Georgia Politics and Elections | Atlanta & Georgia Voter Guide

With little prompting any graduate of Morehouse College will recite for you the following: “You can always tell a Morehouse Man. But you can’t tell him much.” Enter Herman Cain, Morehouse Class of ‘67 and a front-runner to become the Republican nominee for president, according to recent polling.

Four metro Atlanta school systems seeking $2 billion through a sales tax renewal face voter opposition because of cheating and spending scandals. People question whether more money should be handed over to systems in turmoil — notably Atlanta Public Schools and the DeKalb County School System.

down in the soul — Herman Cain is one of them. Always will be. When he’s home in Atlanta, he’s among friends at Antioch Baptist Church North, where he’s been a member for more than 30 years. Fellow members call him a good man, a brother in Christ, as solid as the very doors of the church.

After a few months of relative calm following the July resignation of former Atlanta Board of Education Chairman Khaatim Sherrer El, the school system is getting closer to filling his seat. On Nov. 8, voters in District 2 will choose a new school board member from among Byron Amos, Angela Brown, Dwanda Farmer, Michael Jeter and Donald Walker.

Doug Hooker, a fixture in Atlanta power circles for more than two decades, has been tapped to take over a slumbering giant of an agency that has awakened to its own power over people’s daily lives. Hooker is the national search committee’s choice to replace Chick Krautler as executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Mayor Kasim Reed joins such notables as singer Beyonce, NAACP CEO Benjamin Jealous and hip-hop artist Will.i.am on the Root 100 list – an annual compilation of the 100 “Most Influential African-Americans Under 45” released Wednesday. “The Root 100 identifies African-American influencers 45 and under who shape our daily conversations with work that matters,” the website, which describes itself as the No.

Should you be allowed to carry a gun to church? What about the person sitting next to you? The question before a three-judge panel for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta Thursday is whether Georgia’s prohibition on firearms in places of worship conflicts with the promise of religious freedom in the First Amendment to the U.

Georgia’s economy is projected to take a $391 million hit and shed about 3,260 jobs this year because of farm labor shortages, according to a report released Tuesday by the state’s agricultural industry. The report does not cite the reasons for the worker shortages in Georgia’s $68.

MARTA chief executive Beverly Scott warned state lawmakers Monday that even if next year's transportation referendum passes, the metro area's largest transit system will still face $2.3 billion in unfunded maintenance needs over the next decade. "We do not have an answer of how it's going to be funded," Scott said, adding that if the regional transportation plan is rejected, the agency's maintenance costs would spike to $2.

WASHINGTON – Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed looks at President Barack Obama’s jobs bill and sees a fresh-baked pie of money. And he intends to help determine how the slices are divvied up. A frequent visitor to the nation’s capital, Reed is back this week for several meetings, including chats with members of the Georgia delegation at Congressional Black Caucus festivities.

Former U.S. Rep. Pat Swindall has been sentenced to one year of probation after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of being involved in illegal campaign contributions. The Fulton County Daily Report says in its Friday edition that Swindall was sentenced on Aug.

The Georgia Department of Transportation said Tuesday it has spent nearly $1 billion last budget year on road projects and related costs, rejecting a contention that the agency has been stifling job creation in Georgia's beleaguered construction industry.

Rate increases of about 20 percent could hit Atlanta residents if they don't vote to renew a special one percent sales and use tax to fund water and sewer projects, city officials said Tuesday. The city's Department of Watershed Management said it needs $113 million from the tax proceeds in 2012 to abide by a consent decree that required major upgrades to the sewer system.

When Georgia Supreme Court Justice George Carley determined he would resign when his term runs out at the end of next year, he knew he would be passing up the chance to be chief justice of the state's highest court. But on Thursday, his six colleagues made sure that was not going to happen.

Gov. Nathan Deal has dumped Georgia's longtime state climatologist without apparently telling him, just as 150 Georgia counties became eligible for federal aid because of ongoing drought and excessive heat. Deal with no public announcement signed an executive order Tuesday appointing a state employee to take over the climatologist's job, which for years had been housed at the University of Georgia in Athens.

