Latest news with #Elections2023
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republican Echols wins Georgia Public Service Commission primary as Democrats head for a runoff
Republican Tim Echols won renomination in one of the Georgia Public Service Commission primary elections on Tuesday, while Democrats Keisha Waites and Peter Hubbard appeared headed to a July 15 runoff. Voters Tuesday were deciding party nominees for two posts on the commission, which oversees utilities including Georgia Power Co. Separate Republican and Democratic primaries were taking place. In each race, candidates must live in a certain district, but run statewide. Turnout was low, with fewer than 200,000 people statewide casting ballots. In the District 2 Republican primary, the incumbent Echols outpaced challenger Lee Muns of Harlem by a 3 to 1 margin. Echols, a Hoschton resident, has been on the Public Service Commission since 2011. He will face Democrat Alicia Johnson of Savannah in November. She was unopposed Tuesday. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] In mostly complete returns in the District 3 Democratic primary, Waites, a former state legislator and Atlanta City Council member, won the most votes but fell short of a majority. That means she will face the second-place finisher, Hubbard, in a runoff. He's a green energy activist from Atlanta. Former utility regulator and utility executive Robert Jones of Brookhaven finished third and will miss the runoff. The winner of the Democratic runoff will face incumbent Fitz Johnson of Atlanta, who was unopposed Tuesday. Daniel Blackman of Atlanta appeared on ballots in the District 3 Democratic primary, but votes for him were not counted after a judge ruled he hadn't moved into the district in time to meet the November 2024 deadline Debate in the primary centered on bills charged by Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co. Georgia Power customers have seen bills rise six times in recent years because of higher natural gas costs, construction projects including two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, and other factors. A typical Georgia Power residential customer now pays more than $175 a month, including taxes. Echols defends his record. 'I am grateful to Republicans who value our low rates and grid reliability, allowing us to stay the No. 1 state to do business,' Echols said in a statement Tuesday. 'Our Public Service Commission is laser-focused on protecting Georgia families. Waites has said bills are 'going in the wrong direction' and touted her previous experience in office, saying she would be a viable Democratic candidate in November. 'I have a long track record and history of fighting and standing up for working families and seniors,' she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a Monday candidate forum. TRENDING STORIES: As 4-year anniversary nears, questions remain over brutal stabbing in Piedmont Park Man dead following shooting at NW Atlanta apartment complex Windy, stormy weather blows inflatable waterslides onto downtown connector Hubbard said he believed his platform would triumph in the Democratic contest on July 15, saying he would 'fight for a Georgia powered by clean, low-cost renewable energy. I have a detailed plan to create that future and lower power bills.' The five-member commission, currently all Republicans, also oversees some natural gas rates for Atlanta Gas Light and Liberty Gas. Georgia usually doesn't have statewide elections in odd-numbered years, but these were pushed back after elections were delayed by a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the statewide voting scheme as discriminatory to Black people. No Georgia Public Service Commission elections have been held since 2022 because of the lawsuit. Johnson was appointed to the commission in 2021 by Gov. Brian Kemp and has never faced voters. He was supposed to run for the last two years of his predecessor's term in 2022. Instead, the District 3 winner can run again next year for a six-year term, after lawmakers rewrote the terms. Echols was supposed to run for a six-year term in 2022. Instead, the District 2 winner will serve for five years, with the next election in 2030. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Telegraph
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Donald Tusk has found his own ‘special place in hell'
He once warned Brexiteers they faced their own 'special place in hell'. Now Donald Tusk is in a purgatory of his own. Poland's prime minister has narrowly won a vote of confidence in his warring coalition after his preferred centrist presidential candidate was defeated earlier this month. Instead, the Trump-inspired Eurosceptic Karol Narwocki crossed the line first in Poland's presidential elections. On Wednesday, a total of 243 MPs in the 460-seat parliament backed Mr Tusk's coalition, achieving the simple majority needed for the government to survive in a result he said will give his cabinet new momentum. 'We have a mandate to take full responsibility for what's going on in Poland,' Tusk told parliament in a debate ahead of the confidence vote. 'Governing Poland is a privilege.' But despite surviving the vote, the prime minister now faces two and a half years of being a lame duck leader hobbled by the new veto-wielding opposition president. While most of the power in Poland's political system rests with an elected parliament, and a government chosen by the parliament, the president can veto legislation. This will likely see Mr Narwocki block reform efforts planned by Mr Tusk, such as the planned introduction of same-sex partnerships or easing a near-total ban on abortion. There are therefore questions about what Mr Tusk can realistically achieve before the next parliamentary election, scheduled for late 2027, and analysts say many Polish voters are disillusioned with the government's failure to deliver on key promises, including reforming the judiciary and raising the threshold at which Poles start paying taxes. 'I don't know the word surrender' Mr Tusk's authority has also been badly damaged with murmurs that the time has come for him to hand over leadership of the alliance, something he has refused to do. 'I know the taste of victory, I know the bitterness of defeat, but I don't know the word surrender,' he said. Mr Tusk, the former president of the European Council, was withering about Brexit before he became Poland's prime minister. He said at the time there was a ' special place in hell ' for 'those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely'. Now he is facing the possible fall of his pro-EU government in what threatens to become his David Cameron moment. Emmanuel Macron, another fierce critic of Brexit, has already suffered a similar fate at the hands of Eurosceptic populists. He called snap elections in France after he was trounced by Marine Le Pen's National Rally in last year's European Parliament elections. The French president lost his majority, dramatically reducing his ability to act in domestic politics. He would have lost control of the government, had a 'front republican' of voters not united to keep the hard Right from power. There was an expectation that a similar 'front republican' would have prevented Mr Narwocki's victory in Poland, but it fell just short. That is a warning before the presidential elections in France in 2027, which the ardently Europhile Mr Macron will not be able to contest.
