Editing Georgia (U.S. state) (section)

==Government==
{{Main|Government of Georgia (U.S. state)}}

===State government===
{{See also|List of governors of Georgia|Georgia elected officials}}
[[File:GeorgiaCapitolBuilding.jpg|thumb|The [[Georgia State Capitol]] in [[Atlanta]], with the distinctive gold dome]]
[[File:Savannah, GA, USA, Savannah City Hall.jpg|thumb|[[Savannah City Hall]]]]

As with all other U.S. states and the federal government, Georgia's government is based on the [[Separation of powers|separation of legislative, executive, and judicial power]].<ref>[http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2007_08/senate/senkids.htm Senate Kids]. Retrieved December 30, 2007. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071222060944/http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2007_08/senate/senkids.htm |date=December 22, 2007}}</ref> Executive authority in the state rests with the [[Governor (United States)|governor]], currently [[Brian Kemp]] ([[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]). Both the [[List of Governors of Georgia|Governor of Georgia]] and [[Lieutenant Governor of Georgia|lieutenant governor]] are elected on separate ballots to four-year terms of office. Unlike the federal government, but like many other U.S. States, most of the executive officials who comprise the governor's cabinet are elected by the citizens of Georgia rather than appointed by the governor.

Legislative authority resides in the [[Georgia General Assembly|General Assembly]], composed of the [[Georgia State Senate|Senate]] and [[Georgia House of Representatives|House of Representatives]]. The Lieutenant Governor [[President of the Senate|presides over the Senate]], while members of the House of Representatives select their own Speaker. The [[Georgia (U.S. state) Constitution|Georgia Constitution]] mandates a maximum of 56 senators, elected from single-member districts, and a minimum of 180 representatives, apportioned among representative districts (which sometimes results in more than one representative per district); there are currently 56 senators and 180 representatives. The term of office for senators and representatives is two years.<ref>[http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/conart3.htm Constitution of Georgia Article III Section II]. Retrieved December 30, 2007. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071209140427/http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/conart3.htm |date=December 9, 2007}}</ref> The laws enacted by the General Assembly are codified in the [[Official Code of Georgia Annotated]].

State judicial authority rests with the state [[Supreme Court of Georgia (U.S. state)|Supreme Court]] and [[Georgia Court of Appeals|Court of Appeals]], which have statewide authority.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gasupreme.us/court-information/history |title= The Supreme Court of Georgia History |website= [[Supreme Court of Georgia (U.S. state)|Supreme Court of Georgia]]|access-date=November 26, 2016}}</ref> In addition, there are smaller courts which have more limited geographical jurisdiction, including Superior Courts, State Courts, Juvenile Courts, Magistrate Courts and Probate Courts. Justices of the Supreme Court and judges of the Court of Appeals are elected statewide by the citizens in non-partisan elections to six-year terms. Judges for the smaller courts are elected to four-year terms by the state's citizens who live within that court's jurisdiction.

===Local government===
{{Further|List of counties in Georgia}}

Georgia consists of 159 [[County (United States)|counties]], second only to Texas, with 254.<ref>[http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/countyhistory.htm A Brief History of Georgia Counties]. Retrieved December 30, 2007. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071102173430/http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/countyhistory.htm |date=November 2, 2007}}</ref> Georgia had 161 counties until the end of 1931, when [[Milton County, Georgia|Milton]] and [[Campbell County, Georgia|Campbell]] were merged into the existing [[Fulton County, Georgia|Fulton]]. Some counties have been named for prominent figures in both American and Georgian history, and many bear names with Native American origin. Counties in Georgia have their own elected legislative branch, usually called the Board of Commissioners, which usually also has executive authority in the county.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/GovernmentPolitics/Government/LocalGovernment&id=h-589 |title=Georgia's County Governments |publisher=Georgiaencyclopedia.org |date=June 5, 2014 |access-date=July 27, 2014 |archive-date=January 17, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117103138/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=%2FGovernmentPolitics%2FGovernment%2FLocalGovernment&id=h-589 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Several counties have a [[sole Commissioner]] form of government, with legislative and executive authority vested in a single person. Georgia is the only state with current Sole Commissioner counties. Georgia's Constitution provides all counties and cities with "[[Home rule in the United States|home rule]]" authority. The county commissions have considerable power to pass legislation within their county, as a municipality would.

Georgia recognizes all local units of government as cities, so every incorporated town is legally a city. Georgia does not provide for [[township (United States)|townships]] or [[Independent city (United States)|independent cities]], though there have been bills proposed in the Legislature to provide for townships;<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/townships-proposed-alternative-cities-georgia/dfcmwWT2xD3iTRxtAxA65I/ | title=Townships proposed as an alternative to cities in Georgia | work=Atlanta Journal-Constitution | date=January 21, 2016 | access-date=June 4, 2021 | author=Niesse, Mark}}</ref> it does allow [[consolidated city-county]] governments by local [[referendum]]. All of Georgia's second-tier cities except [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]] have now formed consolidated city-county governments by referendum: [[Columbus, Georgia|Columbus]] (in 1970), [[Athens, Georgia|Athens]] (1990), [[Augusta, Georgia|Augusta]] (1995), and [[Macon, Georgia|Macon]] (2012). (Augusta and Athens have excluded one or more small, incorporated towns within their consolidated boundaries; Columbus and Macon eventually absorbed all smaller incorporated entities within their consolidated boundaries.) The small town of [[Cusseta, Georgia|Cusseta]] adopted a consolidated city-county government after it merged with unincorporated [[Chattahoochee County, Georgia|Chattahoochee County]] in 2003. Three years later, in 2006, the town of [[Georgetown, Quitman County, Georgia|Georgetown]] consolidated with the rest of [[Quitman County, Georgia|Quitman County]].

