You could call him the General Assembly’s “Donnie Ballgame.” Whether it was the Falcons in the playoffs, the SEC championship, a key Georgia Tech matchup, an early-season Braves game or the NHL All-Star tilt, Sen. Don Balfour was there, thanks to friendly lobbyists with tickets.

QUALIFYING The following is a list of candidates who qualified for local races by the Friday afternoon deadline, as well as hopefuls who are running in contested primary races for the Legislature, the Public Service Commission and Congress. This information was compiled from reports generated by local election offices and may not be complete.

Gov. Nathan Deal will soon have the chance to shape the state's highest court. On Friday, the governor's Judicial Nominating Commission said 31 judges and lawyers applied for a vacancy that will open up in mid-July when Justice George Carley retires from the Georgia Supreme Court.

The Georgia state conference of the NAACP is preparing to announce its opposition to the July 31 transportation tax referendums statewide, its president said. A spokesman for the campaign to pass the Atlanta-area referendum, Jeff Dickerson, replied that the NAACP was "out of step with African-American leaders" on the issue.

Gov. Nathan Deal has signed an order continuing the work of a criminal justice reform council that was instrumental in sweeping changes enacted this past legislative session. Among the panel's new members are the governor's son, Jason Deal, a Superior Court judge who oversees accountability courts in Hall and Dawson counties.

Less than an hour before a recent Senate vote on student loan subsidies, an influential free-market advocacy group emailed a “key vote alert” to congressional aides, reporters and other interested folks: “The Club for Growth urges all Senators to vote ‘NO.

The debate intensified this week over the July 31 sales tax referendum for transportation, in which voters in the 10-county Atlanta area will consider a 1 percent sales tax for projects in the region. On Tuesday, a member of the group that put the $6.

Doctors who expressed concerns about a controversial abortion bill at the State House say they have since been victims of a series of property crimes, the latest of which was a fire Wednesday at a Marietta abortion clinic. Investigators in Gwinnett and Cobb counties and in the cities of Lilburn and Sandy Springs will be comparing notes about their respective cases in the wake of the second fire this week, said Gwinnett police spokesman Cpl.

Nearly 20 lawmakers or candidates, including the top Republican in the Senate, have signed a pledge promising to support a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts to lawmakers. The bipartisan group includes veteran legislators such as Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, Rep.

1:23 p.m.: A number of additional primaries are now set for a variety of offices. Here's a run-down as of now: House District 20: Incumbent Republican Charlice Byrd of Woodstock will face Michael Caldwell, a 22-year-old sales manager from Woodstock. House District 46: State Rep.

Tea party activists have promised for months to mount challenges to incumbent lawmakers they see as squishy on conservative issues and especially on calls for ethics reform. Beginning Wednesday, Georgians will find out whether those promises are fulfilled.

If you go to almost any public meeting in Cobb County — no matter the topic — conversation is most likely to turn to the proposed regional transportation referendum. And the voices you’ll hear are often opponents strongly sharing their misgivings. With the county’s commission chairman’s race about to officially launch, the conversation is expected to get even more intense as campaign rivals attack incumbent Tim Lee’s support of the transportation plan that early on included a controversial rail line in Cobb.

Deficiencies in care, living conditions and record-keeping have piled up in scores of Georgia personal care homes, with the state rarely shutting down violators or levying heavy fines, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found. An analysis of five years worth of inspections, violations and enforcement actions revealed that many frequent violators have faced nothing more than a fine of a few hundred dollars.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama once again collected more money from Georgians in April, but the gap with Republican challenger Mitt Romney is closing. Obama’s re-election campaign reported about $283,000 raised from Georgia, while Romney brought in about $191,000, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of campaign finance disclosures.

Hundreds of candidates will swarm the Capitol this week to sign up for the 2012 legislative elections, full of optimism that they can make a difference in Atlanta. The reality is that most challengers will be defeated — and in some cases crushed — by incumbent lawmakers.

Columbus -- When Republican voters go to the polls for the July 31 primary, they'll get the opportunity to say if Georgia should allow casino gambling with profits benefiting education. The state GOP's executive committee this weekend at its annual convention voted to put that question on the July 31 ballot, along with other nonbinding referendums on ethics reform, gun licenses for military personnel, party registration for elections, and abortion.

