Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[NewYorkExpress]

David Ralston calls for constitutional admendment to strip picking the Secretary of State from voters.

Georgia House Speaker David Ralston on Thursday called for a constitutional amendment to allow state legislators to choose the Secretary of State — thereby taking away the responsibility from voters — in response to continued Republican unrest over President-elect Joe Biden's statewide victory over President Donald Trump in the November election.

Ralston, a Republican, said that legislators in the GOP-controlled Georgia General Assembly, which includes the state House of Representatives and Senate, would select the Secretary of State, who runs statewide elections, upon approval of the amendment.

However, voters would have to approve the constitutional amendment.

After Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, declined to participate in a state Senate hearing on the election, Ralston said that he was "shocked" and "disappointed" by the move, according to Atlanta's NBC affiliate 11 Alive.

[NewYorkExpress]

State Representative David Clark banned from House Chamber after refusing a COVID test.

A Georgia state lawmaker said his refusal to take a Covid-19 test got him kicked out of the House chambers on Tuesday.

But Georgia House Speaker David Ralston said the lawmaker, Rep. David Clark, has repeatedly refused to follow House policy which states that all members and staff be tested for the coronavirus twice a week.

"The member in question had been advised numerous times about the requirements and had refused to be tested at any point during this session," Ralston's office said in a statement on Twitter.

"The member refused to leave of his/her own accord. As such, under the authority granted to the Speaker by House Rules, the member was escorted out of the Chamber by a member of the Georgia Department of Public Safety."

Clark, a Republican, said in an emailed statement Tuesday that he arrived at the chamber ready to follow the required protocols by wearing a mask, social distancing and having his temperature taken.

But "what I will not do is be forced to have a Covid test, or any unnecessary medical test, done without a basis for doing so," he said.

"The seat that I hold for District 98 is not my seat, but the people’s seat. I work for you, and I cannot in good conscience watch expensive tests that should be given to Georgia citizens who desperately need them be wasted for nothing more than political optics at the Capitol."

https://twitter.com/rahulbali/status/1354102643652759553

[NewYorkExpress]

I'd rate the primary as Lean Purude.

He's a much stronger candidate than Vernon Jones, and that's probably all that's needed to defeat Kemp.

As for the General, I think Abrams is in a tossup race against either Purdue or Kemp. Georgia is relatively immune to national trends, and Abrams is a very strong candidate, but a runoff doesn't help her, unlike with Raphael Warnock, where a runoff neither helps nor hurts him (and might even slightly help him, depending on which Republican he faces).

[NewYorkExpress]

Herschel Walker is refusing to endorse in the Gubernatorial Primary.

Herschel Walker has a message for the Republicans going after each other for their party’s nomination for governor in Georgia: Don’t count on help from me.

A football legend in a sports-crazed state whose Senate campaign is backed by former President Donald Trump, Walker is running far ahead in Georgia’s May primary. That makes his support attractive for incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp and challenger David Perdue, who are in a bruising primary campaign.

For now, Walker is refusing to get involved and is increasingly expressing exasperation with the negative tone of the governor’s race. He is voicing the concerns of many Republicans that a nasty campaign between Kemp and Perdue could leave the GOP divided heading into the November election and potentially cost the party the governorship in a state they have dominated for two decades.


“I don’t support either one of them. I’m mad at both of them,” Walker told a University of North Georgia audience last month, according to audio obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He later told nationally syndicated conservative radio hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton that “intersquad fighting” was distracting from efforts to unify the party.

“I told people I’m upset because we got some strong candidates running,” he said. “We cannot continue to go out there and fight among each other when we got this country that is hurting.”

[NewYorkExpress]

Have we ever elected a Trekkie as President?