Archive for the ‘Casey Cagle’ Category

No matter what happens on Nov. 6, Democrats will be at least one seat down in the state House.

State Rep. Rick Crawford of Cedartown, one of the few remaining conservative Democrats in the Legislature, says he intends to switch to the GOP – if he survives the general election.

House Speaker David Ralston doesn’t think he will. Crawford faces a tough race in a newly redrawn west Georgia district that has a Democratic performance rating of 27 percent. Crawford’s Republican opponent is Trey Kelley, a 25-year-old manufacturer’s rep.

“I am fully committed to making sure Trey Kelley is elected to the House. He is an outstanding candidate who is working hard and is consistent,” Ralston said this morning. “While I respect Rick Crawford and appreciate his dilemma, the truth is that the [Democratic] Party didn’t just suddenly become liberal. It has been, is, and will continue to be a party that is far to the left of the great majority of Georgians.”

Jim Walls and …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Before the vote, a Democrat says he’ll turn GOP »

The invitation to a two-day golf and shotgunning fund-raiser in Adairsville.

Members of the state Senate Republican Caucus and some of their very best friends will spend two days in Adairsville this week to play golf and display their expertise with shotguns.

One can pay $500 for a dinner-time chat, but the main events on Wednesday and Thursday are open only to those willing to give $2,500 to $10,000 to the caucus’ campaign arm, the Georgia Republican Senatorial Trust.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has sent an email to Republicans to inform them, in very strong language, that he’s not going.

He has problems with the way $140,000 of caucus money was handed to an allegedly independent committee – based in North Carolina – to defend GOP senators from primary challengers this summer.

Read the entire Sept. 10 letter from Cagle here. In part:

The Trust is so named because its funds are to be raised, held and spent IN TRUST. The management of the trust reflects on the reputation of …

Continue reading Casey Cagle says he’ll skip Senate GOP fundraiser: ‘We do not have to cheat to win’ »

The powers-that-be in and around the state Capitol are making last-minute bids to tip the scales in a number of races,

We told you this morning about this handy quote (and a photo) that Gov. Nathan Deal lent to state Rep. Lee Anderson of Grovetown for use in his 12th District congressional GOP primary runoff against businessman Rick Allen of Augusta:

“Lee Anderson strongly supported my conservative tax reform agenda, which cut taxes on Georgia families and businesses. With Lee’s help, I was able to enact one of the most pro-jobs laws in our state’s history.”

That has since been followed by an endorsement of Anderson by Attorney General Sam Olens – which Olens confirmed by email this afternoon.

To add to Anderson’s wealth, former Republican rival Wright McLeod, edged out of the runoff by Allen, also endorsed Anderson. From a letter McLeod sent to his supporters:

”My campaign was a natural expression of my life-long dedication to Service Over Self. Lee subscribes to this …

Continue reading The state Capitol weighs in on runoff races »

My AJC colleague James Salzer is chasing down the details on the decision by President pro tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, to step down as leader of the state Senate – who intends to replace him for instance.
Below is the letter Williams sent to his Senate colleagues.

Williams was one of the GOP senators who engineered the 2010 revolt against Casey Cagle that successfully stripped the lieutenant governor of much of his authority over the chamber.

But Williams was constantly frustrated by continued leaks about machinations within the Republican caucus. Note the swipe at the very end:

Senators,

It is a very difficult decision for one to give up a position of political power. Often it takes a lost election or scandalous event for one to part with the notoriety of a higher position. While I’ve been affected by neither loss nor scandal, I can say that conceding a place of leadership over such a fine group of men and women is not easy.

I believe that leadership positions major …

Continue reading Tommie Williams’ requirements for the next GOP Senate leader »

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle on Tuesday became the latest figure at the Capitol to declare his support for a $100 gift cap for state lawmakers, vowing to build support for ethics reform in the General Assembly. From the Gainesville Times:

“It’s a process, and the legislature’s got to get comfortable with it,” Cagle said.

Cagle, who spoke to the Kiwanis Club in Gainesville Tuesday, said he supports a measure like the one [Sen]. Josh McKoon proposed last session that died….

The lieutenant governor said a July 31, non-binding ballot question is likely to push GOP lawmakers to embrace stronger ethics rules:

“I think there’s going to be a lot of support — a lot of support,” Cagle said.

Senate President pro tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, last week pledged his support for a gift cap. At this month’s state GOP convention, House Speaker David Ralston declared it to be the wrong approach.