COLUMBUS -- Voters in the July 31 Republican primary will get the chance to say whether the state should adopt a $100 cap on the gifts lobbyists can give to lawmakers as the fight over ethics reform threatens to boil over within the GOP. The Georgia Republican Party's executive committee Friday at the state convention approved the ballot question unanimously, two members of the committee who were not authorized to discuss the vote told the newspaper.

A member of the State Properties Commission resigned Thursday after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution discovered he signed a $1.4 million deal to lease office space to the state while serving on the panel. No law or guideline prohibits such a deal. But a spokesman for Gov.

Georgia Republicans gather today in Columbus for a state convention where delegates could send a powerful message to GOP leaders in the General Assembly: Strengthen Georgia's ethics laws. But the move toward ethics reform might not be the only ruckus at the two-day conclave as party regulars, eager for a party united behind likely presidential nominee Mitt Romney, fear an attempt by Ron Paul supporters to crash the convention.

A tea party activist on Thursday filed another ethics complaint against Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour alleging that he abused his position by billing the state for mileage while out of town on lobbyist-funded trips. Debbie Dooley, state coordinator of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, filed the complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee.

WASHINGTON – Newt Gingrich makes his first major appearance since leaving the presidential race this weekend and will try to boost Mitt Romney to a group that preferred Gingrich as the party’s nominee: Georgia Republicans. And Gingrich -- who spent months on the campaign trail bashing Romney as insufficiently conservative, among other things – will bring a simple message to the state GOP convention in Columbus: “We have an absolute obligation to defeat Obama.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate, famously described  by the Founding Fathers as the saucer that cools the hot tea of the House, has become more of an icebox in recent years in part because of frequent filibusters. With internal Senate reforms stalled, filibuster opponents now are looking to the courts.

A national environmental group has listed the Chattahoochee as one of the nation’s 10 most endangered rivers, although the presumed threats do not yet exist. In a report to be released today, Washington-based American Rivers said two planned reservoirs that would collectively draw 140 million gallons a day from the Chattahoochee River earned it the No.

R.J. Morris has spent three years waging battle against Fulton County’s property tax system in appeal hearings, in courtrooms and in the chambers of the state Capitol. As a lobbyist, he pushed for measures during the last legislative session aimed squarely at Tax Commissioner Arthur Ferdinand, but the property taxpayers’ rights bill that he helped draft died without going to a final vote.

President Barack Obama will return to Atlanta in June for a series of fundraisers, according to a preliminary invitation obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Obama's campaign will hold a series of afternoon events June 26, the invitation said, although times and locations have yet to be announced.

Once again, the state is preparing to put the I-75/I-575 toll project out to bid, in June. The project would build optional toll lanes along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties, from the Perimeter to Hickory Grove Road and to Sixes Road. The cost approaches $1 billion, to be funded largely by gas taxes paid by all Georgia drivers -- whether or not they drive the toll lanes -- and by tolls.

Federal officials have rejected part of a plan by three south Fulton cities to offset the environmental damage caused by the proposed Bear Creek reservoir. Environmental groups discovered late last year that the mitigation plan submitted by the South Fulton Municipal Regional Water and Sewer Authority rested in part on restoring a Heard County sod farm owned by Georgia Department of Natural Resources board member Aaron McWhorter.

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are seeking to avert steep Pentagon cuts -- born out of a failed bipartisan effort last year to tame rising budget deficits -- with a bill that targets domestic programs instead. A vote on the bill Thursday is likely to be a party-line affair, as the approach has drawn scorn from Democrats in Georgia and elsewhere.

President Barack Obama's historic endorsement of same-sex marriage was greeted with cheers among gay rights supporters in Georgia, while Christian conservatives in the state pledged to battle what they cast as a fresh assault on their values. Obama's support -- which came in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday -- created an immediate buzz on social media sites, like Twitter, and fueled speculation about how the politically polarizing issue would reshape the contours of the hard-fought presidential contest.

