Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Correction: This newsletter was updated to reflect that Ron Stephens is a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, not a senator.
Good morning. We hope you’ve had a good week so far. Today, we look at the latest regulatory fight involving the Gullah-Geechee community on Sapelo Island; a former state senator from Brunswick caught up in the Fulton County prosecutor’s indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 others; and the divide between the Chatham County GOP and the county’s elected representatives in Atlanta over the prosecutor.
In McIntosh County, a stew of issues
Government accountability, cronyism, money, race and ethnicity, economic development, the environment, news vacuums — to one degree or another, these factors are all at play in the daunting challenges facing Coastal Georgia.
Nowhere is that more evident at the moment than a proposal by McIntosh County officials to set aside zoning ordinances that limit the size of homes in Hogg Hummock, an historic enclave on Sapelo Island populated by the descendants of enslaved people who once worked the island’s plantations.
McIntosh’s five-member county commission is scheduled to vote later today on the revised set of regulations, which could undo provisions in the county code meant to preserve the integrity of Hogg Hummock and help buffer its residents, members of the coastal Gullah-Geechee community, from higher taxes and pressure from land developers who covet the land, The Current’s Mary Landers reports.
The proposed regulations also would effectively undo a legal settlement reached last year meant to address years of discrimination by the state and the county in the delivery of services to Hogg Hummock, The Current’s Margaret Coker writes.
Opponents of the regulations are urging a delay of the vote for an adequate study to be carried out.
Some of the changes to current regulations were approved Thursday by the county’s zoning board in a contentious meeting at the county courthouse in Darien, during which those previously excluded from discussion about the amendments were given three minutes each to lodge their objections, Landers reported on Saturday. The county commission added more changes, including a 3,000 square foot dwelling size, to the proposal. While the public has no way to view all the changes or the new versions, the commission plans to vote on it at this evening’s meeting.
Although Thursday’s gathering was a public meeting, not a judicial proceeding, the McIntosh County sheriff barred attendees from bringing cell phones, cameras and other photographic and recording equipment into the meeting, in apparent violation of the Georgia Open Meetings Act.
On behalf of The Current, the University of Georgia Law School’s First Amendment Clinic has filed an official letter of complaint to the county sheriff and with the state attorney general. While the matter is not resolved, a recording of the work session was available Monday night from the McIntosh County attorney.
Ex-Coastal Georgia lawmaker dodges legal bullet
It’s clear that Coastal Georgia’s William Ligon, a practicing attorney in Brunswick and former state senator from the 3rd District, has dodged a legal bullet — at least for the moment.
It turns out that former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, David Shafer and 15 others were not the only political figures that a Fulton County grand jury voted to indict on charges of interfering in Georgia’s elections in 2020, according to the grand jury’s report released last week.
By a vote of 20-1, the grand jury also voted to indict Ligon on charges of racketeering in connection with the “national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”
In addition, by a vote of 19-0, with two abstentions, the panel recommended that the 62-year-old Ligon be indicted for “false statements and writings, concealment of facts and fraudulent documents” related to legislative hearings he chaired in December 2020 aimed at proving that year’s presidential elections were a sham.
District Attorney Fani Willis, however, didn’t heed the jury’s recommendations on Ligon. Why? Did she deem the evidence against him too weak to obtain a conviction? Did she want to limit the number of defendants to streamline her prosecution? Will she indict him in the future? It isn’t known.
Still, how Ligon, a lame-duck lawmaker just weeks from leaving his seat in the Georgia General Assembly, used his position as an influential member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to wage a crusade in support of Trump’s debunked views about Georgia’s fraudulent election when the legislature wasn’t even in session is a remarkable tale, as The Current’s Margaret Coker recounts.
At odds
The Chatham County GOP and Coastal Georgia’s Republican representatives in the state legislature clearly have some issues.
In a September 1 letter to Senator Ben Watson (R-Savannah), Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah), and Sen. Mike Hodges (R-Brunswick), as well as to Rep. Jesse Petrea (R-Savannah), the Chatham GOP said it had voted unanimously to support state Sen. Colton Moore (R-Trenton) and his call to convene a special session of the Georgia General Assembly to oust Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
“Stop Fani Willis, defund Fani Willis, impeach Fani Willis, and support Colton Moore’s demand for a Special Session,” said the letter, signed by the GOP committee chair, Brittany Brown. “Do everything you can to defend American freedoms from predators like Fani Willis.”