There is no true [[metropolitan government]] in Georgia, though the [[Atlanta Regional Commission]] (ARC) and [[Georgia Regional Transportation Authority]] do provide some services, and the ARC must approve all major [[land development]] projects in the [[Atlanta metropolitan area]]. {{Citation needed|reason=This paragraph has 0 citations|date=February 2022}}

===Elections===
{{Main|Elections in Georgia (U.S. state)}}
{{See also|Political party strength in Georgia (U.S. state)}}

Georgia had voted [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] in six consecutive presidential elections from [[United States presidential election in Georgia, 1996|1996]] to [[United States presidential election in Georgia, 2016|2016]], a streak that was broken when the state went for [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] candidate [[Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign|Joe Biden]] in [[United States presidential election in Georgia, 2020|2020]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Georgia 2020 presidential election results|url=https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/georgia/president|access-date=November 14, 2020|website=www.cnn.com}}</ref>

Until 1964, Georgia's state government had the longest unbroken record of single-party dominance, by the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], of any state in the Union. This record was established largely due to the [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchisement of most blacks]] and many poor whites by the state in its constitution and laws in the early 20th century. Some elements, such as requiring payment of poll taxes and passing literacy tests, prevented blacks from registering to vote; their exclusion from the political system lasted into the 1960s and reduced the Republican Party to a non-competitive status in the early 20th century.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://umich.edu/~lawrace/votetour6.htm | title=Race, Voting Rights, and Segregation | work=University of Michigan | access-date=October 15, 2016}}</ref>

White Democrats regained power after Reconstruction due in part to the efforts of some using intimidation and violence, but this method came into disrepute.<ref name="auto1">{{cite book|last1=Saye|first1=Albert B.|title=A Constitutional History of Georgia, 1732–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kwD3PrldCfUC&q=1908%20georgia%20constitutional%20amendment&pg=PA336|publisher=University of Georgia Press|access-date=May 18, 2016|isbn=9780820335544|date=May 1, 2010}}</ref> In 1900, shortly before Georgia adopted a disfranchising constitutional amendment in 1908, blacks comprised 47% of the state's population.<ref>[http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php Historical Census Browser, 1900 US Census, University of Virginia]. Retrieved March 15, 2008. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |date=August 23, 2007}}</ref>

The whites dealt with this problem of potential political power by the 1908 amendment, which in practice disenfranchised blacks and poor whites, nearly half of the state population. It required that any male at least 21 years of age wanting to register to vote must also: (a) be of good character and able to pass a test on citizenship, (b) be able to read and write provisions of the U.S. and Georgia constitutions, or (c) own at least 40 acres of land or $500 in property. Any Georgian who had fought in any war from the [[American Revolution]] through the [[Spanish–American War]] was exempted from these additional qualifications. More importantly, any Georgian descended from a veteran of any of these wars also was exempted. Because by 1908 many white Georgia males were grandsons of veterans and/or owned the required property, the exemption and the property requirement basically allowed only well-to-do whites to vote. The qualifications of good character, citizenship knowledge, and literacy (all determined subjectively by white registrars), and property ownership were used to disqualify most blacks and poor whites, preventing them from registering to vote. The voter rolls dropped dramatically.<ref name="auto1"/><ref>{{cite web|title=Georgia's 1908 Disfranchisement Constitutional Amendment|url=https://raycityhistory.wordpress.com/tag/georgias-1908-disfranchisement-constitutional-amendment/|website=Ray City History|publisher=Ray City Community Library|access-date=May 18, 2016}}</ref> In the early 20th century, [[Progressivism|Progressives]] promoted electoral reform and reducing the power of ward bosses to clean up politics. Their additional rules, such as the eight-box law, continued to effectively close out people who were illiterate.<ref name="auto"/> White one-party rule was solidified.

