Gooch asks Kemp to end federal unemployment relief

News, State & National
federal unemployment relief

ATLANTA – Majority Whip and State Senator Steve Gooch (R-51) has asked Governor Brian Kemp (R) to halt the federal unemployment relief in Georgia.

In a letter sent to Kemp’s desk today, Gooch details how many small businesses are struggling to find people to work. Many restaurants can’t fully open because they don’t have the staff.

“While we are still recovering from the economic impact of the pandemic, local business owners are desperate for employees – not customers. Every job creator agrees that this workforce shortage is a direct result of the federal expanded unemployment benefits, where employees are incentivized to stay home and collect government checks that often exceed what they would earn at the job site. This labor shortage has caused many restaurants to alter their hours of operation and is having an oversized impact on the supply chain of every sector of the economy. In fact, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers cannot deliver their goods and services to their customers. Costs are skyrocketing due to limited inventories and Georgia businesses – and consumers – are struggling to foot the bill.” – Senator Steve Gooch

Gooch touches on teacher’s unions preventing parents from returning to work because some schools haven’t returned to in-person learning.

The Senator cites that a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available and free to whoever wishes to take it.

He urges Kemp to take executive action and stop the unemployment benefits or include the issue in a Special Session late this summer.

The American Rescue Plan signed by President Joe Biden (D) on March 11, 2021, extended Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) programs through September 6, 2021.

FPUC sends out a $300 weekly supplement until September 6, 2021 “as appropriate” and is subject to deductions, child support, and overpayment recoveries.

Last week, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis (R) moved to reinstate the weekly “work search” updates required to receive unemployment benefits. Florida suspended the measure when the pandemic began.

Georgia Department of Labor Commissioner Mark Butler (R) released an earlier statement that the Georgia requirements for unemployment are likely to return within the next few months.

“We are hearing from employers that are struggling to meet demand right now due to the lack of applicants for open positions,” said Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler. “Our mission is to not only bridge the pay gap for those who are temporarily unemployed, but to also provide reemployment support for those who are looking to reenter the workforce filling the critical vacancies we are seeing in almost every industry right now.”

Sen. Steve Gooch Assumes Additional Duties in State Senate

News, Press Release

ATLANTA (January 25, 2021) | Recently, Sen. Steve Gooch (R – Dahlonega) received his committee assignments for the 2021 legislative session.

Sen. Gooch will serve as the Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Vice Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, and as a member of the Ethics, Finance, Reapportionment and Redistricting, and Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee. Additionally, Sen. Gooch will serve as an Ex- Officio member of the Rules and Natural Resources and the Environment Committees.  Sen. Gooch will also continue to serve as the Senate Majority Whip.

“I am grateful for the Lt. Governor’s office and the Senate Committee on Assignments for allowing me to serve our community, as well as our state, through these committee appointments,” said Sen. Gooch. “This session will be unlike any other that we have experienced and will require careful, responsible leadership, particularly when it comes to our state budget. I am honored to have an opportunity to lend my experience to the service of our state through these committees, as well as through my role as the Senate Majority Whip.”

“Sen. Gooch, as well as all members receiving committee assignments, have proven their ability to provide meaningful solutions to issues citizens face across the state,” said Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan. “Sen. Gooch brings a host of experience and knowledge to each committee he serves on and I look forward to continuing to work alongside him as he works tirelessly to advance policies in the best interest of all Georgians.”

The first session of the 156th Georgia General Assembly convened on January 11, 2021, at the Georgia State Capitol.

Senate study committee to evaluate E-Scooters Monday

News

PRESS RELEASE

ATLANTA – The first meeting of the Senate Evaluating E-Scooters and Other Innovative Mobility Options for Georgians Study Committee will be held on Monday. at 10 a.m. at the Georgia World Congress Center in the Authority Boardroom.

Sen. Steve Gooch (R –Dahlonega) will serve as chair of the Senate Evaluating E-Scooters and Other Innovative Mobility Options for Georgians Study Committee which was created by the passage of Senate Resolution 479 during the 2019 Legislative Session. Five members serve on the study committee and will evaluate how local governments, state agencies and universities are utilizing E-scooters and other innovative mobility technology. The committee must report its findings on or before December 1.

The tentative agenda is located here: http://www.senate.ga.gov/committees/Documents/E-Scooter9-23.pdf

WHO:              Sen. Steve Gooch and Members of the Senate Evaluating E-Scooters and Other Innovative Mobility Options for Georgians Study Committee

WHAT:            First Study Committee Meeting

WHEN:            Monday, September 23, 2019
10:00 a.m.

