SWGA Politics

Ballot Access Bill Introduced[ February 8, 2010 – 7:45 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns, Legislation

Last week, State Senator David Shafer (R-Duluth) introduced a bill he calls the Voter Choice and Ballot Access Act, which is officially known as SB 359.

Equal ballot access is the number one issue on SWGAPolitics.com’s 2010 Legislative Agenda, and this bill is a solid step in that direction. The bill basically says that once a political organization has met the required hurdles to gain state wide ballot access, it would also be able to run candidates in all partisan races in this State – not just state wide. Currently, the Libertarian Party of Georgia is the only “third” party to do this, which means that under this bill Tom, Tim, myself, or any other Libertarian in the area could run for County Commission or even State Rep, if we so desired. Under current law, we could not without getting petition signatures from 5% of the registered voters in our district – and in one local election recently, the winner of the election only got 4.8% of the registered voters in the district to vote for him!

This bill also allows for a form of electoral fusion, whereby a political body (such as the Libertarian Party) could co-nominate candidates for offices along with an official “party” (such as the Democrats and Republicans). In other words, the Libertarian Party could co-nominate a candidate for State Rep with either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, if such candidate was acceptable to the LP.

The final thing this bill does is change the wording on the POTUS requirements for official “party” status to allow for 20% of the voters in the State of Georgia to satisfy this requirement. Under current law, even if the Libertarian Party’s Presidential nominee got 100% of the vote in Georgia, if that nominee only came out with 19.5% of the vote nationally, the Libertarian Party of Georgia would not have met the 20% requirement to attain full “party” status.

This bill does almost nothing for independent candidates, as their signature requirements are not touched in any way. Because of this, the bill is not perfect. With that said, however, this bill IS a solid step in the right direction, and at this point we need a victory to start some momentum going in the right direction. Going over to my football analogy again, I agree that we don’t score on this play. But this play is absolutely one that at a bare minimum will get us the three yards we need, may even get us a first down on this play, and could potentially open up the opposing defense so that the next play is far larger. Because of this, it is absolutely the right play to call at the moment.

The General Assembly needs to pass this bill to allow fairer ballot access in this State. I fully endorse it, and I urge Secretary of State Brian Kemp and all of his potential opponents this November to endorse this proposal as well. I also urge each and every candidate in every statewide race to endorse this bill as a signal to the General Assembly, the Governor, and the Secretary of State that this is absolutely something we are all concerned about. Democratic Party of Georgia State Committee member Andre Walker has already endorsed this bill, as has Jason Pye.

Michael Mills Responds to Kemp Appointment as SoS[ January 6, 2010 – 5:00 am]by Publius Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

As usual, if we get a press release on a recent issue, we will post it… This one is from Democratic candidate for Secretary of State Michael Mills.

Secretary of State Appointment Places Politics Before Georgia Citizens

Poll-after-poll and trend-after-trend shows Georgians are increasingly cynical about politics and resentful of government. The latest partisan power grab that was the appointment of a new Georgia Secretary of State will only reinforce these disturbing trends. Citizens must take the power back and make their voices heard – at the ballot box in 2010 and every day in-between.

While an abdication of her sworn responsibility, Secretary of State Karen Handel’s decision to resign to better serve the office being vacated and her campaign for governor seemed innocent enough. At face-value, we could support the decision because it ensured Georgians had someone in the Secretary of State’s office fighting for their rights instead of advancing personal and partisan agendas. But scratch the surface, and it smacks of politics.
[Continue Reading]

Gary Horlacher Responds to Brian Kemp’s Appointment as SoS[ January 4, 2010 – 6:36 pm]by Publius Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

The following statement was issued by Gary Horlacher in response to Governor Perdue’s announcement today that he was appointing Brian Kemp to be the interim Secretary of State. If any candidate has a press release about any issue, make sure it gets in my hands and I’ll get it up here.

Here we go again!

Karen Handel backs out of the remainder of her term-of-office as Secretary of State, so that she can focus on her race for Governor, continue raising money, and oh yea, not inject partisan politics into a race that she is involved in, while she is conducting the fundamental role of the Secretary’s office, fair and nonpartisan election oversight. But do Governor Perdue and Brian Kemp agree with her. Clearly NO!
[Continue Reading]

A Belated Christmas Gift to Doug Macginnitie and Brian Kemp[ January 3, 2010 – 8:13 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

One issue I haven’t discussed yet has been the speculation and subsequent actual selection of who the new Secretary of State would be, to fulfill the remainder of the term Karen Handel abandoned.

Earlier this week, Governor Perdue gave a belated Christmas gift to Doug Macginnitie and Brian Kemp when he announced that he had selected his former Floor Leader State Rep Jim Cole (R-Forsyth) as the interim Secretary of State, and Cole announced that he would seek election to the full term of the post this November.

I honestly know nothing about Cole, so I went to the source I always go to for information about a current member of the General Assembly – LEGIS.

