Georgia Tipsheet

Democrats’ lofty aspirations of clinching Georgia’s open Senate seat next year took a dive Tuesday as the party’s top possible recruit made the surprise announcement he would forgo the race and focus instead on reelection to the House.

U.S. Rep. John Barrow, the blue dog with an A-rating from the NRA who has been on a listening tour throughout the state for the last two months as he weighed the potential bid, said he would rather remain in the House.

“I’m grateful for the encouragement I’ve received from folks all across the State of Georgia, but I’ve decided that I will not be a candidate for the Senate in 2014,” Barrow said in a statement provide to Tipsheet. “I enjoy my work on behalf of the folks in the 12th District, and I look forward to continuing to serve them in the House of Representatives.”

Well-placed Democrats with whom Tipsheet spoke after the Barrow announcement say the congressman’s decision was motivated in part by the refusal of another possible candidate, Michelle Nunn, to forswear the race.

“Nunn’s insistence on running, despite calls from top party officials for her to sit this one out, moves the GA Senate race way down the list of pick-up opportunities,” one Democrat said.

When Nunn, whose father, former Sen. Sam Nunn, once held the seat at stake next year, expressed interest in the race, top party officials began quietly working to instead anoint Barrow as the consensus Democratic candidate.

Hoping to avoid a costly and divisive primary, party elders even arranged a private rendezvous between the two would-be candidates.

That meeting never took place, according to a Democrat with knowledge of the situation, and Nunn, buoyed by more progressive elements of the party, could not be dissuaded from running.

- James Richardson

The Senate campaign of Rep. Jack Kingston said Monday the candidate had raised $270,000 at a hometown reception over the weekend and claimed the considerable haul represented a “new fundraising record for an event in Savannah.”

And that’s when the Republican contest assumed hues of the Clinton’s impeachment hearing and the former president’s infamous exploration of the precise definition of a two-letter word.

At issue is a Sept. 2006 Republican fundraiser at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Pooler that grossed $100,000 more in contribution’s than Kingston’s kickoff reception.

The event, headlined by another former president, George W. Bush, benefitted the unsuccessful congressional campaign of Max Burns. It raised $375,000, according to a contemporary report by the Savannah Morning News.

The Kingston release specified the campaign set a new record for an event held “in Savannah,” but some of the congressman’s Republican critics say the coastal gem extends beyond city proper lines: the Mighty Eighth museum, like Savannah, resides in Kingston’s House district and number crunchers in the federal and state governments consider Pooler part of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area.

A Kingston spokesman said the campaign wouldn’t indulge in the Pooler-as-Savannah discussion, instead saying the candidate was focused on tangible campaign metrics — like money.

“We are proud of our Savannah event, but we will leave which fundraiser counts toward what record for others to decide,” Kingston press secretary Chris Crawford told Tipsheet. “Jack is focused on raising the resources necessary to compete in this race.”

But even as aides declined the opportunity to play mapmaker, Kingston’s defenders outside the campaign insisted the release was accurate.

“The Burns event was held in Pooler–which is to say, you know, not Savannah,” one Republican who attended the Kingston reception told Tipsheet by phone. “This is a pretty shallow attempt by Jack’s rivals to diminish what is an otherwise impressive take.”

Still, Kingston’s critics contend the congressman inflated his fundraising foray to mislead voters.

“Saying ‘second-biggest take since 2006′ wouldn’t make for as juicy a kickoff headline, but this is another attempt by Kingston to reinvent himself,” one Republican operative who asked to remain anonymous told Tipsheet.

Kingston, in a letter to donors last month, said he hoped to raise $5 million before the close of the primary season.

UPDATE: Kingston failed to set a new record or even draw near to the existing one, set in 2008 by then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

McCain, having just sewn up his party’s White House nomination, held a reception at the Savannah Marriot Riverfront that raked in “well in excess of $400,000,” according to one of the event’s organizers.

Whether or not the Kingston campaign recognizes Pooler as part of the greater Savannah area, there’s little doubt that the city’s historic downtown district qualifies.

- James Richardson

An aide to Sen. Johnny Isakson said Tuesday the Republican could entertain a vote for background checks on firearm sales, but stressed that an earlier initiative would have to be “significantly reworked” before he could lend his support.

