Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Insurgents win Chatham County GOP elections
A group of upstart Republicans led by the president of an ultraconservative GOP regional organization has won a majority of leadership posts in the Chatham County Republican Party.
At the local party’s convention in Savannah on Saturday, candidates endorsed by the Chatham County GOP went down to defeat in five of six executive committee races, losing to a candidate slate organized by Brittany Brown, who won the top job, routing Ayeda Shihadeh Ali by a vote of 123-52, The Current’s Craig Nelson reports.
Running on a technocratic platform promising “reliability and accountability,” Brown said her election was a testament not to any particular political positions she holds. Rather, she said, it was her commitment to a “big tent” party and to no-nonsense organizing that drew the votes of a majority of Republican conventioneers.
“My goal is not to shut anyone out,” Brown told The Current in an interview yesterday. “It’s to make sure that everyone feels welcomed, that people interested in the Republican Party get their phone calls and emails returned, that we establish a headquarters.”
Yet whether the insurgent slate’s victory on Saturday will heal — or deepen — long-running divisions among the more than 45,000 registered Chatham County Republicans is far from certain. Despite Republican domination of coastal and state politics, those divisions run deep. One delegate, a lifelong Savannahian with deep roots in the Republican Party, was skeptical about the new leadership. “They don’t know how things are done here,” she said.
Term limits & school board salaries
Four Savannah-area lawmakers — three Democrats, one Republican — have introduced legislation to impose term limits on mayors and council members in Savannah.
Under the proposed legislation, HB 703, co-sponsored by Republicans Ron Stephens and Democrats Edna Jackson, Anne Allen Westbrook, and Carl Gilliard, mayors would be limited to two consecutive four-year terms and council members to three consecutive four-year terms.
On the local education front, Westbrook, Gilliard, and Jackson, along with Republicans Ron Stephens and Jesse Petrea, have introduced legislation calling for salary increases to the chairman and members of the Savannah-Chatham County school board.
Under the proposed legislation, HB 702, the chairman would receive an annual salary of $35,000 and board members, $25,000. In 2021, the Savannah Morning News reported that then-school board president Joe Buck received $16,000 annually, while board members received $12,000 per year.
Meanwhile, Reps. Al Williams (D-Midway) and Buddy DeLoach (R-Townsend) are pushing to amend Riceboro’s charter to impose residency requirements on the mayor and city council members.
With the session winding to a conclusion on March 29, the prospects for the legislation aren’t certain.
Sea wall for St. Marys?
A special election will be held next Tuesday, March 21, in St. Marys to fill the city council seat left open by the death of council member-elect Danny Riggins. Vying for the seat are Chad Ingram, Jay Moreno, and Mike Wilkie.
Among other issues debated by the candidates at a Feb. 25 forum: the construction of a sea wall along the city’s waterfront to prevent flooding downtown.
At the same forum, Wilkie lamented the high turnover rate of city employees, partly due to the attraction of higher salaries elsewhere. “St. Marys is in trouble,” he said.
Low early voting is already worrying, the News reports: “The city has 15,064 registered voters. In the past six days of early voting for the March 21 special election, only 423 voters have showed up to cast their early vote. Another 26 absentee ballots have been issues and one has been received.”
The city’s five polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
ICYMI
- “State unveils new voter information system” (GPB, March 13, 2023) “Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger launched a new computer system the past week designed to improve the tracking of registered voters. The $4 million Georgia Registered Voter Information System (GARViS) will contain more than 12 million voter records, including more than 7 million active voters.”
- “School spending, enhanced HOPE and vouchers on minds of Georgia lawmakers in session’s final days” (Georgia Recorder, March 13, 2023) “Georgia students and families could see big changes to their public schools this year as lawmakers continue work on numerous education bills that pump more money into classrooms, sweeten the HOPE Scholarship and expand school vouchers.”
- “Georgia GOP lawmakers aim to continue tough-on-crime push as legislative calendar winds down” (Georgia Recorder, March 12, 2023) “Georgia’s legislators head into the final stretch of a 2023 session with a number of tough-on-crime bills that will escalate criminal penalties for unruly protesters, misdemeanor offenses and street gangs and shift the balance of power of prosecutors and judges.”
- “Trump continues to suck the air out of the GOP primary” (Politico, March 13, 2023) “While Trump’s approval ratings may be slipping and Republican voters tell pollsters they are willing to look elsewhere, a series of recent developments has kept the party fixated on him and the scandals that defined his time and office. Washington D.C. and the largest conservative news outlet have spent days reliving the Jan. 6 riot. And the specter of a Trump indictment in New York portends an early primary season spent relitigating his record.”
Insurgent Republicans win Chatham County party leadership posts
At the local party’s convention in Savannah on Saturday, candidates endorsed by the Chatham County GOP went down to defeat in five of six executive committee races.
What do the proposed Georgia prosecutor oversight bills do? An explainer
Reasons, perspectives are more complex than one incident or person. Here’s a look at similarities and differences in the bills and explanations of what a commission would and would not look like.
New CDC, state data shows how pandemic led to startling rise in maternal deaths
Before the pandemic, the United States had the highest maternal mortality rate among affluent nations, reflecting a multitude of systemic problems, from racial disparities in medical treatment and outcomes to high rates of chronic disease among people of child-bearing age to a lack of access to postpartum healthcare for many new mothers. The rate of maternal death for women aged 15 to 44 in the U.S. […]
Tutoring help reaches few students despite nationwide push
The startlingly low tutoring figures point to several problems. Some parents said they didn’t know tutoring was available or didn’t think their children needed it. Some school systems have struggled to hire tutors. Other school systems said the small tutoring programs were intentional, part of an effort to focus on students with the greatest needs.
Embattled former Savannah police chief’s nomination for U.S. Marshal moves forward
in 2020, 77 Savannah police officers filed a complaint with the city’s human resources office, alleging that Minter made threats to officers, espoused favoritism, and failed to adequately equip the force, among 19 other complaints.
Burns urges Fulton DA not to ignore case backlog while investigating Trump
Burns also praised his House colleagues from both parties for passing legislation following through on last year’s landmark mental-health reform bill steered through the chamber by his predecessor as speaker, the late David Ralston.
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.
