The Cobb voter registration deadline for most of this year’s local, state and federal elections is fast approaching.
The deadline to register to vote in most of those elections is April 24. Those elections include the May 22 primaries and any runoffs that will be held on July 24.
This is going to be a busy election season for East Cobb voters, with contested races for District 3 on the Cobb Board of Commissioners, Post 6 on the Cobb Board of Education, several legislative seats and the 6th District Congressional seat.
In addition, statewide offices, including governor, as will as state and local judicial posts, will be on 2018 ballots.
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration is also mailing out absentee ballots for those who’d rather vote that way. Voters don’t have to give a reason when applying for an absentee ballot, but they should consider applying early to allow for mailing time.
Absentee ballots must be received at the Cobb elections office by 7 p.m. on May 22.
To request a ballot, visit the Cobb Elections website and get more information by calling 770-528-2581.
In addition to absentee ballots, advance voting will once again take place. That period will run from April 30-May 18, and will include a full week of advance voting May 14-18 at the East Cobb Government Service Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road).
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Qualifying for 2018 state, federal and local races is ending on Friday, and in East Cobb a number of incumbents will have party opposition in the May 22 primary.
District 3 commissioner JoAnn Birrell
The most-watched race figures to be the District 3 seat on the Cobb Board of Commissioners. Republican incumbent JoAnn Birrell has qualified, and is being opposed in the primary by Tom Cheek, who recently moved into the Northeast Cobb district.
Cheek, a software account manager, is campaigning on a platform favoring low taxes and reduced spending to solve the Cobb government budget deficit, and opposes high-density development. He stepped into the public spotlight after filing ethics complaints against former Cobb commission chairman Tim Lee for his handling of the Atlanta Braves stadium deal.
Tom Cheek
Birrell has served as District 3 representative since 2011, when she succeeded Lee, and has been highly visible in the community. She has been active with Keep Cobb Beautiful, the Northeast Cobb Business Association and Superior Pets for Patriotic Pets. She also was a strong advocate for the creation of Mabry Park, which recently began construction.
The Democrats to qualify are retiree James Smith and Caroline Holko, a stay-at-home mother.
Congress
First-term U.S. Rep. Karen Handel is the only Republican to qualify for the Georgia 6th District seat that includes East Cobb.
Lucy McBath
Handel, elected last June to succeed Tom Price in a special election, will await the winner of a four-way Democratic primary in May. She won’t be facing Jon Ossoff, whom she beat last summer in the most expensive Congressional election in history. He has opted not to run for a seat that also includes north Fulton and north and central DeKalb.
The Democratic candidates include Bobby Kaple, a former news anchor at CBS 46, technology consultant Kevin Abel, management consultant Steven Knight Griffin and gun-control advocate Lucy McBath, a former Delta flight attendant who lives in East Cobb.
Her son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed in 2012 at a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., by another motorist in an altercation over loud music. The killer received life in prison. McBath had intended to run for the Georgia legislature but changed her filing to Congress after the deadly Feb. 14 school shootings in Parkland, Fla.
Georgia legislature
There will be a rematch of last year’s special election in State Senate District 32. Incumbent Republican Kay Kirkpatrick, a retired orthopedic surgeon, will be opposed by her 2017 opponent, Democratic attorney Christine Triebsch, in November. The district covers most of East Cobb and part of north Fulton.
State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick
In State House District 37, incumbent Sam Teasley is the only Republican to qualify. The Democratic primary will include computer consultant Bill Bolden, social worker Mary Frances Williams and sales manager Ragin Edwards.
Longtime Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper of District 43 has a Republican opponent in Kevin W. James, who owns a media production company in East Cobb. The lone Democrat to qualify is Luisa Wakeman, a flight attendant.
Don Parsons, incumbent in State House District 44, also has opposition from retiree Homer Crothers in the GOP primary. Chinita Allen, a teacher at Chalker Elementary School, has qualified as a Democrat.
State Rep. John Carson
In State House District 45, Republican incumbent Matt Dollar will not have a primary challenger. His Democratic opponent in November will be Essence Johnson, a human resources and operations manager.
