State Rep. Tom Graves will resign on Tuesday:
State Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ranger), the leading Republican candidate for Congress in Georgia’s 9th District, released the following statement announcing his resignation from the Georgia House of Representatives Tuesday, March 23, 2010, in order to qualify for the upcoming special election in Georgia’s 9th District:
“Earlier today Governor Perdue set the date for the special election to fill the 9th District Congressional seat on April 27. I will resign my House seat effective close of business Tuesday, March 23, 2010, in order to fill the unexpired term in the 9th District. This will enable the Governor to schedule both the election to fill my House seat and the 9th District congressional seat on the same day and save taxpayer money.
“While qualifying for the congressional seat alone would have vacated my house seat, the timing would have been outside the window of opportunity to allow both elections to occur on the same date. Therefore, as a steward of the taxpayer, the prudent decision is to step down early and allow the Governor to set the special elections on the same day.
“Julie and I have been humbled and honored to have been given the opportunity to serve Gordon, Pickens and Bartow counties in the legislature. And, for that, we are forever grateful.
“I am pleased with the Governor’s selection of the earliest possible election date. My family and I look forward to the campaign and the opportunity to serve the people of Georgia’s 9th Congressional District.”
Qualifying for the congressional seat will take place March 29-31. Per state law, Graves would have automatically vacated his House seat upon qualifying. Resigning early allows the special elections for the Graves’ House seat and the 9th District Congressional seat to take place on the same day.
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A good man. Tom Graves will represent the 9th district honerably.
This move makes sense.
Smart move. Let’s see if Sen. Hawkins follows Rep. Graves’ lead.
Tom once again putting the taxpayers first. Thank you.
wait a minute, wait a minute, wasn’t his camp some of the people heckling Johnson, Handel, and Deal for bailing?
Yep!
I doubt it seeing as Graves and his folks are perfect in every sense of the word.
Graves would automatically be out the end of the month anyway when he qualified for the special election. Bailing a week early to avoid having to have two special elections is just better for the already strapped budgets of the counties in his district.
Not I. And I will admit that from time to time I have been labeled a Graves supporter.
Good move Tom! I expect Hawkins to follow Tom’s lead in keeping with tradition.
So did Tom give money to Max Cleland too or did Hawkins start his own tradition?
How many Republicans has Tom given money to?
Hawkins did start the tradition of joining Joe Biden in praising the Stimulus.
Enough lies. Anyone going to answer my question?
What are the lies? That Hawkins gave money to Cleland? or, that like Joe Biden he praised the Stimulus? I think both of those are documented facts.
Lee Hawkins has given thousands to conservative Republicans, and he never praised ‘the Stimulus.’ You trolls are shameless.
My question?
Have any Nationally respected Conservative Groups endorsed Hawkins based on his “conservative” record and donations you talk about all the time???
I see you’re not going to answer the question.
Not everyone is a rich, GOP Johnny come lately, able to put hundreds of thousands of dollars into his own political ambitions while having funding the likes of liberal Max Cleland.
Graves has walked door to door supporting numerous Republican candidates, and has traveled the country speaking on behalf of the conservative cause.
What’s your point?
My point? When you attack, you had better be ready to back up your assertions. If you want to compare candidate contributions, especially when you take them out of context, your guy better have actually done something.
Don’t try to act like your candidate is some regular Joe who’s never made any money. There just isn’t any record of him giving any of it to Republicans.
And about his traveling the country ‘speaking on behalf of the conservative cause,’ I applaud him for that, along with the mile-long list of others who spoke at the same events. It’s not hard to get those gigs. Btw, we and your claimed Tea Party movement folks missed him a couple weeks ago in South Hall. I guess the DC speaking engagements mean more than the local ones. Lots of other candidates felt it was important enough to come.
All you Gravesbots know how to do is attack and mislead.
Josh
Why all the anger? That’s not like you.
