Happy Birthday Uncle Carl!

Today marks the 126th Birthday of Milledgeville's most famous son: Congressman Carl Vinson.
We're working on something for the Saturday paper about the man, but I thought I would put up a post on the day so we can all be thinking about him.

FY2010 is just the beginning

Insider Advantage has a doosie of story out this morning culled from recent interviews with state economic thinkers.
Despite the national news that General Motors may be bundling up for that snowball in hell and returning to the land of profitability, state and local governments can keep their shorts on.
"If you think things are bad now for cash-strapped state and local governments, just hang on. It’s going to get worse."
But don't worry, there's something for everyone.
Communities already angered by the fact that their recent property tax revaluations weren't invalidated by '09 legislation to cap rising tax assessments will have more to protest about as it is predicted that the state's next sales ratio study, which determines whether counties are charging too much or too little in property taxes as determined by recent property sales figures, will finally reflect the reality homeowners--and more appropriately homes sellers--are seeing on the ground.

“As property sells (and a true, market-place value is determined) and the state auditor picks that up, we anticipate a rather significant drop in the digest, which means you either have to increase taxes or you have to cut additional programs,” said Jerry Griffin, veteran executive director of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

The story also mentions the growing movement to have sales tax revenues accounted for locally and not by the State Revenue Department.
Oh, and dig this mid-session missive:

But what about all of those tax exemptions the state has offered various entities over the years? Georgia State University once estimated that there are about $10 billion a year worth of exemptions on the books.
[Jerry] Keen,[R-St. Simons], the House Republican leader, said lawmakers have been looking at some of those over the past few years, particularly those with sunsets upon them. The problem is, he said, only a handful are due to expire in 2010 and, therefore, require legislative renewal, and they are worth only a few million dollars collectively.

With all this going on, why would anyone be vying for a seat under the Gold Dome this year--and next year for that matter.

And Now We Are Back To Zero

The Special Election Recount for the 141st state House District is in and that is the only new thing to report there.
Baldwin County Election Superintendent Todd Blackwell and Putnam County Assistant Supervisor of Elections Johnnie Penn re-confirmed their election night numbers following today's requested recount.
You can see the Secretary of State's numbers here.
I haven't called Atlanta to confirm that the numbers on the site reflect the recount, but the numbers they have are the same as those read to me by both elections officials earlier this afternoon.
"We anticipated the recount would come back with the same numbers," Blackwell said. "We felt good about the numbers we had from election night."
So the runoff stands between independent candidate E. Culver "Rusty" Kidd and Democrat Darrell Black.
Blackwell said his office is ready to get right back into the action for the beginning of early voting on Monday, November 23. The polls will close Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving Holiday. And polls will reopen for Election Day on Tuesday, December 1.

Other Thoughts on Runoffs

To keep y'all thinking about the political battles that have yet to be waged, I'll connect you to this missive from the AJC's Jim Tharpe about the history of runoff elections here in the Empire State (of the South) and other regional neighbors.

"Democrats altered runoff requirements in the early 1990s after Democrat Wyche Fowler lost a U.S. Senate race to Paul Coverdell. Fowler got more votes than Coverdell in the 1992 general election, but neither candidate broke 50 percent. In the runoff, Coverdell beat Fowler, which infuriated Democrats, who controlled the state Legislature.

They changed the law so that a candidate only had to win 45 percent of the vote in a general election to avoid a runoff.

Republicans, however, changed the rule back to a majority vote in 2005 after they gained control of the Legislature. The GOP was still smarting over a 1996 U.S. Senate race in which Democrat Max Cleland narrowly defeated Republican Guy Millner.

That change, in turn, came back to haunt Republicans last year when Chambliss got more votes than Democrat Jim Martin and Libertarian Allen Buckley in the general election, but was forced into a grueling runoff because Chambliss did not get a majority."

Personally, I think there will be some thinking about the runoff system in halls that are more grandiose than this as the economic situation continues to play itself out.
As the above paragraph confides, the runoff system is mos def subject to the capricious whims of the electorate and those who represent it.

Recount in the Works

I got a call sometime during my brief absence saying that a recount has been requested for the state House special election.
Secretary of State's Office Spokesman Matt Carruthers confirmed that Angie Gheesling-McCommon has requested a recount of November 3 vote in which she trailed Democratic candidate and second-place finisher Darrell Black by a 16-vote margin.
Carruthers told The Union-Recorder that the recount will be carried out in Baldwin and Putnam counties at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 12.

Obligatory National News Update

Not that you should be looking here for any future stories on this subject, but House Democrats passed their "Affordable Health Care for America Act" last night.
One Republican voted for the bill, and 39 Democrats didn't.
Any guesses on the two Middle Georgia Dems who broke with their party and voted against the bill?
The Washington Post has an interesting info graphic on how each member of the House voted, how much money they get from health-care interests and the percentage of their constituents who are without health insurance.
21 percent of residents in both the eighth and twelfth districts are without health insurance.

Elections Certified

Sorry to be absent.
Caught a wicked flu-like ailment following citywide flesh pressing on election day. They always said politics is dirty business.
But despite my being out of action, I've been thinking about the political action that happened one capital removed, Tuesday.
I just got off the phone with Elections Superintendent Todd Blackwell, who told me that all Tuesday night numbers remain more or less accurate.
Only two provisional ballots cut the mustard, and neither of them were in the second municipal district where Georgia Military College Board of Trustees candidates Randy New and Charles Jordan will compete in an unheard of repeat, two-man runoff election.
"I've been involved in some close elections where the race is decided by one or two votes , but I've never seen one that resulted in a tie," Blackwell said.
There was only one overseas absentee ballot out there and that elector either did not participate or did not return their ballot in time.
Your state House special election runoff will stand between E. Culver "Rusty" Kidd and Darrell Black.
Expect that race to really pick up the pace now that it's down to Rusty and the Dems.