It may soon get harder for Gov. Nathan Deal
to cite rankings showing that Georgia is the nation's top place to do business.
First, Georgia fell from first to tenth in Site Selection magazine's rankings for the nation's most competitive state in the year 2014. And today we get word that CNBC ranked Georgia No. 5 in its annual poll for "America's Top States for Business." CNBC put Georgia at the top of the heap last year.
Deal toted both those rankings across the finish line of his re-election campaign last year, and they're seen as a point of personal pride among his supporters.
One hint at why Georgia may have fallen in the CNBC survey: The business network's calculus this year included a state's legal protections for gays and lesbians (or the lack thereof).
This makes next year's debate over "religious liberty" legislation - you'll recall that Deal recently hedged on his insistence that the bill require an anti-discrimination clause - all the more interesting.
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