The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monument debate moves to Okefenokee
Lawmakers spar over handling of Confederate statues.
The debate over how to handle the state’s scores of Confederate monuments remained hot for another week while taking some wild turns.
First, it got kind of personal when state Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, wrote to former Democratic state Rep. LaDawn Jones of Atlanta — after she criticized his support for leaving Civil War monuments as they are — suggesting that if she took that kind of talk down to South Georgia, she “will go missing in the Okefenokee.”
Spencer stressed in a text message that he was not threatening her, but instead offering a “warning to her of how people can behave about this issue.”
Jones responded that she saw his remarks as a “threat of physical violence” but added that she was confident that future generations will abandon a “we are better than them” mentality.
Jones, in an interview, also talked about the friendly, if sometimes testy, relationship she has with Spencer, who sat next to her for four years in the Georgia House.
“If it were anybody other than Jason Spencer, then I would be alarmed. But we had a unique relationship in the Georgia Legislature,” Jones said. “If that had come from anybody else, I’d take it as a serious threat.”
On Saturday, our Political Insider blog reported that the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus has asked state police to launch an investigation into the issue. State Sen. Lester Jackson, the caucus chairman, said Spencer’s “behavior cannot and will not be accepted or tolerated” and urged the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to probe “the threat of physical violence” from the lawmaker. A GBI spokeswoman said the agency had not yet opened an investigation.
South Georgia isn’t the only scene where the Civil War monuments have become an issue. A New York accent joined the debate this week, and it turned on an interesting choice: Ulysses S. Grant.
Two statues in Brooklyn of the Union commander and later president, as well as his monumental tomb in Manhattan, could now be subjected to a review that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has promised.
Grant’s offense? He issued an order during the Civil War to expel Jews from three states. Isakson’s default
position: President Donald Trump has dangled the possibility of shutting down the federal government if Congress doesn’t set aside seed money in the upcoming spending bill for the border wall he promised during the campaign.
Without mentioning the wall specifically, Georgia U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson said a shutdown isn’t worth the trouble.
“I’m not interested in doing that,” he said.
Congress is about to return from its August recess, and raising the borrowing limit and funding the government — to avoid a shutdown — are two of the biggest items on its to-do list. Aid proposal would
face a battle: Republican state Sen. Michael Williams said if he is elected governor, he will eliminate the state income tax for active-duty and retired members of the military. Such a move, his campaign estimates, would cost at least $200 million.
The proposal would face steep odds in the Legislature. This past year, House and Senate leaders couldn’t agree on tax cuts, and Gov. Nathan Deal has urged candidates running for his job to resist the “temptation” of making broader changes to the tax system that cold jeopardize the state’s revenue base.
Williams’ campaign manager, Seth Weathers, said the plan’s price tag would fall between $200 million and $300 million, and that “simply freezing the budget” would help pay the cost.
But it’s not that simple. The state takes in an extra $700 million to $900 million in tax collections every year, but growing enrollment in k-12 schools and universities, the rising cost of Medicaid and the price of shoring up the state’s pension system eat up much of that increase. Lewis on his future:
U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta left no doubt about his plans at a recent event.
“Before I take questions, I want to make one thing clear,” the 77-year-old Democrat said. “I’m running for re-election in 2018.”