Over at the Saporta Report, David Pendered reports that this month's passage of a constitutional cap on the state income tax has caught the attention of Wall Street:
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U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., formally opens his 2016 re-election campaign with an 11 a.m. state Capitol announcement intended to give warning to all potential Republican challengers. At his side will be Gov. Nathan Deal, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker David Ralston.
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Our colleague Aaron Gould Sheinin notes that today marks the unofficial start of the legislative session as lawmakers start pre-filing bills.
Along with legislation that would clear the way for limited use of medical marijuana and a push to make it a crime to entice a college athlete to violate NCAA rules, expect lawmakers to also propose legislation aimed at countermanding President Barack Obama's expected moves that would allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States.
(Via Twitter, Lori Geary of Channel 2 Action News reports that H.B. 1, the first House bill of the 2015 session, will be state Rep. Allen Peake's bill to legalize medicinal marijuana.)
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The Georgia Republican Party has suffered another death in the family. Rick Richardson, a GOP staffer and long-time activist, died Friday after a massive stroke. He was 57.
Only last month, Mack Burgess, a 25-year-old Nathan Deal operative on the state GOP payroll, was killed in an auto accident on Ga. 400.
Richardson was hired by the state party in June 1998 and had stuck with the organization through many ups and downs.
"A trusted friend and confidant, Rick was the glue that held the State Party together. As employees and Chairmen came and went, Rick was steadfast," said John Padgett, the party's chair. "His commitment was contagious. Rick's jovial spirit endured during good times and bad. His work ethic was unmatched. Our dear friend Rick will be sorely missed."
Visitation will be held this afternoon from 2 to 6 at H. M. Patterson Funeral Home in Atlanta. A memorial service is set for 6 p.m.
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Georgia has a thing for outsiders. The New York Times notes that of the 12 freshmen elected to the Senate, the sole newcomer without government experience is David Perdue.
What they didn't note was that his cousin, Sonny Perdue, was the state's two-term governor. From the article:
That the new Republican Senate class will have so many members with deep government experience is somewhat by design. Republicans, under the direction of the incoming majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, sought early on to weed out candidates who were unpredictable and untested and could spoil their chances of winning the majority.
Mr. McConnell wanted to make sure that his prospective new senators were not going to prove as unmanageable as some of his more go-it-alone members like Ted Cruz of Texas, so he met with many of them early to talk them into running....
Joni Ernst, a Republican Iowa state senator, will also join the freshman class. David Perdue, a former chief executive of Dollar General and the Republican who won the open seat in Georgia, will be the only new senator without a government background. Gary Peters of Michigan, the lone freshman Democrat, is now a congressman representing the Detroit area.
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In Washington, House Republicans on Friday passed a rule preventing chairmen of committees or subcommittees from running for higher office while holding those posts. Ring any bells? From the Associated Press:
Aides said the rule arose from frustration that Rep. Jack Kingston, chairman of the Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee, would not introduce or act on the panel's important spending bill while running in a divisive GOP primary for Georgia's Senate seat. Kingston's predecessor, former Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., did the same thing in the 2012 campaign cycle.
Kingston told us at the time that the bill was ready to go -- and it would have been politically helpful, given that it defunded Obamacare -- but leadership blocked him from introducing it. Here's what he told the Wall Street Journal about the new rule:
"When I decided to run for Senate, I offered to give up the gavel, but we decided to play it by ear. I did all the hearings; I did not miss any of them," Mr. Kingston said. "I just don't know you need a blanket rule, because if you do, you deny yourself some real institutional knowledge."
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A hearty congratulations to Brian Robinson, Gov. Nathan Deal's spokesman and chief defender, who got hitched to Corinna Magelund over the weekend.
The wedding was scheduled for Friday night, a testament to Robinson's love for the Bulldogs, who defeated bitter rivals Auburn on Saturday even.
We're told that an usher asked arriving guests "Deal side or Perdue side?" That's actually how the governors sat, with the current governor on one side and his predecessor, Sonny Perdue, on the other.
Brian sent us over this lovely shot:
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CNN's Chris Moody reports this morning on a novel way to skirt campaign finance law:
The Twitter accounts were hidden in plain sight. The profiles were publicly available but meaningless without knowledge of how to find them and decode the information, according to a source with knowledge of the activities.
The practice is the latest effort in the quest by political operatives to exploit the murky world of campaign finance laws at a time when limits on spending in politics are eroding and regulators are being defanged.
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