Another East Cobb legislative seat also will pit a Republican incumbent against a Democratic foe in November. District 46 State Rep. John Carson has qualified and will face Karín Sandiford, a technology consultant and entrepreneur.
Cobb school board
Two of the three East Cobb members on the Cobb Board of Education are up for re-election this year. In Post 6, two-term Republican incumbent Scott Sweeney, who represents the Walton, Wheeler and part of the Campbell high school attendance zones, has qualified and has no primary opposition. His general election opponent in November will be Democrat Charisse Davis of Smyrna, a public librarian and former school teacher.
Charisse Davis
Republican David Chastain of Post 4 in Northeast Cobb has qualified to run for a second term and has not drawn any party opposition in an area that includes the Kell and Sprayberry attendance zones.
His Democratic opponent in November will be Cynthia Parr.
Judgeships
Several Cobb judicial posts will also be decided this year in non-partisan elections.
Three Cobb Superior Court posts are up for election this year, and incumbents Ann Harris, Robert Leonard and Robert Flournoy are the only qualifiers.
For Cobb State Court Judge Div. 2, Post 4 incumbent Bridgette Campell is the only candidate to qualify. The same goes for incumbent Post 3 judge Henry Thompson and Jason Fincher in Post 1. The only candidate qualifying for State Court Judge Post 5 is incumbent David Darden.
Republican incumbent Cobb Solicitor General Barry Morgan is the lone qualifier for that office, which prosecutes cases in State Court.
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After falling short in the most expensive campaign in U.S. House history last year, Democrat Jon Ossoff announced Friday he will not seek the 6th Congressional District seat in Georgia in 2018.
Ossoff, defeated by Republican Karen Handel in a special election runoff last June for the seat that includes East Cobb, said on his Twitter account this afternoon that he will not be making another challenge.
In a series of Tweets Ossoff said that “I’ve decided that this is not the moment for me to run again for Congress. But I’m not going anywhere. Your trust, energy, and support last year meant the world to me. I’m in this with all of you for the long haul.”
Ossoff said he is continuing his work as an investigative documentary filmmaker but that “I’ll be actively supporting great Democratic candidates in 2018.”
Qualifying for 2018 elections in Georgia begins March 5, with primaries scheduled for May 22 for federal, state and local races.
Ossoff, a former Congressional aide from DeKalb County, earned nationwide attention and raised nearly $30 million in his bid to succeed former U.S. Rep. Tom Price in a seat that has been in Republican hands since Newt Gingrich’s arrival in 1978.
He won a “jungle primary” last April with 48 percent of the vote, barely missing outright election in what would have been a major upset. Instead, he faced Handel, a former Georgia Secretary of State and candidate for governor and U.S. Senator, in a two-month runoff.
He used much of his campaign funding for television commercials that flooded Atlanta airwaves for months, as well as frequent mailers, phone calls and text messages and door-to-door leafletting.
In her ads, Handel, who’s from Roswell, made frequent reference to Ossoff’s residence in DeKalb County, outside the 6th District boundaries.
She got a strong showing from heavily Republican precincts in East Cobb to defeat Ossoff 51-48 for the right to fill the remainder of Price’s term. He vacated the seat after the 2016 election to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services,but was forced to resign in September after reports that he spent several hundred thousand dollars at taxpayers’ expense flying charter planes, sometimes for personal as well as government reasons.
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State Rep. John Carson, chairman of the House Study Committee on Distracted Driving, said Wednesday he is holding a press conference a week from now, on Jan. 10, to detail Georgia distracted driving legislation for the upcoming session of the legislature.
Carson, a Republican from Northeast Cobb, will also discuss the committee’s final report, which was issued in December and includes legislative recommendations (full report is here).
On Tuesday, the City of Smyrna became the first municipality in the state to pass a hands-free driving ordinance (report here via the Cobb County Courier), but only after Mayor Max Bacon voted to break a tie on the city council.
A poll cited by Carson’s study committee found that two-thirds of Georgians favor a hands-free driving law in Georgia (66.4 percent), with nearly 22 percent undecided.