The state Department of Transportation has awarded a contract to re-pave Buford Highway and repair bridge joints there, from Spring Street in Fulton County to the DeKalb County line, according to DOT spokesman David Spear and bid documents. Contractor C.

Four Georgia college presidents will receive more money next year and one stands to receive a multi-million dollar payout, while faculty will go another year without raises and students will pay more in tuition. University of Georgia President Michael Adams will receive about $2 million over five years after he steps down as president in June 2013, under action the state Board of Regents took Wednesday.

As the NAACP kicked off its national voter registration drive in Atlanta on Wednesday, Georgia activists said they will target the estimated 1 million unregistered minorities here. But after historic turnout among black voters nationally in 2008, there are doubts whether the same level of enthusiasm exists four years after Barack Obama was elected the nation's first black president.

Georgia tax revenue grew by 11 percent in April, Gov. Nathan Deal's office said Wednesday, aided by strong growth in individual income tax collections. For the month, total revenue grew by $152 million compared with April 2011. For the first 10 months of the fiscal year, the state has collected a total of $13.

Four of Georgia's traditional two-year colleges will add the word "state" to their names to reflect that they now offer limited four-year degrees, under action the State Board of Regents took Wednesday. The new names are: Atlanta Metropolitan State College, Darton State College, East Georgia State College and Georgia Perimeter State College.

A partisan standoff on judicial nominees has left Atlanta-based federal courts shorthanded, with even more strain to come as U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell Jr. said Tuesday that he will take senior status with a reduced caseload in January. Currently there are two longstanding vacancies on the U.

Vice President Joe Biden vowed Tuesday in Atlanta that the United States would "prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons," and said President Barack Obama's commitment to Israel is unwavering. Biden spoke to The Rabbinical Assembly, an international body of 1,600 conservative rabbis, at its national convention at the Westin Perimeter Hotel.

Several Georgia districts must now explain why some classrooms had an unusually high number of wrong-to-right answer changes on the 2011 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. Dozens of school districts across the state have turned in reports to the Governor's Office of Student Achievement [GOSA] detailing why and how classes at their schools were flagged for wrong-to-right erasures on state tests.

Gov. Nathan Deal signed a $19.3 billion state spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year Monday, but not before using his line-item veto to cut several projects added by legislators in the final month of the 2012 session. More than half the budget for fiscal 2013, which begins July 1, will go to education, but the plan doesn't provide cost-of-living raises for the state's more than 200,000 teachers and employees.

Jessica Colotl, the Kennesaw State University graduate who reignited a statewide debate over whether illegal immigrants should attend public colleges, received permission to remain in the country another year, her attorney said Monday. Federal officials first granted Colotl a one-year deferment from deportation in 2010 so she could finish her degree in political science.

University of Georgia President Michael Adams stands to receive about $2.7 million over five years as part of a retirement agreement the State Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on Wednesday. The agreement, which Chancellor Hank Huckaby signed off on, includes a one-time payment of $600,000 in deferred compensation, according to a document The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained through an Open Records request Friday.

Dalton -- Pedro “Peter” Morales remembers the party his family and friends threw last summer after he was freed from a detention center and told he would not be deported to Mexico. They presented the 19-year-old with a chocolate cake that said “Welcome Back, Pedro.

New Georgia license plates will be available in all 159 counties starting Monday, as the state begins to phase out older versions. According to the Georgia Department of Revenue, any license plate issued prior to December 1, 2003, will be replaced either when owners renew their vehicle registration or when they registered a vehicle in Georgia for the first time.

The language in Gov. Nathan Deal’s order is crystal clear on how the state bureaucracy is supposed to handle lobbyists. But it’s less so on whom it covers. Along with banning gifts, the order instructs state workers that it is not “required or preferred” that they work directly with lobbyists and orders them to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Georgia legislators were once satisfied with scraps of pork from the state budget: $20,000 for high school band uniforms, $5,000 to refurbish the local peanut statue. Nowadays, legislative leaders serve up the whole hog, rewarding one another with multimillion-dollar projects and financing them with 20-year bonds.

On his first day in office, Gov. Nathan Deal signed a lobbyist gift ban for state employees, but 16 months later, dozens of officials have taken thousands of dollars worth of tickets, meals and travel from special interests. Executive branch officials under Deal’s authority took at least $25,000 in lobbyists’ gifts since the order took effect in January 2011, according to state records.

