Archive for the ‘TSPLOST’ Category

Since Tuesday’s vote, the tight Republican race for the new 9th congressional district has been a contest to frame the next 15 days of debate.

And the money is quickly following suit.

State Rep. Doug Collins, the frontrunner by 738 votes of 109,778 cast last week, wants to keep the race local. His new “We are the 9th” slogan and condemnations of “celebrity” interlopers such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are aimed at blunting the momentum of his rival, former radio talk show host Martha Zoller.

On Thursday and Friday, the Collins campaign reported nearly $20,000 in new campaign contributions. The largest chunk — $5,000 – comes from former U.S. senator and governor Zell Miller and his wife Shirley. Miller remains the most influential political voice in northeast Georgia.

Another $11,000 comes from Georgia attorneys (Collins is one of their number), including $2,000 from Jim Butler in Columbus.

Zoller will attempt to generate a wave of tea party support, pointing …

Continue reading Money frames a mountain vs. tea party race in the 9th »

Hold off on those archery lessons. The overwhelming defeat of the transportation sales tax doesn’t mean metro Atlanta is about to make a rapid descent into some unwashed, dystopian future.

Civilization will still function, as will the lights and plumbing. Only our goals have changed.

On Monday we were still a region that would occasionally overlook racial and financial divides in order to do a little business and make a little money as the economic engine of the South. But on Tuesday, we adopted a new ambition.

We set our sights on becoming a miniature version of Europe. We’re aiming for dysfunction chic.

This is a thought that belongs wholly to Steve Anthony, a lecturer on political science at Georgia State University and longtime aide to the late House speaker Tom Murphy. But it feels right enough to pass along.

“Consider a relatively large geographic area, made up of many governments, each with a different political culture and, in some cases, heritage,” Anthony wrote …

Continue reading Dysfunction chic: Metro Atlanta eyes Europe as a model »

Within 48 hours of landing in a runoff, the 9th District congressional campaigns of Republicans Doug Collins and Martha Zoller found themselves in agreement over what the next three weeks will look like.

They just don’t agree on what to call it.

On Wednesday, the Collins campaign declared itself in a fight against interlopers – Alaskan ex-governors, celebrities from D.C. and such. By which it meant Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain. All have endorsed Zoller, a former radio talk show host, and were joined today by another GOP presidential candidate, Rick Santorum.

Call Collins approach a North Georgia mountain strategy that could require much input from former U.S. senator and governor Zell Miller, whose grandson Bryan Miller is running the Collins campaign.

Meanwhile, the Zoller campaign on Thursday fully embraced as precursor the tea party victory of Ted Cruz in Texas, who beat Gov. Rick Perry’s choice in the Republican race to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison in …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Mountain vs. tea party strategies in 9th District race »

Former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin was conspicuously silent during the debate over the transportation sales tax, but she’s ready to talk about the impact of its defeat. Below is a portion of a post she’s written for her website, Blogging While Blue:

It doesn’t mean metro Atlantans will never support alternative transportation funding models in the future.

It doesn’t mean the State of Georgia is off the hook for leading the development, planning and funding a metro Atlanta comprehensive transportation and environmental plan. Or that the Governor doesn’t have the obligation and responsibility to do everything in his power to invest in a transformative, smart transportation network of trains, rail, buses, roads, bridges, trails, sidewalks and highways. Transit is worthy of state funding in a smart transportation plan.

It doesn’t mean metro Atlanta should play second fiddle in the race for state funding for its needs -to clean the air we breathe or to improve …

Continue reading Shirley Franklin: Transportation issues belong on Nathan Deal’s shoulders »

U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and a bipartisan trio of his colleagues are demanding that one of three presidential debates this fall be dedicated to the deficit recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson Commission.

From their letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, via The Hill:

“Specifically, we request that you ask the presidential candidates which of the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform they would adopt as part of their plan to reduce the deficit. As part of this discussion, we believe that it would be essential to engage the candidates in a detailed discussion of their priorities for tax and entitlement reform,” the letter states.

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Part of the problem with the concept of metro Atlanta’s transportation sales tax was that it required you to associate with people you’d rather not. From an editorial in today’s Marietta Daily Journal:

[R]ather than rely on the state or the Atlanta Regional Commission to solve our road …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Saxby Chambliss wants presidential debate on deficit reduction »

Various number-crunchers tell us that the one place that treated the TSPLOST favorable in metro area was the city of Atlanta itself, which approved the transportation sales tax by a margin of 58 to 42 percent.