“I’m encouraged to see that the majority of Georgia voters are supportive of a hands-free driving law in our state,” Carson said in a statement in December. “Last year alone, over 1,500 people died in automobile accidents on Georgia roads, and according to a recent poll, over 82 percent of Georgia voters believe that texting while driving is a major contributing factor to the increased number of auto accidents. Distracted diving is an extremely serious public safety concern, and it is absolutely essential that this issue is addressed in the 2018 General Assembly session to prevent further distracted driving-related car crashes and fatalities.”
The poll was conducted by in October by Landmark Communications, Inc. of Alpharetta, and surveyed 700 randomly selected active Georgia voters.
The study committee also is recommending an increase in the current $150 fine for distract driving on a staggering scale, up to $1,000 for serious, repeat offenders, and to boost the driver’s license penalty by 2 to 4 points on a staggering scale, from the current 1-point penalty for a distracted driving offense.
The committee recommended against a total ban on use of mobile devices in vehicles, saying it’s not realistic. No other state has such a law.
Carson’s study committee found that 13 of the 15 states with hands-free laws have seen an average decrease of 17.5 percent in traffic fatalities two years after passing and enforcing those laws.
The panel also noted that Georgia’s anti-texting law, which went into effect in 2010, has been difficult to enforce because law enforcement officers are unable to determine whether motorists are using their phones to text or for other purposes.
The 2018 legislative session begins on Monday. Carson’s press conference is Wednesday, Jan. 10, at 2 p.m on the second floor of the rotunda of the Georgia State Capitol, 206 Washington St. SW, Atlanta.
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U.S. Rep. Karen Handel (R-Roswell), who represents East Cobb in the 6th Congressional District of Georgia, was among those lawmakers voting for major tax legislation on Tuesday.
Georgia’s two Republican senators, Johnny Isakson of East Cobb and David Perdue of Macon, voted with the majority in a 51-48 passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act early Wednesday morning.
The $1.5 trillion measure was sent back to the House this morning for a revote because of minor provisions ruled to have violated Senate rules, but passage is expected a second time. The House vote on Tuesday was 227-203, and as in the Senate, went mainly along party lines.
Democrats decried the bill as tax cuts for the wealthy and for major corporate interests that would significantly add to the national debt. Republicans hailed the first major overhaul of the tax code in nearly 30 years as beneficial for job creation and the middle class.
The bill calls for a wide variety of tax cuts for individuals and businesses and eliminates tax deductions in a number of categories. Individual taxpayers will see the doubling of their standard deductions and the doubling of the child tax credit, while general corporate tax rates will be reduced across the board.
On the Senate floor, Isakson said that:
“When you take a risk, at the end of that rainbow is a reward. And in the case of risking lower taxes, the greater reward is more jobs, more opportunity, and a better America for our children and our grandchildren.”
“This is an historic achievement. These changes to the tax code mean greater job opportunities, more capital at work in our economy, and more money back in the pockets of middle-class American families.”
Handel, who was elected in June to succeed Tom Price, issued the following statement after one of her first major votes as a member of Congress:
“This is a historic moment. The provisions of this tax cut bill will be transformative for hardworking American families and American companies, especially our small businesses.
“More than half of Americans currently live paycheck to paycheck. In the end, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is about letting hardworking Americans keep more of their money. The typical American family of four earning the median family income of $73,000 will see a tax cut of $2,059.”
This bill, which is the result of compromise negotiations between the House and Senate, lowers federal income tax rates for all low and middle-income Americans. It also nearly doubles the standard deduction, increases the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child, retains deductibility of up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes, and preserves $750,000 in mortgage interest deduction benefits.
Additionally, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowers the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% – helping put U.S. companies on par with the global averages and their international competitors. America’s current corporate rate is far and away the highest in the industrialized world, as these other nations place – on average – a roughly 22% rate on their corporations.
Most of America’s small businesses will have their rates slashed from the current 40% down to 25%. And each of these entities will be able to fully and immediately deduct investments in equipment and other resources.
