How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?
Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.
To fact-check the claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.
The fact check then moves on to a panel of editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia looked at the Braves’ planned move to Cobb and the continuing debate over its impact on taxpayers. The claims of a U.S. Senate candidate were put through the Truth-O-Meter, as was a statement against a well-known nonprofit.
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Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
Full versions can be found at: www.politifact.com/georgia/.
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Revitalize Cobb: The new Atlanta Braves stadium will require no tax increase for homeowners and provide $3 million annually for Cobb County schools.
The projected $3 million increase for schools that Revitalize Cobb touted in a flier is difficult to predict and depends on many factors all lining up. Whether the Braves stadium will require no tax increase for homeowners is a different matter.
Before the stadium plan came into play, Cobb’s property taxes were set to decrease.
Cobb homeowners currently pay taxes to pay for parkland. Once this bill is paid off in 2017 and 2018, these taxes were supposed to be gone.
But now that the Braves stadium is in the works, commissioners will have to vote to increase property taxes for the general fund by the amount they would have decreased to pay the county’s $300 million share of the bill.
A reasonable person may consider the Braves deal a tax increase over the amount he or she would have paid if the team had stayed in downtown Atlanta.
We rated the claim Half True.
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Eugene Yu: “Harry Reid has a better voting attendance record than these three Congressmen!”
Yu, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, made this claim earlier this month on a website. He said the statement about three Georgia congressmen he is running against — Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston.
The numbers show he’s correct. The missed votes were: Gingrey, 3.9 percent; Broun, 3.7 percent; Kingston, 3.5 percent; and Reid, 1.1 percent.
But the three Georgians in the U.S. House face a lot more votes than Reid does in the Senate. To us, it’s akin to comparing a baseball player who’s been up to bat 190 times to another who’s had 500 plate appearances.
Yu’s claim came out close to the same time as an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that Broun, over a two-year stretch, missed more than 80 percent of the meetings of a congressional Border and Maritime Security panel while being highly critical of federal border security.
Yu’s claim needs a little context to be fully explained.
We rated the claim Mostly True.
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National Federation of the Blind: Goodwill Industries International pays workers with disabilities wages as low as pennies per hour.
The National Federation of the Blind made this claim in a news release this fall. Our research found their claim is partially true. Goodwill, like other organizations that employ disabled workers, is allowed to pay those employees below minimum wage because of a provision in federal labor law.
For Goodwill, which allows each of its independent affiliates to determine whether to use the reduced wage allowance, the pay scale varies. Some affiliates pay workers minimum wage and even more, while other affiliates pay extremely low wages, depending on the situation and how much work employees are able to complete.
In Georgia, all four affiliates pay disabled workers at least minimum wage. Two of those affiliates possess the lower wage certificate, which they could eventually decide to use.
We rated the claim Half True.
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Revitalize Cobb: The economic impact of the new Atlanta Braves stadium includes 9,241 new jobs and $295 million in wages.
In a mailer last month, Revitalize Cobb made the claim using numbers generated by an economic impact study commissioned by the county’s pro-stadium Chamber of Commerce.
The study’s findings are not unreasonable, but the mailer uses them in a confusing way that could give the impression that a new stadium’s impact on Cobb is greater than the study predicts.
While the interest group tried to provide context through the mailer, it didn’t do enough. It also added projected “nonprofit” positions to its jobs figures, which gives an inflated impression of the number of jobs the stadium is estimated to provide.
The pro-stadium mailer had an element of truth but was a less-than-accurate portrayal of a flawed study commissioned by stadium boosters. Another problem with Revitalize Cobb’s claim is the group’s decision to count 1,074 “nonprofit” jobs among the new positions that would be created by the Cobb stadium.
These positions are the result of a Braves program where nonprofit volunteers work for free in stadium jobs. The wages they would have earned go to their nonprofit.
We rated the claim Mostly False.
