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Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Baker and elections board clash over the meaning of ‘frivolity’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Attorney General Thurbert Baker, one of the highest-ranking Democrats left in state government, clashed today with the Republican-dominated State Elections Board.
You’ll remember that last month, the Georgia Democratic Party filed another lawsuit challenging the state’s voter ID law — even though the U.S. Supreme Court had recently upheld a similar law in Indiana.
The elections board — Secretary of State Karen Handel included — voted to serve the Democratic party formal notice that it considered the lawsuit “frivolous,” and would thus seek to be reimbursed for the cost of attorneys should the lawsuit not prevail in Fulton County Superior Court.
On Tuesday, Baker declined to transmit that notice to his fellow Democrats.
My colleague Rhonda Cook was a witness to the event. “I am personally disappointed that [Baker] chose to put his political interests ahead of the interests of the people of Georgia,” said board member Randy Evans, general counsel to the state Republican party.
Sitting next to Evans, board member David Worley, a former chairman of the state Democratic party, stuck up for Baker. “The litigation is not frivolous and there is no reason to send that letter. [Baker] is within his rights,” Worley said.
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Those who don’t believe in Al Gore go up extra fast
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are political stunts, and then there are fun political stunts.
The Georgia chapter of Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax group, is hosting a Thursday event featuring free a hot-air balloon ride, to underline what it says are the harsh economic consequences of fighting global warning.
AFP already had its “Hot Air Tour” up and floating elsewhere during the Washington debate over the now-stalled Lieberman-Warner climate bill, which calls for capping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, transportation and industrial sources.
The AFP will have its balloon (and 70-foot tether) at Jim Miller Park in Marietta at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Word is that you don’t have to present yourself as a global warming skeptic to go up in the balloon. But they may ask for a different answer before they bring you down.
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House Democrats: Governor should investigate Cox and those middle school tests
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While much of the education world is debating the wisdom of later starts to the school year, some Democrats aren’t ready for state School Superintendent Kathy Cox to change the subject. They want to go back to that other issue — the Criterion Reference Competency Tests.
House Democrats on Tuesday called on Gov. Sonny Perdue to launch an investigation into problems with state CRCT testing and the Department of Education.
My colleague Aaron Gould Sheinin reports that Democratic leaders said Cox covered up the testing problems and let teachers and local officials take the blame.
An investigation, said House Minority Leader Dubose Porter (D-Dublin), is needed to discover “where the Department (of Education) went wrong” and to discover when Cox “knew about the problems, what actions she took, and why schools and parents were not warned in a timely fashion.”
The party leaders also called on Perdue to send money to local districts to help pay for the influx of students forced into summer school because of problems with the tests. The education department has pledged to spend $1.4 million to help, but state Sen. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) said that is not enough. Any money is no more than a “band aid,” he said, so the state at least “should pay for the band aid.”
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Kathy Cox to advocate a late August start to the school year
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is in today’s Augusta Chronicle:
State Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox plans to press local boards to postpone the start of the school year until late August…
Schools would start next year’s academic year no earlier than the third week of August under the plan, which would be voluntary, Ms. Cox said.
In return, state Department of Education officials would have more time to crunch testing data from the districts, with the potential that fewer schools would fall short of federal standards. The extra time would allow for standardized testing retakes to be considered.
Ms. Cox plans to propose the idea formally to local administrators at a Georgia School Boards Association meeting this weekend in Savannah.
We’re already hearing some cheers on this from state lawmakers who tried to push this idea in 2004 via legislation that mandated a post-Labor Day start.
Some arguments revolved around the hotel-motel-tourist industry, which has been hit by a shrinking summer vacation. But advocates also said divorced families with one parent living in another state especially needed help with the 30-day visitations.
Advocates of a later school year also point to energy savings on air-conditioned schools and buses that must be kept cool during the hottest part of the year.
Photo credit: Jason Getz/AJC
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Obama’s Plouffe: The focus is on Virginia and Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The entire piece is worth reading, but Time magazine has these paragraphs in an article — the title is “Can Georgia Be Obama’s Ohio” — looking at Democrat Barack Obama and the South:
In briefings last week with former Hillary Clinton supporters, Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, said he is focusing on Georgia and Virginia as potential swing states and, depending on the outcomes of voter registration drives, he’s also keeping an eye on Mississippi and Louisiana.
In Georgia, the Obama campaign has wasted no time, launching massive voter registration drives before he the primaries had even ended. “By some estimates we have about 600,000 African Americans in Georgia are eligible but unregistered. I think that number is a little high, but we will be working very hard to register as many voters as we can before the election,” said Jane Kidd, chairwoman of the Georgia Democratic Party. “Georgia is one of the most progressive southern states. There are a lot of people moving in, there’s a lot of transition, a lot of progressives.”
Obama has 15 full-time paid staffers who have been in Georgia for over a month. They also have had staff in North Carolina and Virginia and have been “literally moving in dozens of people every week to all three states,” said Jon Carson, Obama’s national field director.
They also expect to have staff in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana before the end of the month. “It’s very hard to sit here right now to say what’s going to happen in November… Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri — which of those is going to be most winnable? So our campaign is taking the approach of casting a wide net.”
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