Gov. Nathan Deal on Friday vetoed a bill that could have eliminated state agencies, calling it redundant and costly, but his move angered tea party activists and disappointed some lawmakers who have long sought the measure. House Bill 456 would have created a "sunset" for agencies as recommended by a 14-member joint committee of the General Assembly.

WASHINGTON -- An overseas trip by Congress’ intelligence chiefs -- including Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss -- was cut short this week because of assassination threats tied to the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden. In a phone interview Friday after returning home to Georgia, Chambliss said the group was scheduled to visit Pakistan and India, but only made it to Afghanistan because of concerns that the Taliban would be targeting Americans.

WASHINGTON -- Tim Burch’s family farm in southwest Georgia has been buoyed by federal farm subsidies in years when cotton and peanut prices have plummeted. That safety net is threatened this year, Burch said, as Congress moves forward on a new farm bill, aiming for tens of billions of dollars in cuts by remaking the federal subsidy system.

Four Republicans seeking to oust Rep. John Barrow from Congress mostly agreed in a debate Thursday on broad conservative themes of slashing the size of government, simplifying the tax code and increasing domestic production of oil and other energy sources.

ATHENS -- Walk across the University of Georgia campus and you see the legacy of Michael Adams' presidency. The bustling students represent some of the most talented in the country, a testament to UGA routinely ranked as one of the nation's top 20 public research colleges.

The fight over the state’s role in charter schools started in many ways at Cherokee Charter Academy. So it was fitting Thursday that Gov. Nathan Deal was at the school to establish the next battleground in the dispute, with the stroke of a pen. Flanked by students and the 6-member Cherokee County delegation that pushed House Bill 797 through the legislature, Deal signed it into law, putting the charter schools question up to voters as a proposed amendment on the statewide ballot in November.

WASHINGTON – Herman Cain is no longer a political candidate, but the McDonough businessman is still a political provocateur with a new book out this week trumpeting his tax code overhaul and plans to influence this year's elections. Despite Cain’s relentless promotion, the 9-9-9 tax plan has gotten a cold shoulder from the Washington establishment and even tax reform activists.

Owners of dangerous dogs will soon face state-mandated penalties if their animals injure other people under a bill signed into law Thursday. Gov. Nathan Deal on Thursday signed House Bill 685, which provides definitions and hearing procedures for determining whether a dog is dangerous or vicious.

University of Georgia President Michael Adams will announce Thursday that he will step down effective June 30, 2013, two people briefed on Adams' decision told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Adams, who has led the state's flagship college for 16 years, will be 65 by the time he retires.

ARLINGTON, Va. – Even as he finally acknowledged the end of his presidential ambitions, Newt Gingrich was still thinking big. An American moon colony, major investments in brain science research, defending against an electromagnetic pulse attack, even fixing a dysfunctional Congress will be part of the Gingrich agenda as a “citizen” rather than a presidential candidate.

Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill into law Wednesday to cut unemployment benefits for Georgians. Under House Bill 347, unemployment payments will drop starting July 1 from 26 weeks to a sliding scale of 14 to 20 weeks. The law also will increase the amount businesses are taxed for unemployment insurance.

Calling it a historic day for Georgia, an emotional Gov. Nathan Deal on Wednesday signed into law major changes to how the state punishes non-violent criminals. Deal signed House Bill 1176 at the Capitol surrounded by lawmakers and members of his Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform, which recommended many of the new law's provisions.

The state Senate Ethics Committee made no public move Wednesday to act on ethics complaints filed against Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour, despite a two-hour meeting closed to the press and public. Balfour, R-Snellville, returned nearly $800 to the state in March, after it was revealed he improperly billed the Senate for mileage.

The way Georgia punishes thousands of nonviolent offenders will forever change when Gov. Nathan Deal signs landmark legislation Wednesday. It represents a first step in the governor's long-term plan to reserve prison beds for the state's most violent criminals.

Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday approved new restrictions on late-term abortions in Georgia, sealing a victory for conservative leaders who championed the issue at the Capitol this year. Deal's signature makes Georgia the latest state to generally ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, cutting by about six weeks the time women in Georgia may have an elective abortion.