There, I looked at the bills he sponsored so far this term, with particular emphasis on the bills he authored himself. It is these bills, the ones he authored himself (or at least takes official credit for doing so), that I want to point out to you:
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Doug MacGinnitie, Religious Freedom, and Property Rights[ December 27, 2009 – 6:33 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

A couple of months ago, I became aware of a religious liberty and property rights issue up in Sandy Springs, a new city just north of Atlanta. Normally, this wouldn’t really warrant an entry on SWGAPolitics.com, because even with the religious liberty and property rights issues, it is a local issue up there and cities all across the State and nation take similar actions with alarming regularity.

What makes Sandy Springs a bit more important is that one of its City Councilmen is running for statewide office – specifically, Doug MacGinnitie and the office of Secretary of State.

The basic story is this: A church (in this case, a Scientologist church) buys a piece of property and wants to renovate it to suit their religious needs. Some neighbors get pissed off, and take the issue to their local city council, who denies the church’s religious liberty and property rights and sides with the neighbors.

But it wasn’t the entire City Council. In fact, the 6 voting members were split down the middle, with the Mayor casting the deciding vote against the church.

But which side was Doug MacGinnitie on? Did this Secretary of State candidate side with religious liberty and private property rights, or did he side with those who wish to deny these rights?
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Another Democratic Secretary of State Candidate Responds to Handel’s Resignation[ December 23, 2009 – 4:41 pm]by Publius Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

The following is the press release we received today from Michael Mills, another Democratic candidate in the Secretary of State race.

“We commend Secretary of State Karen Handel’s decision to resign her current office to seek the Republican nomination for Governor of Georgia. Elected officials must begin to place the interest of our citizens first, and not their own, at a time of mounting deficits, growing unemployment and uncertain futures.

The decision also calls to an end one of the most partisan and draconian Secretary of State administrations in the history of Georgia, twice rebuked by the United States Justice Department for illegally blocking access to the ballot box for eligible citizens.
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Democratic SOS Candidate Response to Karen Handel Resignation[ December 22, 2009 – 3:18 pm]by Publius Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

We just received the following release from Gary Horlacher, a Democratic candidate for Secretary of State, in response to Karen Handel’s announcement this afternoon that she is resigning her post as Secretary of State. Jeff will write his own thoughts later this evening or tomorrow morning.

Congratulations Karen Handel!
This is the first correct action you have taken since entering this office.

Ms. Handel’s mishandling of the Secretary of State’s office has gone way beyond incompetence. She crossed the misconduct line by inappropriately using this office to both foster her own political ambitions and to use her authority in the elections oversight process for her party’s political benefit. By stepping down, she not only provides herself with the much needed “flexibility” to continue raising campaign contributions for her gubernatorial campaign during the upcoming Legislative Session, but she also “ducks and dodges” any needs to be totally nonpartisan while conducting fair, objective and competent election oversight duties.

You want some objective analysis of her conduct of the functions of this office?
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Gary Horlacher Has Some Competition for Democratic Nomination for Secretary of State[ August 27, 2009 – 6:28 pm]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a guy named Gary Horlacher and his bid for the Democratic Party of Georgia’s nomination for the office of Secretary of State.

Over the past month or so, three other candidates have filed paperwork with the State Ethics Committee to run for the office as a Democrat, two of them with websites – and one of them a current officeholder.

In chronological order according to when the Declaration of Intent was filed, the three new candidates are:

Darryl Hicks of Fayetteville, who filed on July 21.

Michael Mills of Atlanta, who filed on Aug 4.

And Gail Buckner of East Point, who filed on Aug 12. Buckner is the current State Senator from the 44th District and was the Democratic nominee for the office in 2006.

Needless to say, many would say Mr. Horlacher no longer stands a chance – IF he ever stood one to begin with. Me, I say the race just got quite a bit more interesting, though realistically even I expect Senator Buckner to once again be the nominee.

Regardless, we’ll know the winner – or at least who will be in any potential runoff – in 328 days.

Karen Handel Just Doesn’t Get It – and Brian Kemp Agrees With Her[ August 16, 2009 – 8:34 am]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

You see, she seems to think that a process that is so faulty that 60% of those it labels as “non-citizens” are in fact citizens is a good thing!

I wrote a decent amount on this topic in June, when it was first breaking. Back then, I used the actual DOJ and court documents to show exactly where MS. Handel erred in this situation, and those posts can be found here, here, here, and here for more details on the particulars of the issue.

The basics are this:

Ms. Handel has claimed that this is an issue with the “Obama Department of Justice”, yet it was a Bush Administration court that gave the initial order 9 days before the November 2008 elections and nearly three full months before Barack Obama was sworn in as President – and even longer before he actually had placed anyone in the Department of Justice or Court system.

This “common sense” program Ms. Handel created has been shown to be so flawed that 60% of the people it labeled as “non-citizens” were, in fact, citizens.

Regarding the “petition” itself, it is nothing more than a campaign ploy. A valid petition would have an actual petition statement available for you to read before signing, all Ms. Handel’s “petition” has is a place for your name and email information. It is designed to build her campaign database and NOTHING more.

Here is the email Karen Handel sent out Friday:
[Continue Reading for the Handel Email and more!]

Brian Kemp Has Some Contributions That Stink[ July 6, 2009 – 7:27 pm]by Jeff Posted in » 2010 Campaigns

Looking over Brian Kemp’s financial disclosure statement, he has some contributions that while apparently technically legal, stink.
[Why Do They Stink?]