A national organization of family caregivers is disappointed that Gov. Brian Kemp removed a wage increase for direct care workers supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities included in the state’s budget.
But the governor says lawmakers didn’t fund the wage increase, which would have cost $105 million.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp regularly blames Washington policies for causing inflation and hurting Georgians, but he doesn’t hesitate to announce grants — such as those for rural broadband projects — that rely on federal tax dollars.
“While failed policies coming out of Washington, D.C. are pushing us closer to a recession and forcing hardworking Georgians to endure sky-high inflation, we on the state level are doing what we can to return money back where it belongs – in taxpayers’ hands,” Kemp said in a statement earlier this month in announcing officials had issued the first round of “surplus tax refund checks” to Georgia taxpayers.
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The Georgia Department of Transportation said it awarded 18 projects valued at more than $65.2 million in March.
The largest spend, $15 million awarded to E. R. Snell Contractor, goes toward a bridge construction project on State Route 212 over Lake Jackson in Jasper and Newton counties. Bridge construction contracts represented 31% of the allocated money.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a measure to allow Peach State hospitals to form campus police departments.
Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of House Bill 383, the Safer Hospitals Act, a measure that enhances criminal penalties for anyone who assaults a healthcare worker on a hospital campus, similar to the protections afforded to paramedics, transit drivers and law enforcement personnel.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has set the Peach State’s 2024 party primary elections for March 12, foiling the Democratic National Committee’s plans to move Georgia’s vote toward the front of the presidential nominating line.
Raffensperger says the DNC acted “unilaterally” in its bid to make their nominating process more “diverse” by bumping predominantly white states like Iowa and New Hampshire back and pushing more “racially inclusive” states like Georgia and Michigan to the front of the primary line.
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Chairwoman of the nonprofit group Greater Georgia and former Georgia U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler recently joined Governor Brian Kemp as he signed Senate Bill 222, also known as the “Zuckerbucks” ban, into law.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a series of public safety bills, including a measure increasing penalties for anyone who recruits children into gangs.
Senate Bill 44 also requires judges to “consider the accused person’s criminal history record information that is available at such time” before releasing defendants on their own recognizance.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed several education bills, including House Bill 147, the Safe Schools Act.
It establishes a voluntary school safety and anti-gang endorsement for teachers. Proponents say it will help them identify and stop gang activity and classroom recruitment.
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Georgia lawmakers have sent a measure to bar TikTok and other “national security software threats” on state-owned devices.
Lawmakers in both chambers unanimously signed off on Senate Bill 93, which they say would also bar Telegram and WeChat, and sent the measure to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. It would also prohibit these applications on state devices used in the legislative and judicial branches and in the state’s K-12 schools.
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The Georgia Senate passed a modified version of a bill that would restrict certain surgical procedures on minors for gender dysphoria on Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union is promising to sue if Gov. Brian Kemp signs it into law.
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Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a bill this week that would provide $1 billion in tax rebates for Georgia income tax filers.
House Bill 162 provides a special state income tax refund for Georgians who filed returns in both the 2021 and 2022 taxable years. It marks the second year in a row that Georgia taxpayers will receive a rebate.
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What are “Jim Crow” laws? President Biden apparently thinks they are synonymous with election integrity. In fact, when Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill in 2021 requiring voter ID and strengthening rules against bribery and electioneering at the polls, the President condemned the law as “Jim Crow on steroids.”
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Georgia’s December unemployment rate was 3%, unchanged from November’s revised rate.
Additionally, state officials said job numbers increased by nearly 6,000 from November, hitting an all-time high. Georgia’s unemployment rate remained lower than the national unemployment rate of 3.5% in December.
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A Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) consultant explained to an undercover Project Veritas journalist he is an “evil salesman” who plans to undermine a Georgia law banning the teaching of the concepts of Critical Race Theory (CRT). “If you don’t say the words ‘Critical Race Theory,’ you can technically teach it,” Dr. Quintin Bostic, content manager at The Teaching Lab, is heard telling the Project Veritas (PV) journalist in the video.