Isakson met Tuesday with a quartet of gun control advocates, one of whom, Piyali Cole of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told a reporter at the Washington Post after the meeting that the senator was “definitely open to” supporting Machin-Toomey, the failed bipartisan push to tighten regulations on gun purchases.

“He said he is working with Machin [and] Toomey on a regular basis on the bill — he said he’s definitely having conversations with them,” Cole said. “When we asked him directly, is he going to vote for the Manchin-Toomey compromise bill when it’s reintroduced, he said he did not know but said he was definitely open to it.”

It wasn’t long before a spokeswoman for Isakson was soft-pedaling those comments, though the aide still left open the possibility the Georgian could break rank on the controversial proposal.

“The Machin-Toomey proposal would have to be significantly reworked before Sen. Isakson could even begin to consider it, as he has major concerns with its potential impact on private sales and privacy issues,” Isakson press secretary Lauren Culbertson told the Post after its initial story was filed. “He remains very committed to protecting the unfettered Second Amendment rights of Georgians and of all Americans.”

- James Richardson

President Barack Obama and Sen. Saxby Chambliss shared a bipartisan game of golf Monday as the pair discussed the nation’s debt and deficit, even as one of the men vying to replace the Georgian pelted the president days earlier for spending so much of his time on the links.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama was “looking for partners anywhere he can find them” as he moves forward with his second term legislative agenda, “including, you know, on the eighth hole.”

(The president may have been looking for a partner on the eighth, but he found an ace instead on the eleventh: Chambliss, according to his office, scored a hole-in-one there.)

Whether or not Chambliss and Obama were able to close a grand deal on the eighth hole, score Rep. Phil Gingrey, one of three House Republicans looking for a promotion to the Senate, among those unwilling to talk politics on the green with the president.

Last Monday, about the same time Chambliss and Obama were sharing a golf cart at Joint Base Andrews today, Gingrey’s campaign outwardly criticized the president’s frequent golf outings.

“Obama has spent 3.5% of his presidency on the golf course, totaling 460 hours,” the April 29 posting reads. “He’s only spent 3.6% of his time in economic meetings.”

The online missive asked supporters to share the status if they agreed that “Obama’s priorities are off course.”

It was shared more than 600 times and liked by more than 1,000 users.

- James Richardson

Phil Gingrey doesn’t condemn President Obama or congressional Democrats with the same partisan zeal that Paul Broun brings to Georgia’s Republican Senate contest, but the six-term congressman stressed in a weekend address to GOP activists that he’s no cheerleader for the establishment.

Speaking to the Cobb County GOP Saturday, Gingrey said the Republican National Committee’s recent report on November’s presidential loss was an effort by “so-called gurus in Washington” to push the party to abandon its principles.

“The Republican party generally needs some introspection, but it ain’t dead,” he said. “For us to accept an autopsy report from these so-called gurus in Washington–that we need to change our principles and become more like Democrats or we’ll never elect another president–if that’s what we have to do to elect another Republican president, well so be it. We’re not about to do that.”

Instead, Gingrey, who is competing for the support of rural conservative primary voters with the likes of the outspoken Broun, said voters want lawmakers who won’t compromise.

In short, someone unlike Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the retirement-bound Republican aiming to strike a grand compromise with the president on deficit reduction and taxes.

“They want someone who will stand up staunchly for traditional, Georgia values,” Gingrey said. “They don’t want anybody that’s willing to cut a deal with Democrats and Harry Reid.”

- James Richardson

Savannah Republican Jack Kingston confirmed in a series of interviews Wednesday with reporters he would pursue Georgia’s GOP Senate nomination.

Kingston, a 21-year veteran of the House and Georgia’s longest-serving congressional Republican, is regarded as more moderate than his colleagues-cum-rivals but vowed he would not be outflanked by candidates perceived to his right.

He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday that he intends to “yield no ground to any of my opponents as to who is the most conservative.” (His comments are locked behind the paper’s newly-constructed pay wall.)

The political spread of Georgia’s Republican congressional delegation breaks along simple terms: more and most conservative. And it’s in this former group, the moderates-by-proxy, in which most primary voters believe Kingston falls.

Whereas rival Reps. Paul Broun inveighs President Barack Obama’s secret affection for the “Soviet constitution” or Phil Gingrey offers an inartful defense of Todd Akin’s abortion politics, Kingston’s mild demeanor and willingness to forge bipartisan consensus is a possibly liability in a primary in which voters place a premium on most conservative.

