Top Political Stories for 2023

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023

Good morning! In this, the last Soundings of 2023, we look at the biggest political stories of the year in Coastal Georgia. The Current’s newsletters (and their writers) will take a break between Christmas and New Year’s Day. We’ll return in early January, in time to preview a new session of the Georgia legislature. Meanwhile, we wish you, our faithful readers, a happy holiday and a Happy New Year!

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The economic boom

Aided by $2.1 billion in state tax breaks, and the federal government’s clean energy initiatives, the $7.6 billion Hyundai electric vehicle plant now under construction in Ellabell in Bryan County is expected to open in January 2025, though that deadline could slide.

The Current’s data reporter, Maggie Lee, described the vast scope of the “metaplant” in July. The local infusion of money and investment, along with the potential for thousands of new workers, is testing government institutions and  infrastructure. For proof, look no further than our clogged highways, the warehouses changing the landscape of rural neighborhoods,  and the water wars already raging, The Current’s environmental reporter Mary Landers reported earlier this month.

Are our governing institutions up to the challenge of balancing development and preserving and cultivating those aspects of life that the region’s citizens prize? At the center of the ferment is the fundamental political question: Who decides?

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Georgia’s divided Republican Party

You wouldn’t know it from the GOP’s domination of the Georgia’s legislature, the governor’s office, and the rural sections of Georgia’s 1st Congressional District outside Savannah, Brunswick and Liberty County. But the state Republican Party was roiled in 2023 by fierce debate over the continuing influence of former President Donald Trump and what it means to be a true conservative.

Case in point: Neither Gov. Brian Kemp nor 1^st District U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter attended their own political party’s state convention in Columbus in June; Trump did. In Coastal Georgia, more right-leaning conservatives expanded their influence in local party organizations, including the Chatham County GOP. 

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SaVANnah

It turned out not to be much of a contest at all — Democrat Van Johnson  won reelection to another four-year term as Savannah’s mayor, easily defeating Alderwoman Kesha Gibson-Carter.

His victory by 77.3% of the vote owed its success to his promise to return civility to the city council, where Gibson-Carter was his chief antagonist. Many Savannahians were disgusted by the political theatrics at city council meetings, spats that overshadowed an underlying fact: Most big-ticket spending items passed by large consensus despite the differences in political style.

Johnson now faces pressure to tackle some of the city’s most pressing items, including affordable housing. Yet the size of his campaign war-chest, fed by the downtown business community, has already led to speculation about his political future..

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Accountability in Camden County

In February, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a March 2022 referendum in which Camden County voters effectively quashed the county’s plans to develop a spaceport.

The decision reverberated far beyond the county’s confines, wrote Mary Landers, who has led the state’s news coverage of the ill-fated undertaking: “[The decision] paves the way for county voters across the state to exercise the right to seek a referendum to undo their local government’s ordinances, resolutions, or regulations.”

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The legal woes of Chatham County’s DA

Questions about Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones, her management of her office, and her compliance with her professional obligations as a lawyer cascaded in 2023, culminating in October with sanctions from a federal judge. She’s appealed to the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

A well-known advocate of progressive reforms in the criminal justice system, Cook Jones came to epitomize all that conservative critics claim is wrong with the administration of that system. Her lawyer says the allegations against her are political motivated, reported The Current’s public security reporter Jake Shore, who has chronicled every step in Cook Jones’ mounting legal and political troubles. Her bid for another four-year term next year against a host of challengers will be a marquee race.

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An Okefenokee quagmire

Despite wide bipartisan support, legislation that would bar strip mining near the Okefenokee Swamp remained bogged down in the Georgia House of Representatives in 2023. The bill, the Okefenokee Protection Act (H.B. 71), wouldn’t affect a controversial permit application already filed by Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals to strip mine for titanium dioxide but would forestall future battles over mining on Trail Ridge, a long strip of high ground east of the beloved swamp.

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Slowing down for whales?

Aided by Congressman Buddy Carter, recreational fishing groups and harbor pilots in 2023 fought proposed changes to speed limits aimed at reducing the likelihood of deaths and injuries to endangered right whales from collisions with vessels off our coast.

The changes proposed by the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would include all boats over 35 feet long. Opponents claim the speed limits are a threat to their safety and livelihood. The Current fact-checked Carter’s claims in July and found inaccuracies.

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Providing shelter

Of the main problems uniting our diverse communities in Coastal Georgia, the lack of affordable housing ranks near the top, as does the rising level of homelessness facing our working poor families and our veterans. Kailey Cota, a summer staffer at The Current, captured the fears, anger and pain of the unhoused, as well as the struggles of city officials, business leaders and church groups in Brunswick who are at odds over what role they can or should play in providing for the neediest among us.  

It’s a story made all the more poignant by the death last month of Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady of Georgia and the nation. Among the remarkable legacy she and her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, have left for Georgians to emulate is their dedication to Habitat for Humanity, the organization which builds  homes for those struggling to provide a roof for their families.

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Whose body, whose choice?

The Georgia Supreme Court in October rejected a lower court ruling that the state’s restrictive abortion law, which bans most abortions after roughly six weeks, was invalid.

The issue of access to abortion is far from decided, though. The latest battleground: Anti-abortion organizations who praised the overturning of Roe v. Wade for returning the issue to the states are moving to discourage efforts in Arizona, Nevada, and Florida to conduct referenda that would put the issue directly to voters to decide. Is Georgia next?

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A breath of fresh air in Liberty County

The Current expanded its accountability reporting in 2023 with a new full-time journalist, Robin Kemp, and among the most widely read of her watchdog stories were those about fire safety, county budgets and this one: residents’ opposition to a plan by one of the larger employers in the county, Weyerhaeuser, to use toxic chemicals to prepare logs for export. 

The chemical, methyl bromide, can be fatal if inhaled, and it is largely banned. However, one of the few legal uses for it is to fumigate wood, and the company was asking for a state permit to treat its products at its facility near Riceboro with the chemical. 

Six days after our story was published, the company confirmed that it was dropping the permit request.  As state Rep. Al Williams of Midway told Robin at the time: “This is what’s called citizen participation. And that’s great.” 

This is what The Current calls impactful community journalism — which is great, too.

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