See a quick chart here. Other coverage can be found here. As a whole, Fulton County defeated the measure, 70,488 votes to 66,147. The sales tax also lost in DeKalb County, 61,792 to 57,915.

The city results are good news for Mayor Kasim Reed, who became the loudest voice for the referendum in the final weeks of the campaign – and who stands for re-election next year.

Below is a file from my AJC colleague Jeremiah McWilliams, on Reed and the final moments of last night’s doings:

Speaking at a subdued press conference late Tuesday night at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta, Reed was stoic in defeat.

“I’m here to stick out my chin and take the loss, to accept the loss … but to ask in a respectful way that we really do sit down and not wait six or eight or 10 …

Continue reading Kasim Reed warns against ‘backseat quarterbacking’ on TSPLOST »

On Tuesday morning, as metro Atlanta voters hurled an $8 million sales tax campaign into the trash, Gov. Nathan Deal held what aides called his first session with top transportation officials to discuss Plan B.

What voters dismissed was a bottom-up list of $8 billion in road and rail projects created by local elected leaders. (Read the main AJC piece on the TSPLOST vote here.)
The Plan B that staggered out of the governor’s office will be its polar opposite: Dramatically smaller, paid for with shrinking funds, and highly centralized. Projects will be hand-picked by a governor who intends to squeeze every penny available.

And no matter what others might say today, don’t look for a sequel to the TSPLOST referendum. A second vote has no place in the governor’s Plan B.

Instead, Chris Riley, the governor’s chief of staff, said traffic planners in regions across the state will be quickly asked to resubmit lists of road and rail proposals that require state and federal …

Continue reading Nathan Deal’s Plan B: Governor intends to step into transportation vacuum »

You probably have your own list, but here’s what I’ll be watching tonight as the votes roll in:

– Even if the TSPLOST doesn’t pass in metro Atlanta, will it pass within the city limits? An in-city victory would serve as a measure of Mayor Kasim Reed’s strength one year before a re-election bid. Don’t look for Reed to be in a good mood should the referendum fail, but win or lose, there’s one side benefit to this campaign for the mayor: The business community is sorely obligated to him.

– Will TSPLOST supporters wait until 7 p.m. before assigning blame for the campaign?

– What price will Tim Lee, chairman of the Cobb County Commission, pay for being part of the creative force behind the TSPLOST vote? Outright defeat will have Republican suburban politicians thinking twice before they play nice with Atlanta again.

– Will the question on casino gaming on the GOP ballot receive enough support to cause state Capitol figures to rethink their opposition?

– In the new 9th …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: A checklist for tonight’s vote »

Maybe the following doesn’t mean anything. But at minimum, as they say in politics, the “optics” are poor.

This morning at the state Capitol, the Untie Atlanta campaign handed out flyers inviting one and all to watch-the-vote party on Tuesday night at the Marriott Marquis – starting before the polls close at 5 p.m. The event is being coordinated by the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

But we just received notice that Fast Track Forward, “the diverse 90-member-plus transit coalition,” will host its own election night watch party at the RiRa Irish Pub at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

One might deduce that one wing of the metro TSPLOST effort doesn’t want to party down with the other.

Fast Track Forward is a campaign of the Livable Communities Coalition. Via an asterisk – a sign that someone is aware of how this might look — it’s noted that LCC Director Jim Stokes will put in an early appearance at the Marquis party.

- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider

For instant updates, follow me …

Continue reading TSPLOST supporters will party separately on Tuesday »

Only a third of early metro Atlanta voters supported the transportation sales tax, according to the firm that conducted a general poll for Channel 2 Action News last week.

Rosetta Stone Communications, a GOP-oriented political service firm, last night polled 656 randomly selected early voters in the 10-county TSPLOST district. Support was measured at 32 percent.

As of last Thursday, 123,870 early votes had been cast – we should have updated numbers that include Friday’s ballots by sometime this morning.

Last week, Kevin Ross and Paul Benacke, Strategists for the Untie Atlanta campaign said that, while discouraging, recent polls don’t measure the new voters their campaign has driven to the polls. Wrote the pair:

The campaign sampled 5,991 out of the 33,551 absentee voters and we are winning 57 percent to 43 percent; furthermore, the campaign sampled 5,681 out of the 71,298 early voters and we are winning 53 percent to 47 percent.

The Rosetta Stone findings would appear to …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: One-third of early voters supported TSPLOST, says poll »