You may not have noticed, but today is Runoff Election Day, the finish line for candidates who survived November, but failed to pass the necessary majority-vote line.
The biggest contest left hanging is for mayor of Savannah. Incumbent Edna Jackson faces former Chatham County commissioner Eddie DeLoach. The issues in the contest have been a stew of race, crime and corruption.
Interest remains high. Today's Savannah Morning News has these paragraphs:
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At the close of today, we will have finished nine special elections to fill seats in the state Legislature. Forget party shifts – no changes in the balance of power are in the offing.
Instead, Trip Martin, the crusty Capitol lobbyist, advises us to focus on gender. The women’s caucus (bipartisan, House and Senate) has already grown by four this year, and could gain a fifth addition tonight.
Three women were added to the House in July voting: Roswell City Councilwoman Betty Price, wife of the GOP congressman, took the District 48 seat made vacant by the death of Harry Geisinger. Sheri Smallwood Gilligan won the District 24 seat vacated by Republican Mark Hamilton of Cumming, and Marie Robinson Metze replaced Democrat Tyrone Brooks of Atlanta in District 55.
In the Augusta area, we have a special election House District 122 runoff to replace Ben Harbin. Jodie Lott of Evans faces Mack Taylor. Both are Republicans.
In today’s special election runoff to replace state Sen. Ron Ramsey, a Democrat from Lithonia, Janice Frey Van Ness – a Republican, faces Democrat Tonya Anderson. So the addition of a woman in that chamber is guaranteed.
The middle Georgia seat being vacated by state Sen. Ross Tolleson, R-Perry, also has its first round of voting today. One woman, Vivian Childs, is in the five-candidate field. A runoff would be held Dec. 29.
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The ranks of Donald Trump's more prominent supporters in Georgia have grown. Spotted in the crowd at the Macon Coliseum on Monday was a gaggle of past and present elected officials, including state Public Service Commissioner Lauren "Bubba" McDonald and former state House members Charlice Byrd and Jill Chambers.
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John Eaves, chairman of the Fulton County Commission, sends word that the next meeting of county commissioners and mayors, to discuss a penny sales tax for transportation, is 10 a.m. Dec. 14. MARTA, Beltline and ARC officials have been invited. The addition of these later groups to the series of meetings is intended to broaden the discussion to include transit.
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According to Walter Jones of Morris News Service, state lawmakers are already drawing in exceptions to legislation aimed at Internet-based rental collectives:
The 15-night exemption is designed to protect residents in Athens and Augusta who rent bedrooms or their homes only during the six University of Georgia home football games or during the weeklong Masters Tournament. Saint Simons Island residents who rent their houses during the Georgia-Florida football weekend also would be in the clear.
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You can call it the "new" New Georgia Project. House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams' voter registration drive has evolved. From Atlanta Magazine's Max Blau:
These details are outlined in a pair of fundraising memos obtained by Atlanta magazine. Abrams has asked Democracy Alliance—a national progressive network of donors that Politico called the "closest thing the left has to the vaunted Koch brothers' political network"—to donate up to $5.9 million for the New Georgia Project and contribute another $4.35 million for Voter Access Institute, a little-known progressive advocacy group she founded last year.
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