Josh, so did your guy give money to Max Cleland? Your right Graves has made some money just not enough like Hawkins has to be able to put into his own campaign because he has having trouble keeping up with the field. Oh and about Tom traveling the country to fight for conservative causes… well he is doing both. Fighting nationally and locally. The problem is when you just now have started attending tea party rallies its going to seem like Graves doesn’t attend. He just wasn’t at the first one you guys were at. What was it that your spokesperson said… “has had little contact with the tea party movement. “He’s not really associated with it at all,” said his spokesman, Steve Holman.” And by the way if your going call us gravesbots attackers and misleaders remember there are more of us than there are of you guys.
Yeah, keep spreading them, bob.
How many people are running for Graves’ seat? Aren’t the rules for run-offs for state and federal offices different?
Just an observation that I am sure is meaningless.
There are more than one last I heard, by resigning though Tom has enabled the elections to be held on the same date in accordance with the rules. If he had waited until next week, there would have had to be two different election dates, costing the tax payers.
The downside is that about a quarter of the current state legislature is going to quit to go hunting for their next job.
Yeah, that’s a bit hyperbolic, but they should have (could they have?) held the special election 30 days after the current state legislature session ends.
maybe ga needs to ammend it’s archaic law that requires resignation from your current seat to run for another seat, if the terms are not concurrent, esp. for special elections, b/c it then makes these dominoes fall requiring subsequent special elections….
There’s also the inconvenient law that you can’t raise campaign funds during legislative session. Makes it hard to keep your job and campaign for the next one during the session.
I think the law should just be amended so that special elections can’t come from 30 days before to 30 days after a legislative session.
What are you thinking? Don’t we have enough career politicians already? If you make it easier to run for something else without resigning these people will never go away.
i was really thinking specifically of these special elections, and like i said the domino effect…the alternative, which i would be ok w/ would be to leave the seats vacant until the next scheduled election, if it is not a position the guv can fill w/ an appt.
The problem with leaving them vacant is if an “emergency” session is called. I would see a lot of “emergency” sessions being called if the house is closely divided with opposite parties controlling the leg. and the Gov. Just a couple of vacant seats could give the minority elected party an unelected majority.
The government wastes a lot of money. However, holding elections no matter how insuccnificent they might seem is a proper use of funds.
Also, I wonder the last time the actual “costs” of an election, especially a special, have been calculated. I heard a candidate claim the other day that is costs the state something like $2 million dollars just to put a name on a statewide special election. Really? It costs $2 million dollars to type his name into the computer? Are there parts of the state where printed ballots are still used?
There are no printed ballots except for absentees and maybe provisional ballots. There are still other cost to be considered: hiring staff to work for a day, not to mention any early voting, which will vary from county to county. There may also be legal notices that need to be ran in every county newspaper.
Whatever the solution, it SHOUL D NOT include any more APPOINTMENTS by the governor. We’ve seen how those can be subject to abuse in an election year.
i’m not saying the guv should have new appt. powers, just that if a vacancy opens and it requires a special to fill it, perhaps we should consider not filling it until the next scheduled election…
Dear Tom,
Please call Nathan Deal and explain to him that he too could have waited to resign and saved the entire district the cost of a special election. His number is 1-800-CAR-$$$$.
Thanks.
CJS
But, But…
He stayed for us?
I hope to be on his Death Panel someday.
I know, Icarus, that was so kind of him. We should all be grateful for that, right?
I know Graves is making the best decision for his campaign and I wish him well. But this is getting absurd. Resignations, special elections, appointments….We gotta come up with something here.
This year does seem especially hard to keep up with all the moving pieces.
This is going to be the most interesting race in the state, I am excited to see how it turns out. Ive got a feeling that the people arent going to turn out for the two big money guys, I anticipate Stephens and others to get more votes than others realize
The special elections for Hawkins and Graves seats can be held on the same day as the special election for the remainder of Congressman Deal’s term on April 27. I assume Congressman Deal gets to keep his title. Does anyone know the protocol on that? I’m busy or else I would look it up.
Breaking news…date of special election moved to May 11.
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