“This bill also benefits America’s main street businesses – those small businesses that are the backbone of our economy and job creation. By lowering the small business tax rates, these companies can do what they do best – innovate and grow.”
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Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb won a special election runoff in June to succeed State Sen. Judson Hill. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
Atlanta attorney Jen Jordan won a Georgia State Senate runoff special election Tuesday that includes a portion of Cobb County. Her election also wound up a successful year of political campaigns in metro Atlanta and Georgia by female candidates.
In an all-Democratic race, Jordan easily defeated Jaha Howard, a Vinings dentist, to claim the Georgia State Senate District 6 seat vacated by Republican Hunter Hill, who is running for Georgia governor. Jordan received 10,681 votes, or 64 percent, to 6,017 votes for Howard, or 36 percent (full results here).
The district includes south Cobb, the Terrell Mill precinct in the Powers Ferry area and part of the city of Atlanta. Howard won the Cobb portion by a 60-40 margin, but Jordan, a self-described progressive, won her home base in Fulton by a 74-26 percent margin.
She was endorsed by former Cobb state representative Stacey Evans, who also is running for governor.
Tuesday also saw the second female elected mayor of Atlanta, as city council member Keisha Lance Bottoms edged fellow council member Mary Norwood in a hotly-contested runoff. Norwood, who was supported by Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s first female mayor, has asked for a a recount.
Felicia Moore was elected president of the Atlanta City Council on Tuesday, and Roswell’s new mayor is Lori Henry, who succeeds longtime mayor Jere Wood.
Smyrna elected its first black member of the city council, Maryline Blackburn, and Cheryl Richardson won a seat on the Marietta City Council.
In conservative East Cobb, Republican women also won special elections this summer. Kay Kirkpatrick, a retired surgeon at Resurgens Orthopedics and a longtime civic leader with the East Cobb Rotary Club, won a special election to succeed State Sen. Judson Hill in District 32.
He resigned to run for the 6th District Congressional seat won by former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel. She downed heavily-financed Democratic novice Jon Ossoff in a race watched around the nation.
U.S. Rep. Karen Handel got strong support in East Cobb in her bid to succeed Tom Price.
Handel earned some of her biggest margins in East Cobb, where she was strongly supported by Cobb commissioners Bob Ott and JoAnn Birrell.
Birrell, who represents District 3 in Northeast Cobb, is up for re-election next year, and has already drawn Republican primary opposition from Tom Cheek, who sued Cobb County and filed an ethics complaint against former commission chairman Tim Lee over the Atlanta Braves stadium vote.
Handel and Kirkpatrick also have to run for re-election in 2018, as does East Cobb Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper, a longtime member of the state house. All seats in the legislature will be on the ballot, as well as governor and other statewide offices.
Two East Cobb posts on the Cobb Board of Education will also be up for election in 2018. They are currently held by Republicans Scott Sweeney of Post 6 (Walton and Wheeler high school districts) and David Chastain of Post 4, which includes the Kell and Sprayberry districts.
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A handful of East Cobb voters are eligible to cast a ballot in next Tuesday’s Georgia State Senate special election runoff. Early voting continues through this week for the District 6 race between Democrats Jaha Howard and Jon Jordan.
The voting location through Friday for this race is the Cobb Elections main office, 736 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. The hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
District 6 covers some of Cobb, Buckhead and Sandy Springs, and includes a portion of the Powers Ferry Road corridor in East Cobb. The seat was vacated by Republican Hunter Hill, who is running for Georgia governor.
There is no early voting on Monday. On Tuesday, District 6 voters in the Terrell Mill 1 precinct will be able to vote at Eastvalley Elementary School, 2570 Lower Roswell Road.
In the Nov. 7 jungle primary, Jordan, an Atlanta attorney, got 5,860 votes, or 24 percent. Howard, a Vinings dentist, got 5,398 votes, or 22 percent.
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A Georgia State Senate seat that includes a small part of East Cobb is heading for a runoff, and two Democrats remain.
Jen Jordan, an Atlanta attorney, got 5,860 votes, or 24 percent, in the special election “jungle” primary in District 6. In the Dec. 5 runoff, she will face Jaha Howard, a Vinings dentist, who got 5,398 votes, or 22 percent.