Kingston, who will formally launch his campaign at a pair of news conferences on Thursday and a “kickoff” fundraiser Friday in his southeast coastal district, said he hopes to raise $5 million before the general election.

He ended the first fundraising quarter of the year with $1.75 million banked in his House account, the remainder of which will be transferred in full to the new Senate effort.

- James Richardson

The president of Morehouse College has strongly denied allegations that the controversial change in the school’s graduation ceremonies that culminated in a prominent alumnus no longer participating was an effort to stifle political debate.

Morehouse President John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. wrote in an open letter Tuesday that the Rev. Kevin Johnson, a prominent Philadelphia pastor who was named baccalaureate speaker but allegedly found himself on the outs with top school administrators after criticizing President Barack Obama, was “not disinvited.”

Instead, Wilson said, the original speaker elected not to participate in a modified format that school administrators believed was “more creative.”

“I … made a decision to adjust the format of the Baccalaureate program and opted for a more creative, multi-speaker approach that is used by many leading institutions …” Wilson wrote. “In this instance, I decided to ask [Johnson] to share the Baccalaureate stage with two other speakers so as to reflect a broader and more inclusive range of viewpoints. To my chagrin, my decision has been wrongly construed by some as an effort to ‘disinvite’ this individual.”

Johnson, who wrote a column in a Philadelphia newspaper earlier this month in which he criticized the president’s majority-white cabinet picks, said Wilson had expressed reservations about his comments and suggested he resign his role in the graduation ceremonies.

When Johson rebuffed administrators, Wilson moved to expand the baccalaureate program from one to three speakers, a break from tradition.

The reverend refused that offer as well, according to East Atlanta Patch, and asked by letter that Morehouse honor its original invitation that he deliver the sole baccalaureate address. Instead, the article said, Johnson soon learned he had been replaced altogether by a trio of new speakers.

But Wilson vigorously denied the implication Tuesday that his decision to alter the format of the baccalaureate service was motivated by Johnson’s criticism of President Obama, who will deliver the school’s commencement speech.

“He was not disinvited, but rather declined to participate in the format,” he said. “Worse yet, this decision has led to allegations of censorship … These allegations are fundamentally deleterious and are undeserved.”

The college’s response came as two dozen prominent alumni publicly urged Wilson to reappoint Johnson as the sole baccalaureate speaker.

- James Richardson

Republican Rep. Jack Kingston is expected to formally launch his campaign for U.S. Senate at a pair of news conferences Thursday in south Georgia and immediately turn his focus to raising money.

A Kingston aide confirmed Tuesday the congressman had scheduled events in his coastal House district, but remained tight-lipped on the nature of the announcement.

Still, little doubt remains among Georgia Republican eminences–the congressman’s son, Jim, has been canvassing county and district GOP chairman for support for weeks now–that Kingston will pursue the nomination.

On Thursday, however, whatever doubts remain should be put to rest: Kingston, per a spokesman, “will be doing a number of press conferences around the state, beginning Thursday in Savannah.”

The congressman’s schedule also includes a high dollar fundraiser for Friday evening in Savannah, according to an invitation sent to donors earlier this month.

The event, billed as “kickoff reception,” lists former Georgia state senator and Republican gubernatorial candidate Eric Johnson as a co-host, along with a stable of other notable GOP donors, and an accompanying appeal from the would-be candidate makes note of the steep finances need to wage a successful statewide effort.

“It has been especially important over the past several weeks as Libby, our family, and I have carefully considered a bid for the Senate seat being vacated by Saxby Chambliss,” Kingston wrote in a letter this week to supporters.

“To wage an aggressive and successful campaign, we will need to build a war chest of $5 million before we enter the general election,” he said. “The Atlanta media market is one of the most expensive in our region and we will need to make a strong showing in order to push ourselves across the finish line.”

Anchored by Savannah and Valdosta, Kingston’s recently-redrawn southeast district is on the opposite end of the state from Atlanta, and an advertising buy in the costly capital market could mean only one thing for the coastal lawmaker: a statewide run.

Kingston has not yet filed a statement of candidacy with federal authorities, though the invitation for the May 3 event lists “Friends of Jack Kingston,” the congressman’s existing House campaign vehicle, as the beneficiary.

