My Georgia Candidates? Part 2. Duncan, Carr, Raffensperger, & Eaton
In addition to the high-profile Governor’s Race being waged, every other statewide state office is also up on Tuesday’s ballot. Let me discuss here the four most hotly contested races according to political pundits – the races for Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Public Service Commissioner (District 3).
Caveat: As I stated yesterday it bears repeating that while I endorse certain candidates here, I respect and like the people they are running against. They are not the “enemy” but merely political opponents on policy issues that I believe are critical for our state and my community to move forward. With that opening, let me lay out my case for the candidates I support.
:
Geoff Duncan for Lt. Governor
I served with Geoff Duncan in the legislature and immediately came to respect him for being a conservative reformer who could think outside the box in search of ways to tackle chronic problems facing our state. Let me discuss one that is on everyone’s mind this election – health care.
For every complicated problem, there is usually a short, concise, easy to understand – and wrong answer. As I discussed yesterday, simply expanding the rolls of Medicaid as a solution to the need to provide greater healthcare coverage is one of them. The fact is that fewer and fewer doctors – especially in the specialty areas – are willing to take Medicaid patients because of the low pay and high bureaucratic red tape involved.
Mr. Duncan in the General Assembly pushed through and passed legislation setting up tax credits for people who donate to non-profit hospitals in rural Georgia. This has led over the last few years to an infusion of millions of dollars into the rural health care system. In addition, he has proposed expanding telehealth programs which reduce infrastructure costs of health care and make it easier to connect directly to patients; expanding the network of low-cost health clinics; and enlarging high risk insurance pools.
In addition, he advocates following the successful models in states like Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Indiana to obtain Medicaid waivers from the federal government to give states greater flexibility in providing health care under the program.
Chris Carr for Attorney General
Chris Carr was appointed Georgia’s Attorney General after a successful career in private practice and public service working for Alston and Bird, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Senator Johnny Isakson, and Governor Nathan Deal. Since coming into office he has continued his predecessor’s attempts to combat human trafficking and elder abuse in Georgia, take on the growing problem of gang violence, and go after entities that have helped create and aggravate the growing opioid crisis.
Equally important, he understands what the job is and is not. Mr. Carr’ opponent has pledged to not defend laws passed by the General Assembly that he personally does not support. Whether you agree with him or not on a particular position, this is not the role of the AG. I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with the last two attorneys general – one Democrat and one Republican. Both will tell you that the job of the attorney general is to be the lawyer for the state. If you want to set or implement public policy, you need to run for the legislature or for governor. That is not the job of the AG. The role of the AG is to represent the state defending the policies set by others.
Brad Raffensperger for Secretary of State
The Secretary of State position is primarily an administrative one overseeing a wide range of boards touching on a myriad of businesses in the state as well as overseeing certain aspects of state elections. This is why Brad Raffensperger is a good fit for this position. He is the CEO of Tendon Systems, LLC. Tendon is a multi-state specialty contracting and engineering design firm with nearly 200 employees. He also owns and operates specialty steel manufacturing plants based in Columbus, Georgia, and in Forsyth County.
There has been a great deal of talk this year about “purging” versus cleaning up voting rolls and the different positions taken by the two candidates offers a good opportunity to explain the process and lay out why it is necessary. In Georgia, “after three years of ‘no contact,’ you’re sent a notice. If that notice (postage pre-paid) is not returned in 30 days, you’re declared ‘inactive.’ If you fail to then cast a ballot in the next two federal election cycles, then you” are removed from the voter rolls. Therefore, contrary to press reports, there is no arbitrary purging of voters from the system.
Mr. Raffensperger agrees with this process while his opponent opposes it. Mr. Raffensperger is right. We live in a mobile society. People move from address to address in Georgia and also leave and come back into our state. Accurate voter rolls are critically needed to assure that voters are qualified to vote and vote where they are supposed to within our state. There is nothing nefarious about this. It is simply common sense.
Chuck Eaton for Public Service Commission
When was the last time you heard of a public official who had been endorsed by both the chamber of commerce and local unions? Chuck Eaton has because he has worked hard to be a fair minded arbiter of issues that have come before the PSC.
The most high profile and contentious issue recently has been the continuation of the construction of the nuclear power plant at Plant Vogtle which has seen serious delays and cost overruns during its construction. Interestingly, Mr. Eaton’s opponent does not oppose continuation but only believes that there has been insufficient oversight.
There are a great many reasons for the delay and cost overruns, many of which interestingly enough lay at the feet of a tsunami in Japan that badly damaged a nuclear power plant there. This resulted in an industrial rippling effect which led to the bankruptcy of the prime contractor at Plant Vogtle – Westinghouse.
