Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Good Morning! In the news today, a state commission exploring impact of health-care cuts drops the ball; the money race ahead of next year’s midterm elections speeds up; few voters show up for the Public Service Commission runoff; and some things you may have missed. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com.
NEWS: GOVERNING
Too ‘complex’
Last year, Gov. Brian Kemp and state lawmakers created a commission to assess health-care challenges facing low-income Georgians.
Yet the panel, formally known as the Comprehensive Commission on Health Care, hasn’t met this year, even as the debate over Medicaid stretched through the spring and culminated earlier this month with the passage of massive health-care spending cuts in President Trump’s historic tax-and-spending bill.
In conversations with members of the commission, which includes some of the state’s top health-care leaders, practitioners and policy researchers, the panel’s chair, Caylee Noggle, defended her decision not to convene a meeting this year, saying the “complexity” of the debates in Washington justified it, The Current’s Margaret Coker reports.
Before becoming head of the Georgia Hospital Association, Noggle served as a health-care expert for Kemp and was instrumental in rolling out Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement policy experiment.
Dr. Harry Heiman said Noggle’s decision not to convene the group made a mockery of the role that state lawmakers had for the group. “I take my role in the commission seriously and I believe that our work can protect lives,” Heiman said. “But it’s preposterous to publish a report on behalf of a commission that hasn’t met.”
ANALYSIS: POLITICS
The money race
Party primaries for next year’s midterm federal election contests may be more than nine months away and the general election even more far-off. But the money race for political candidates pursuing votes in Coastal Georgia is already scorching.
In the battle for the Republican nomination for next year’s U.S. Senate race, Coastal Georgia Congressman Earl “Buddy” Carter ended the second quarter of this year with $4.1 million in his campaign war chest, thanks in part to his $2 million loan to his own campaign, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The open race to succeed Carter as 1st District representative in U.S. Congress also features a clear leader in the money race.
Jim Kingston, son of longtime Republican congressman Jack Kingston, ended the 2nd quarter with a massive $857,060 in his campaign account.
The portrait that leaders in the fundraising race paint about their numbers isn’t, however, the whole picture, The Current’s Craig Nelson writes.
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NEWS: ELECTIONS
Historically low
Voter turnout for last week’s primary runoff to choose a Democrat to stand for the Public Service Commission’s District 3 seat in this fall’s elections seat was historically low.
In Chatham, for example, voter turnout was 1.58%; in Glynn, 0.77%; in Liberty, 1.23%; and in McIntosh, 1.70%.
The cost to Chatham taxpayers to stage the special election was $20 for every one of the 4,111 votes cast in the county — or $82,220. Chatham has 212,568 registered voters.
Will the low turnout renew calls for changes to election scheduling?
A team of researchers at Kennesaw State University concluded in a report in 2022 that Georgia’s voters “may be better served by a new kind of general election runoff system than the one the state has used for nearly two decades.” They estimated the cost to taxpayers of the 2020 U.S. Senate runoff at $75 million.
NEWS: UPDATES
ICYMI
- The court fight by Gullah-Geechee descendants over new zoning ordinances goes on, The Current’s Domonique King reports.
- How will cutbacks to Jacksonville’s National Weather Service office affect Coastal Georgia? The Current’s Mary Landers explores the question.
- For World War II airman, Milton Leonard Hymes, Jr., the journey home to Savannah and to a final resting place beside his parents in Bonaventure Cemetery was long, and the honors due him overdue, The Current’s Justin Taylor writes.
- Attorney General Chris Carr, recently announced Republican gubernatorial candidate, says Georgia will not join the 24 states and Washington, D.C. in suing the Trump administration to release $6 billion in promised federal education grants.
- Water planners criticize state agency’s decision to pause reviews of proposed data centers. Gov. Brian Kemp appoints commission to determine whether Theodore Hamby, indicted last month on theft charges, should remain on the city council in Guyton in Effingham County.
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Georgia health commission hasn’t met this year despite looming federal spending cuts
The Comprehensive Commission on Health Care in Georgia has not met this year. The commission chair is set to release a report next week that reflects the lack of urgency over the drastic changes ahead for public health.
Political fundraising for U.S. House, Senate seats accelerates ahead of midterm elections
Coastal Georgia Republicans Earl “Buddy” Carter and Jim Kingston are leading in fundraising for the 2024 election, but direct voter engagement is what ultimately wins elections, not just money.
Carr: Georgia will not join multistate lawsuit to release federal education grants
Georgia will not join the 24 states and Washington, D.C. in suing the Trump administration to release $6 billion in promised federal education grants, while Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath called for the release of the funds on the House floor.
The long journey home: 2Lt. Milton Leonard Hymes, Jr.
At the age of 22, 2Lt. Milton Leonard Hymes, Jr. of Savannah was killed in a B-24J Liberator crash over Nazi-occupied Poland, but his remains were finally identified and repatriated to his family, 81 years later.
Graduation overhaul: As programs change, what does ‘high school diploma’ mean?
New York officials have voted to approve a new framework, known as the “portrait of a graduate,” which will help define what it will take to earn a diploma after the state’s exit exams are phased out as a graduation requirement beginning in the 2027-28 school year.
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