Should he pull the trigger Thursday as expected, Kingston would transfer the total sum of his House account, which reported having stockpiled just shy of $1 million as of the end of the first quarter, to a Senate war chest.

He will face at least two fellow Georgia House Republicans, Reps. Phil Gingrey of and Paul Broun, both representing districts in or near Atlanta, in the primary.

- James Richardson

A prominent pastor was allegedly disinvited from speaking at Morehouse College’s baccalaureate service this week after he criticized President Barack Obama, who will deliver the school’s commencement address.

The Rev. Kevin Johnson, a Morehouse alumnus and the senior pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, Pa., wrote an opinion column earlier this month in the Philadelphia Tribune accusing Obama of neglecting the black community in his cabinet picks–they’re overwhelmingly white–and broader political agenda.

The day after the article ran, Johnson said, Morehouse President John Silvanus Wilson, Jr. phoned to express reservations about his “untimely” comments regarding President Obama. Johnson asked administrators to honor their invitation, but learned days later he had been replaced by three alternate speakers.

Now, a group of two dozen pastors who lead churches across the country are demanding Morehouse re-invite Johnson.

“If President Wilson turns his back on one of our most distinguished alums because of an exercise of free speech and political commentary, he will have set Morehouse on a dangerous course and departed from the great tradition bequeathed to us,” Rev. Dr. Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, Ca. told East Atlanta Patch, which aggregated the comments of other outraged alums.

UPDATE: In open letter to faculty, students and alumni, Morehouse’s top administrator vigorously denied allegations the school disinvited Johnson because he criticized the president.

- James Richardson

High school students in Georgia’s rural Wilcox County held on Saturday their first integrated prom, more than half century since the nation’s high court ordered the benchmark desegregation of public schools, after students campaigned to reconcile their school’s decades-long tradition of extramural, racially-exclusive dances.

The school, whose students number only 400, has not historically sanctioned dances, instead leaving the administration of such events to students and parents. For prom, two private balls, one organized by and for each race, were held.

The unseemly tradition was expected to continue this year, but a vigorous social media campaign by four students, two white and two black, to host an integrated affair earned the Peach State mapdot international notoriety.

And thanks to the efforts of Better Georgia, an upstart band of local progressive agitators, the integration push also meant for Gov. Nathan Deal an unexpected political nuisance.

Sensing the opportunity to marginalize the governor with African American voters, the group publicly demanded Deal intervene. Deal demurred, his aides insisting the governor would not be hoodwinked by a “silly publicity stunt” orchestrated by a “leftist front group for the state Democratic Party.”

But the taciturn response only emboldened the group, whose operatives sowed critical headlines throughout the country. “Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal won’t respond to group’s call to end segregated prom,” one hed, at the highly-trafficked Huffington Post, read. Another from Creative Loafing, a popular Atlanta altweekly, read: “Deal spokesman calls integrated prom push a ‘silly publicity stunt.’”

For now, though, it seems the tradition (and taunting for Deal) has ended.

- James Richardson

The U.S. Senate campaign of Rep. Paul Broun scored the endorsement Thursday of former Congressman Ron Paul, the Texas lawmaker who cultivated a national network of rowdy libertarian activists and small dollar donors over the last four decades in the House of Representatives.

“Paul Broun and I worked together in the House to bring some necessary oversight to the Federal Reserve,” Paul said of the pair’s mutual interest in auditing the nation’s central bank. “I endorse Paul Broun on his candidacy to the U.S. Senate.”

Broun, in the same release, gushed on Paul’s “courage and principles” in opposing “out-of-control” spending.

“As Dr. Paul knows, it’s often a lonely fight when you’re one of the few Members in Congress with the courage and principles to say no to the out-of-control spending being done by both political parties,” Broun said. “When Dr. Paul retired, I picked up the mantle right where he left off by reintroducing his Audit the Fed bill. … I’m ready to take that kind of leadership along with my beliefs about limited government to the United States Senate.”

Broun had less than a quarter of the cash reserved than either of his likely rivals–his campaign entered the second quarter of the year with little more than $200,000 banked, according to its most recent finance disclosures–but the Paul endorsement opens a new revenue stream.

Supporters of Paul’s presidential bids made headlines in 2008 and again in 2012 when they raised millions online for his campaign in one-day events, dubbed money bombs. After his attempts to capture the White House failed, his supporters concentrated their giving instead on Paul-approved legislative candidates.

