Get Out the Vote: Stacey Abrams vs. Brian Kemp for Georgia Governor
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By Ted Shepherd
On November 6, voters will elect the next Governor of Georgia. Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee, and Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee, could not be more different. Whereas Abrams views the state’s $26 billion annual budget as a means to improve the lives of Georgians by increasing state spending in several policy areas, Kemp believes that less state spending and reduced governmental involvement in business is the way to improve Georgia.
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Abrams has an extensive list of policy goals in areas such as health care, childcare, education, and gun safety. One of her most significant spending priorities is to expand Medicaid to provide health insurance to almost 500,000 low-income Georgians that are currently uninsured. Although the resulting increase in state Medicaid spending would cost a few hundred million dollars each year, Abrams believes that access to quality healthcare is essential for Georgia to prosper. In contrast, Kemp opposes expanding Medicaid or providing additional insurance to low-income Georgians.
Another area where Abrams wants to significantly increase spending is in education, from early childhood education, through K-12 education, and on to college education. For example, Abrams wants to make quality child care more affordable so that lower-income Georgians can afford to put their kids in good childcare while they go to work. Abrams wants to increase childcare and pre-K options for kids under age 5, expand afterschool programs, and increase salaries to attract good childcare workers. She believes that doing so will both enable more Georgians to work today and improve Georgia’s future workforce by increasing the educational attainment of Georgia’s kids.
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She also wants to increase spending for K-12 public schools to increase the quality of education in Georgia. This funding will support several programs across the state, including an expansion of arts and technology education, programs to improve high school graduation rates, higher teacher salaries, hiring more teachers to reduce average class sizes, more school safety measures, and improvements to building security.
To improve educational opportunities for Georgia college students, Abrams want to make sure that more students have the ability to go to college. Her plans include creating a need-based component to the HOPE Scholarship so that students with under a 3.0 GPA who need help paying for college receive assistance. She also wants to provide HOPE funding for students seeking associate degrees and to introduce programs to help college students keep or regain their HOPE scholarship if their GPA has dropped. Abrams wants to provide free SAT and ACT testing to help Georgia high school students get into college. She also wants to mandate that every Georgia college informs students about careers that students can enter to forgive their student loan debt, such as teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers, child care workers, nonprofit workers, and government employees.
Kemp disagrees with most of these education spending increases. However, he does want to increase spending on school safety, increase teacher pay, and expand career training programs in Georgia technical colleges.
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Another area where Kemp and Abrams differ significantly is in gun safety. Abrams wants make sure that only responsible gun owners have access to guns. To keep guns away from people who might harm themselves or others, she supports reforms including more background checks before people can buy a gun, laws that prevent people convicted of domestic violence or sexual assault from owning guns, laws that would restrict gun access to people with mental health challenges, and repeal of the campus-carry law that allows college students to take guns into public university classrooms.
In contrast, Kemp, who in the Republican primary ran TV ads stating that he only allowed men to date his daughters that have a “healthy respect for the 2nd amendment,” opposes any sort of gun control. Although he supports improving school safety, he’s stated that school safety “has nothing to do with 2nd Amendment protections or gun control.”
On some issues, the two candidates agree. Both want to expand access to high speed internet, improve hospitals and healthcare access in rural areas, and improve conditions for military veterans. However, Abrams and Kemp fundamentally disagree on whether increased spending is the best way to help Georgia. Kemp wants to cut taxes, which will result in a decrease in government revenue and, in turn, less money to spend on programs throughout the state. However, like many Republicans, he believes that reduced taxes and less government regulation will spur economic growth, attract businesses to Georgia, and improve the state economy. In contrast, Abrams believes that more government spending, not less, is the way to help Georgia.
The latest polls put the two candidates as neck-and-neck. Although Georgians haven’t elected a Democratic governor in 20 years, Abrams’ supporters believe that things will be different this year if enough voters turn out to vote. However, recent news of Kemp’s attempts to keep as many as 53,000 Georgians from voting complicates Abrams’ plans. As the current Secretary of State, Kemp is the chief elections officer in the state. His office has refused to approve thousands of new voter registrations under Georgia’s so-called “exact match” voter registration law that was passed by the Republican state legislature, with Kemp’s support, last year. The law requires information on voter registration applications to exactly match information in state databases; a missed middle name or skipped hyphen will kick out someone’s application. According to an investigation by the Associated Press, 70 percent of the pending 53,000 applications are from black Georgians, voters who disproportionately support Abrams. A lawsuit filed last week by several state civil rights groups accuses Kemp, as Secretary of State, of trying to suppress minority voters. However, the outcome of the lawsuit is uncertain, and 53,000 votes could easily make the difference in the upcoming election.
So, it’s important for every Georgian to get out and vote. Unlike many elections in which the candidates running aren’t neck-and-neck, every vote in Georgia could literally make the difference in the election. Encourage everyone you know to vote and assist those who need help in getting to the polls. If you or they can’t make it to the polls on November 6, many early voting locations are already open.
Why Are The Leaves Still Green In October?
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Keiko Smythe
October 20, 2018
Spotlight
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Have you noticed that it is October and the leaves are green and still on the trees? Fall began in mid-September, what is fall without the leaves actually falling off the trees or turning brown. So what is the real deal? Some say global warming, some conspiracies say the time of Earth entirely is off. If fall is off will it lead to a longer winter?
