Georgia Democrats may have found a new star in Taylor Bennett, the 29-year-old former Georgia Tech quarterback who scored a surprising victory in a conservative-leaning northeast Atlanta House seat last night.
Bennett won with 2,714 votes, 54.53 percent, to Republican J. Max Davis' 2,263 votes, 45.47 percent.
Davis was a flawed candidate who lost last night's special election for many reasons, including harassment accusations in Brookhaven and a nasty split within his own party. But for all his issues, he had a few huge advantages: High name recognition as Brookhaven's first mayor and the wholehearted logistical and financial support of a cast of GOP figures, including Gov. Nathan Deal and House Speaker David Ralston.
Bennett notched his convincing win after campaigning against the "religious liberty" proposal now before the Legislature. Bennett's mother is gay, and he cited the debate over the current measure as a reason he jumped in the race to succeed Mike Jacobs, a Republican who also fought to derail the bill.
"The Republican Party has basically stated that they're going to revive that bill," Bennett told the AJC earlier about his decision to run. "I wasn't going to sit idly by and watch that happen. That's the hair-trigger reason why I wanted to jump in." Here's an interview Bennett had with Scott Slade of WSB Radio back in July:
Could Tuesday's outcome make other suburban lawmakers think twice about supporting the legislation? A debate was already raging on Twitter last night over the implications of the election.
We called state Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, this morning to get his reaction to the Republican defeat. "You have to give the Democrats a lot of credit. They pulled out all the stops to take the seat," he said.
But the Dunwoody senator also referenced third-place finisher Catherine Bernard's refusal to endorse Davis in the runoff. "Certain people did not want to participate on the Republican side because they didn't like the candidate. How'd that work out?" Millar asked.
The House District 80 election shifts control of the Fulton County House delegation to Democrats, who now hold a 13-12 advantage. But you better believe that there's already talk about a meeting of the House Reapportionment Committee to redraw a few lines to address that.
Meanwhile, two all-GOP affairs were also decided last night.
Businessman Shaw Blackmon defeated Larry Walker - the son of the former House majority leader - in the race to replace Larry O'Neal in House District 146. And economist Clay Pirkle bested Horace Hudgins, the ex-mayor of Ocilla, in the contest to fill the seat left vacant by Jay Roberts.
Overall, the House Republican caucus membership now stands at 118, two shy of a two-thirds majority. Democrats have 61. Rusty Kidd of Milledgeville is the only independent.
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Georgia has joined 16 other states in a legal challenge claiming the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency illegally invalidated air quality protection plans.
The filing by Attorney General Sam Olens claims an EPA rule issued in June requiring 35 states to revise their "State Implementation Plans" will increase costs for industrial plants while offering only a "negligible" environmental impact. It claims that the new rule would require Georgia to change an already-approved plan to comply with air pollution standards after the Sierra Club settled a separate lawsuit.
"Everyone who has seen a truck move after a red light understands this issue," said Olens. "It is important for Georgia power plants and industries to keep living up to their responsibilities on overall emissions, but this new mandate is simply the result of EPA working with the Sierra Club in yet another example of 'sue and settle' decision-making."
This is not to be confused with the Obama administration's recent Clean Power Plan restrictions on existing power plants. Georgia has yet to challenge that one, after getting a break on the final rule.
The challenge to the "State Implementation Plans" rewrites have been brewing for a while. An Open Records Act request revealed that Gov. Nathan Deal had penned a draft letter raising objections to the changes months ago. The final letter was sent on July 28, and it said the proposal "could create a serious threat to electricity generation reliability, especially during extreme weather seasons."
"Of even greater concern to us are cost increases on the public," Deal wrote in the letter to EPA administrator Gina McCarthy. "The increase in energy costs for job creators and employers is concerning enough, but we believe endorsing cost increases on low-income families and senior citizens, those who can least afford it, is irresponsible and careless."
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Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols is still no fan of that rule, as he writes in today's premium editions.
