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ATLANTA (Reuters) - The state of Georgia approved a sweeping measure on Monday to crack down on illegal immigrants and the people who hire them as a passionate debate on immigration heats up in the United States. The law could fuel a national controversy as the federal government and other states consider how to deal with millions of undocumented workers while immigrants, many of whom are Hispanic, are displaying their political power through mass demonstrations in cities across the United States. The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, signed into law by Gov. Sonny Perdue, denies many state services paid...

Gov. Sonny Perdue on Monday signed a sweeping immigration bill that supporters and critics say will make Georgia's laws among the toughest in the nation. "I want to make this clear: we are not, Georgia's government is not, and this bill is not anti-immigrant," Perdue said Monday at a signing ceremony. "We simply believe that everyone who lives in our state needs to abide by our laws." The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act will verify that adults seeking many state-administered benefits are in the country legally. It sanctions employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and mandates that companies with...

February 16, 2006--Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue (R) holds a 20-point lead over two challengers who would like to replace him as Governor. Perdue leads Secretary of State Cathy Cox (D), 54% to 34%. He leads Lt. Governor Mark Taylor (D) 53% to 33% margin. The overall flavor of the race has changed little since our January election poll in Georgia. Perdue now enjoys a slightly larger lead over Cox than he did a month ago. Perdue became Governor four years ago as one of the surprises in Election 2002. He is the first Republican Governor of Georgia in over 100...

Atlanta Right to Life March with Zell Miller

Georgia's governor rescues Christmas © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia has become a hero of the Christmas season. After a staff member sent out an e-mail news release announcing that Gov. Perdue and his wife, Mary, would be lighting a "holiday tree" at the governor's mansion, the governor – an outspoken Christian – quickly set the record straight. Within moments after that initial e-mail had gone out, Gov. Perdue sent out a follow-up e-mail announcing that he would be lighting a "Christmas tree" – not a "holiday tree." The follow-up e-mail from Gov. Perdue's office was a classic....

When it comes to Christmas, political correctness apparently only lasts about a half-hour in Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue's office. A press release sent by Perdue's office Friday afternoon announced plans for a "holiday tree" lighting ceremony ... Thirty minutes later, a second release went out reading: "It is, in fact, a Christmas tree." That release blaming the earlier wording on "a politically correct staff brain-freeze," ... Perdue spokesman Dan McLagan said there's no doubt where the Republican governor comes down on the issue. "When the governor learns that one of my staffers even inadvertently used the words 'holiday tree,' I...

'Holiday tree' quickly pulled from governor's mansion Associated Press ATLANTA - When it comes to Christmas, political correctness apparently only lasts about a half-hour in Gov. Sonny Perdue's office. A press release sent by Perdue's office to members of the media Friday afternoon announced plans for a "holiday tree" lighting ceremony at the governor's mansion. Exactly 30 minutes later, a second release blamed the wording on "a politically correct staff brain-freeze." "It is, in fact, a Christmas tree," said the second release. "The staffer responsible can be contacted at P.O. Box 432, Anchorage, Alaska, 99501." This year, religious conservatives, including...

...Some 20 states... already have anti-price-gouging laws on their books-- and many governors have declared emergencies to invoke them. These de facto price controls typically place ceilings of between 10% and 25% on how much companies can raise prices in the wake of a natural disaster. In almost all cases such laws are wrong-headed, because they exacerbate supply problems by short-circuiting the price system that matches supply with demand. ...If governments will not allow the price system to ration the demand for gas, a new "price" system will emerge called gas lines.... Let's explain why prices have been rising. Katrina...

ATLANTA (AP) -- Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition director, announced Thursday he will run for lieutenant governor in 2006. Reed, 43, filed the necessary paperwork earlier this month to begin raising money for the race. In his announcement, he pledged to "work tirelessly" for Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue and other party leaders. "It is long past time for Gov. Perdue and Republicans in the General Assembly to have a lieutenant governor who is a partner in governance and a philosophical ally," he said. The current lieutenant governor, Democrat Mark Taylor, is expected to challenge Perdue for re-election next year. From...

ATLANTA — Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition director, announced Thursday he will run for lieutenant governor in 2006. Reed, 43, filed the necessary paperwork earlier this month to begin raising money for the race. In his announcement, he pledged to "work tirelessly" for Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue (search) and other party leaders. "It is long past time for Gov. Perdue and Republicans in the General Assembly to have a lieutenant governor who is a partner in governance and a philosophical ally," he said. The current lieutenant governor, Democrat Mark Taylor (search), is expected to challenge Perdue for re-election next year.