A powerful new panel aimed at helping curb illegal immigration in Georgia has yet to hold its first meeting but it is already attracting controversy. The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday called on Gov. Nathan Deal to reconsider his decision to appoint anti-illegal immigration activist Phil Kent to the panel, saying Kent has a history of making “deeply disturbing" comments about immigrants.

Support for the regional transportation tax referendum appears shaky among some key leaders in northern suburbs, with the Atlanta Beltline’s presence on the project generating much of their resistance. Mayors from those communities say much of the $6.

Metro Atlanta residents can have their say on a draft list of projects to be funded by a proposed regional transportation tax during forums this month throughout the region. The draft list of projects, totaling $6.14 billion, was compiled by a five-member executive roundtable of local elected officials last month, and must be finalized by a full 21-member roundtable of leaders from each county by Oct.

The man who orchestrated Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed's campaign has been tapped to help President Barack Obama win the South in 2012. A spokesman for Obama for America says Tharon Johnson has joined the campaign as the southern regional director and will be "a key part to building the organization" in the area.

It is not an election year, but Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is in full campaign mode for U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the preservation of his congressional district. Under a proposal being floated by Republican leaders in the Georgia General Assembly, Lewis, who represents Atlanta, would lose the Buckhead area to Rep.

The Atlanta region ranks among the worst major metro areas in the nation for putting transit services within reach of people without cars, the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program said in a report released Thursday. Of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas, Atlanta ranks 82nd, providing 68.

No deal. At least not this week. The mayors and county commissioners from across metro Atlanta who planned to approve the region's most important infrastructure plan in decades could not agree on it by Thursday, their scheduled deadline. Instead, with $400 million left to cut and a north-south regional divide roiling negotiations, they have put off their final vote until the last possible moment under state law, Monday afternoon.

A group of local elected officials from throughout the Atlanta region is on a mission Thursday to do something historic: agree with one another on transportation. Five mayors and county commissioners are scheduled Thursday to approve a draft list of transportation projects for the 10 Atlanta region counties, totaling $6.

Gov. Nathan Deal officially called lawmakers back into session starting Monday, a formality that came with a twist when he put at least two issues on the table besides redistricting. Lawmakers will consider changing the date of regional transportation referendums to be put before voters next year, Deal said.

Comcast Corporation is partnering with several metro Atlanta school districts to educate families about a new program to offer discounted Internet access to low-income students. Today at a morning press conference, Comcast executives along with Mayor Kasim Reed, Gov.

Gov. Nathan Deal surprised an Atlanta charter school Monday with a big boost to its bank account – $1 million in Race to the Top money. Students and staff at Charles R. Drew Charter School greeted news of the award with applause and cheers on the first morning of classes.

Amid a sweeping federal investigation five years ago of violent street gang activity, two gang members told authorities they had witnessed the drive-by killing of a 22-year-old Norcross woman. They told FBI agents – and, later, a federal grand jury -- that Daniel Cortes, a 16-year-old member of the Sur-13 gang, shot and killed Rebecca Moore in the pre-dawn hours of Jan.

A MARTA line to Emory University, a line from the Arts Center station to Cumberland in Cobb County, and part of the Atlanta Beltline won coveted first slots on a tentative project list that may go to voters in a referendum next year. Whether commuters will be riding those lines within 15 years as advocates hope is an open question -- depending on many factors, including at least three votes yet to come.

Michael L. Patten lacked a  degree in floral design, but it didn't matter. A love for flowers and an eye for color, design and detail was apparent in every arrangement he touched. "He had a natural ability," said Gerald Asherbranner, a friend and former business partner from Alpharetta.

Gov. Nathan Deal has appointed his executive counsel to fill a vacancy on the Fulton County Superior Court. D. Todd Markel of Atlanta will be sworn in within the next few weeks, the governor’s office said Wednesday. Markel will fill a vacancy left by the resignation of Judge Michael D.

No new lanes for South Cobb Drive commuters from Cobb Parkway to Atlanta Road. Peachtree Street transit riders won’t have a north-south streetcar line. Drivers on I-675 won’t get a new interchange at Cedar Grove Road. At least not until after 2040. That’s according to the region’s newest funding list for transportation projects, which the Atlanta Regional Commission is expected to approve Wednesday.