WHERE:          Georgia World Congress Center-Authority Boardroom

285 Andrew Young International Blvd NW

Atlanta, GA 30313

 

Fetch Your News is a hyper local news outlet that covers Dawson, Lumpkin, White, Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens, Union, Towns and Murray counties as well as Cherokee County in N.C. FYN attracts 300,000+ page views per month, 3.5 million impressions per month and approximately 15,000 viewers per week on FYNTV.com and up to 60,000 Facebook page reach. If you would like to follow up-to-date local events in any of those counties, please visit us at FetchYourNews.com

 

 

 

Brian Kemp’s Putting Georgians First bus tour rolled into Dawson County early Monday morning

News, Politics

Brian Kemp addresses supporters Monday morning during stop in Dawson County.

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. – With early voting in Georgia’s gubernatorial race set to begin in two weeks, Republican candidate Secretary of State Brian Kemp brought his 27-stop “Putting Georgians First” bus tour to Dawsonville Monday morning to paint a “stark contrast” between him and his Democrat opponent and to remind supporters “We are in a fight for the soul of our state.”

While Democrats have attempted to paint former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams as a centrist candidate, Kemp wasted little time in labeling her  a “radical career politician” who would raise taxes, end school choice and expand government healthcare.

On taxes, Kemp said her plan is to raise taxes “even though she hasn’t paid her own.”

“She wants to reverse the billion dollar tax cut these guys in the legislature helped pass last year because of the leadership of our president at the federal level,” Kemp said. “My plan as governor is signing another tax cut this coming year.”

On education, Kemp said, “I want to expand pre-K, protect the Hope Scholarship by not doing what she wants to do by giving it to people who are here illegally. I want to have less testing, less state mandates and more local control when it comes to education.”

Kemp proposed a $5,000 annual pay raise for Georgia’s teachers last week. “They know a lot better what to do in their local communities than some bureaucrat in state or federal government.”

On healthcare, he said he wants to end government healthcare while Abrams supports single-payer healthcare which “is going to cost billions and will limit your ability to see your own doctor. But don’t worry, she’s got a plan to pay for that – raising your taxes.” Kemp said her plan would “bankrupt the state and bankrupt you.”

Kemp also said Abrams has “an extreme agenda” when it comes to public safety and law enforcement. “She voted against legislation to increase protection for our police officers that have been assaulted and walked off the floor on a vote to go after people who are buying our children for sex. When pressed, she said she did not support the legislation.”

“Voting against having sexual predators within 1,000 feet of our schools and taking pictures of our children, that is an extreme agenda. (Kemp was referring to Abrams vote against HB 908 in 2008). That and going after street gangs.”

Kemp added that he has a plan to stop and dismantle street gangs in Georgia. He added that according to state and federal law enforcement agents, there are 70,000 street gang members living in Georgia today.

Kemp reminded supporters that “we are in the fight of our lives right now. For people who say we’ve got this election in the bag, we do not. We’re going to win, but we can’t win if everybody stays home. We’ve got to get our folks out. Don’t let showing up this morning be the last thing you do for this campaign.”

Over the weekend, former U.S Congressman Newt Gingrich warned of a massive “blue wave of money flowing into the Abrams campaign from leftist states like California and New York.

When Fetch Your News asked Kemp about Gingrich’s comment, he said, “The problem is we’re never going to be able to out raise her. You literally have billionaires like George Soros and others trying to bring their socialist ideas of big government to the state of Georgia to influence this election. We’re going to have the resources we need, but we’ve got to have a lot of people working on the ground to get the vote out to combat the amount of money they have.”

Kemp is accompanied on the tour by his wife Marty and daughter Lucy and U.S. Congressman Doug Collins and State Senator Steve Gooch.

Collins introduced Kemp, saying, Brian has fought off liberals when they wanted to attack our voting system. He’s fought for smaller government. He’s fought for the things that matter to us.”

Dawson County was the first stop on the first day of bus tour Monday morning. It was followed by stops in Pickens, Fannin, Gilmer, Murray and Whitfield counties.

 

Fetch Your News is a hyper local news outlet that covers Dawson, Lumpkin, White, Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens, Union, Towns and Murray counties as well as Cherokee County in N.C. FYN attracts 300,000+ page views per month, 3.5 million impressions per month and approximately 15,000 viewers per week on FYNTV.com and up to 60,000 Facebook page reach. If you would like to follow up-to-date local events in any of those counties, please visit us at FetchYourNews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will the General Assembly reverse the 2018 GDOT carve-out on E-Verify for contractor bids?