Three days later, Watson and Hodges, along with Sen. Billy Hickman (R-Statesboro) fired back, albeit indirectly.
In a letter bearing the salutation, “Dear Constituent,” the three joined 23 of their Republican Senate colleagues in deriding Moore for promoting a special session, saying that he did so “without vetting the practical nature of the idea or getting the support of a single colleague before launching a publicity and fundraising campaign.”
Saying they agreed with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the senators declared that a special session would be “spinning wheels and wasting taxpayer money.”
“Anyone who says otherwise is being disingenuous, the senators wrote.
The lawmakers didn’t spare Willis. They said her proven history of overstepping “political boundaries” should be taken up by the newly created state panel mandated to investigate “bad behavior by rogue prosecutors” — an idea that Chatham County Republicans, in their letter, criticized as time-wasting bureaucracy.
To protect themselves further from their surging right flank, the senators took aim at a usual target and boasted of their efforts to ensure free and fair elections.
“Despite all the chaos caused by radical Leftists, Senate Republicans keep getting the job done,” they wrote. Republicans in the General Assembly, particularly with SB 92, had “led the charge to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” they said.
Moore, for his part, said earlier this month that his call for a special session is being blocked not by Democrats, socialists, or Marxists but by the “Republican establishment that wants us to sit down and just be quiet” — an establishment that presumably includes Watson, Stephens & Co, as well as Gov. Brian Kemp and House Speaker Jon Burns (R-Newington).
He added to the ill will last week, describing Kemp and Burns in an interview as “shallow-minded” leaders who don’t understand American civics and accused Willis of “Naziism.” In another recent interview, with former Trump aide Steve Bannon, he also falsely claimed that Willis wants to execute Trump and raised the possibility of civil war arising from the racketeering indictments.
Kemp has accused Moore of undertaking a “grifter scam” and says he has seen no proof that Willis should be punished. Burns has said legislative attempts to impeach Moore are probably illegal.
ICYMI
- “Ossoff urges Georgia to reject Okefenokee Swamp mining proposal” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 8, 2023) “In pointed remarks delivered Friday night, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff again urged state officials to block a controversial plan to mine for titanium at the edge of the ecologically sensitive Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.”
- “U.S. Sens. McConnell and Manchin to speak at Isakson Symposium on Political Civility” (UGA Today, September 8, 2023) “The University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) will host U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., at a special event honoring the late U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. The inaugural Isakson Symposium on Political Civility will take place on Nov. 10, 2023, at 10 a.m. in the University of Georgia Chapel.”
- “Presidential centers from Hoover to Bush and Obama unite to warn of fragile state of US democracy” (Associated Press, September 7, 2023) “Concern for U.S. democracy amid deep national polarization has prompted the entities supporting 13 presidential libraries dating back to Herbert Hoover to call for a recommitment to the country’s bedrock principles, including the rule of law and respecting a diversity of beliefs.”
- “The traditional Georgia accent is fading away” (Axios, September 11, 2023) “The traditional Georgia accent of white English speakers — think Paula Deen or even Brian Kemp — ‘peaked’ among people born around World War II, with a marked drop off among Gen Xers, researchers say.”
Controversial Sapelo rezoning moves forward to final vote
McIntosh County Commission advances controversial Hogg Hummock zoning proposal toward a vote.
Ligon escaped indictment despite recommendation of special grand jury
One other Coastal Georgian whom the grand jury voted to indict but who was not charged is C.B. Yadav, a businessman in Camden County who was a member of the fake elector list. Brad Carver, also a fake elector whom the grand jury voted to indict, is among the top recipients of taxpayer funding from the doomed Camden Spaceport project.
Origin of Sapelo zoning proposal uncertain; residents want their say
The proposed zoning changes delete reference to Hog Hammock’s “unique needs in regard to its historic resources, traditional patterns of development, threat from land speculators and housing forms.” They would also allow larger houses to be built and set a minimum size that’s larger than some of the traditional cottages.
McIntosh discusses changes for Sapelo’s historic Black community
Georgia’s historic Black enclave on Sapelo Island wants county leaders to halt changes that erase the unique character of the community in favor of new white homeowners.
Fulton grand jury recommended charges against Perdue, Loeffler in 2020 election case
The special grand jury heard evidence and testimony from 75 witnesses before suggesting that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis pursue charges against three dozen people for their involvement in an alleged conspiracy to overturn a 2020 election that saw Democratic President Joe Biden narrowly end former President Donald Trump’s reelection bid.
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