It’s an unfamiliar advantage that Broun readily acknowledged Thursday: “With support from Dr. Paul and the grassroots community,” he said, “this is a race that I know we can win.”

But While Paul’s nod may yet infuse Broun’s campaign with some much-needed cash and libertarian cred, it won’t do much to soften the perception among moderates and independents that the Georgian is too conservative for the Senate.

Paul retired from Congress this year, focusing his energies instead on pushing noninterventionist foreign policy through his newly-formed think tank.

- James Richardson

President Barack Obama and Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet will travel to Georgia in mid May for a high dollar fundraiser as the guest of Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, according to a Democratic party official with knowledge of the event.

The May 19 brunch, to be held at the Atlanta headquarters of the Arthur Blank Family Foundation, will benefit the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has expressed tempered interest in Georgia’s 2014 U.S. Senate contest.

A Democratic official confirmed the event in an email to Tipsheet, but could not provide details on the cost of entry. Inquiries to Blank aides and other event organizers were not immediately returned.

Along with Blank, whose nonprofit has primarily contributed to Democratic candidates and causes since 2004, the president will be welcomed to Georgia by two of the state’s most prominent Democrats, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and former Gov. Roy Barnes.

Obama last visited Georgia in February as part of a two-state southern swing to drive support for the legislative agenda he unveiled at the State of the Union address earlier this year.

The May fundraiser was first reported by Creative Loafing.

UPDATE: Mayor Reed reacted strongly Wednesday to Creative Loafing’s report, accusing the altweekly of taking a “cheapshot” at the president’s expense by not mentioning the “purpose” of the southern jaunt.

@thomaswheatley what a cheapshot.You forgot to mention the purpose of the President’s visit is to give the commencement speach @ Morehouse.

— Kasim Reed (@KasimReed) April 24, 2013

The article’s author, CL news editor Thomas Wheatley, said the event’s invitation made no mention of the Morehouse commencement address, but amended his story at the mayor’s behest.

- James Richardson

Believing their ability to win Georgia’s open U.S. Senate seat next year is predicated on dodging a costly and divisive nominating contest, Democratic leaders have begun quietly working to anoint a consensus candidate, multiple party donors and operatives say.

U.S. Rep. John Barrow, the coastal blue dog who has thwarted consecutive Republican efforts to bounce him from Congress, and Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former U.S. Sen. Sam Sunn, are both actively evaluating primary bids, but the potential for a bruising intraparty bout has party leaders concerned.

“We had too many incidences when we’ve run Democrats against each other, spent a lot of money and then had nothing to show for it,” Georgia Democratic Party Chairman Mike Berlon told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If you’re the party on the rise like we are, resources aren’t plentiful. We have to do more with less and make sure we have the right candidates.”

Barrow and Nunn are expected to meet in the coming weeks to discuss the race, though it is widely believed among Peach State insiders that national Democrats would prefer Nunn yield to Barrow, whom they regard as a tested and known quanity.

“Nunn is political royalty in Georgia, there’s no denying it, but her father’s coattails can only drag her campaign so far,” one Democratic operative who asked to remain anonymous told Tipsheet. “Democrats need someone who has been in the trenches, with a track record of foiling GOP attacks. That’s not Michelle Nunn.”

But even if Nunn can be dissuaded from running, Democrats’ unity effort may be spoiled by one of their own, a retread who has since long fallen from grace with party eminences but nonetheless remains popular with African Americans, a critical demographic if the party hopes to build a winning state coalition.

Vernon Jones, the former DeKalb chief executive who narrowly lost the the Democratic Senate nomination in 2008, has hinted he may again pursue the seat, whether or not party bigs want him.

“There’s gonna’ be a battle in 2014,” Jones said. “My powder is dry, my musket is clean and I have a satchel full of bullets. And I’m not gonna’ shoot until I see the white of their eyes. Stay tuned.”

One Washington Democratic consultant with whom Tipsheet spoke said the margin for Nunn yielding to Barrow diminishes considerably if Jones launches a campaign.

“Democrats are delusional if they think Michelle would stand down to clear a field that isn’t clear,” the consultant said by email.

- James Richardson

A conservative Republican state senator from northwest Georgia said at a weekend forum he will run for the GOP nomination to replace U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey.

