked the real horse in this race:  former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.  Perdue shifted his allegiance to Pawlenty, who had hired Perdue’s golden-boy protégé, Nick Ayers, as his campaign manager.  Pawlenty also received numerous donations from people whose paychecks at various times have been signed by Perdue, including Derrick Dickey, Trey Childress and Dan McLagan.

In the words of Texas Gov. Rick Perry:  “Ooooops!”  Pawlenty barely had time to deposit all those contributions before he shut down the operation and announced he was withdrawing from the race.  Gingrich, of course, subsequently arose from the dead and soared back near the top of the Republican race, although his numbers were again starting to tank as the end of the year neared.

Since that debacle, Perdue has – wisely, I think – declined to issue any further public endorsements in the presidential race.

Another group of political winners is the 236 men and women who make up the membership of the Georgia Senate and House of Representatives.  The General Assembly once again declined to pass any bills that would limit the amount of money lobbyists can spend to entertain lawmakers.

That suits the leadership just fine.

“Let the people be the judge about what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable,” said House Speaker David Ralston, who once took his family to Europe on a $17,000 trip paid for by a lobbyist. “I trust their judgment.”

© 2011 by The Georgia Report

In Roll Call’s analysis, the districts represented by Republicans Lynn Westmoreland, Tom Price, Phil Gingrey, Austin Scott, Rob Woodall, Tom Graves, Paul Broun and Tom Graves will continue to be represented by Republicans – ditto for the Democratic seats of John Lewis, Hank Johnson, David Scott and Sanford Bishop.

There will still be some interesting races next year, regardless.

The election that everyone will be watching is in the 12th Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. John Barrow has been targeted by Georgia’s Republican leadership.

Barrow no longer resides in the district, now that Savannah and Chatham County have been drawn out of it. The black voting age population in the 12th District will shrink from nearly 43 percent to about 33 percent, and several Republican-leaning areas will replace that black population.

From the Roll Call article:

Under the new lines, a little less than 60 percent of voters would have cast their ballot for McCain in 2008. (Obama won Barrow’s current district with 54 percent of the vote.) The changes make winning another term substantially more difficult for Barrow, a co-chairman of the conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition.

Still, Barrow is a wily survivor who managed to remain in Congress after Georgia’s 2005 redistricting drew him out of his first district. He is known as a hard worker and a smart campaigner, so the new lines alone are not enough to close the book on his Congressional career. Also, the fact that Obama will be on the top of the ticket in 2012 should help increase Democratic turnout all over Georgia.

The black voters carved out of the 12th District are mostly in the 1st District of Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Savannah, whose district now has a black voting age population of 28.9 percent. Roll Call writes:

Should Kingston retire, this is the kind of district Democrats would take a serious look at if they were facing a 2006-style wave election in their favor. But given how 2012 is shaping up, Kingston should easily win re-election.

The one open seat in Georgia will be the Hall County-centered 9th District covering the northeast corner of the state. The new congressman will almost certainly be a Republican, but the GOP primary will be a lively one.

From the Roll Call article:

The early frontrunners are tea-party-affiliated talk-radio host Martha Zoller and state Rep. Doug Collins (R), who has early support from a good chunk of the Georgia Republican establishment. Zoller hired Joel McElhannon, a well-regarded GOP operative, as her general consultant. Collins brought on Chip Lake, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland’s former chief of staff, as his general consultant. Brian Miller, former Sen. Zell Miller’s (D) grandson, is managing the Collins campaign. Deal won’t endorse in the race, but many vendors who worked for his 2010 campaign have signed on with Collins.

Republican Rep. Tom Graves will be running in a drastically reconfigured district that will be re-numbered as the 14th District. With all of the new territory added, he could face a significant challenge in the GOP primary.

Roll Call writes:

Graves may pull a primary challenger or two in this newly drawn and newly numbered district that includes about half of the territory he currently represents. Two potential opponents include former Paulding County Commission Chairman Jerry Shearin and businessman Steve Tarvin.

“He just doesn’t meet my values and principles,” Tarvin told Roll Call, adding he would decide on a bid in the next month. But even Tarvin admits it will be difficult for any potential opponents to get to the right of Graves’ voting record. Republicans in the state said Graves is seen as likely to be re-elected, despite the potential primary challenges, in what will remain a very comfortable GOP district for years to come.