Politics, State & National

Written by D.A. King

**note this article ran in Insider Advantage.

In last year’s legislative session Republican state Senator Steve Gooch (R-Dahlonega) introduced legislation that gutted the process intended to ensure that the Georgia Department of Transportation hires contractors that are using a legal workforce. In the haste and bedlam of 2018’s Sine Die, Senate Bill 445 sailed through both the House and Senate.

It is notable that SB 445 went through the Senate Transportation Committee, as Senators Brandon Beach, Butch Miller, Frank Ginn and Mike Dugan were bill signers, in that order. All are transportation committee members — with Beach as chairman.

On SB 445, Chairman Beach made it clear in his committee that “it’s a DOT bill” (professional transcription here. – two-minute archived committee video here).

Now that the cat is out of the bag on this caper- and we have a new governor — one “important issue” for the 2019 session should be to see if lawmakers will reinstate the bidding system for GDOT that all other public employers and their contractors are still supposed to follow.

We recognize many readers will view this as a dry topic – the only folks who may have a concern are those who don’t want their taxes used to pay illegal aliens on GDOT projects.

After mandates were put into place in the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act of 2006 (SB 529) to require all public employers and contractors to use E-Verify, adjustments were made in HB2 of 2009 to deal with the obvious problem that some public contractors were bidding on – and winning – contracts with bids that were based on the cost of black market labor before they swore on an affidavit that they were using E-Verify. This allowed contractors to hire a crew for a job that could not be verified as eligible to work using the E-Verify system, which can only be used for newly hired employees after receiving authorization from the feds to use the online system.

The 2009 solution to this chicanery was to change the law so that bids are not considered unless and until the E-Verify affidavit is presented.

In his quick presentation of the measure, Sen. Gooch told the committee the changes to the GDOT bid rules were being proposed to make life easier for contractors.

“Section 3… makes clear that the deadline for a bidder to supply their signed notarized e-verify affidavit is prior to contract award as opposed to the bid submission. This has caused a problem with some of the contractors that submitted their e-verify affidavits but they didn’t reach to the department either by mail or by other means of delivery in time for the bid, um, deadlines and therefore they were disqualified from bidding on the work. Now essentially requires ’em to submit those E-Verifies prior to the contracts being awarded” said Gooch (emphasis mine).

It is hard to accept that this is a constructive or plausible reason to make changes to the GDOT bidding system, as the existing law is clear that bids and E-Verify affidavits may be submitted electronically. If a contract bidder is indeed an E-Verify user, he can easily send that documentation along with his bid from his computer.

This writer asked GDOT for comment on this curious scenario.  One of the questions asked for verification that SB 445 was in fact a GDOT bill, as Chairman Beach told the committee. That question went unanswered.

This is not the first adventure in state law on E-Verify, bids, and contractors for GDOT.

CBS Atlanta 46 TV News did a series of stories on GDOT’s violations of the bidding/E-Verify law in 2010 that illustrated the lack of concern for the hard-fought mandate designed to make Georgia unwelcoming to illegal employers and illegal labor – and to safeguard taxpayer dollars. We have archived some of those reports:

* “Activist: GDOT Is Breaking State’s Immigration Law – Violation May Make It Easier For Contractors To Hire Illegal Immigrants. Here.

* “CBS Atlanta Asks If GDOT Contractor Is Hiring Illegal Workers.” CBS Atlanta 46 news video here.

* “GDOT Didn’t Know About The Illegal Immigrant Labor Law.” Here.

* “Federal Document Shows GDOT Contractor Lied On Affidavit
Company Swore To Check Employee’s Legal Status in Federal Database.” Here.

* “GDOT: Worker May Have Been Illegal. The Georgia Department of Transportation said Wednesday that one of its subcontractors may have been in the country illegally. The admission came after a CBS Atlanta investigation…” (No link)

* “GDOT Admits Mistake For Breaking Immigration Law: GDOT Commissioner Dodges Tough Questions About Hiring Illegal Worker.” Here.

IAG will follow up on this later in the legislative session, there is more.

You read it here first.

D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com. He has worked on the law featured above since 2006.

Gov. Kemp visits UNG Friday for signing ceremony

News

DAHLONEGA, Ga. — Gov. Brian Kemp received a warm welcome in Lumpkin County Friday when he arrived for a bill signing ceremony in the Library Technology Center on the campus of the University of North Georgia.

State Sen. Steve Gooch (R-Dahlonega), who sponsored four of the five bills the governor signed, welcomed the governor to his hometown and introduced him to those in attendance.

“Today is a big day for us,” he said. “We’ve been working a lot on some issues dealing with broadband and internet services.”

With a large number of state legislators who helped usher the bills through to passage on hand, along with many county and municipal elected officials, Kemp signed Senate Bills 2, 17, 66, 79 and 454.