Their all-Democratic runoff means the Republicans will lose a seat in the Senate. Incumbent Hunter Hill resigned from the long-held GOP seat, which covers some of Cobb, Buckhead and Sandy Springs, to run for governor.
The East Cobb portion of the district includes an area along Powers Ferry Road. In voting in that precinct, Terrell Mill 1 (Eastvalley Elementary School), Howard got 55 votes (52 percent) to 36 for Jordan (34 percent).
There were municipal elections Tuesday in Austell, Kennesaw, Marietta, Powder Springs and Smyrna, and a few of those races will have runoffs.
Those Dec. 5 runoffs will wind down a busy and dramatic election year that featured the nationally-watched 6th Congressional District special election won by Republican Karen Handel over Democrat Jon Ossoff.
East Cobb voters also elected a new state senator in Kay Kirkpatrick, a Republican and retired orthopedic surgeon, who succeeds Judson Hill. He ran for Congress and is contemplating a bid for Georgia Insurance Commissioner in 2018.
That will be one of many elections on the ballot next year, as statewide and legislative offices will be decided, in addition to Congressional seats and some state and local judgeships.
There will be a contested election for the District 3 Cobb Board of Commissioners seat in Northeast Cobb held by JoAnn Birrell. Tom Cheek, a civic activist who filed a lawsuit last year against Cobb County and filed an ethics complaint against former Chairman Tim Lee over the Atlanta Braves stadium vote, has announced his intention to run in the Republican primary.
Two East Cobb posts on the Cobb Board of Education will also be on the ballot. They are currently held by Republicans Scott Sweeney of Post 6 (Walton and Wheeler high school districts) and David Chastain of Post 4, which includes the Kell and Sprayberry districts.
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Because of Tuesday’s elections, Cobb schools will be closed for classroom and other extracurricular events.
The Cobb County School District calls this a “student holiday,” and it will also be a professional learning day for teachers and staff.
Municipal elections are taking place across Georgia, including Marietta (whose schools will be open) and other Cobb cities.
There also is a special election being decided on Tuesday to fill a Georgia State Senate seat that includes a small portion of East Cobb. Here is a sample ballot for that race, which includes five Republicans and three Democrats.
A portion of the Powers Ferry Road corridor, below Terrell Mill Road, is located in the State Senate 6 district. That seat has been vacated by Hunter Hill, who is running for Georgia governor.
The candidates are Republicans Leah Aldridge, Matt Bentley, Kathy Eichenblatt, Charlie Fiveash and Leo Smith and Democrats Jaha Howard, Jen Jordan and Taos Wynn.
The district (map) includes most of Smyrna and the Cumberland area of Cobb and portions of Buckhead and Sandy Springs.
East Cobb’s Eastvalley Elementary School (2570 Lower Roswell Road), will serve as a polling station in the Terrell Mill 1 precinct for the state senate race. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Turnout is expected to be light.
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Several municipalities and a special election to fill a vacant Georgia State Senate seat are on the Cobb 2017 elections ballot. The deadline to register is next Tuesday, Oct. 10 for the Nov. 7 elections.
The elections include the Ward 7 race in the City of Marietta, which contains a sliver of East Cobb. A portion of the Powers Ferry Road corridor, below Terrell Mill Road, is located in the State Senate 6 district. That seat has been vacated by Hunter Hill, who is running for Georgia governor.
East Cobb also contains some of Marietta’s Ward 6, but that election was cancelled because only one candidate, current council member Michelle Cooper Kelly, qualified to run. Here’s the full notice of cancellation, including East Cobb-area precincts that will not be open on Nov. 7.
Here’s a list of qualified candidates in running in Marietta municipal elections.
Voters already registered and who live in those areas don’t have to do anything. Those wishing to sign up who haven’t done so can complete the process by clicking the Georgia Secretary of State’s website.
Other Cobb cities with elections include Austell, Kennesaw, Powder Springs and Smyrna.
There are no Cobb, state or federal elections this year for East Cobb voters, aside from the special state senate election.
