Deal appoints top staffer’s wife to board post

Chris Cummiskey, to head the Department of Economic Development. He was a lobbyist for the University of Georgia and a former aide to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and House Speaker Glenn Richardson.

Rep. Hank Huckaby, to head the University System. He was one of the governor's state House floor leaders. Huckaby was a former state budget director and university administrator before being elected to the General Assembly. He was the first in-state chancellor to be hired by the Board of Regents in more than two decades.

Sen. Jim Butterworth, adjutant general of the Georgia National Guard. He was another of Deal's floor leaders and a former captain in the Air Guard. Deal jumped him several ranks to three-star general.

Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, named deputy state treasurer. His appointment came about a month after he successfully led the Senate's Republican-run political redistricting effort.

Toby Carr, the state's new transportation planning director. The political and transportation policy adviser replaced a career engineer and transportation planner.

Gov. Nathan Deal has appointed the wife of his administration’s chief operating officer to the State Board of Workers’ Compensation.

Elizabeth D. Gobeil will replace former Republican state Rep. Warren Massey, who had been appointed to the $150,000-a-year state job by Gov. Sonny Perdue. Massey’s term on the board expired in January. Governors have traditionally loaded the board with lawmakers and other politically connected lawyers.

The executive order announcing the appointment was released Friday.

Gobeil’s hiring comes a week after the Georgia Lottery Board hired Deal’s chief budget staffer, Debbie Dlugolenski Alford, to head the lottery. Alford, who was Deal’s choice for the post, is the first state lottery director without experience running a lottery. One Lottery Board member recently quit, saying Deal had broken the selection process and compromised the board’s independence by pushing Alford for the job.

Deal has come under criticism for hiring lawmakers and political insiders for many state jobs. He backed one legislative floor leader to be University System chancellor and put another one in as the state’s adjutant general. He hired lobbyists to head the state’s public health care and economic development agencies.

Deal’s spokesman, Brian Robinson, called Gobeil “more than qualified” for the Workers’ Compensation post. Workers’ Compensation board members serve as appellate division judges.

A native of Thomaston, Gobeil has been a lawyer for about 15 years and was a senior counsel for two global pharmaceutical companies - UCB, Inc. and Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to that, she was a hiring partner in the Atlanta office of Thompson Hine. She once served as an aide to the late-U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga.

Her husband is Bart Gobeil, Deal’s COO and a member of the State Ports Authority. He is a former utility lobbyist who served as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s chief of staff before joining the Deal administration.

Massey will serve as an administrative law judge. It is unclear if he will retain his current $150,000-a-year salary. Besides Gobeil, the other board members who head the system are former state Sen. Stephen Farrow and former U.S. Attorney Richard Thompson.

Kerwin Swint, a political scientist at Kennesaw State University and a member of the board of watchdog group Common Cause Georgia, said Gobeil’s appointment does not raise any red flags for him.

“It seems like all governors appoint people they know, people that contribute to their campaign, people in their universe,” Swint, a former GOP activist, said.

However, Swint said, “we’ve seen a lot of these stories since [Deal] has been in office, so it does seem to be a pattern.”