Georgia Legislative Watch

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We’ve complied a list of polls up to this point for the 2010 party primaries, which are 10 months away. We’re not including head-to-head polls between candidates from opposing parties right now, though we may add them down the road.
Any new primary polls that come out will be added here.
If you know of [...]

Rasmussen is out with two new polls in the Democrat and Republican primaries for Governor. It doesn’t tell us anything new really. Roy Barnes is still well on his way to securing the Democratic Party’s nomination. John Oxendine is still the frontrunner for the GOP, though he still is hovering around the 35% mark. He’s [...]

The following commentary is from Daniel Groce for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. The GPPF publishes a column weekly, it can be found here.
If there’s one way to hurt student performance, it’s to strike at teacher morale. As teachers around the state scramble to get classrooms ready, many are working, for a few days at [...]

Ben Harbin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, sees the need for a special session to address budget shortfalls:
The chairman of the Georgia House Appropriations Committee told Columbia County officials Tuesday that a special session of the Legislature is needed to address the state’s expected $900 million shortfall in revenue.
During a meeting of state lawmakers [...]

Rick Thompson is leaving the State Ethics Commission:
Rick Thompson, executive secretary of the State Ethics Commission, resigned his post today.
The commission handles campaign finance and lobbyist disclosure reports and judges complaints filed against politicians, lobbyists and political groups.
Thompson has been with the commission since January 2004 and took over at a time when state officials [...]

Todd Long was unanimously confirmed this morning as the director of planning at GDOT by the House Transportation Committee:
Long made some of the same comments Wednesday that he made last week, assuring the committee that while the director of planning has a close relationship with the governor, he would weigh the governor’s priorities alongside others, [...]

The House Transportation Committee will vote today on the nomination of Todd Long as the director of planning. You should be able to tune in here.