***
The Associated Press has pinned down a location for President Barack Obama’s visit to …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Casey Cagle joins call for $100 gift cap on lawmakers »

Ladies and gentlemen: With this post, I’m taking a few days off. Have a safe Memorial Day weekend.

The mark of a successful political convention is an absence of surprises.

By the time thousands of Republicans fled Columbus last weekend, the forces of Ron Paul had been routed with a heavy hand. Not a surprise.

Delegates to the annual state convention had rebuked the GOP-controlled Legislature for refusing to get serious about ethics reform. Important but predictable, given the anger of tea partyists.

And the Republican party’s executive committee, just before delegates jumped into their cars, had announced the five non-binding questions that will be placed before GOP voters on the July 31 primary ballot.

Topping the list: ‘Should Georgia have casino gambling with funds going to education?”

Boom.

The very topic stunned the highest-perched Republicans in the land. “The casino question was a shock coming out of the convention — given the prominence of social conservatives …

Continue reading The mystery of the Republican casino question »

Newt Gingrich had placed his hopes on a good – no, make that decent – showing in the smallest of five states that held GOP presidential primaries on Tuesday.

He didn’t get it, clearing only 27.1 percent in Delaware to Mitt Romney’s 56.5 percent. (A total of 28,591 votes were cast in that state – about a third of what Cobb County generated on March 6.)

But after last night’s print deadline, my AJC colleague Daniel Malloy, who’s been tracking Gingrich, caught a hint that the former Georgia congressman is contemplating a primary afterlife. Said Gingrich:

…So we want you to know that as citizens, we are going to be right their standing shoulder by shoulder with you and that, as we think through about how we can best be effective citizens over the next week or two, we are going to rely on you for help and you for advice.

Malloy also picked up this quote this morning:

“We’ll be working out the details of our transition and we’ll have information for the press …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Newt Gingrich talks of life as a citizen »

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was in New York this week, pitching American cities as an alternative to a gridlocked federal government.

“We’re being strangled by the lack of action at the federal level. That’s why mayors are where the action is,” Reed said at a high-end forum with Houston Mayor Annise Parker and New York Deputy Mayor Robert Steel.

Said Reed, via The Atlantic, a co-sponsor of the Tuesday event:

“If you look at the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, less than 10 percent of those dollars went into cities, where 80 percent of GDP occurs,” he said. “We’re going to have to shift national politics, and we’re going to have to shift state politics. Governors have a better lobby than mayors do.

“That’s why they got 90 percent of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, when that money should have gone to cities. Because we deploy it faster, we’re more creative, and we’re more representative of the majority of the United States of America.”

***
The …

Continue reading Kasim Reed: Cities ‘being strangled’ by gridlocked Washington »

If Wednesday’s House vote on charter schools was intended to smoke out the opposition, consider it done. Supporters of the proposed constitutional amendment fell 10 votes short of the 120 needed for a two-thirds majority.

At the Georgia Report, Tom Crawford identified the defectors in an otherwise partisan affair:

[S]even Democrats voted with most of the GOP majority for HR 1162: Alisha Thomas Morgan, Rahn Mayo, Margaret Kaiser, Stacey Evans, Sheila Jones, Karla Drenner, and Ralph Long….
There were some defectors in the Republican ranks as well.

Lawmakers from rural districts, where it’s a struggle to keep public schools in operation, consider charter schools to be a metro Atlanta issue and are concerned that HR 1162 would harm their local schools.

There were nine Republicans from outside metro Atlanta who voted against HR 1162: Tommy Benton, Ben Harbin, Mark Hatfield, Susan Holmes, Tony McBrayer, Tom McCall, Ed Rynders, Kip Smith, and Jason Spencer.

Republicans Jason …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Vote identifies arms to be twisted in charter school fight »

Update: The deal brokered by Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday, intended to end a 15-month leadership feud in the state Senate, collapsed on Tuesday when it was rejected in a closed-door vote of the Republican caucus.

The plan was intended to reassert at least some of the authority stripped from Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in late 2010.

A spokesman for the governor said Deal was under the impression that an agreement had been reached last night, after a three-hour session that brought most of the parties together. But a spokesman said the governor was privy to the reasons for the collapse.

“Senate leaders asked the governor to host a meeting in his office and that’s what he did. He was there, and he was hopeful, but in the end, the Senate’s business is the Senate’s business,” said Deal spokesman Brian Robinson. “We want a body operating efficiently and well.”

This is the second time that the governor has stepped into the fray between Cagle and Senate Republicans led by …

Continue reading Senate peace treaty brokered by Nathan Deal falls apart »