One of the most mind-boggling things about economic development authorities in Georgia is just how many of them there are.
Author Archives: Tom Baxter
Tom Baxter has written about politics and the South for more than four decades. He was national editor and chief political correspondent at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and later edited The Southern Political Report, an online publication, for four years. Tom was the consultant for the 2008 election night coverage sponsored jointly by Current TV, Digg and Twitter, and a 2011 fellow at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. He has written about the impact of Georgia’s and Alabama's immigration laws in reports for the Center for American Progress. Tom and his wife, Lili, have three adult children and seven grandchildren.
Posted inColumns
A far-away conflict reaches the streets of Atlanta and the Georgia campaign trail
It might seem over the top to talk about what effect the war in Ukraine might have on the political fortunes of Brian Kemp, Stacey Abrams, David Perdue, and dozens of candidates whose names will appear down the ballot from them later this year. But there are rare moments when the wheels that move things globally and locally come into alignment.
Posted inUncategorized
As housing prices soar, lawmakers debate the rights of private equity
Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul told a story last week which helps to explain why home prices are through the roof across Metro Atlanta and much of the rest of the state.
Posted inColumns
Historians of the future should find legislator’s letter a useful source
What with all the current efforts to tell teachers what they can’t teach and students what they can’t read, some may wonder what exactly the schools of tomorrow should be teaching. Here’s a suggestion.
Posted inColumns
‘Christian dogs’ and anti-vaxers have a bill they can love
At a time when one of the hottest controversies in American politics has to do with vaccinations, House Bill 1000 takes the subject into new territory.
Posted inColumns
How to make a book a best seller: Ban it
Last week, after the McMinn County school board in Tennessee voted unanimously to remove Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” a Knoxville comic-book store announced that it would give a copy of the book to every student who asked for one. This is exactly what happens when you go banning books.
Posted inColumns
First in quitting, second in firing, Georgia economy weathers the pandemic pretty well
Given what we’ve been through in the pandemic, Georgia’s financial condition isn’t so bad. In fact by some measures, we’re better off than we were.
Posted inColumns
Not all the bills in the legislature are primed to the election year, but lots are
You can always tell it’s an election year by the bills that get introduced at the beginning of the General Assembly session. Both Republicans and Democrats have introduced “red meat” bills designed to stir up their respective bases, including the Republican bill banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, the governor’s constitutional carry bill and the Democratic bill requiring training to own a firearm.
Posted inColumns
As Biden takes the bully pulpit in Georgia, a new wave of voting laws appears under the Golden Dome
Waxing a little too metaphorical, White House senior advisor Cedric Richmond said that by giving his big speech on voting rights in Georgia, President Joe Biden was “going right to the belly of the beast.” Richmond was referring to the “voter suppression, voter subversion and obstruction” Democrats claim Republicans have committed in Georgia, but he might just as well have referred to Georgia as the belly of Democratic discontent with the administration’s progress on voting issues.
Posted inColumns
Rivian announcement heralds the dawn of the electric South
At the end of one year and the beginning of another, two big stories, the prolonged pandemic and the protracted battle over ballots, dominate the news. But the story of the decade is the one that will be taking shape on a huge site on I-20 between Social Circle and Madison.
Posted inColumns
Isakson and Cleland knew their voters, and their kids’ names
By Tom Baxter The death of former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, a little more than a month after the death of former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, brings this political year to a somber close. It’s tempting to say their passage marked the end of an era, but truthfully that era is already well behind us. […]
Posted inTom Baxter
Caught off guard before his campaign begins, Perdue launches primary bid
The last thing he wanted to do, former Sen. David Perdue told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, was run a campaign. Yet here he is.
Posted inColumns
A governor’s race like none before it takes shape, long before the vote
Considering how long the political world of Georgia has been waiting for Stacey Abrams to show her hand, she picked a curious day to announce that she’s in the 2022 governor’s race.
Posted inColumns
If it wasn’t so important, secretary of state race would be fun
By Tom Baxter If there wasn’t so much riding on it, next year’s secretary of state race would be great fun to watch. Between the two parties, the race has all kinds of storylines, with no certainty about where they all lead, except that the outcome will have a big impact on people’s confidence that […]
Posted inColumns
I’m in whose district? Congressional map leaves some voters on the other side of the line
Politics in Georgia has some jagged edges, which reveal themselves when the maps are redrawn. Some of Democratic U.S. Rep. David Scott’s voters will be represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on the congressional map approved at the close of the General Assembly’s special session Monday. Voters in increasingly blue north Fulton County will be sharing a congressional seat with voters in Dawson County.
Posted inTom Baxter
Asian-Americans, their power growing, become a puzzle piece on the redistricting map
Asian-Americans have not only been the fastest growing demographic group in Georgia over the past decade, but in terms of producing political leadership they have punched above their weight.
Posted inColumns
In flush times, politicians reared on negativity struggle to find their footing
t isn’t just the sports section that gives us cause to celebrate. State revenues are through the roof, with overall tax collections rising 30 percent in September and 23 percent in October. Revenue collections have increased by $1.36 billion over last year. That’s on top of the $4.8 billion in COVID relief funds the state has left to dole out, and a projected $11 billion from the federal infrastructure bill.
Posted inColumns
While Trump chops, his voters show signs of moving on
He came and he chopped. But on a night when the Braves were riding high, former President Donald Trump’s visit to Truist Park for the fourth game of the World Series didn’t draw that much attention.
Posted inColumns
Not that they’d like the comparison, but Newt and Stacey have a lot in common
By Tom Baxter When you think about who in recent Georgia political history Stacey Abrams can be compared to, one unexpected name rises like a giant balloon above the rest. Like Abrams, Newt Gingrich was the upstart leader of a movement bent on toppling the state’s political establishment. Like her, Gingrich gained national prominence before […]
Posted inTom Baxter
From sea to sea, extracting the politics from redistricting proves hard to do
By the time the General Assembly convenes in a couple of weeks, legislatures around the country will be fully engaged in the struggle between turf protection and political overreach that we call redistricting. What we can tell from what’s been going on elsewhere is that even when states change the rules to depoliticize the process of drawing political maps, it’s proving very hard to do.
