Today’s newsletter highlights:
- The Gold Dome is sparkling again.
- State officials push for 911 system overhaul.
- U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff grills the postmaster general.
Call it the revenge of Donald Trump’s Georgia loyalists.
The president-elect’s late Thursday announcement that he would nominate former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to serve as ambassador to China made him the third Georgia Republican defeated during the 2020 campaign named to a key post in Trump’s incoming administration.
Trump on Wednesday tapped Perdue’s ex-colleague, former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, to serve as the head of the Small Business Administration. And he earlier said he would nominate former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins for secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department.
All three waged campaigns for Senate in 2020 — Loeffler and Perdue both ran for reelection, while Collins challenged Loeffler in a special election. All three were defeated.
While Trump had been expected to elevate Collins and Loeffler to key roles, the Perdue nomination caught many Georgia insiders off guard. He had mostly retreated from public life after back-to-back defeats to Jon Ossoff in 2021 and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022.
But Perdue began tiptoeing back into Georgia’s political scene earlier this year as Trump campaigned to recapture the state. He stumped at rallies around the state, booked speaking gigs at county GOP meetings and helped raise money for local candidates.
At those events, Perdue highlighted his ties to Trump, who arguably did more to support Perdue than any other candidate in the 2022 cycle. At a Rome rally, he spoke admiringly of how Trump “laid out the agenda like a business guy would, like an outsider would.”
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
We noted yesterday that Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia will be in the strange position of voting on not one but two of his former rivals for Cabinet-level posts. Warnock bested both Collins and Loeffler in that 2020 campaign.
With Perdue’s pending appointment, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff will also now get the chance to vote on his former opponent’s confirmation.
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Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
GOOD MORNING! Georgia’s legislative session starts in 38 days. After the Bulldogs play in the SEC championship game on Saturday in Atlanta, many lawmakers will travel to Athens on Sunday for the Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators. It’s both an orientation for new lawmakers and a forum for veterans to discuss policy before the session starts.
The biennial kicks off on Sunday and ends Tuesday. We’ll have coverage for you here and at AJC.com
Here are four things to know for today:
- Count U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., among those critical of the federal government’s plan to loan electric automaker Rivian $6 billion to build a Georgia factory, Drew Kann reports.
- President-elect Donald Trump is still shaking up Georgia politics a month after the election, Greg Bluestein writes.
- A Fulton County judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to force the county to hire Republican poll workers, writes David Wickert.
- More Georgia women are traveling out of state for abortions, reports Samantha Hogan and Maya T. Prabhu.
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Credit: Adam Beam/AJC
Credit: Adam Beam/AJC
SHINING BRIGHT. The Gold Dome is back.
One of the most distinctive features of Atlanta’s skyline has been obscured by scaffolding for much of the year as artisans painstakingly applied gold leaf by hand to the state’s glittering symbol of government.
“It’s a very tedious process,” said Gerald Pilgrim, chief of staff for the Georgia Building Authority.
Georgia’s Capitol dome was first gilded in the 1950s. It took seven pounds of gold to complete the project the first time. Now, with advancements in technology, the gold is so thin — less than tissue paper — that it took just 40 ounces for the regilding. In fact, Pilgrim said it cost more to build the scaffolding, about $1 million, than it did to buy the gold, about $100,000.
The project is part of an $85 million Capitol renovation state lawmakers approved earlier this year. It includes construction of a 350,000 square foot building next door to the Capitol for legislative offices. And, starting next year, workers will renovate the interior of the legislative chambers. That work is scheduled to start in April and finish by December.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
WHERE ARE YOU? Aleisha Rucker-Wright, Georgia’s deputy state 911 director, says she’s often asked a surprising question: “Why can Domino’s and Uber find me, but 911 still struggles?”
The answer, she says, is Georgia’s outdated 911 system, which was installed in the 1960s and has had very few updates. Back then, 911 calls came from landline phones. Today, 80% of calls come from wireless devices. Some calls don’t even come from phones at all (your smart watch can probably do it).
“Companies such as Domino’s and Uber have invested in building the infrastructure to be able to receive the location that your phone is capable of providing,” Rucker-Wright told lawmakers during a hearing this week.