Elated by the Republican majorities elected to both the state Senate and House for the first time in 130 years, a jubilant Gov. Sonny Perdue announced, "The people of Georgia gave us the ball tonight." Now, the governor has to be careful not to fumble it. A surefire way to squander his historic opportunity would be to permit social conservatives, rather than fiscal conservatives, to set the GOP agenda. Perdue would be wise to quickly establish that his focus will be on safeguarding the state's solvency and not its soul. And he must show that he remains committed to directing...

Carter blasts Georgia evolution proposal By MARY MACDONALD Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday he is embarrassed by the proposal to remove the term evolution from Georgia's biology curriculum. "As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia's students," Carter said in a statement. Her recommendation that the word "evolution" be removed from the standards "will adversely affect the teaching of science and leave our high school graduates with a serious handicap as they enter...

Obesity in the United States, which affects nearly one-third of adults -- costs $75 billion a year in medical expenses, half of it funded by taxpayers through Medicare and Medicaid, a new study says. Treatment of obesity, ranging from clinic visits to gastric bypass surgeries, amounts to $350 a year for each adult, according to the study released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and RTI International, a nonprofit research firm in North Carolina. The percentage of American adults considered obese has doubled in the last 25 years, fueling a rise in chronic diseases such...

ATLANTA - Back when Sonny Perdue was a state senator, Republicans often complained Democrats weren't opening up the entire budget to scrutiny. Whether in the Governor's Mansion or legislative budget committees, so the GOP argument went, Democratic leaders were content to look at what each state agency had spent the year before and make incremental adjustments up or down. ''We only got to examine 10 percent of the budget, which usually leads to adds instead of deletions,'' Perdue said. Now Perdue is in the driver's seat as Georgia's first Republican governor in 130 years, he's dumping the old way of...

Florida, Georgia and Alabama Close to Reaching Water Sharing Deal By: Brendan Farrington The Naples Daily News May 17, 2003 TALLAHASSEE — The governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama said Friday they have almost completed an agreement on how to share water from three rivers flowing through their states, saying the major point to discuss now is the length of the agreement. The three states have been arguing for more than a decade over the water flowing through the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, but the Republican governors expressed hope that an agreement would be in place by a July 31 deadline....

After a contentious flag debate and the state's longest legislative session in more than a century, most Georgians have decided that they generally like Gov. Sonny Perdue, a new poll shows. Despite that high approval rating, however, people do not give him good marks on his handling of specifics: the flag, the state budget, education, ethics and working with the Legislature. And they aren't sure they would re-elect him. Perdue's overall approval rating went from 45 percent in mid-March to 62 percent, according to a telephone poll last week of 501 likely voters for The Atlanta Journal- Constitution by Zogby...

<p>Washington, Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- More Republican governors are proposing tax increases to fill state budget shortfalls of 10 percent or more that have challenged their party's philosophy of keeping taxes low, the Washington Post reported.</p> <p>Governor Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, who cut state taxes 48 times during his first term, decided to call for an increase in cigarette and sales taxes this year after balancing last year's budget by firing workers and reducing child-care subsidies, the paper said. Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Connecticut Governor John Rowland are among the Republicans who have proposed tax increases, the Post reported.</p>

At the beginning of the school year, Dixie Outfitters T-shirts were all the rage at Cherokee High School. Girls seemed partial to one featuring the Confederate battle flag in the shape of a rose. Boys often wore styles that discreetly but unmistakably displayed Dixie Outfitters' rebel emblem logo. But now the most popular Dixie Outfitters shirt at the school doesn't feature a flag at all. It says: ''Jesus and the Confederate Battle Flag: Banned From Our Schools But Forever in Our Hearts.'' It became an instant favorite after school officials prohibited shirts featuring the battle flag in response to complaints...

Two Democratic state senators are expected to announce today that they will switch parties, putting the Republicans closer to controlling the Georgia Senate, along with the governor's office. Sens. Don Cheeks of Augusta and Dan Lee of LaGrange are expected to announce their plans in their hometowns when Gov.-elect Sonny Perdue stops by during a victory tour of the state. Augusta and LaGrange are the only cities out of seven on Perdue's tour where "press announcements" are scheduled. Cheeks would not confirm his intentions Thursday, but he did not deny that he would switch. Lee could not be reached for...

Democrats are raging because Republican Georgia Gov.-elect Sonny Perdue used a famous quote by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during his victory speech. "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last!" Perdue rejoiced after ending 130 years of Democrat rule by defeating incumbent Roy Barnes. "It's very upsetting," said Lynn Cothren, described in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a "longtime King advocate." "I didn't give a rat what he said, until he stole our line, with a Confederate flag waving behind him," sputtered the Rev. Joseph Lowery. "It was inappropriate, but I would like to hear...