The Sierra Club of Georgia on Monday announced its opposition to the regional transportation referendum slated for this summer, launching a broadside at what could be the referendum's core constituency and highlighting deep disagreements roiling transit advocates over the vote.

The cursing, the squabbling and the anger in Miller County might not end, but the school board as it is currently composed there will. Gov. Nathan Deal signed an executive order Monday creating a committee that will recommend new members for the Miller County board.

Newt Gingrich will end his presidential run Tuesday with millions in campaign debt, a crumbling business empire and a reputation bruised by a discordant campaign that continued long after his chances of victory evaporated. And he will be just fine, according to people who have followed the former Georgia congressman’s lengthy career of ups and downs.

Fewer people stopped for minor traffic offenses would face deportation under changes federal immigration authorities announced Friday. Under the changes, suspects would get special consideration when they have been arrested solely for minor traffic offenses, have not been convicted of other crimes, and are not among the priorities for U.

Incentives used to lure a new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant and its 1,500 promised jobs to a site 40 miles east of Atlanta could exceed $210 million. When Gov. Nathan Deal announced last week that Georgia had landed the high-tech Baxter International factory, the state Department of Economic Development estimated the state would give the company $80 million in incentives.

CRAMERTON, N.C. – Newt Gingrich will step aside from the presidential race next week, adding a more official stamp to what has been practically true for some time: Mitt Romney is the Republican presidential nominee. The formal end will come at an event Tuesday in the Washington, D.

Fifteen people from the Atlanta area were among more than 600 arrested this month as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on gangs involved in human smuggling and trafficking in 150 cities and in Honduras. Police from Atlanta, Forest Park, Sandy Springs and Cobb County assisted in “Project Nefarious,” according to U.

Gov. Nathan Deal ceremonially signed two bills Wednesday to allow specialty license plates for active duty military members who have received a Purple Heart citation. Senate Bill 473, the Purple Heart license plates bill, becomes effective July 1. House Bill 732 additionally expands specialty plates for military veterans to include military medal awards and exempts disabled veterans from paying annual tag renewal fees.

DENVER, N.C. – Newt Gingrich will drop out of the presidential race on Tuesday, the Gingrich campaign confirmed this morning to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Spokesman R.C. Hammond wrote in a text message that Gingrich will be "laying out plans now how as a citizen he can best help stop [an] Obama second term and win congressional majorities.

“We don’t allow filming inside of the City Hall unless there is a specific reason.” Cumming Mayor H. Ford Gravitt during an April 17 City Council meeting ---- Meetings of the Cumming City Council rarely make the evening news, but that changed last week with video of a woman being tossed out of the public gathering.

Gov. Nathan Deal is appointing a political adviser as the state’s transportation planning director, according to Deal's office. In his new position, Toby Carr, who reports to Deal, will have perhaps the strongest hand in choosing what projects get funded with large chunks of the state's $2 billion annual gas tax budget.

WASHINGTON -- A lucrative Atlanta trip headlined by a Tyler Perry-hosted fundraiser helped President Barack Obama out-raise Republican rival Mitt Romney in Georgia last month by a nearly six-to-one margin. Obama raised more than $734,000 from Georgians in March, while Romney brought in $125,000, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of campaign finance disclosures.

Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is preparing to run for her old 4th Congressional district seat on the Green Party ticket. McKinney was defeated by 4th district incumbent Hank Johnson in 2006 after serving six terms in Congress and has kept a low profile since returning to Atlanta from the San Francisco area where she moved in 2007.

WASHINGTON -- When Northern Virginia leaders attempted a regional tax increase referendum to fund transportation improvements in 2002, it hit several types of resistance. Dave Robertson, of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said last week that there were some who did not trust how the money would be spent, others who did not like the transit/roads mix in the infrastructure package and “there was the no-tax-for-anybody crew in there.

Cheryl Miller has been hammering at a proverbial stone wall that she sees standing between her and the local school district. Miller is among parents in DeKalb County who’ve been digging for information about a decision they find repugnant: allowing cell towers to be erected at several schools.