Lions and Eagles

We have yet another election coming up in our area this coming Feb. 9th, this time for Griffin Circuit District Attorney. Again, to try and be a more informed voter, I sent an e-mail to each of the candidates with some questions. Here's the reply from Marie Broder, currently appointed to the position since the previous elected DA was appointed to a judicial seat:

I could have gone to an awards ceremony for Atlanta's professional theatres Monday night. Atlanta's version of the Tony's. With my wife representing Academy Theatre, she was dressed up and looking gorgeous, and she had two tickets, which included food and drink tickets for the bar. She went, and she brought a friend, and she had a marvelous time. I must be some sort of glutton for punishment. I went instead to go watch the Fayette County Board of Education steamroll over the objections of citizens, neighbors, experts, and even the government of Peachtree City. I went knowing that they were not going to listen to any more public input. I went knowing that their reasons and excuses were empty and full of contradictions. I went knowing that the only thing I would be able to do would be to stare them down. I sat through nearly an hour and 45 minutes of presentations. A presentation on the CCRPI indicators.(Summary: Even Fayette's "bad" schools are looking ...

Last night I went to a Q&A session with a couple of members of the school board for parents and members of the community. (I'm both.) Very nice event. Very glad I went out, and it was very encouraging to see the good turnout in the room. Steve Brown did a fine job of moderating, offering up questions gathered from parents via Facebook, and live audience had a number of questions as well. I have a few reactions to their questions.

To : The Honorable Derrick Jackson Re: House Bill 191 , by Representatives Kendrick of the 93rd, Stover of the 71st, Stovall of the 74th, and Jones of the 91st Dear Representative Jackson, My name is Danny Dolan, and I am a voter in your district. I am writing to ask for your support for GA HB 191. This bill would bring much-needed reform to Georgia's ballot access laws. Ballot access is a civil rights issue. This most recent election spotlighted the importance of making sure every eligible voter has the right to cast a ballot. Unfortunately, many of our ballots have a shocking lack of choices. A ballot with no options does nothing to give the voter a voice. Georgia's ballot access laws are commonly regarded as the most onerous in the nation. These laws keep independent voices out of the conversation. Even when they have no chance of winning, independent candidates can perform an important role in raising the quality of political debate. An independent candidate can simul...

PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS I'm going to have to do some jumping around here, but I'll make up for summarizing at the end. Items #1 and #3 are each standalone, but each of them has a bunch of story that is not being told on the ballot that has to be shared. #2 and #4 each seem to follow a pattern that I want to explore, to make sure that I can vote with principle and consistency, so that I can decide not just the question of whether this particular proposal is good, but whether this type of proposal is sound.

Last time I did one of these voting guides, I had some friends say, "Thanks, but we need one page we can just print off and take to the ballot box!" Well, here you go! Here's the quick list (along with links to get back to my reasoning, just in case you want to check my work).

Part three of this November's voting guide, now we tackle the ballot questions! Two Constitutional Amendments, one Tax! Unless I decide to wade into the Presidential race at some point later on, this will be the last of it. Please read on....

Now for the next race on my November ballot: Fayette County Board of Education:

Hey, we're almost down to a month before Election Day! The voting guide I did for the primary was such a huge help, especially for the local races, I'm going to do it again! I'm going to skip over the Presidential election for now. We can come back to that later, if we have time. I want to focus for a bit on those easily-missed races, the state and local offices and the ballot questions. Those offices are much closer to home than the Presidency, and all too often we just don't give them the attention they deserve. Let's start with the Georgia Public Service Commission. We have two seats up on the ballot for this race. For the primary, I voted for one incumbent, and against another. I'm going to do so again this time around. Here's why: