The Ebola virus be damned. In the race to carve up DeKalb County into a country of cities, Atlanta has offered itself up as a white knight to rescue a prestigious enclave of unincorporated DeKalb that includes Emory University and the federal Centers for Disease Control.
It would be the most extensive expansion of Atlanta’s boundaries in decades, and could significantly change the city’s political dynamics. On the opposite side, loss of the area could be a tremendous loss of prestige and financial wherewithal for DeKalb.
Late last week,
the group called Together in Atlanta announced it had the support of Mayor Kasim Reed in the pursuit of state Capitol legislation to accomplish the legislation.
A letter sent to state Rep. Amy Carter, R-Valdosta, whose House committee is overseeing the carving up of DeKalb, includes this:
As an organization, TIA's formation is an outgrowth of the anticipated further municipalization of central and north DeKalb County being handled by your committee. The attached map of a proposed Atlanta annexation helps to prevent an unincorporated island at Atlanta's eastern boundary, allows the neighborhoods in the proposed annexation area to preserve their elementary school zones within the same local governmental jurisdiction, and creates a manageable service area for municipal services.
Over at WABE (90.1FM), Jonathan Shapiro has this from Reed advisor Melissa Mullinax:
Mullinax says annexation makes a lot of sense on both ends. For the city, the fact that the area is affluent and would add to Atlanta's tax base isn't lost on Reed.
"We think they're interested in hearing from us because we're run so well. Certainly the increase in the property tax rolls would be welcome. But the services the city provides – there are economies of scale and we can scale up to meet their requirements," said Mullinax.
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When the New York Times' Jonathan Weisman quoted an anonymous Democratic strategist saying Republican David Perdue had "presidential timber" during the late stages of the campaign, it caught our eye.
It looks like Bill Burton, a former top aide to President Barack Obama, has outed himself. He offered quite the praise to Perdue during a video roundtable posted Thursday by the Huffington Post called "Drinking and Talking" (caution: link contains profanity and Maker's Mark bourbon).
Here's what Burton had to say:
"So watching him, he is like a good Mitt Romney. Like he's a Mitt Romney who's like a good businessman who has a clear sense of who he is as a human being. And projects this confidence and optimism. … He's got a great jaw, he's handsome. ...
"I do actually think that he's presidential timber."
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Newly elected U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, R-Evans, is poaching his chief of staff from within the Georgia delegation. We're told Tim Baker, chief of staff for Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, will move over to be Allen's first chief. Expect a formal announcement within the next few weeks.
Rep.-elect Buddy Carter, R-Pooler, has brought in Chris Crawford, a longtime Jack Kingston aide, to be his chief of staff. We have not yet heard who the rest of Georgia's freshman class is putting in charge.
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Taking over a committee means you get to hire staff, too. Rep. Tom Price, R-Roswell, who is becoming Georgia's first-ever Republican U.S. House committee chairman, announced a new staff director for the Budget Committee on Thursday.
In tapping Rick May, Price is hoping to draw on his experience as staff director for the committee from 1993-97, during a similar time on Capitol Hill. From Price in a press release:
"Rick served in this role with distinction under former Chairman John Kasich at a time when a Republican Congress, working with a Democrat president, crafted solutions that led to a balanced budget. His leadership was instrumental in the success of that effort, and I'm grateful that he will be bringing that knowledge and experience back to the committee as we work to tackle the fiscal and economic challenges facing our nation today."
May returns to the Hill from the Ohio Broadcast Educational Media Commission.
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We told you Thursday about Tom Graves' ascension to the "cardinal" position in the next Congress, to lead the House Appropriations subcommittee on the legislative branch.
He will be the Georgia delegation's only cardinal but one of two Bulldogs. Financial Services subcommittee chairman Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., spent his undergrad days in Athens, University of Georgia lobbyist Andrew Dill helpfully reminds us.
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As discussion of the "SEC Primary" continues - we first told you about the move a few weeks ago - Ed Kilgore in Washington Monthly offers a reminder that it is hard to predict in advance who will benefit most from a cluster of Deep South presidential primary voters heading to the polls March 1:
"Political animals of a certain age will probably remember the saga of the Southern Regional Presidential Primary of 1988. Designed (not, as is often reported, by the DLC, but by the Southern Legislative Conference, a state legislators' group) to provide a "moderate" and most definitely a regional counterweight to the usual liberal activist tilt of Iowa and New Hampshire, the event instead pretty much reduced the presidential field to Mike Dukakis and Jesse Jackson, with Al Gore hanging on without a great deal of momentum. By 1992 the regional primary had come unglued."
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Opponents of Common Core suffered a blow on Thursday when a special House committee said the multi-state set of academic standards may need tweaking, but that it shouldn't be dumped.
Click here for the details of the report by the House Study Committee on the Role of the Federal Government in Education, from the AJC's Eric Stirgus.
Elsewhere, the Gainesville Times had these paragraphs:
Co-Chairman Rep. Brooks Coleman echoed Avossa's sentiments, but went a step further.
"I personally don't know that we should be legislating curriculum," Coleman said. "But that's just a statement."
He’s being modest. It’s more than a statement. Coleman is chairman of the House Education Committee. Any legislation to negate Common Core would have to survive his committee.
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R.J. Hadley, the tax commissioner of Rockdale County, sent us a note this morning confirming that he indeed is running for chairman of the state Democratic party. He was a candidate in the scrum that followed Mike Berlon's resignation this year.
Hadley's message included what could be interpreted as a barb aimed at Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter, two statewide candidates who managed to avoid President Barack Obama when he visited Atlanta during their campaigns:
"GA Democrats can be proud of President's Obama leadership to act when Congress will not. We will use his strength as a model for rebuilding our efforts as we move toward 2016 and local elections in 2015."
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If you have an extra five minutes, take a look at this PBS "News Hour" report on Chuck Searcy, a Vietnam vet and former newspaperman from Athens. We promise you'll be impressed:
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