Long before one more late-night deadline approached on Tuesday, Oglethorpe Power announced that the drop-dead hour for reaching an agreement on the continued construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in east Georgia had been extended to 5 p.m. today. From the press release:
All four of the Vogtle Co-Owners (Georgia Power, MEAG Power, Dalton Utilities and Oglethorpe Power) have agreed to extend Tuesday’s 11:30 p.m. (EDT) voting deadline to Wednesday at 5 p.m. (EDT) in order to finalize details of an agreement among the co-owners and seek necessary approvals.
Oglethorpe, the only hold-out, has demanded a cost cap on a project – the only one of its kind in the United States -- that has ballooned past $30 billion and is several years behind schedule.
It has been an odd, weeklong campaign, conducted against and by private companies. Georgia Power, perhaps the most politically connected corporation in the state, has provided much of the oomph in favor of slogging on. JEA, a utility entity owned by the city of Jacksonville, Fla., has bankrolled the opposition. JEA has a power-purchase contract with MEAG that requires it to shoulder some of the costs of Vogtle, and wants out.
If nothing else, the fight over the nuclear reactors has seen a rare display of union clout in Georgia. Thousands of union jobs on the site have quieted objections from statewide Democratic candidates. On Monday, an email from Charlie Flemming, president of the Georgia AFL-CIO, urged members to flood Oglethorpe Power with calls. He even provided a script:
Hi, my name is _________________ and I'm a concerned citizen. Plant Vogtle provides Georgians with over 7,000 jobs. Please protect these jobs by honoring the terms of the Plant Vogtle contract. Please vote to complete the project.
Note that there was no mention of cost caps.
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Richard Cordray, the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, was in Atlanta on Tuesday for a fundraiser, held at former U.S. senator Max Cleland's digs.
Keith Mason, who back in the day was Gov. Zell Miller’s chief of staff, called as he left the event. Lauren Groh-Wargo, campaign manager for Stacey Abrams, is an Ohio extract and was present. But her gubernatorial candidate wasn’t. Abrams was out-of-state, in fundraising mode.
Which sent Mason expounding on how Donald Trump and his polarizing effect has changed the rules of Georgia politics. In olden times, a Democrat couldn’t be caught in the company of New York mayors or billionaires. Today, no one blinks, Mason said.
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Which isn't to say attempts at labeling have been abandoned. Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor, has called rival Stacey Abrams an "extremist," a "radical" and a "leftist." He's now emphasizing a new label: "Socialist."
From a Columbus Ledger-Enquirer report on a Kemp address to supporters this week, quoting the candidate:
“Literally the socialists — the socialists, believe it or not, from California — billionaires, are throwing millions and millions of dollars to my opponent. Thankfully, they don’t vote here. But you all do.”
We will begin looking for that rarest of bumper stickers: “Socialist billionaires for Abrams.”
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Lucy McBath, the Democrat challenging Republican incumbent Karen Handel in the Sixth District congressional contest, is primed to receive even more help from a deep-pocketed gun control group.
Everytown for Gun Safety plans to drop $5 million worth of digital ads in 15 House races this fall, including in the Sixth, according to Politico. The Michael Bloomberg-funded group, for which McBath once worked, spent $1.2 million ahead of the Democratic runoff to help McBath secure her party's nomination.
McBath got a shoutout from Bloomberg when the two attended an EMILY's List luncheon in New York on Monday -- along with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. (See the above item on flagrant New York trips.)
The billionaire's presence there was not without controversy. Bloomberg recently got in hot water for a flip comment about sexual assault allegations against TV host Charlie Rose.
Handel and one of McBath's primary opponents have attacked McBath's reliance on Everytown's independent spending, even as she herself has denounced anonymous spending in politics. McBath has deflected those attacks by talking about Everytown's gun control work.
“We have to consider what these organizations are. They’re organizations that do very good work in the community around the country,” McBath said about Everytown’s spending in June. “It is not dark money.”
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U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Atlanta, helped celebrate National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday by signing onto a new effort urging Congress to restore cancelled portions of the Voting Rights Act. The Atlanta lawmaker stood alongside a handful of Democratic colleagues at a Capitol Hill news conference pushing for lawmakers to pass a resolution that would automatically register 18-year-olds to vote, encourage public schools to educate students about voter suppression and designate September as National Voting Rights Month.
GOP leaders are unlikely to grant Lewis’ request, especially ahead of the midterms.
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A pet project of U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, is heading to President Donald Trump's desk. The House last night cleared the Republican's Music Modernization Act, which seeks to modernize the way online streaming sites such as Spotify pay royalties to songwriters. We wrote about the measure in more detail back in April. You can find the details here.
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