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Georgia hasn’t collected its gas tax since March, as Gov. Brian Kemp has signed a series of legislation and executive orders to place a moratorium on collections.
“Those prices have a huge impact on the economy as a whole,” National Federation of Independent Business Region Director Nathan Humphrey told The Center Square. “On top of all the other issues that small businesses were particularly struggling with from supply chain, inflation and [the] overall cost of doing business, the margins were just super tight, so when that hit, it really provided necessary relief.”
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Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA) reports it has identified significant abnormalities in the 2022 Georgia general election, including results that show over 20,000 votes were “inexplicably subtracted” from the vote totals for U.S. Senate Republican candidate Herschel Walker.
The organization, a coalition of citizens seeking to restore voter integrity in Georgia, presented at a press conference Wednesday a sworn affidavit, corroborated by the Edison media line feed, showing the “subtracted” votes.
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Two days before Brian Kemp bested Stacey Abrams by more than seven percentage points in their closely watched rematch, the Georgia governor did something unusual for a Republican candidate in the 2022 midterms: He expressed confidence about where he stood and cited early voting as a top reason.
“We’ve also had record turnout for early voting, which ended this Friday. It’s been an incredible turnout, and we feel good about things,” Kemp told Trey Gowdy, the former congressman and host of Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America.”
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In the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election, Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp defeated Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams for the second consecutive time.
Kemp won 54% of the vote, with 86% reporting, according to NBC News. Abrams received 45.3% of the vote.
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Georgia’s gubernatorial race is in the home stretch, as Democrat Stacey Abrams and Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, face off in a rematch of the 2018 race.
Democrats have blamed Kemp for the closure of Atlanta Medical Center, accused the governor of trying to buy votes using federal COVID-19 relief money and criticized his stance on abortion and guns.
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A federal judge ruled Friday that Georgia’s election integrity practices requiring voter ID and citizenship checks are legal and constitutional, rejecting arguments of racism and voter suppression from the state’s Democrat nominee for governor, Stacey Abrams, just weeks before Election Day.
U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling, after a lengthy trial, handing a major victory to Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who aggressively defended the state’s election integrity laws from a legal assault by Abrams voter group Fair Fight Inc. and other liberals.
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Georgia’s spending per pupil has grown over the past two decades, but its enrollment has increased at a higher rate, a new analysis found.
According to the Reason Foundation’s 2022 K-12 Education Spending Spotlight, Georgia’s inflation-adjusted per-pupil K-12 revenues grew by 6.2% — or $803 per student — between 2002 and 2020. During that same period, enrollment increased by 18%.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has again extended the suspension of state taxes on motor and locomotive fuel.
On Thursday, Kemp signed an executive order to suspend the taxes and extend a supply chain state of emergency. The orders are valid through Oct. 12.
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Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker is leading Democrat incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock by two points, while the GOP Gov. Brian Kemp leads Democrat challenger Stacey Abrams by four points, according to a new poll.
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Georgia is giving more than $62.4 million in federal COVID relief money to groups fighting homelessness and housing insecurity worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state is allocating American Rescue Plan and State Fiscal Recovery Fund dollars to the 20 projects receiving money.
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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) took his opponent, Stacey Abrams(D), to task, when he called her out for her inability to stick to a stance on political issues in a statement released on Tuesday.
“Stacey Abrams opposed suspending the gas tax and returning $1 billion to taxpayers, but now she’s on my record. She can’t have it both ways. Abrams has embraced the policies of Joe Biden that have led to disaster at the border, high gas prices, and empty grocery shelves,” Governor Kemp said.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is again turning to the federal government to dole out more cash to Peach State residents.
The governor has funneled more than $1 billion in money from the American Rescue Plan’s State Fiscal Recovery Fund to the state’s Department of Human Services. The agency will give up to $350 in cash to Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients in Georgia.
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Governor Brian P. Kemp (R) announced on Monday he has tapped Mike Register to replace Vic Reynolds as the newest Director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
“Mike [Register] has a strong track record of strengthening public safety and protecting Georgia’s communities,” Governor Kemp said.
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A Fulton County Superior Court judge declined a request to block Georgia’s fetal heartbeat law that bans most abortions after six weeks.
Georgia lawmakers passed House Bill 481, the Living Infants Fairness Equality Act, in 2019. However, a federal judge initially blocked the law, commonly called the “Heartbeat Bill,” because the U.S. Supreme Court had previously upheld the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
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Governor Brian Porter Kemp announced in a Monday press release that a grant that will award some $800,000 to 500 Georgian high school students through the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) Pilot Program.
“Here in Georgia, we are committed to meeting the needs of our young people as they prepare to enter our world-class workforce following years of pandemic disruptions, and we are excited to see how this program will make a difference in their lives as it also helps us fulfill a critical workforce need,” the Republican governor said.
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Governor Brian P. Kemp (R) tapped Bill Hamrick to serve as the Georgia State Business Court Judge on Wednesday.
“Having served with Judge Hamrick in the State Senate when I first entered public life, I witnessed firsthand his dedication to the law, to its fair application, and to our state,” Governor Kemp said.
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Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp and South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster led Republican governors in a response today in opposition to the $740 billion spending proposal to fix inflation.
“The Democrats’ solution to a 40-year high inflation is passing another reckless tax and spending spree to the tune of $74 billion, affecting Americans in every tax bracket,” the Republican gubernatorial coalition said in a statement Thursday.
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Governor Brian Kemp (R) signed two executive orders on Wednesday that extended the gas tax suspension and renewed the state of emergency for supply chain disruptions. These executive orders will be effective through September 12th.
“I have extended the temporary suspension of the state’s motor fuel tax to alleviate the financial burden placed on Georgians due to the federal government’s gross mishandling of inflation,” Gov. Kemp said.
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Burt Jones, Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Georgia, took exception to the assertion by Stacey Abrams that Governor Kemp is more concerned with “protecting dangerous people” than the economy of the state by affirming the right for Peach State citizens to bear arms with the signing of the constitutional carry law.
“Music Midtown is the new All Star Game. It’s still illegal for criminals to carry guns, and Georgia continues to see record voter turnout. Notice a trend? Her name is Stacey Abrams–and she’s still being dishonest with Georgia voters,” Jones tweeted on Tuesday.
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A poll published Friday by Beacon Research, found that Governor Brian Kemp (R) has extended his lead over Democrat nominee for Governor, Stacey Abrams, by eight points.
“I’m not surprised about his lead over Abrams. I know for a fact a lot of people are disgusted about the Democrat policies,” Barrow County GOP Executive Committee Rep. Laura Petcu (04) told The Georgia Star News on Friday.
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Governor Brian Kemp on Friday announced additional funds for teachers across the state as students are set to return to the classroom.
According to a release from his office, “full-time, public-school teachers and staff members” will each receive $125 to purchase educational materials.
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Georgia Judiciary Appointees Andrew Pinson and Benjamin Land were sworn onto the state bench in promotional appointments made by Governor Brian Kemp (R) on Wednesday.
“Today, I had the honor of swearing in Andrew Pinson to the #SupremeCourtGA and Ben Land to the @AppealsCourtGA, its first judge from Columbus. They both have upheld wisdom and integrity on the bench, and they will continue to do so in the important cases that come before them,” Governor Kemp said.
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Students across the state of Georgia improved their scores on standardized tests, as educators seek to improve learning loss caused by lockdowns and online learning amid the coronavirus pandemic.
According to new data from the Georgia Department of Education, scores remained the same or increased on 17 of 21 assessments, when compared to the results of the previous year.
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A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court ruled unanimously Wednesday that Georgia’s 2019 Heartbeat law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected may take effect.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled the Georgia law (HB 481), known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act may proceed to take effect after a federal judge blocked it in a decision that found the law violated the right to abortion created by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973.
