Key Elections Dates Start Now

Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024

Happy New Year! This week, we highlight some important dates on the already jammed 2024 political calendar; look at the Savannah mayor’s hope to legislate “civility;” and implore you, our readers, to take a few minutes to spell out your priorities for the Georgia’s legislature. Finally, in ICYMI, we note some important stories you may have missed over the holidays.

Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com.

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Momentous Year

2024 is already poised to be a momentous year in politics. To help you sort out the calendar, here are some dates to note, starting with local and state politics:

On Thursday, just days into a new, 40-day session of the Georgia General Assembly, Gov. Brian Kemp delivers his state-of-the-state address. In his speech, Kemp — a favorite of the national Republican Party’s center-right — will outline his legislative priorities, doubtless with an eye on his political future beyond the end of his tenure as governor in January 2027.

A large number of candidates for voters to choose from is a sign of a healthy democracy, which is perhaps why the most important date on Coastal Georgia’s 2024 political calendar is the week of March 4, when candidates must qualify to be on the ballot.

Ahead of primary elections on May 21 and any required runoffs on June 18, candidates for so-called “partisan offices” such as district attorney, county commission, sheriff and coroner must qualify through their political party, while candidates for so-called “nonpartisan offices” such as judgeships and school board chairs must quality through county election board offices.

Of course, we don’t have to wait for the formal qualifying period to know who has already announced their candidacies. Chatham County’s Beth Majeroni has already announced plans to run for the state Senate seat held by Ben Watson.

And according to The Current’s public safety reporter, Jake Shore, the Camden County sheriff’s election is likely to be a three-way race between the incumbent, James Procter; one of his former deputies, James Kevin Chaney; and, though he hasn’t officially declared his candidacy, Trevor Readdick, the District 3 representative to the county commission, and construction firm owner.  

And we also don’t have to wait for the week of March 4 to know that the qualifying process for partisan offices in GOP-dominated Coastal Georgia is likely to produce colossal struggles over who is a “real” Republican, as potential candidates pursue approval to run through a party apparatus beset by differences between pro- and anti-MAGA forces.

As for presidential politics, especially in the GOP, votes start to replace opinion polls and speculation next Monday with the Iowa caucuses.

For Coastal Georgians, the key date is March 12, the state’s presidential preference primary, eight days after the leading contender for the Republican nomination, former President Donald Trump, is scheduled to go on trial in Washington, D.C., on four counts of conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election results.

Of course, we’ll already be very familiar with the Republican candidates’ arguments, having been inundated by them on the airwaves in the run-up to the presidential primary in neighboring South Carolina 17 days earlier, on Feb. 24.

Looming over all elections in Coastal Georgia and elsewhere in the state in 2024 are legal and political challenges to the adequacy and accuracy of the Georgia’s s voting system. Most notably, going on trial this morning in Atlanta is a case alleging that the state’s voting machines have major cybersecurity flaws that violate the constitutional rights of voters to cast their votes and have those votes accurately counted.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the main target of fury from system skeptics across the state, is a named defendant in the lawsuit, first filed in 2017, but a federal judge ruled that he didn’t have to testify.

The plaintiffs, led by the nonprofit Coalition for Good Governance, don’t claim that the alleged vulnerabilities of the system have been exploited since the current Dominion system was implemented statewide in 2020; they’re arguing that they could be.

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First order of business

In his address following his swearing-in as Savannah’s mayor last week, Van Johnson set forth the goals of his second term: promote common-sense gun laws, expand the availability of affordable housing, decide once-and-for-all the fate of the Savannah Civic Center; expand the use of solar and other clean energy; and hasten decisions on the final shape of Canal District master plan.

This Thursday, however, the mayor said his first order of business at the year’s inaugural city council meeting will be to ask council members to unanimously approve an ordinance of ethics and another for “civility” that will “govern our behavior for the next four years.”

The goal of the civility ordinance, the mayor said in his 31-minute inaugural speech, was to “make the news” and “not be the news,” and conduct city council proceedings in a manner more befitting of C-SPAN than a “Thursday night reality show.”

In his weekly Friday evening Facebook forum, Johnson offered some additional details.

The ethics ordinance will spell out to Savannahians how they can “bring charges against members of the council” if they fail to carry themselves in an “ethical manner.”