The Atlanta Public Schools board turned Tuesday toward its fight to redeem itself and regain full accreditation after the state decided to allow board members to keep their jobs.    Superintendent Erroll Davis readied plans at the board's suggestion to record a video for the district's YouTube channel, aimed at high school seniors unnerved by any possibility they may graduate next year from unaccredited high schools.

Facing an overflowing emergency department with wait times reaching up to 12 hours and people leaving without being seen, John Haupert took action. Haupert — currently chief operating officer at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas but expected to become CEO of Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital — helped guide the complete revamping of the massive safety-net hospital’s emergency room system.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed raised more than $630,000 for his re-election campaign over the past six months, putting him on pace to exceed his massive 2009 totals, while sending the first shot at anyone who might want to challenge him in 2013. Reed released his fundraising totals on July 8 to the state ethics commission in a 69-page report.

The Atlanta City Council have launched Facebook and Twitter pages this week to give Atlanta residents direct access to news, updates, and municipal information via social media. Citizens and media outlets may access each platform through the Council’s website at citycouncil.

In February 2010, some of Atlanta’s top business leaders realized they had a problem. For a decade, they had aligned themselves with Beverly Hall, the superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools. They willingly accepted Hall’s story line of rebirth in an urban school system.

Atlanta is one of five cities named Thursday by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Bloomberg Philanthropies to share in $24 million to design and implement programs to meet pressing civic needs. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed confirmed that the city will receive $1.

Atlanta’s school cheating scandal, one of the largest in U.S. history, has launched a national discussion about whether the increased use of high-stakes tests to rate educators will trigger similar episodes in the years ahead. Pressure to meet testing targets was a major reason cheating took place in 44 Atlanta schools involving 178 educators, according to a state investigation released last week.

Erroll Davis knew he had a mess on his hands when he agreed three weeks ago to temporarily lead the beleaguered Atlanta Public Schools. How big of a mess only became apparent last week with the release of a report implicating 178 teachers and principals in a cheating scandal of national proportions.

The Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal, outlined in stunning detail in last week’s state investigative report, started three years ago when an AJC reporter thought to herself that huge gains in curriculum test scores couldn’t be right. Here’s how the story has unfolded: December 2008: An analysis by AJC reporter Heather Vogell and computer-assisted reporting specialist John Perry finds suspiciously high gains on state curriculum tests in schools in Atlanta and elsewhere in Georgia.

Veteran teachers understood that changing students’ CRCT answer sheets was expected at Gideons [Elementary School]. They changed the answer sheets of the students taught by newer teachers until the new teacher was trusted to be brought into the cheating scheme.

The Atlanta schools cheating case is now in the hands of three local district attorneys, who must decide whether the scandal is also criminal. District attorneys in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties said they are reviewing the voluminous report by state investigators and will decide whether to seek indictments.

Former Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall accepted responsibility Friday for her failure to prevent rampant cheating on standardized tests. But, in an op-ed piece that will appear Sunday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hall cautions the public not to condemn the entire district for actions of a few.

Several metro Atlanta schools under investigation for cheating on state achievement tests saw student performance decline as districts and the state expanded security measures to prevent test tampering. Metro area school officials said strategies that include testing monitors in classrooms and policies that forced teachers to switch classrooms during testing give them confidence the results of the 2011 Georgia Criterion Referenced-Competency Test reflect actual student achievement.

Christopher Waller worked miracles. Or so Beverly Hall seemed willing to believe. As principal of Atlanta’s Parks Middle School, Waller awed his bosses with the most dramatic of school transformations. Before Waller took charge, 1 percent of Parks’ eighth-graders exceeded expectations on the state’s curriculum test.

The governor’s special investigation shows a school system in which unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.

State investigators have uncovered a decade of systemic cheating in the Atlanta Public Schools and conclude that Superintendent Beverly Hall knew or should have known about it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned. In a report that Gov. Nathan Deal planned to release today, the investigators name nearly 180 educators, including more than three dozen principals, as participants in cheating on state curriculum tests, officials said over the weekend.