From his op-ed:
But it is not just guilt — there's also a hammer. That hammer is the EPA — the infamous U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that churns out rules like the Varsity makes hotdogs. These rules are frequently challenged, but usually implemented by utilities, and paid for by ratepayers. Later, a court may overturn them after the money has been spent.
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"As long as I sit in that office over there, the film tax credit is perfectly safe."
So says House Speaker David Ralston, who spoke to new UGA faculty members at the Capitol on Tuesday. One reason why: His daughter is in the industry. And "she probably makes more than I do," he quipped.
He also told the professors what it feels like to have a target on his back.
"Robocalls are dumped in my district on a daily basis, to the point where my mom calls and says, 'What are you doing down there? I tried to talk to the man, but he just kept talking.'"
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Remember when the Georgia Democrats stripped the names of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson from their big annual dinner? It's a growing effort nationally, and the New York Times' Jonathan Martin has a fascinating step-back piece on it:
The parallel forces of class and identity, at times in tension and at times in unison, have defined the Democratic Party in recent decades. But the country's changing demographics, the diverse nature of President Obama's coalition and the animating energy of the Black Lives Matter movement have also thrust fundamental questions about race, gender and economic equality to the center of the Democratic presidential race. ...
Stacey Abrams, the minority leader of the Georgia House, said that the state party stripped Jefferson and Jackson from the name of the dinner to tell "the entire story of our party."
"The best political parties are ones that reflect their core values and celebrate their members," she said.
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Conservatives are seizing upon a comment from presidential hopeful Donald Trump to CNN on Tuesday that could end up being more problematic for his Republican primary hopes than any Fox News feud. It came from a discussion with host Chris Cuomo about defunding Planned Parenthood:
CUOMO: So you would take a look at it before defunding it. That's what's being asked for right now. Many in your party are doing the opposite. They're saying defund it, then look. You'd say look at it first?
TRUMP: I would look at the good aspects of it and I would also look because I'm sure they do some things properly and good and good for women. I would look at that. I would look at other aspects, also. But we have to take care of women. We have to absolutely take care of women. The abortion aspect of Planned Parenthood should not be funded.
Considering that the law already bans federal money from going to abortions and Planned Parenthood says it keeps its federal funds for health screenings separate from its abortion practice, that suggests the status quo would continue for the organization in a Trump administration.
Here's what Planned Parenthood had to say, via the Daily Beast:
"We hope that the rest of the GOP field will wake up and reconsider their extreme and unpopular positions on defunding preventive care, abortion bans, and the other economic issues that women and their families care about," Ferrero continued.
In other words, Trump is Planned Parenthood's favorite Republican presidential candidate right now (or their least un-favorite).
On Tuesday night, Trump sought to clean up the mess with a statement to Breitbart News that read, in part:
"While Planned Parenthood is engaging in the despicable practice of abortion — in addition to then selling aborted baby body parts to the highest bidder — the organization should receive no taxpayer dollars. "
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U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, R-Tifton, weighed in on the Trump phenomenon with the Macon Telegraph, saying there are several candidates he'd rather see than his party's polling leader:
"He seems to be more interested in having fun right now than specifically answering questions and giving us a plan to move the economy and the country forward," Scott said. "I think we have several candidates that truly can govern and lead the country towards the economic growth that we need. That requires being able to give specific solutions and articulate it and he hasn't done that."
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Meanwhile, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush gave a big speech about Iraq at the Reagan library in California. The New York Times' Adam Nagourney points out the crosscurrents that have brought Iraq to the fore of yet another presidential campaign:
At the same time, it put Mrs. Clinton — who lost the nomination to Mr. Obama in no small part in 2008 because she had supported the Iraq war while he opposed it — in a situation of defending how Mr. Obama sought to end the war there.
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Speaking of Hillary Clinton, her email controversy shows no signs of going away. From the Associated Press:
Two emails that traversed Clinton's personal system were subsequently given one of the government's highest classification ratings, a Republican lawmaker said.
Federal investigators have begun looking into the security of Clintons' email setup amid concerns from the inspector general for the intelligence community that classified information may have passed through the system. There is no evidence she used encryption to prevent prying eyes from accessing the emails or her personal server.
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