She wants Georgia to do the same. The Georgia Emergency Communication Authority wants to build a statewide internet network solely focused on routing 911 calls. The system, dubbed Next Generation 911, would help operators more easily locate where calls are coming from in an emergency, among other benefits.
Doing so will be expensive, and the cost likely won’t be spread evenly throughout the state. Some 911 call centers are more advanced than others and would require more upgrades. It’s something lawmakers will likely consider in the upcoming legislative session.
“Obviously, cost is something that we always have to be mindful of,” said Republican state Rep. Clint Crowe, chair of the House Study Committee on Disaster Mitigation and Resilience. “That’s going to lead a lot of conversations that we have around this building.”
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Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
RURAL REPRESENTATIVE. Jaclyn Ford’s first job was walking behind the harvester on her parents’ South Georgia farm to pick up stray tobacco leaves.
In January, she’ll start her newest job: Georgia state representative.
A Republican, Ford is one of 22 new state lawmakers who will take office in January. She grew up around politics, with her father being elected to the school board. He served with Penny Houston, who was later elected to the state House of Representatives and stayed for 26 years.
Houston didn’t run for reelection this year, and it’s Ford who will replace her. She won the Republican primary with more than 80% of the vote and did not have an opponent in the general election.
“I’ve helped a lot of people with their campaigns, and people started asking me if I would run,” she said. “They thought I could do it, which made me think that I could do it, so I did. it.”
Ford has extensive experience with agriculture, lobbying for the Georgia Farm Bureau and serving on the Georgia Farm Service Agency State Committee.
“I just really enjoyed being involved in the process,” she said.
She’s still involved in her family farm, which includes growing cotton and peanuts. They lost a lot of their crop during this year’s storms, which also damaged some of their property. In the Legislature, Ford said she wants to “listen and learn” during her first year while representing rural Georgia.
“Sometimes living outside of the metro area you feel like you’re less important,” she said. “I just want to make sure that my district and my people here are represented.”
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Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
LISTEN UP. Today on “Politically Georgia,” U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons Island, joins the show to talk about federal funding for Hurricane Helene recovery and the looming government shutdown deadline. Then, the AJC’s Tamar Hallerman gives an update on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her pending election interference case against Trump.
Be sure to download the AJC’s Politically Georgia podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are uploaded by noon each day, just in time to have lunch with us. You can also listen live at 10 a.m. EDT on 90.1 FM WABE. Have a question for the show? Give us a call at 770-810-5297.
On Thursday’s show, Georgia state Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, discussed developments in the electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian’s effort to build a factory in Georgia.
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Credit: AP
Credit: AP
TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden will speak at a White House event honoring veterans on the eve of the anniversary of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
- The U.S. House has one vote this morning before members depart for the weekend.
- The U.S. Senate is finished for the week.
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Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP
Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP
HOT SEAT. It’s safe to say U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy won’t be getting many holiday cards from Congress this year.
The leader of the U.S. Postal Service has been the target of lawmakers’ ire for the agency’s delivery problems and financial woes. On Thursday, it was Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s turn.
“Would you say that your tenure has been a success?” Ossoff asked DeJoy during a hearing of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“I know how you feel about me,” DeJoy responded. “You’ve been quite public, OK? So I’m not going to debate that you think I’m a failure. Fine. I don’t.”
Ossoff was upset that 75% of mail in North Georgia was delivered on time, the result of problems at a new consolidated delivery facility in Palmetto. That’s better than the 36% rate this spring, but still lower than before DeJoy launched his “Delivering for America” strategy in 2021, a 10-year plan that aims to improve the agency.
“The mail being delivered on time 75% of the time is not where we need to be,” Ossoff said.
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Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
SHOUTOUTS. Transitions:
- Rob Oldham will be a congressional fellow in U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s Washington office before taking a job as a political science professor in August at Agnes Scott College in Decatur.
Kudos:
- Glynn County Commissioner David Sweat has written a book, “Brunswick’s Golden Era of Minor League Baseball,” which looks at post World War II baseball and other history in the Golden Isles of Georgia.
Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that! Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.
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AS ALWAYS, send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.