It is easy from the outside to say that an incumbent handling a tough situation should have done more but Chuck Eaton has worked to press for greater transparency by the entities constructing the plant and demanded that they take up a greater share of the cost of the overruns. The bankruptcy by Westinghouse removed many of the cost protections for completion but Georgia was still able to get from the contractor’s parent company penalties of almost $3.7 billion to defray some of the additional cost. In addition, Mr. Eaton pushed last year for an inclusion of a tougher provision to require the main utility be held accountable for completion targets and budgets.
In conclusion, Geoff Duncan, Chris Carr, Brad Raffensperger, and Chuck Eaton are great public servants and deserve your vote on November 6th. Thank you for considering them.
About Author
Edward
Edward Lindsey served in the Georgia House for a decade and as House Majority Whip for three terms. He currently practices law in Atlanta.
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The 100% tax credit for rural hospital is bad public policy independent of It being a useless program unless the “donation” is deductible for federal income tax purposes, as it appears it will be as a result of national GOP tax cuts for the rich legislation.
It’s remarkable that the word Obamacare is absent from a post endorsing a candidate that cites the candidate advocating for Obamacare Medicaid expansion. On second thought, not so much given eight years of denigration of Obamacare as a failure in tandem with undermining it at every turn, despite the national GOP unable to develop and present a viable alternative during that time.
The Duncan pitch is wholly focused on healthcare without commenting on the Georgia AG’s attack on the requirement that insurance cover pre-existing conditions. Does Duncan agree with state policy that insurance not be required to cover pre-existing conditions, or not?
“Interestingly, Mr. Eaton’s opponent does not oppose continuation but only believes that there has been insufficient oversight.” The Japan tsunami was primarily an issue for Westinghouse parent Toshiba that I don’t think was central to the Westinghouse bankruptcy. It wasn’t much mentioned in the NYT report of the bankruptcy: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/westinghouse-toshiba-nuclear-bankruptcy.html Anything else besides Westinghouse/Georgia Power making mistakes (if that’s even a point of agreement with respect to GP) and insufficient oversight as being responsible?
Nit picking, but did you omit the word Power, or are you conflating state government and Georgia Power with respect to mention of the $3.8B in penalties?
“Mr. Eaton pushed last year for an inclusion of a tougher provision to require the main utility be held accountable for completion targets and budgets.” Over a term in office too late in my estimation.
The things omitted in the endorsements are as telling as what has been included. For instance lots of long time talk by Republicans about excessive government regulation, but like Obamacare in the Duncan endorsement, it’s a word that doesn’t appear in the PSC endorsement.
And nary a word on immigration with respect to the five candidates endorsements thus far, despite the caravan invasion being the most important national issue to the nationalist leader of the GOP. That leaves Bran’s policy to round ’em up hisself the last words on that.
Dave: You are correct, I do not mention the word “Obamacare” directly. It was intentional as I like to move beyond labels and go to substantive discussions on the merits of policy. We can agree to disagree on the merits of the Rural Health Care tax credits — although I believe that most health care providers agree with me. Since you brought it up, however, I am not a fan of “Obamacare” because I believe that it merely papers over existing flaws in our present system rather than fundamentally changing how good health care to more folks is to be delivered. As a result it is doomed to failure. That said, you are correct that constructive alternatives need to offered and one of the areas that must be properly addressed is pre-existing conditions. Overall, that is a debate we have had on this page for sometime and will continue to have in the future. I was merely emphasizing Duncan’s willingness to “look outside the box” to find solutions. Something we do not see often enough in politics on either side of the political aisle.
As to Chuck Eaton and the PSC, the NYT article you mentioned cited problems with Westinghouse and the tsunami and its impact on the contractor’s parent company, and there is amble other articles and columns that also discuss it. A couple of examples can be found at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nuclear-projects-at-georgias-plant-vogtle-to-continue/, https://www.powermag.com/commentary-pressing-forward-with-vogtle-a-nuclear-mvp/. Your point about the Georgia Power contract and Westinghouse bears greater explanation since you brought it up. Yes, the contract is what required the repayments, but the contract was part of the basis for the PSC originally approving moving forward on the plant. Therefore, while I do not “conflate” the two, I do believe that it is an example of PSC oversight.
Finally, yes, I did not discuss every possible issue in my endorsement. I discussed the ones I felt were most important to Georgia’s future. Others, of course, are sure to have their own priority list and that is why we have this blog. Take care.