Posted on 01/01/2011 9:33:20 PM PST by Zakeet
Georgia Democrats enter the upcoming 2011 session of the General Assembly reeling from a series of defections and facing an uphill climb toward relevance.
The once-dominant party holds 85 of 236 seats in the House and Senate, Democrats’ lowest ebb since Reconstruction. And the number has been slipping.
Since the November election when the party lost control of all statewide offices, nine Democratic legislators have become Republicans, including Athens Rep. Doug McKillip, who switched less than a month after his colleagues elected him chairman of the House Democrats.
Now party leaders are scrambling to find new growth strategies while attempting to be more than a speed bump for the Republican majority.
The task is daunting. Mirroring a trend across the South, much of the state party’s white, rural base has fled to the Republican Party and Democrats have struggled to find attractive candidates for statewide posts they held for generations.
Newly elected House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, admits her party’s primary function in the short term will be as a check on the Republican majority’s power.
[Snip]
The defections by rural, white Democrats continue a trend that’s made the Georgia Democrats a more urban and African-American party. As a result, the power of its African-American Democratic leaders has grown while the party’s statewide influence has dwindled.
[Snip]
Fifteen years ago, African-Americans made up a third of Democrats in the House. Now they are a two-thirds majority in the House Democratic Caucus and hold most of the leadership positions. In the Senate, African-Americans make up more than half of Democrats compared to one in four in 1996.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
Her statement points up the Democrats’ complete irrelevancy. With the GOP holding close to two thirds of the seats in both houses of the legislature and every statewide and most county and city offices outside of Atlanta, there’s not much of a check. And the Democrats don’t communicate all that well with Georgians.
“If we’re not gonna’ take it anymore why did so many RINOS get re-elected?”
Because Republican and Conservative are not synonymous.
Zell Miller was the Georgia Democrats’ great hope... but even he voted more like a Republican than like a Democrats. Those days are now long gone.
Wow. What did you get for Christmas - a hair-trigger?
I think he got a Gatling Return Key.
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My apologies... for some reason the button keeps sending multiple posts when I have not even reached the final send button!
Weird.
I pay for a high speed connection and web pages still load slow.
And I can’t see if I’m warned I’ve already posted a comment to a thread! A confirmation screen would be nice to have!
This is the case in Florida as well. We have 120 representatives in the Florida House. Thirty-nine are democrats and of those thirty-nine, the majority -- twenty are black. In the Florida Senate there are 40 members with 12 democrats and four of those twelve are black.
We have a unique situation here. Many of the democratic party elected officials down here are black and blacks are social conservatives. If we are smart, we can pass socially conservative policies with bi-partisan democratic help.
Our governor has wisely decided to attach education money to the student and wants to allow the parents to decide where to use the money to educate their children. The democrats are usually against this, but blacks want this. It may be a way to finally to make it clear to the black community that the democrats don't have their best interests in mind. Blacks may finally be able to leave the democratic plantation.
I’m sorry-did you say something? JK
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