State Sen. Barry Loudermilk of Cassville, a hard-nosed conservative who made a reputation in the state legislature for championing a host of controversial efforts, including a personhood amendment and the repeal of the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, vowed never to “abandon” the GOP’s conservative base if elected to replace Gingrey, who is running for U.S. Senate.

He filed a statement of candidacy on April 11 with the Federal Election Commission, but delayed his formal announcement nearly two weeks to coincide with district GOP conventions.

“I don’t come from the grassroots,” Loudermilk said at the meeting. “I am the grassroots. The grassroots isn’t something that you leave just because you get to elected office. The grassroots isn’t something that you just abandon and you only show up to a party meeting every now and then.”

An outspoken Christian, Loudermilk’s political profile mirrors in many ways that of another north Georgia conservative, Rep. Paul Broun.

Loudermilk began his political career in the Bartow County Republican Party, whose chairmanship he used as a springboard in 2004 to the state House of Representatives.

That race, which coincided with the successful effort to amend Georgia’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage, often veered into values territory.

During one debate, Loudermilk said he approved of only one exception for abortion, when the mother’s health was in jeopardy, and believed homosexuality violated biological and theological standards.

“Homosexuality violates the laws of nature,” he said according to a contemporary press account by the local Rome News-Tribune, “the laws of God and the laws of man.”

The pronounced appeal to socially conservative voters wasn’t an election year gimmick, though. In both the state House and Senate, to which he was elected in 2010, Loudermilk devoted considerable bandwidth to restricting abortion.

He gained notoriety in 2011 when he proposed a state constitutional amendment that would have criminalized abortion, defining a fertilized human egg as a person. (The measure, which would would have banned some types of birth control and discouraged in-vitro fertilization, ultimately stalled, despite the attention it stirred.)

And on Saturday, huddled in a baptist church meeting room with fellow conservatives, it was clear Loudermilk’s efforts, their success notwithstanding, was not forgotten: he walked away with 61 percent support in a three-way straw poll vote.

He joins fellow Republicans Bobb Barr, who once held the seat, and state House Majority Whip Ed Lindsey in the nomination fight.

- James Richardson

A recent executive order by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal that broadened the eligibility guidelines of permissible timber in government construction projects has triggered parallel measures by a trio of other Deep South states.

Deal signed in August an order stipulating that any new or expanded state building must “recogniz[e] all forest certifications equally.” The move drew little local focus outside of industry lobbyists and conservative academics, yet roused lawmakers in neighboring states to adjust their own regulations.

The practical application of the governor’s mandate banned Georgia government agencies from adopting the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a popular green building program, because it’s singular preference for a forestry certification standard that remains unpopular with the state’s foresters.

Two-thirds of Georgia’s 37 million acres of land area is timberland available for commercial use, according to a 2011 report by the U.S. Forest Service, but much of that timber is necessarily excluded from resource pools by those states and federal agencies that apply LEED standards to construction and renovation.

LEED, which enforces green building practices on more than 34 state governments and 14 federal agencies, solely recognizes timber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Nationwide, FSC-approved forests represent less than one quarter of all certified US timber. In Georgia, less than one percent of certified forests have been approved by the program. The state’s remaining forests, virtually all, are excluded from resource pools in LEED-orchestrated government projects.

Deal, through a spokesman, said his order evens the playing field for Georgia timber and would protect local jobs.

“This executive order puts Georgia timber on equal footing with products produced in other states or nations,” he said. “It encourages the use of Georgia timber, and it’s a way for the state to support and maybe create Georgia jobs.”

The months the followed the adoption of the Georgia order saw similar action in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama. Forestry experts expect North Carolina to join the list soon.

In late March, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed legislation that explicitly forbid the application of any green building rating system that excludes certification credits for timber certified by alternative forestry programs, including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the American Tree Farm System.

The Florida state House approved similar legislation, which now awaits Senate adoption, just as the governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, signed an executive order that mirrored the Deal order. North Carolina is expected to join the list soon.

Forestry experts say it was Georgia’s Deal who set those dominoes in motion.

“I doubt Gov. Deal expected to so heavily impact the South by picking sides in the fight between the forestry sector and environmentalists, but his leadership has done more to protect one of the region’s most successful industries than any Dixie governor in a decade,” Jay Morgan, a Georgia lobbyist who has closely monitored the certification debate, told Tipsheet by email.

- Dome Confidential