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A high-quality electrodeposited (ED) copper foil manufacturer Denkai America announced Wednesday in a joint statement with Governor Brian Kemp that it will invest $430 million in a Richmond County-based facility that will create 250 jobs over the next five years.
“As Georgia continues to lead in the emerging electric vehicle market & next-gen jobs, I’m proud to announce that Denkai America will invest $430M & create 250 new jobs over the next five years in Richmond County through its new manufacturing facility and North American Headquarters!” Kemp said.
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Governor Brian Kemp holds a notable lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams, according to a new poll commissioned by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
The survey, which spoke to 1,197 likely Georgia voters, gave Kemp a 7-point edge over the Democrat in their rematch of the 2018 gubernatorial race.
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It’s been a hot start to Georgia’s summer and the Peach State’s gubernatorial race is a dead heat.
A new Quinnipiac University Poll found that 48% of voters support incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, while an equal number of voters support Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams.
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Stacey Abrams, who is running to replace Republican Governor Brian Kemp, claimed that companies that choose to do business in the state and their female employees face a “danger” for the decision.
The comments follow a decision from the Supreme Court that reversed the decision in Roe v. Wade, which could allow a six-week abortion ban to be enacted in the state.
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Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion could allow Georgia to reinstitute its fetal heartbeat law that bars most abortions after about six weeks.
On Friday, the nation’s highest court overturned Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade, a ruling that established abortion as a constitutional right. The opinion comes in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
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Republican Governor Brian Kemp called on his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams to resign from the governing board of the Marguerite Casey Foundation.
According to Kemp and the Republican Governors Association, the group has repeatedly posted on social media to advocate to “#DefundthePolice” and “#AbolishthePolice”
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Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp announced on Wednesday the purchase of a 1,100-acre economic development site that will be the location of the “Middle Georgia Megasite.”
“Even after announcing the two largest projects in the State’s history back-to-back, we remain focused on attracting key industries and investment by providing the project sites companies need,” said Governor Brian Kemp in a press release.
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In a follow-up tweet that expounded on his letter penned in January on election reform, Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, reiterated his call for a federal Constitutional amendment on U.S. citizenship and election integrity.
“A citizenship amendment is a necessary security measure that will ensure that only American citizens are voting in our elections. We need an amendment now,” Raffensperger said.
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Republican Candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Burt Jones, took to Twitter on Friday to propose a possible solution to Bidenflation, which recently peaked at a record 8.6%.
“Inflation is out of control—and it’s making virtually everything more expensive for Georgia families. As Lieutenant Governor, I’ll be focused on continuing to cut taxes, lower costs, and put more money back into the pockets of hardworking Georgians,” the Trump-endorsed Jones said.
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Governor Brian Kemp took to Twitter on Sunday to follow-up critiques of his Democrat gubernatorial opponent, Stacey Abrams, on vital 2022 political issues.
“Stacey Abrams lied about election integrity, supports the Defund the Police movement, and wants to raise taxes on Georgia families as they fight Bidenflation. I’ll keep fighting to ensure Georgia continues to be the greatest state in the country to live, work, and raise a family,” said Governor Kemp on Sunday.
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Governor Brian Kemp tapped William S. Duffey, Jr. to be the next Chair of the State Elections Board.
“I announced the appointment of Judge William Duffey as Chair of the State Elections Board. With vast experience & as someone who upholds the highest ethical standards, he will help to ensure our elections continue to be secure, accessible, & fair,” said Kemp in a tweet on Friday.
William S. Duffey Jr, was a United States District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia before his retirement in 2018. Before he received a post on the federal bench, Duffey was the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
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Georgia is working to create Behavioral Threat Assessment Teams throughout the state as a part of a broader school safety effort.
Eight regional Homeland Security Coordinators, all sworn law enforcement officers, will lead the teams and respond to threats or concerning behavior that may be considered a pathway to violence. The BTATs will provide help and guidance to local schools and communities to mitigate potential threats.
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