Official U.S. Health and Human Services Department portrait of Tom Price.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned on Friday afternoon following reports that he spent several hundred thousand dollars at taxpayers’ expense flying charter planes, sometimes for personal as well as government business.
Price is a Roswell Republican who represented East Cobb in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2006 until his appointment in February by President Donald Trump.
He is the first Trump cabinet member to step down from his position, although the administration has been unsettled by several firings and resignations within high levels of the White House staff.
Price served less than eight months in that role. He was succeeded in Congress by Karen Handel, who won a June special election against Democrat Jon Ossoff in what’s been regarded the most expensive U.S. House race in history.
Last week Politicofirst reported about Price’s plane travel, leading off with a government-funded trip to St. Simons Island, on the Georgia coast, for a medical conference. In all, Politico reported, Price took at least 26 trips on charter aircraft, which are far more expensive than commercial planes.
On Thursday Price said he would partially reimburse the federal government for his plane usage, which included military aircraft, reportedly after Trump expressed displeasure with the news.
Price, who also served in the Georgia State Senate, was an orthopedic physician before his political career in Washington.
A former House Budget Committee chairman, Price was the lead administration official in charge of White House efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and which has run into Republican opposition in the Senate.
Newly elected Congresswoman Karen Handel (R-Roswell) is holding her first town hall meeting tonight, but it’s in teleconference format and is restricted only to 6th Congressional District constituents.
Earlier this month, Handel spoke on federal and Congressional issues at Cobb commissioner Bob Ott’s town hall meeting at the East Cobb Library (East Cobb News coverage here).
U.S. Rep. Karen Handel called the Charlottesville violence an “evil, evil attack” but didn’t mention President Trump at an East Cobb town hall meeting last week. (East Cobb News photo by Wendy Parker)
Newly elected Georgia Congresswoman Karen Handel got the biggest applause—a standing ovation from some in the audience—at Cobb commissioner Bob Ott’s town hall meeting last Thursday at the East Cobb Library.
Handel, a Roswell Republican who defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in a June 20 runoff, said she’s made several trips to East Cobb, which gave her strong margins in the most expensive House race in history.
Before Ott spoke to a couple hundred constituents on the county budget and other local items, including the proposed closing of the East Cobb Library (East Cobb News coverage here), he turned the microphone over to Handel, whom he campaigned for extensively.
She immediately condemned the racially-inspired violence in Charlottesville, Va., earlier this month that left one person dead and injured dozens of others, calling it an “evil, evil attack.” Of racism, anti-Semitism and bigotry, Handel said, “It is wrong. It is evil. It has no place in society and this country.”
The few hundred whites who showed up to protest the proposed removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville “are not representative of this country,” she added.
Without mentioning President Donald Trump—who came under fire for his post-Charlottesville remarks—Handel issued a call for fairness, respect and civility, “some basic kindness,” as Americans confront racial and other cultural issues that have flared up in recent weeks and months.
Less than two months since taking office, Handel also defended Congress—or at least her chamber, the House—against criticisms that it’s not getting much done.
She said more than 250 pieces of legislation have been passed in the House, including a repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed in the wake of the recession. Some in the audience voiced displeasure, but Handel said the rollback was necessary.
She also said she was bewildered that the Republican-led U.S. Senate failed to pass a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, after it passed the House.
“I would have supported it,” Handel said of the ACA repeal, which was approved in the House before her election. Of the continuation of Obamacare, she said that “the status quo is unsustainable,” a reference to the rising costs of premiums on the ACA exchanges.
Many insurers are seeking significant hikes or withdrawing altogether (here’s a projected 2018 summary from the Kaiser Family Foundation which includes an anticipated seven-percent increase in Georgia for one of the lowest-cost plans, and a 34-percent boost in subsidies).
“The rubber will hit the road when the open enrollment period begins in fall,” Handel said.
Handel has been assigned to the House committees on Judiciary and Education and the Workforce.
Her district office is in the same location at her predecessor, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price: 85-C Mill Street, Suite 300, Roswell.