Senate Bills 2,17,66 and 79 deal with the expansion of access to broadband internet service and were sponsored by Gooch. SB 454 was carried to the senate by Gooch and deals with electronic assisted bicycles.

Senate Bill 2 allows Georgia’s 41 EMCs which represent about 4.5 million rural customers to get into the broadband business and sell internet services.

An important question that has yet to be answered is how many EMCs will participate.

“I’ll stand here today and be the first one to confess, I don’t know that all 41 will ever get into internet services,” Gooch said, “But I believe this will allow them the opportunity to do so.”

Wednesday, April 24 marked the governor’s 100th day in office and he reflected of some of his administration’s early accomplishments.

“Over and over again, I promised to keep families safe, to put hard working Georgians first and I think that is exactly what we have done with these pieces of legislation today and with these great legislators’ help who are here today.”

Kemp said the 2019 and 2020 budgets are “reflection of the values of our state and our priorities for the future. We have fully funded public 0education for the second year in a row. We have given teachers, counselors and others a historic pay raise this year. We’ve invested $70 million in school security grants, $30,000 for every public school in the K through 12 system. We also doubled funding for mental health services in our high schools.”

The governor also pointed to state investments in public safety. “We created a task force within the GBI to undermine drug cartels, gangs and human and sex trafficking.”

Kemp thanked legislators for “stepping up to the plate” and adding $20 million to the budget for hurricane relief for farmers in south and southwest Georgia “while we wait on those in Washington D.C. to do their part to put people ahead of politics and pass the daggum disaster relief bill.”

 

Fetch Your News is a hyper local news outlet that covers Dawson, Lumpkin, White, Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens, Union, Towns and Murray counties as well as Cherokee County in N.C. FYN attracts 300,000+ page views per month, 3.5 million impressions per month and approximately 15,000 viewers per week on FYNTV.com and up to 60,000 Facebook page reach. If you would like to follow up-to-date local events in any of those counties, please visit us at FetchYourNews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senator Steve Gooch Honors City of Dahlonega

State & National

ATLANTA (January 29, 2018) | Senator Steve Gooch (R – Dahlonega) is pleased to announce Monday, January 29, 2018, as Dahlonega Day at the state Capitol with Senate Resolution 590.

“Dahlonega is the gateway to North Georgia and I am grateful to be able to share my home with the rest of my colleagues,” said Sen. Gooch. “This year marks the 60th anniversary of Dahlonega and Lumpkin County citizens delivering gold, by wagon, for the installation of the state Capitol building’s gold dome. I could not be more proud to have representatives from our local community here today to celebrate this honor.”

The City of Dahlonega is a small city in northern Georgia founded in 1832. Dahlonega was the site of the first major U.S. gold rush and now is commonly referred to as the ‘Gold City’. The city sits at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and is surrounded by many natural elements. Dahlonega is the county seat of Lumpkin County. In addition to its history of gold mining, the city of Dahlonega is also known as the Heart of Georgia Wine Country, with six wineries and nine winery tasting rooms.

 

Candidate for GA 51st District John Williamson points out Tax Increases since 2010

Election, Featured, Featured Stories, Politics

JWAd800

Fannin County Chamber of Commerce Primary Candidate Forum, Magistrate Judge, School Board, Tax Commissioner, GA House of Rep District 7, GA Senate Dist 51, Fannin Commission Chairman and Sheriff

Politics

Scroll down to watch video of the forum.

Fannin County Chamber of Commerce 2016 Primary Candidate Forum.

Cynthia Panter, Chairman Fannin County Chamber Board.

Rob Kaser, Co-Moderator

Fannin County Magistrate Judge

Sherri Walker (I) NP

Dannette Davis  NP

Brian D. Jones  NP

Fannin County School Board

Jeremy Davis  R

Clarence Junior Farmer  R

Chad Galloway   R

Fannin County Tax Commissioner

Shirley Sosebee (I) R

Marie Woody R

Georgia House of Representatives District 7

Speaker David Ralston (I) R

Sam Snider  R

Georgia Senate District 51

Senator Steve Gooch (I) R

Fannin County Commission Chairman

Bill Simonds (I) R

Stan Helton  R

Fannin County Sheriff

Dane Kirby (I) R

Larry Bennett Sr.  R

Johnny Scearce  R

Jack Taylor  R

Rusty Whittenbarger  D

https://youtu.be/dps2DZ7CYZs

BKP Interview with 51st. District State Senator Steve Gooch

Business

Georgia State Senator Steve Gooch stopped by Good Morning from the Office. Senator Gooch and BKP talk about the 2016 Georgia legislative session.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESVpbq9m-FM

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