In the race for U.S. House majority leader, Steve Scalise of Louisiana says he has the votes to take out Roswell's own Tom Price. From Roll Call:
But it's still unclear when the vote will be held, or even if there will be an opening at all.
Over the weekend, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, announced a long-shot bid for speaker against Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. The internal House GOP speaker vote -- which must be ratified on the floor by the full House -- is slated for Thursday.
Outgoing Speaker John Boehner had put all the leadership elections on that day (if McCarthy wins speaker, there's a majority leader race; if Scalise wins majority leader, there's a race for his majority whip position; and so on), but some members circled a letter over the weekend to delay the domino elections. Boehner is considering a delay, Politico reports.
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In an interview with the Athens Banner-Herald, former congressman Paul Broun wouldn't rule out a return to public office, and urged Republicans in Washington to sweep out current leadership in both the House and Senate.
But the real nugget in the Jim Thompson piece may be Broun’s baffled take on a decision by one of his campaign consultants to plead guilty to federal charges of making false statements – to investigators with the Office of Congressional Ethics looking into Broun’s use of taxpayer funds:
It's not clear why [Brett] O'Donnell became the subject of a U.S. Justice Department investigation, marking the first time an OCE probe moved into the federal court system.
"Mr. O'Donnell is a friend," Broun said, "I don't know why he made the plea." Broun went on to say that if he should become the subject of any federal probe regarding use of his congressional office funds, he is confident he would be exonerated of any wrongdoing.
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Over the weekend, Mary Kay Woodworth, chairman of the LaVista Hills Alliance, called for the resignation of interim DeKalb County CEO Lee May, who was sharply criticized last week in that corruption memo written by former attorney general Mike Bowers and company.
Don’t expect May to comply. But the fracas is giving cityhood advocates an excellent opportunity to motivate their supporters for the Nov. 3 referendum.
“This report confirms why our citizens have had enough and want local control with a new city,” Woodworth said. “With local control we will be able to hold our city council members more accountable than officials who don’t live in our community and obviously don’t care about our needs.”
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An interesting analysis involving our neighbor to the west, from the Associated Press:
Now, some judges who oppose same-sex marriage are using the long-forgotten amendment to get out of the marriage business altogether rather than risk issuing even one wedding license to gays or lesbians. In at least nine of Alabama's 67 counties, judges have quit issuing any marriage licenses since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions in June.
While the precise reason that lawmakers gave for making the 1961 change has been lost to time, the 54-year-old provision says probate courts "may" issue rather than "shall" issue wedding licenses.
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Meanwhile, one of the oldest congregations in Cobb County, the First Presbyterian Church in Marietta, has split over the issue of gay marriage. The church is part of the Presbyterian Chuch (USA), a denomination that endorsed same sex unions in 2011. First Presbyterian's current senior pastor, the Rev. David Mayo, has resigned and a new congregation is being formed, reports the Marietta Daily Journal.
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The New York Times dives into how Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is playing the long game against Hillary Clinton, now that he's flush with cash. The story includes these lines about the SEC Primary:
Mr. Weaver, who spent part of Wednesday interviewing potential staff members in Georgia and Texas, is also working with the campaign's senior adviser, Tad Devine, on a first round of television commercials to run before Thanksgiving. The Sanders camp is weighing biographical ads to run in Iowa, where Mr. Sanders is less well known than Mrs. Clinton. In New Hampshire, where Mr. Sanders is a familiar presence from his three decades in Vermont politics, a thematic or policy-driven ad may be used first.
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Also in this morning's New York Times is an article on Donald Trump, Twitter superhero:
His online dominance is striking: Over the past two months, on Twitter alone, he has been mentioned in 6.3 million conversations, eight times as many as Republican rivals like Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson — not to mention more than three times as many as Hillary Rodham Clinton and nearly four times as many as Bernie Sanders. He is retweeted more than twice as often as Mrs. Clinton and about 13 times more frequently than Jeb Bush, according to data compiled as of Friday by Edelman Berland, a market research firm that studies social media. His Twitter following (4.35 million) dwarfs that of the rest of the Republican field, and in the coming weeks, he is expected to surpass Mrs. Clinton (4.38 million).
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Expect more big changes to envelope Georgia's judicial system. Gov. Nathan Deal has issued an executive order that creates an Appellate Jurisdiction Review Commission to make recommendations on "modernizing" the Georgia Supreme Court and the newly-expanded Georgia Court of Appeals, which is to add three judges.
The governor tapped 12 people to the commission, including Supreme Court Justices Keith Blackwell and David Nahmias, incoming House Majority Leader Jon Burns, former Deal aide Thomas Worthy and Deal executive counsel Ryan Teague.
Another appointee, attorney Kyle Wallace, co-authored a paper in the Georgia State University Law Review offering pointers on how to modernize the courts. The move comes as word leaked about a behind-the-scenes move afoot by Gov. Nathan Deal's office to expand the Georgia Supreme Court.
The commission has until Dec. 15 to make its recommendations to Deal - just in time for the legislative session. You can read the order here.
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Doreen Carter, who was the Democratic nominee for Secretary of State last year, will take on attorney Sherri Washington for vacant state House District 92, which covers parts of DeKalb and Rockdale counties. The two Democrats are the only qualified candidates for the Nov. 3 special election.
Democrat Tonya Anderson is leaving the seat to run for state Senate.
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