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Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The race is on: Giuliani, Biden on top in Georgia — alphabetically
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The ballot for Georgia’s Feb. 5 presidential primary has been formally set.
Both the state chairmen of both Republican and Democratic parties were required to submit lists of their bona fide candidates to Secretary of State Karen Handel by Thursday, Nov. 1.
The pair completed the work a few days early. Here’s a PDF with the formal communication, just to prove that neither side named Stephen Colbert.
Republican chairman Sue Everhart named, in alphabetical order: Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Alan Keyes, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, and Fred Thompson.
Democratic chairman Jane Kidd named: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis J. Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson.
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Obama up and running in Georgia; Clinton getting organized
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Barack Obama campaign promises a big crowd of supporters at 6:30 p.m. Thursday when it opens its Georgia headquarters. Several state lawmakers threaten to attend.
Obama’s is the first presidential campaign — Democrat or Republican — to set up shop here.
The location is 370 Northside Drive in Atlanta, just down the street from Paschal’s Restaurant, where U.S. Rep. John Lewis endorsed Obama’s chief Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Obama is further along with his ground game in Georgia. But the Clinton campaign is advertising a campaign training session for Georgia volunteers on Saturday, Nov. 10.
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Why water conservation can’t work, and the logic behind that thought
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Tuesday, the print version of the Journal-Constitution featured Gov. Sonny Perdue telling the world that a 10 percent cutback in water usage in north Georgia — which he ordered the week before — was largely symbolic.
It would have little effect on whether the region dries up and blows away.
“The facts do indicate the consumption is to some degree inconsequential, ” he said. “What we are trying to encourage is a spirit of good citizenship.”
Given the fact that the governor admitted such conservation was painful — “For some companies, it has been terrible and [meant] a loss of jobs,” he said — we wondered why Perdue was so dismissive of his own order.
Then someone much smarter than us explained it.
Throughout this water crisis, every state official of high standing — not just Perdue, but House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle as well — has been asked whether overdevelopment is part of the problem.
In each case, the official has said no. Metro Atlanta’s unbounded growth has little or no relationship to the availability of water.
But if you admit that conservation has an impact on water use, then it follows that consumption is an issue that’s more than symbolic. And putting a lid on development would be a next step.
So if you want to keep that growth engine churning, you can’t permit yourself to view conservation as anything more than necessary morale boosting.
We’ll let you people argue over whether Perdue is right or wrong. All we’re saying is that there’s a certain consistency in his logic.
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Last session’s hot fight over the budget turns into a cold war
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Five months after Sonny Perdue vetoed or deferred about $130 million in projects, agencies find themselves still stuck in the middle of a nasty budget feud between the General Assembly and the governor.
A new House committee has begun hauling the top layers of state operations into meetings to ask them what they are doing with the money that the Legislature approved for spending in April — and Perdue later deferred.
The Department of Education and Board of Regents, which have two of the largest budgets in state government, were up Tuesday. Turns out they are pretty much sitting on the disputed money, according to our colleague James Salzer.
Spending it would just make somebody mad.
For those who need a refresher, here’s what happened. The General Assembly passed a mid-year budget that included a $142 million property tax cut. Perdue didn’t like it, so he vetoed the property tax cut.
The House was miffed so it overrode his veto, but the Senate failed to follow suit, so the attempted revolt died. Then the General Assembly passed a $20.2 billion budget for fiscal 2008.
Perdue signed the budget, but in some instances of spending, he told agencies to ignore the wishes of legislators. Legislature leaders went ballistic. So they told agencies they’d better follow the wishes of the Legislature and ignore the governor.
The result: millions of dollars approved by the General Assembly and Perdue isn’t getting spent.
One example: DOE officials said they haven’t yet spent the $1.6 million the General Assembly approved for foreign language programs in elementary schools. Perdue told the DOE to instead send each elementary school $1,200 for library materials.
DOE officials told the House committee Tuesday that the checks aren’t in the mail.
The same goes for about $2 million in Board of Regents projects, from a Washington internship program and an Albany water policy center to funding for a smoking cessation effort.
“Right now we have no plans to spend these funds,” William Bowes, the University System’s vice chancellor for fiscal affairs, told the committee.
That’s fine with House members. House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) has warned agencies that if they go against the General Assembly’s wishes, they will pay for it during the 2008 session. Agencies live and die on what they get appropriated by the governor and Legislature, so they take such threats seriously.
For his part, the committee’s chairman, state Rep. Richard Royal (R-Camilla), made it clear he understands the fix agencies are in at this point. “You’re in a position where you can’t win on this issue,” he said.
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Tom Bell drops off the Thompson bandwagon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tom Bell, the CEO of Atlanta-based Cousins Properties, has given up his job as top fund-raiser for Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson.
This according to the Washington Post.
Thompson’s people say Bell’s departure was expected and is not to be confused with the musical chairs game that other members of the campaign staff have played.
“He is going to remain active with the campaign but, we’ve known all along, and he’s been up front with us, that once we got past the testing the waters portion of this adventure that we needed to find a full-time campaign finance chair for the actual campaign,” said Thompson campaign spokeswoman Karen Hanretty.
On his visit to Atlanta earlier this month, Thompson used Bell’s spacious 36th floor suite of offices on Peachtree Street as his field headquarters.