As for the civility measure, he said it would require council members to be “considerate of other people’s opinions,” “manage your emotions,” “actively listen,” “ask questions to learn,” and “answer questions with respect.”

It wasn’t clear who would decide when such breaches of the proposed civility ordinance occurred and what sanctions the perpetrators would face. Nor did the mayor address the 1^st Amendment implications of such an ordinance, if any.

Neither City Attorney Bates Lovett nor Alderman Detrick Leggett (District 2) returned calls seeking clarification of the proposed ordinances and examples of similar ordinances in force in other municipalities.

During his “Friday Night Live” Facebook forum, Johnson disclosed that his father, Van Johnson, Sr., had died in New York from complications of Alzheimer’s disease the day after he was sworn in for a second term as mayor.

The mayor said he was grateful to his ailing father, whom he described as his “greatest super-hero,” for holding on until his inauguration was over. “He allowed me to have that moment” free of the sadness and grief of his passing, he said. Van Johnson, Sr., was 77 years old.

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Legislative priorities

Our in-boxes are overflowing with emails from political, government, business, and nonprofit organizations setting forth their legislative goals for the latest session of the Georgia General Assembly, which got underway yesterday.

But here’s what we at The Current are most interested in: what those of you who don’t represent those organizations most want our state lawmakers to address.

So, here’s a link to our annual “Rank Your Legislative Priorities” form. Please take a few minutes before the end of Friday, Jan. 12, to fill it out. Last year, the reps didn’t do so well, based on your list. Let’s see how they do this year. Click here to rank your priorities and we’ll make sure they know them.

As The Current’s latest edition of “Sunday Solutions” newsletter noted, we’ve gleaned common goals from those lists of legislative requests from throughout Coastal Georgia. But of course, pay special attention to the box at the end of the list — the one that says, “Did we miss yours? Please tell us here.” We mean it: Tell us what you’d like to see.

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ICYMI

• “On the record: Which entities pay — and don’t pay — Chatham County property taxes” (The Current, Dec. 19, 2023) “From a Savannah movie backlot and old downtown mansions to private jet manufacturing facilities and 1,300-plus acres of land for mega-warehouses, there are hundreds of parcels of privately-controlled land in Chatham County whose owners pay reduced property taxes — or none at all.”
• “State Senate Republicans tweaking new prosecutors oversight board” (Capitol Beat, Jan. 3, 2024) “Two Georgia Senate Republican leaders pre-filed legislation Tuesday to bypass a court ruling late last year that blocked implementation of a new oversight board for local prosecutors lawmakers created last year.”
• “Georgia Republicans Once Hated Medicaid Expansion. Black Dems Now See a Chance For a Compromise” (Capitol B, Jan. 5, 2024) “Unlike previous years, Democrats, including members of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, say Republicans may now be motivated by a dramatic increase in uninsured children across the state, a lackluster rollout of a GOP-backed replacement plan, and the possibility of steering business to hospitals that serve their own constituents.
• “Federal judge rejects voter intimidation charges against conservative group in Georgia” (Capitol Beat, Jan. 3, 2024) A federal judge has ruled in favor of a Texas-based conservative group in a lawsuit over its effort to lodge more than 364,000 challenges to Georgia voters’ eligibility.”
• “First construction contract awarded for Savannah River bridge upgrade” (Capitol Beat, Jan. 3, 2023) The Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT) has awarded a nearly $6.6 million contract in an ambitious plan to replace the cables on the Savannah River bridge in Savannah and potentially raise it to accommodate larger cargo ships.”
• “State Tax Changes Taking Effect January 1, 2024” (Tax Foundation, Dec. 21, 2023) “Georgia joins a growing number of states that have either adopted or are considering a flat tax. In 2024, the Peach State will collapse its six individual income tax brackets into one at a rate of 5.49 percent, per legislation signed by Governor Kemp in 2022.”
• “Dying Broke” (KFF Health News and The New York Times, Nov. 14, 2023) “By 2050, the population of Americans 65 and older is projected to increase by more than 50%, to 86 million, according to census estimates. The number of people 85 or older will nearly triple to 19 million. The United States has no coherent system of long-term care, mostly a patchwork.”

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