Georgia Today: State appeals redistricting; White-tailed deer; Georgia native wins World Series

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Thursday, Nov. 2. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, the state will appeal a judge's order to redraw some voting districts. Deer are causing headaches for Georgia farmers, and a Georgia native makes history with last night's World Series-winning Texas Rangers. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

 

Story 1:

Peter Biello: Georgia says it will appeal a judge's order to redraw some congressional and state legislative districts. But for now, the state won't fight in court to pause the order issued by U.S. District Judge Stephen Jones last week. That means a special session of the Georgia Legislature later this month to draw new lines is likely to proceed. Reginald Jackson is a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of several parties suing the state over what the judge found to be maps that illegally dilute Black voting power.

Reginald Jackson: So while the decision has been made by Judge Jones, now even more important is going to be the decision by the Georgia Legislature to make sure that what is produced is what was directed by Judge Jones.

Peter Biello: Gov. Brian Kemp has called a special session for Nov. 29.

 

Story 2:

Peter Biello: The secretary of state's office is pushing back against questions from some Republican lawmakers about the timing of a software upgrade to Georgia's voting system. At a state Senate Ethics Committee hearing yesterday. The office's general counsel, Charlene McGowan, said there isn't enough time to upgrade and test about 40,000 voting machines, scanners and election servers before next year's presidential election cycle.

Charlene McGowan: I have given you the 40,000 reasons why we have not been able to do it to this date because there is a process that we have to follow that we are working through that is required by law and we feel it is the the responsible and reasonable course of action.

Peter Biello: Five counties are piloting the software update in this month's municipal elections. The update addresses vulnerabilities found by an election security researcher.

 

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Financially, farmers are dealing with a lot right now, and lately, many in Georgia and other farming states have been raising the alarm about white-tailed deer, which can cause millions of dollars worth of damage. GPB's Sofi Gratas reports there's little farmers can do.

Sofi Gratas: Driving through the Lee family farm in Dawson, Ga., Neil Lee says white tailed deer are eating through his family's 10,000-acre row crop farm.

Neil Lee: This year has been by far worse than I've ever seen.

Sofi Gratas: In one of the farm's cotton fields.

Neil Lee: Yeah. They should be a plant every 5 or 6 inches. But as it — as it comes up, they just steady bite it off.

Sofi Gratas: Patches of dirt surround young cotton bushes with snapped branches and missing cotton bolls.

Neil Lee: The young bolls like that are still real juicy.

Sofi Gratas: It's the deer's favorite snack.

Neil Lee: See the tracks here?

Sofi Gratas: Deer tracks.

Neil Lee: And then if you look. I mean, just all this should be cotton.

Sofi Gratas: It's not. Some miles away in one of Lee's soybean fields, the plants are ankle height near the tree line, half as tall as they should be. His peanut field looks mowed down. Lee says he's likely incurred damages in the six-figure range.

Adam Bellflower: We think this is one of the most pressing issues that farmers across the state are facing right now.

Sofi Gratas: Adam Bellflower lobbies for the Georgia Farm Bureau. He says lately the bureau's been hearing about deer in more fields.

Adam Bellflower: I would say it's — the complaints are starting to come from more different, more commodities has been than the big thing that we've learned.

Sofi Gratas: Like in cotton.

Adam Bellflower: We're seeing farmers that are losing significant yield.

Sofi Gratas: Georgia is not alone in all of this. Reports from Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina this year have shown row crop farmers reporting increased losses from deer damage. But while some farmers swear there are just more deer, populations in Georgia are stable. The number of deer in North Georgia has actually gone down due to habitat changes and more bears and coyotes. Charlie Killmaster is the deer biologist for the state of Georgia. He says the more money farmers can get for what they grow, the more likely they see deer damage as a problem.

Charlie Killmaster: As the value of crops, the amount that they can be sold for, goes up, the number of deer control permits goes up.