Eighteen-year-old Myra Cerecero said she wakes up every morning praying her parents made it home safely. "I'm living in a constant state of fear they'll be picked up," said the daughter of illegal immigrants. The American-born Loganville teen was among roughly 10,000 to 15,000 people, according to Capitol police, who jammed the streets of downtown Atlanta Saturday morning to voice their opposition to House Bill 87, Georgia's crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday approved a new law that gives Gov. Nathan Deal the power to suspend the entire Atlanta school board for jeopardizing the city district's accreditation. With that consent, state school board members will hold a hearing that involves the local nine-member board no later than July 31.

A transit study funded by the state and business organizations finds public support for a rail system – including a Kennesaw-to-Dunwoody line, and a northern extension of the MARTA Red Line – to serve the northern suburbs of metro Atlanta, Channel 2 Action News reports.

President Obama tapped Georgia Tech President G. P. "Bud" Peterson Friday to serve on a committee tasked with keeping the country globally competitive. Peterson and five other college presidents were appointed to the steering committee for the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, an  initiative to help manufacturers improve cost, quality and speed of production.

Todd Markle, executive counsel to Gov. Nathan Deal, state Rep. Jay Neal, R-Lafayette,  Fulton County Chairman John Eaves and Clayton County  Chairman Eldrin Bell all agree Georgia has to quit just locking up drug offenders and non-violent criminals. It costs too much and released offenders can't find jobs.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was in Washington on Monday, joining other mayors to meet with President Barack Obama. According to a report from the White House, the subject was the economy. Joining Reed were other cities' leaders, including Detroit Mayor David Bing, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx and Joe Riley, the long-serving mayor of Charleston, S.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday declined to reconsider a recent decision that declared the state's charter school law unconstitutional and left an estimated 16,500 students uncertain where they will receive an education next school year. Through strongly worded court filings, the state Attorney General's Office and three charter schools had hoped to persuade one or more members of the court's 4-3 majority to change his or her minds.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed called on U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner to resign and defended the Obama administration’s economic record on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning as the mayor continues to raise his national profile. It was Reed’s second stint on “Meet the Press” and the latest in a series of national appearances that could mark the mayor as a key figure in President Obama’s re-election plans.

If metro Atlantans approve a sales tax for transportation next year, they could be riding MARTA trains from Lindbergh to Emory University within a decade and four swaths of Beltline streetcars could be up and running.

Three federal judges in Atlanta on Wednesday gave a cool reception to the idea that the government has the power to require Americans to buy health insurance. But they also asked sharp questions of those opposing the individual mandate and did not tip their hands on how they will rule.

Opponents of Georgia’s tough new immigration enforcement law are asking a federal judge to put the measure on hold pending the outcome of a class-action lawsuit they filed against it last week. A group of civil rights organizations – including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center -- filed the request for a preliminary injunction in a federal district court in Atlanta Wednesday.

In a key test of President Barack Obama’s health care law, the federal appeals court in Atlanta today will hear arguments on whether the government can require Americans to buy health insurance. The cornerstone of the law -- the requirement that almost all Americans purchase a minimum level of insurance by 2014 or face a tax penalty -- is at the heart of a lawsuit filed by Georgia and 25 other states.

It came across as a clownish game of tug of war, but the struggle over the Fulton commission’s microphone mute button started as an attempt to improve the image of the county government. Mindful of the rampant discontent with a commission that has direct governance over less than 10 percent of the county’s population, Chairman John Eaves has been trying to limit some of his colleagues’ long-winded speeches and often tedious grandstanding in televised public meetings.

The Buckhead bottleneck that currently traps thousands of commuters and residents at Ga. 400 and I-85 each day is about to be rebuilt. The project has been awarded to a contractor, and should be finished by Dec. 31, 2013. However, for Ga. 400 toll payers who once expected the toll to expire this year, the congestion relief will be bittersweet.

Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings issued a report this week warning that it may downgrade the credit scores of metro Atlanta governments if a federal court does not side with Georgia on access to drinking water from Lake Lanier. Christopher Hessenthaler, a Fitch analyst, said the report is an update to investors in government bonds that the agency is monitoring the situation as a 2012 court-imposed deadline on water use from Lanier approaches.

Former state Rep. Jeanette Jamieson on Friday pleaded guilty to two counts of tax evasion and was sentenced as a first offender, which could allow her to be conviction-free in two years. Jamieson, 69, a Toccoa Democrat and a former accountant and tax preparer, was indicted in 2009.

Khalil McIver used to sit quietly at his old school, too respectful to tell his teachers that he was bored. Now, the Atlanta Heights Charter School fifth grader  is tackling ninth-grade reading and math and he doesn’t want politics to impede his progress.

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said Wednesday that they made progress in trying to persuade federal officials to help fund the deepening of the Port of Savannah, but they admitted progress does not equal dollars. But short of securing the nearly $600 million it could cost to deepen the Savannah harbor, the bipartisan duo said they accomplished something else that had previously cost Georgia federal help.

The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Wednesday named the three judges who will preside over the June 8 arguments involving a constitutional challenge to the federal health care law. Chief Judge Joel Dubina of Montgomery, appointed in 1990 by President George H.

Gadfly Matthew Cardinale is suing the Atlanta City Council for circumventing the state Open Meetings Law. He wants to stop city staff from briefing council committees privately. The committees exclude the public by claiming not to have a quorum. Cardinale contends case law prohibits this practice and also said the committees meet privately even with a quorum.

More than 400 school-choice supporters rallied outside the Georgia Capitol Tuesday to save charter campuses authorized by the Georgia Charter Schools Commission from being shuttered by a court ruling. Tony Roberts, CEO of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, called on parents, teachers and students of public charter schools to ask the Legislature to make things right.

Thirteen lawyers, lawmakers and judges will explore ways to reform Georgia's criminal justice system, which spends $1 billion a year to lock up lawbreakers. The Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform, which includes the state's chief justice, will explore ways to change sentencing patterns and will report its findings by Nov.

Cherokee Charter Academy was finally set to open this fall after nearly three years of work by parents and two denials by the local school board. Monday, the school was denied again, this time by Georgia’s Supreme Court. Cherokee Charter and 15 Georgia charters schools like it were approved by a process that is unconstitutional, the state’s highest court said in a 4-3 ruling.

Gov. Nathan Deal was to sign a bill Wednesday allowing juvenile court judges to modify  sentences of youthful felons who show good behavior, rehabilitation and academic achievement while in a youth detention center for 12 to 60 months, the Department of Juvenile Justice announced.

The members of the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles have re-elected James E. Donald to serve as chairman for fiscal year 2012. Donald was first appointed to the Board in January 2009 was elected chair in June 2010. He is one of five board members who determine which prisoners are ready to be released.

Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell over the past month has turned up at a jazz festival, Baptist church service, and town hall and press club gatherings. Ten years after he left office, and 2 1/2 years following his prison release, Campbell, 57, is an Atlanta presence again, easing back into a metropolitan setting once charmed by his personality and magnetism.

The Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau went on record Friday against Georgia’s stringent new immigration enforcement legislation over concerns that it could hurt the region’s $10 billion tourism industry. By a unanimous vote, the bureau’s executive committee passed a resolution saying House Bill 87 is “unwelcoming” and could “tarnish Atlanta’s reputation as one of America’s most welcoming cities.

MARTA intends to raise its fares by 50 cents over the next year, going to $2.50 for a regular ride, the transit agency said. An increase could take effect Oct. 2. MARTA will hear public comment on the issue in meetings May 16 and May 17, and its board will make a decision on the fare proposal at its meeting in June, MARTA board Chairman Jim Durrett said.

Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding won plaudits Monday from gay activists for backing out of an agreement to argue to uphold the federal ban on gay marriage. But a day later the reviews were a bit more bruising in the legal community. Top lawyers and law professors, with some notable exceptions, called it an embarrassing blunder by the prestigious firm or a betrayal of a client and legal principles.