August 23, 2022
‘Securing a more resilient future’
Develop a more agile and aggressive government response to climate crises, especially on Georgia’s vulnerable Atlantic coast. Create at least 25,000 jobs in new, green energy industries. Reduce energy costs for all Georgians.
These are the three centerpieces of Stacey Abrams’ plan to ensure prosperity and protect the environment as Georgia and the country struggle to come to grips with rapid climate change. The Democratic Party’s candidate for governor discussed the details of her six-page environmental policy plan in an exclusive interview with The Current’s Mary Landers.
Locked in a tight race with Brian Kemp, in which Abrams and the incumbent Republican governor have tussled over economic and legislative priorities, the former Georgia state legislator and Democratic Party leader hopes her plan to address the imperiled environment will draw votes from independents, as well as Republicans disappointed with their party’s response to what all but a few scientists consider a climate crisis, Landers writes. Kemp has yet to disclose his environmental proposals.
Abrams’ plan pulls few punches about the challenges that lay ahead: “To ensure Georgia’s communities continue to thrive, for now and for years to come, we must better protect our abundant natural resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize, and leverage the economic benefits of advanced energy to secure a more resilient future.”
Speaking to the (divided) choir
As Georgia’s Republican Party prepares for the post-Labor Day sprint, its hymn sheet reads unity. But how much the rank-and-file, still deeply divided over the 2020 election, wants to sing along is far from clear. Certainly, the voices of the choir leaders aren’t quite in tune, writes Craig Nelson.
That was evident as the party’s candidate for lieutenant governor, State Sen. Burt Jones, and Attorney General Chris Carr, along with a host of other Republicans, gathered at a wedding hall on the outskirts of Statesboro for a party fundraiser.
Asked about the simmering divisions in the party over the 2020 election, Jones, an election denier, told The Current that his inclusion on a list of alternative or false electors was merely a response to complaints about voting irregularities from “various polling sites from all different parts of the state” and from some constituents who were “more than willing to sign affidavits” about their claims.
For his part, Carr made no apologies for his actions in defending the outcome of presidential voting in Georgia. “We went to court 16 times between November and January 6, defending the laws, the evidence, and the statements of fact,” he said. “We prevailed 16 times. I’m proud of the job we did.”
Fact check
Truth, it has been said, is the first casualty of war. If political campaigns are wars of a sort, then truth and facts is already taking a big hit, though we’re still two weeks away from the post-Labor Day campaign sprint. Two recent examples caught our eye:
CHECK 1: A fundraising appeal from the campaign of Raphael Warnock that dropped into our inboxes on Friday laments: “Things aren’t looking good, friend: Polling shows Herschel Walker 1 POINT AHEAD of Rev. Warnock in Georgia.”
The problem is, we haven’t seen a poll in months that shows Warnock behind in the race. A composite of July opinion surveys shows Warnock ahead of Walker by an average of 4.4%. On Friday — the same day the fundraising appeal went out — FiveThirtyEight.com showed Warnock leading by 1.8%. The Warnock campaign didn’t reply to requests for comment.
CHECK 2: On Aug. 11, a day before the U.S. House of Representatives approved President Joe Biden’s $370 billion a climate, health, and tax package on a party-line vote, Coastal Georgia’s incumbent congressman, Republican Earl “Buddy” Carter, tweeted that the package would mean a tax rate increase for “nearly every single income category” and a “$16 billion+ tax increase on low and middle-income earners.”
Rep. Carter’s office helpfully provided a source for those claims — a July 30, 2022, news release from the ranking Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee, Idaho Republican Mike Crapo, with the nonpartisan panel’s rundown of the bill’s estimated tax impact attached.
What the attachment makes clear — and Carter does not say — is that under the legislation, individual tax rates for low- and middle-income Americans will change little, if at all. And to the extent they do, it will be corporations, whose taxes will increase, passing along their increased taxes on their profits to consumers. On Aug. 4, Crapo himself said, “Technically [the bill is] not raising [middle-class Americans’] tax rates.”
Notable
Right here in River City? Jeanne Seaver, former Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and a Chatham County resident, last week announced the creation of “Moms Against Gambling,” after Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams proposed the legalization of sports and casino gambling in Georgia. Seaver, a longtime opponent of efforts by the gambling industry and Democratic and Republican state lawmakers to legalize gambling in the state, says gaming would harm families and lead to an epidemic of costly addiction, especially among children.
Footing the bill: Are Georgia and other states moving to restrict abortion or ban it altogether prepared to pay for the infrastructure needed to support these parents and children? An NPR roundup suggests that historically at least, the answer is no. “There is a lack of support for women’s equity and autonomy in the state of Georgia. The latest restrictions on abortion have made it even worse,” says Michelle Munroe, much of whose campaign last spring for the Democratic nomination for Coastal Georgia’s congressional seat centered around her concern for maternal and infant health care in the region. “We must expand Medicaid to include postpartum services to 12 months, offer childcare services, and early childhood education to make any difference in this state,” she says.
“Education, not indoctrination”: Chatham County conservatives and concerned parents on Saturday launched a local chapter of No Left Turn, a national organization whose mission is to end perceived indoctrination and restore objectivity to the classroom. Beth Majeroni, a catalyst behind the effort, says the local NLT chapter will work to expand its presence at meetings of the Savannah-Chatham County School Board. Speaking of the Savannah-Chatham public schools, this Sunday, August 28, at 4 p.m., the NAACP’s Savannah branch will host Superintendent Dr. M. Ann Levett at a meeting at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church at 415 W. Park St.
“Word and deed”: “(Gov. Brian) Kemp and Republicans have demonstrated in word and deed that they are a clear and present danger to the life, liberty, and rights of women, people of color, and minorities, including members of our LGBTQ family,” State Rep. Sam Park (D-Lawrenceville) said at a news conference yesterday on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol. Coincidentally, Park and other LGBTQ members of the Georgia General Assembly addressed reporters three days after California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his state would prohibit state-funded travel to Georgia to protest what he called the state’s discriminatory banning in April of transgender girls from competing in girls’ interscholastic sports. That means, among other things, that no athletic team representing a state-funded California educational institution will be allowed to participate in a football game or other athletic event on Georgia soil.
We want to meet your friends! If you like this newsletter be sure to share it.
Support non-partisan, solutions-based investigative journalism without bias, fear or favor on issues affecting Savannah and Coastal Georgia.
You must be logged in to post a comment.