Sofi Gratas: Deer control permits are issued by the state and allow farmers to shoot a limited number of deer in their fields. Sorry, Bambi fans. So the price for all crops has increased by almost 30% since 2021. But it's also gotten a lot more expensive to grow them. So farmers are less likely to pay for preventative measures against deer like fencing, says Adam Bellflower with the Georgia Farm Bureau.

Adam Bellflower: If you're operating on thin margins, because seed is more expensive, because fertilizer is more expensive, because diesel's more expensive, because equipment's more expensive, anything on top of that is going to make it harder to remain profitable.

Sofi Gratas: For Neil Lee, back in Dawson, these financial stressors are all too familiar.

Neil Lee: I mean, I've enjoyed farming, but it is getting tough right now to survive.

Sofi Gratas: Lee has gotten permits to shoot deer on his land. It's helped, but those permits expire by the time hunting season rolls around in October.

Neil Lee: I feel like this is going to be — it's going to be this bad or worse for years to come until something is done. And I don't know what the answer is. I do know that more need to be killed.

Sofi Gratas: To do that, he's planning to lease his land to hunters this fall in hopes of getting some extra protection for his crops. For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas in Dawson.

 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: The Atlanta mayor's office has released designs for semipermanent housing in downtown. GPB's Amanda Andrews explains, it's part of the city's Rapid Rehousing initiative.

Amanda Andrews: Forty shipping containers donated by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency will be converted into housing. Two nonprofits, including Partners for HOME, are working with the city to develop a supportive housing village downtown for the unhoused or those with low incomes. Partners for HOME CEO Kathryn Vassell says the units are designed to be affordable for people making under $20,000 a year.

Kathryn Vassell: If you have a chronic disabling condition, you never pay more than 30% of your income. So the max that anyone would pay in these units is 30% of their income. If they have no income, which is fine, they would pay zero.

Amanda Andrews: The development is expected to open on Dec. 25. For GPB news, I'm Amanda Andrews.

 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: Babies are dying more often in Georgia. That's the conclusion from a CDC report which found a nearly 15% jump last year in the number of infants who died before their first birthday. Nationally, the rate went up 3%. Georgia has among the highest rates of increase in the nation and is the largest increase for Georgia in two decades. The Georgia Department of Public Health says last year's numbers may be covering some incomplete reporting done during the height of the pandemic.

Story 6:

Peter Biello: Since Hamas attacked Israel early last month, antisemitic groups in Georgia have picked up the pace in their efforts to distribute hateful messages, usually in the form of flyers. This corresponds with a nationwide rise in demonstrations of antisemitic hate. For more on the national trend, we turn to Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director for research, reporting and analysis for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. Rachel, thank you so much for speaking with me.

Rachel Carroll Rivas: Yeah, thanks so much for having me and for your attention and concern to the activities that are going on in Georgia, but as well as, quite frankly, around the country.

Peter Biello: Can you tell us a little bit about how what's happening in Georgia compares to what you're seeing nationally?

Rachel Carroll Rivas: I think that we really are, as you were saying, seeing this increase in the number of antisemitic, particularly, incidents in the U.S. really over the last few years, and then kind of an additional bump over the last few weeks. They're not the only kind of hate incidents that we record in our documentation of flyering and leafleting and banner drops that happen by hate groups across the U.S. We also see these incidents targeting Muslim people, Arab folks, immigrants. But in the case of kind of Goyim Defense League — this group, this hate group — trying to manipulate people around a current situation, there really is a very pointed antisemitic content.

Peter Biello: Goyim Defense League. That's the group out of Florida that's been distributing flyers and claiming responsibility for those laser shows in — in Georgia.

Rachel Carroll Rivas: Yes. And, you know, they have been acting for some time. They are not the only hate group that uses this tactic. I think it's important here to call out the problem and the harm that it causes.

Peter Biello: And is it purely intimidation, these acts, or are they recruitment or is it in the service of fundraising or maybe all of the above? What are you seeing?