It has been a very warm fall, this is a large factor in the mystery of why the trees are still green. The wetness from the rain and the warmness of the weather is confusing the chlorophyll production. Chlorophyll is the reflection of green light, which is why we see green pigment on plants. When colder temperatures and shorter hours of sunlight occur, the chlorophyll production in the leaves begin to decrease and eventually stops, causing brown and red tints in leaves. In 2018 there have been significant amounts of hotter days this far in the year which is the main cause of the loss of the beautiful orange tinted leaves we anticipate each fall.
Global warming also plays a major role with this phenomenon. Global warming is to blame for many catastrophes, including rising sea levels, that lead to flooding and hurricanes in coastal regions, most recent Hurricane Michael. Wildfires, droughts and heat-waves are also effects of global warming has ruined. Since the chlorophyll is still actively working throughout the leaves across the U.S., the slow warming of the Earth is affecting our fall season and could potentially lead out into the winter months.
So how do warmer temperatures cause extreme winters? It is a confusing concept to wrap your mind around, however it starts when warmer temperatures cause more evaporation to occur. When evaporation causes more water to enter the atmosphere, the warm air can begin to hold more water, than actual cool air. Water holding capacity actually rises approximately seven percent with each one degree Celsius of warm air. Since there is so much warm air, the atmosphere becomes supersaturated with water which brings drenching rainfall or intense snowfall as winter approaches.
Overall, there is nothing scientist can do about this shift in the Earth’s substantiality and given this information we have no idea what we can expect from future seasons. These changes only means more intense weather and delayed natural changes in the Earth.
Conflict of Interests in Kemp
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Ian Schunk
Word Count: 534
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Stacey Abrams may just be the first black woman to be elected governor in the United States. Brian Kemp is the only wall which the democrats must overcome to achieve what will be a remarkable moment in U.S. history. Kemp isn’t going down without a fight; since 2012 his office has closed 212 voting precincts. The voting precincts being closed disproportionately target areas that are below the poverty line, and are predominately black. Closing these precincts will decrease voter turnout in an election that Kemp himself is participating in. He and his supporters have claimed that the closing of these voting precincts have been done to save tax dollars. There are much more efficient ways of saving money than depriving people of the ability to vote. In the 2016 presidential and congressional elections, a total of 6.5 billion dollars was spent on the maintenance of voting precincts. This may sound like a lot, but the United States government spends 598.5 billion dollars each year on the military, in addition to 100 billion dollars being spent nationally on the police and 80 billion dollars on incarceration. Steps should be taken to demilitarize our government, and instead put forth funds to maintain a legitimate democracy.
The conflict of interests between Brian Kemp being the secretary of state, while running for Governor is apparent. How can you participate in an election in which you get to decide who is able to vote? Kemp has shown his contempt for democracy, by refusing to step down as secretary of state. Jimmy Carter sent a letter to Kemp, condemning his undemocratic campaign tactics. The letter states, “To Secretary of State Brian Kemp: I have officially observed scores of doubtful elections in many countries, and one of the key requirements for a fair and trusted process is that there be nonbiased supervision of the electoral process. In Georgia’s upcoming gubernatorial election, popular confidence is threatened not only by the undeniable racial discrimination of the past and the serious questions that the federal courts have raised about the security of Georgia’s voting machines, but also because you are now overseeing the election in which you are a candidate. This runs counter to the most fundamental principle of democratic elections — that the electoral process be managed by an independent and impartial election authority. Other secretaries of state have stepped down while running for election within their jurisdiction, to ensure that officials without a direct stake in the process can take charge and eliminate concerns about a conflict of interest. In order to foster voter confidence in the upcoming election, which will be especially important if the race ends up very close, I urge you to step aside and hand over to a neutral authority the responsibility of overseeing the governor’s election. This would not address every concern, but it would be a sign that you recognize the importance of this key democratic principle and want to ensure the confidence of our citizens in the outcome. Sincerely, Jimmy Carter”
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Despite pleas from prominent figures such as Jimmy Carter, and his political opponent Stacey Abrams: Kemp refuses to do the bare minimum of what should be expected of our political leaders.
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PBIS Student Rewards
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Anna Verlander
The PBIS Student Rewards is a program created by Mr. Ingram that allows teachers and staff to award student points for good behavior. When a student accumulates enough points they can spend them on the PBIS reward app site stores. The stores include the DHHS School Shop that sells t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats and excused tardy passes. The teacher stores are designed by the teachers, some consistent items are free homework passes and extra credit. The price of each item is up to the school and teacher; of course the bigger items cost more points then the smaller items. The Staff hope this will create a more friendly learning environment. “The goal of this program is to reward students for good behavior” said Coach Shields.
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Points can be awarded for showing academic effort, behavior, wild card and school spirit. Teachers and staff can give a student one point at a time and are limited to how many points they can give one student in a day. Students can accumulate points over their entire high school career. Teachers and staff hope this will get the students to behave better in classes. Charis Floyd says “There could be some problems with why the points go to students, for example a teacher could give a point to normally loud students has have behaved. What happens to the students who are normally behaved?”. While there is this possibility faculty will try their best to keep it fair.
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The PBIS Student Rewards app is available on Iphone and Android, to sign in you can scan your Student ID with the app scanner. On your profile you can see your balance of points. The app has icons you can click on which allow you to see which category you have earned points in, and which teacher has given you points for that day, the teacher and school stores, also the raffles that you have been entered in by a teacher. “It's all right there" said Grey Cohen. This app program is easy for teachers and students to use.
