Given Democratic efforts to flip at least one congressional district in Georgia in November, this much-talked-about quote from U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in The Economist could have repercussions:
"There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they're going to take the money they're saving and reinvest it in American workers. In fact, they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there's no evidence whatsoever that the money's been massively poured back into the American worker."
The Washington Post this morning points out that, during debate over the bill, Rubio said corporate tax cuts pushed by his party were too large, and child tax credits that might help the middle-class were too small.
The Florida senator voted for the bill anyway. Even so, the December tax cut is one of the few bragging points for a Republican-led Congress headed for what could be a brutal mid-term election. His confession won’t help.
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The first place in Georgia that Rubio's comments are likely to publicly surface are in the 14th Street studios of Georgia Public Broadcasting this morning.
Debates for primary contests in the Sixth, Seventh and Tenth District congressional races will be taped -- and broadcast livestream here and here, beginning at 10 a.m. Click here for the grand schedule. This is today's:
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Over the weekend, Chuck Williams of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported that Sam Wellborn, a 27-year veteran of the state DOT board, would resign effective Monday. This is the paragraph that helps one understand how Georgia works:
Wellborn, 76, is the longest serving member of the board and a retired president of Columbus Bank & Trust Co. The seat Wellborn is vacating has been held by a Columbus banker for nearly a half century. Wellborn replaced Frank Morast Jr., who was president of Trust Company of Columbus. Morast, who died in 1991, held the slot for two decades.
We’re hearing that former Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland is a favorite to replace Wellborn on the DOT, which is organized along congressional district lines.
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Republican candidate for governor Brian Kemp's firearm-heavy TV ad, built around his shotgun "interrogation" of a male suitor to one of his daughters, isn't playing well with some Democrats. At georgiapol.com, the criticism from LaDawn Jones, a former state House member and current Stacey Evans supporter, begins thusly:
"I prosecuted dozens of individuals, who pulled out a weapon and pointed it at someone with the intent to cause fear in that person. Some of those people are likely still in jail…In Georgia, pointing a firearm at someone is a serious crime. Brian Kemp simulated a crime on television in an effort to convince people to vote for him."
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One of the odder aspects of Democrat Stacey Abrams' campaign for governor is the fact that the state House caucus that she once led isn't in lockstep behind her. This morning, the Marietta Daily Journal published a Q&A with Abrams, in which the candidate offers a clue as to why. Says Abrams:
"I am not the most social person, and I think that there are places where I did not engage enough with the camaraderie of the (House of Representatives). I'm focused so often on the delivery of results. … The Legislature is a body of relationships, and one thing I learned during my tenure is the importance of those relationships if you haven't built them. That becomes incredibly necessary, and as I traveled the state, what I think about is I wish I had done this differently. I wish I'd been more engaged on the relationship side. ..."
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Vincent Fort has long been one of Stacey Abrams' most vocal critics. This morning, the former state senator and one-time candidate for Atlanta mayor will formally endorse Abrams' opponent in the Democratic primary.
His support for former state Rep. Stacey Evans comes as no surprise in political circles, but it gives Evans another high-profile African-American supporter for the final stretch of the May 22 primary. Several other current and former state lawmakers have backed her campaign, and she’s received campaign contributions from a pair of Atlanta heavyweights: Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and former mayor Andrew Young.
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In today's endorsement sweepstakes, Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi and ex-chair of the Republican National Committee, has endorsed David Shafer in the GOP race for lieutenant governor.
Barbour noted that Shafer, a state senator from Duluth, was executive director of the state GOP when he headed up the national organization. From the press release: “David Shafer is the strongest candidate for our party and the best candidate to advance our conservative values.”
Barbour endorsed Clay Tippins in the GOP race for governor.
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The new head of the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked for his $375,000 salary to be reduced Monday amid reports that his pay was nearly twice that of his predecessor Brenda Fitzgerald, the former Georgia health commissioner. The Washington Post reports that Robert Redfield's boss, health Secretary Alex Azar, agreed to the request after Redfield said he didn't want his pay to become a distraction. The newspaper says Redfield was hired under a special salary program designed to attract top health scientists to the federal workforce. By comparison, Fitzgerald had an annual pay rate of $197,300 before she resigned in January.
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New Yorker magazine, in its latest issue, takes a deep dive into the world of "ethical hacking" that we told you about earlier this week. It extensively quotes U.S. Rep.Tom Graves, R-Ranger, whose "hack back" bill would grant legal authority to individuals and companies to take action against actors who have attacked their servers or data. Catch the long read here.