Rachel Carroll Rivas: The strategy here from these groups is one: intimidation and harassment. When you publicly put out a display of bigotry right in people's faces, in spaces, often even in their own communities, right? On flagpoles and cars where these communities live and are hoping that they are able to feel safe. It is really a tactic of intimidation. But there is also here an aspect of trying to seem bigger and more popular than they are. One person can drop hundreds of flyers. One person can do a light show or hack a sign for construction on a roadway. So there is this effort to seem more powerful than they are and to seem like they have more support than they do. The other is that, yes, at times, these sort of public acts, marches, firing, even hate crimes are part of the testing for new members and these groups, they are part of their activities they have to participate in to prove that they are able to be in membership in these groups. So there really is a variety of things happening here.

Peter Biello: In Florida, there's a law that bans this kind of antisemitic speech, this kind of antisemitic flyering. How effective are laws like that?

Rachel Carroll Rivas: So I think there are these attempts by states and federal government to find ways to really address this kind of harassment. And so those laws can work. I would say at the end of the day, it's just one piece of the puzzle, though. We absolutely have to have a cultural community response. That's probably the thing that's going to do the most to prevent this from happening in the future.

Peter Biello: That said, I did want to ask you about the Georgia law that's under consideration or the bill that's under consideration. Georgia's considering a bill that would define antisemitism for the purposes of prosecuting hate crimes. In your view, with the understanding that this is one part of the puzzle, how effective would that be in putting a stop to the kind of flyering that Georgia communities have been seeing recently?

Rachel Carroll Rivas: You know, one thing for us in tracking these flyering incidents since 2018 across the U.S. is that we can see patterns of who is targeted in the messages on these flyers. And there's a few things of note with that. One is, you know, antisemitism is a theme repeatedly, but also the subject of the day is picked up by these hate groups in these flyers and in all their activity because they see those social-political moments as a point of inflection to manipulate people. So immigration, commonly we find flyers and incidents when that's a topic that's, you know, in the political discourse. So I think that it's actually important that we address the issue holistically, because otherwise we're sort of just chasing the tail of the the topic and the issue of the moment. And when we do have our government laws in place, they need to be holistic enough that they they have a little bit bigger net, that they capture all of the things that could be occurring, not just the thing that's in the current moment.

Peter Biello: Rachel Carroll Rivas is with the Southern Poverty Law Center tracking the spread of antisemitic hate speech across the U.S. Rachel, thank you very much for speaking with me.

Rachel Carroll Rivas: Peter, thanks so much for having us and for, again, giving the attention to this important issue. We sure appreciate it.

 

Story 7:

Peter Biello: Water levels on Lake Thurmond have dipped low enough to trigger a flow reduction out of Thurmond Dam. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said yesterday it's reducing flow for the second time in two months because of lower than average rainfall. Water managers also will adjust Lake Hartwell as needed to stay in balance with Lake Thurmond. Reducing outflow decreases hydropower generated by the dams but conserves water in reservoirs.

Story 8:

Peter Biello: Elton John has sold his Atlanta home for more than $7 million. The Wall Street Journal reported the sale yesterday. Asking price was $5 million. The legendary singer bought the condo in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood in 1992. Atlanta has served as a hub for the Englishman as he toured America. But now that he's retired from touring, John, his husband and two children, spend most of their time at home near London.

 

Story 9:

Peter Biello: And in sports, Georgia native Will Smith celebrated his third World Series win yesterday as the Texas Rangers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks last night. Smith was born in Newnan and pitched for Northgate High School, and he was on the Atlanta Braves championship team two years ago. And then he pitched for last year's champs, the Houston Astros. And now he's helping the Rangers celebrate their first World Series victory in franchise history. He is the first player in MLB history to win three World Series in a row with three different teams. In other sports news, the Atlanta Braves are bringing back Joe Jimenez next year. The team has re-signed the right handed reliever to a $26 million three-year contract. He'll donate 1% of his salary to the Atlanta Braves Foundation. The 28-year-old Jimenez went 0 and 3 with a career-best 3.04 ERA over 50 appearances in his first season with the Braves.

And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. If you want to learn more about these stories, visit GPB.org/news. And if you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, do it now; that way we'll be with you tomorrow afternoon in your podcast feed. And if you've got feedback or a story idea, send us an email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

---

For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news