School Superintendent Hire Brings Challenge to New Board

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

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Now hiring: A school superintendent

Once upon a time, the posts of school board member and school superintendent were relatively obscure compared to those of governor, mayor, or state lawmaker. No more.

Since Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin won a race for governor in 2021 after focusing on parents’ rights and calling critical race theory a problem in schools, schooling and education are increasingly viewed, especially by conservative organizations and the GOP, as fertile ground for mobilizing their core supporters.

That partisan ferment will come to bear on the Savannah-Chatham County School Board starting tomorrow, when it holds its formal discussion on the search for a new school superintendent following the unexpected resignation of M. Ann Levett last month, The Current’s Craig Nelson reports.

The search will be the first test of how the nine-member board navigates the new political battlefield under its new president, Roger Moss, co-founder of the Savannah Children’s Choir, who was elected in a landslide in May.

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Crime and policing

Fighting crime was high on the agenda under the Gold Dome last week, starting with Gov. Brian Kemp (“We can and we must do something about the revolving door of criminal justice!) and including Rep. Jesse Petrea who, along with Rep. Ron Stephens, who introduced legislation calling for district attorneys to be elected in non-partisan, primary elections.

This week, the question is how, if at all, the conversation about crime and policing in Atlanta and Washington will be affected by Friday’s release of videotape showing five Memphis police officers assaulting Tyre Nichols and the indictment of those officers on second-degree murder charges.

Gov. Kemp and U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock all voiced their outrage about Nichols’s death. So did Savannah Mayor Van Johnson.

Will the lawmakers in Washington revive the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, among other initiatives? Senate Republicans blocked it in 2020, saying, incorrectly, that legislation called for defunding the police and going after good officers just doing their jobs.

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Battling headwinds

In a rare, midweek dispatch to constituents, Rep. Buddy Carter last Thursday distributed a defense of his legislation calls for abolishing the IRS and doing away with all federal taxes except for a national sales tax “to be administered mainly by the states.”

Under the title, “Myth vs. Fact: The FairTax Act,” the document seeks to dispel what it says are misconceptions about his controversial bill.

As expected, Carter’s proposed legislation has been derided by Democrats. The political problem for the fifth-term congressman is that other Republicans aren’t cottoning to it, either.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whom Carter championed for speaker, said he opposes the bill. So does House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

“I don’t think it’s a wise thing,” said Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska. It isn’t ‘smart politics or policy’.”

“There’s never going to be a vote for it,” said Arizona Rep. David Schweikert, believes the Carter’s FairTax concept is technically flawed.

So does anti-tax conservative Grover Norquist, who says, among other things, that “replacing our current tax code with a national sales tax would create a system of double taxation on retirees.” Echoing the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal (“The GOP’s Fair Tax Masochism”), Norquist called it “a free gift to Democrats.”

Carter is pressing ahead against the headwinds. He says he thinks that chances for the bill’s passage are good “once people understand just how fair it is.”

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Transitions

In a taste of the acrimony that’s likely to touch elections for Republican Party officials at all levels, the Chatham County GOP’s choice to lead the Republican National Committee, Harmeet Dhillon, lost to three-term incumbent Rona McDaniel by a vote of 111-51 at a gathering Friday of top party officials in southern California. Three Georgia GOP leaders — David Shafer, Jason Thompson, Ginger Howard — cast ballots in the acrimonious race, with Thompson voting for Dhillon. It isn’t known how Shafer and Howard voted.

One Dhillon aide reportedly confronted the former-Democratic-Georgia-state-representative-turned-Republican Vernon Jones face-to-face, calling him a sell-out and saying the “grassroots” would never support him again. That’s a sanitized version.

Sen. Jon Ossoff was appointed last week to a seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He already serves on Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; the Judiciary Committee; and the Rules and Administration Committee.

Sen.  Raphael Warnock was reappointed to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. He was also reappointed to the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee; and the Special Committee on Aging.

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ICYMI

“State of Education Funding (2023): Opportunity is Knocking” (Georgia Policy and Budget Institute, Jan. 26, 2023) “Georgia has one of the highest overall rates of child poverty in the nation and simultaneously provides schools with no specific funding to support these children—one of only six such states.”

“UGA poll: 99% of Georgia voters saw no issues in 2022” (Axios, Jan. 27, 2023) “A post-election survey of 2022 Georgia voters by the University of Georgia shows a bit of good news in this polarized political environment: The vast majority of voters polled were pleased with how voting went in November.”

“Trump and DeSantis Get All the Attention. But Kemp Is Strongly Positioned for 2024” (Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, Jan. 26, 2023) “The best place to be at this point is under-the-radar but also in the public eye. When the others wilt, wobble or whiff, this person looks like an attractive alternative. That’s why I’m watching Gov. Brian Kemp very closely these days.”

“Federal judge could decide as soon as February to yank abortion pill nationwide” (Georgia Recorder, Jan. 23, 2023) “A Texas judge could decide as soon as next month whether to force the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to pull its two-decade-old approval of the abortion pill, which accounts for more than half of pregnancy terminations in the United States.”

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