Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023
Good morning! In today’s Soundings, we look at today’s special election in Chatham County, a vote that could give early hints at where Coastal Georgians stand leading up to elections later in November. We also look at Republican state senators taking a stand — of sorts — against former President Donald Trump, and we examine Gov. Brian Kemp’s “state of emergency.”
An early sign?
Voters in Chatham County’s District 2 go to the polls today in a special election that could hint at the scope of anti-establishment fervor in Savannah and Chatham County heading into next year’s general election.
Four candidates — Ni’Asha Banks, Michael J. Hamilton, Sr., Malinda Hodge, and David Tootle — are vying to finish out the term of Larry “Gator” Rivers, who died in April at the age of 73 after serving on the Chatham County Commission for more than two years.
Hodge, Hamilton, and Banks are Democrats; Tootle is a Republican. Only Hodge, who resigned from her seat on the Chatham County Election Board to run for the commission, has held elected office.
At a candidate forum sponsored by Chatham County Young Democrats earlier this month, Hodge underlined her establishment credentials, saying that she had been encouraged to run for the 2nd District seat by state Rep. Carl Gilliard (D-District 172). Banks, on the other hand, stressed her background as a social-justice organizer, especially her voter-registration efforts.
(Hamilton and Tootle didn’t participate in the forum. The event’s organizers said Tootle couldn’t be reached and Hamilton had a last-minute emergency.)
At stake in today’s contest: The winner will enjoy the advantages of incumbency when the seat is again up for grabs in the general election in 14 months.
Also at stake: the composition and quality of the nine-member commission as it faces the challenges of governing in a period of unprecedented economic growth in Coastal Georgia.
Some 31,300 residents of County Commission and School Board District 2 are eligible to cast ballots in the special election. The district zigzags through Savannah’s historic district, stretching south to a section of West 52nd Street and east to Pennsylvania Avenue. Click here to check if you reside in the district.
Seventeen days of early voting, including two Saturdays, ended Friday.
‘Impossible’
Georgia’s Republican state senators huddled on Sea Island last week for their annual retreat to prioritize their legislative agenda for the 2024 state congressional session.
Their three-point plan published Friday afternoon showed few departures from the 2023 platform: lower taxes, increase literacy and focus on “tough on crime” public safety initiatives such as hardening rules around bail criteria for alleged criminals. Read more here.
One thing that’s different: the senators took a stand, of sorts, against former President Donald Trump.
Thirty-two of the caucus’ 33 members agreed that it is “impossible” to hold a special session to try to derail Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of Trump and 18 other Republicans for their alleged role in attempting to overthrow Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Among those indicted is one of their members: Sen. Shawn Still, who was on the list of fake electors ready to name Trump as the winner instead of Joe Biden. A Republican panel that included Attorney General Chris Carr decided against suspending Still from office while he is under indictment.
The Republican state senators also made clear that they will concentrate on “helping the wrongly accused clear their names” and focus on “misplaced priorities and wasted law enforcement resources of the Fulton DA.”
Missing from the caucus’ list of priorities: election integrity and security.
‘State of emergency’
Over the weekend, Georgia gas prices started creeping downward after Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency and suspended state fuel taxes for a month.
His reason they were high in the first place: America’s “40-year-high inflation and negative economic conditions felt by hardworking Georgians as a result of policies coming out of Washington, D.C.”
Although Georgia residents — and the tens of thousands of drivers who travel through Georgia — welcome the savings of 31.2 cents per gallon of gasoline and 35 cents per gallon of diesel fuel, the nature and scope of the “emergency” declared by Kemp wasn’t clear.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices hit a 40-year high of 9.1% over the year ending in June 2022 — more than more than 14 months ago. Coastal Georgians will recall that Kemp, who was hot on the re-election trail in 2022, also suspended gas taxes for much of that year.
The federal government’s most recent figures, issued Sept. 13, show an increase of consumer prices at 3.7% over the year ending August 2023. While that is above the Federal Reserve’s target inflation rate, most economists agree that inflation is under control. Federal statistics also show a 3.3% drop in gasoline prices over the year ending in August.
Many Georgians are feeling a painful financial pinch, but Kemp’s declaration of a state of emergency seems to contradict his messaging on the state’s economy. He told Fox News last week that everything was terrific.
“I think the American people and certainly people in Georgia know that our (Georgia’s) economy is doing great, thank goodness despite the policies in Washington, D.C., because we’ve been able to fight through those things,” Kemp said.
In response to Kemp’s fuel tax suspension, state Sen. Derek Mallow (D-Savannah) wondered why, if Georgia’s economy is in such peril, prices on other commodities couldn’t be cut.
“I would like to note that hard-working #Georgians are still paying tax for menstrual products and diapers here in Georgia! These are essential products that each family uses and we can eliminate the tax on these items! This is something we need to get #choppin on!”
‘Passing the buck’
Breaking with his more far-right colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter said earlier this month that he opposed a government shutdown to impose spending limits and defund the Biden administration’s “woke, anti-American policies.”
Closing down government agencies, only to reopen them within days or weeks, was like “flushing money down the toilet,” he said.
Writing in his weekly newsletter, the former Pooler mayor went on to blame minority House Democrats for the threatened shutdown: “I encourage my Democrat colleagues to join Republicans in this [budget] process instead of passing the buck and reneging on their constitutional duty.”
Carter didn’t say how Democrats were “passing the buck” or “reneging on their constitutional duty” in a process controlled by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans.
On many issues, opting to scapegoat Democrats for the brewing crisis in Washington instead of calling out fellow Republicans poses no political risk to Carter in Coastal Georgia. Last year, he won a fifth term in the House in last year’s election by 18.3% of the vote. And among Democrats in the region’s main cities, it merely aggravates the deep antipathy with which he is held there.
Where Carter’s opposition to a government shutdown does matter politically, however, is among the right-tilting, confrontation-seeking ranks of his Republican Party in Coastal Georgia.
There, Carter’s deft skills as a fence straddler could be tested. His stance on a possible shutdown — along with his less than fiery position on impeaching Biden (“We want to make sure [the complaints] rise to level of impeachment if we introduce articles of impeachment against Joe Biden”) — could further fuel the talk of a primary challenge next year.
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