For more than 130 years, from 1872 to 2003, Georgians nominated and elected only white Democratic governors, and white Democrats held the majority of seats in the General Assembly.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/history101/gahistory10.html |title=A State Divided |publisher=Ourgeorgiahistory.com |access-date=July 27, 2014}}</ref> Most of the Democrats elected throughout these years were [[Southern Democrats]], who were fiscally and socially conservative by national standards.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/node/17467202 |title=The long goodbye |publisher=Economist.com |date=November 11, 2010 |access-date=September 3, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://ngeorgia.com/history/postwar.html |title=The Confident Years |publisher=Ngeorgia.com |access-date=July 27, 2014}}</ref> This voting pattern continued after the segregationist period.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-campaign-georgia-congress-idUSBRE8A61MZ20121107 |title=Last white Democrat in House from Deep South wins re-election |publisher=Reuters.com |date= 2012|access-date=September 3, 2013}}</ref>

Legal segregation was ended by passage of federal legislation in the 1960s. According to the 1960 census, the proportion of Georgia's population that was African American was 28%; hundreds of thousands of blacks had left the state in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] to the North and Midwest. New white residents arrived through migration and immigration. Following support from the national Democratic Party for the civil rights movement and especially civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965, most African-American voters, as well as other minority voters, have largely supported the Democratic Party in Georgia.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ajc.com/news/white-voters-solidly-for-gop-georgia/3tKH7yW7hZloI8QwqY5ocJ/ |title=White voters solidly in for GOP in Georgia (October 16, 2012) |publisher=The Atlanta Journal-Constitution |date=October 16, 2012 |access-date=June 4, 2021}}</ref> In the decades since the late 20th century, the conservative white-majority voters have increasingly supported Republicans for national and state offices.

In 2002, incumbent moderate Democratic Governor [[Roy Barnes]] was defeated by Republican [[Sonny Perdue]], a state legislator and former Democrat. While Democrats retained control of the State House, they lost their majority in the Senate when four Democrats switched parties. They lost the House in the 2004 election. Republicans then controlled all three partisan elements of the state government.

Even before 2002, the state had become increasingly supportive of Republicans in Presidential elections. It has supported a Democrat for president only three times since 1960. In 1976 and 1980, native son [[Jimmy Carter]] carried the state; in 1992, the former Arkansas governor [[Bill Clinton]] narrowly won the state. Generally, Republicans are strongest in the predominantly white suburban (especially the Atlanta suburbs) and rural portions of the state.<ref name="CNN.com: Election 2004">{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004//pages/results/states/GA/P/00/epolls.0.html |title=Election 2004 |publisher=CNN |access-date=October 24, 2010}}</ref> Many of these areas were represented by conservative Democrats in the state legislature well into the 21st century. One of the most conservative of these was U.S. Congressman [[Larry McDonald]], former head of the [[John Birch Society]], who died when the [[Soviet Union]] shot down [[KAL 007]] near [[Sakhalin Island]]. Democratic candidates have tended to win a higher percentage of the vote in the areas where black voters are most numerous,<ref name="CNN.com: Election 2004"/> as well as in the cities among liberal urban populations (especially Atlanta and Athens), and the central and southwestern portion of the state.

The ascendancy of the Republican Party in Georgia and in the South in general resulted in Georgia [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]] member [[Newt Gingrich]] being elected as [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker of the House]] following the election of a Republican majority in the House in 1994. Gingrich served as Speaker until 1999, when he resigned in the aftermath of the loss of House seats held by members of the GOP. Gingrich mounted an unsuccessful bid for president in the 2012 election, but withdrew after winning only the South Carolina and Georgia primaries.

In 2008, Democrat [[Jim Martin (Georgia politician)|Jim Martin]] ran against incumbent Republican Senator [[Saxby Chambliss]]. Chambliss failed to acquire the necessary 50 percent of votes due to a Libertarian Party candidate receiving the remainder of votes. In the [[runoff election]] held on December 2, 2008, Chambliss became the second Georgia Republican to be reelected to the U.S. Senate.

In the 2018 elections, the [[List of Governors of Georgia|governor]] remained a Republican (by 54,723 votes against a democratic [[African Americans|black]] [[female]], [[Stacey Abrams]]), Republicans lost eight seats in the [[Georgia House of Representatives]] (winning 106), while Democrats gained ten (winning 74), Republicans lost two seats in the [[Georgia State Senate|Georgia Senate]] (winning 35 seats), while Democrats gained two seats (winning 21), and five Democrat [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. Representatives]] were elected with Republicans winning nine seats (one winning with just 419 votes over the Democratic challenger, and one seat being lost).<ref>{{cite news |title=Georgia Election Results |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/election-results/georgia/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=January 27, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Georgia House of Representatives elections, 2018 |url=https://ballotpedia.org/Georgia_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2018 |website=ballotpedia.org |publisher=Ballotpedia |access-date=January 27, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Georgia State Senate elections, 2018 |url=https://ballotpedia.org/Georgia_State_Senate_elections,_2018 |website=ballotpedia.org |publisher=Ballotpedia |access-date=January 27, 2019}}</ref>

In the three presidential elections up to and including 2016, the Republican candidate has won Georgia by approximately five to eight points over the Democratic nominee, at least once for each election being narrower than margins recorded in some states that have flipped within that timeframe, such as [[United States presidential elections in Michigan|Michigan]], [[United States presidential elections in Ohio|Ohio]] and [[United States presidential elections in Wisconsin|Wisconsin]]. This trend led to the state electing Democrat [[Joe Biden]] for president in 2020, and it coming to be regarded as a [[swing state]].<ref name=biden1>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/19/joe-biden-president-georgia-recount|title=Joe Biden confirmed as Georgia winner after recount|work=The Guardian|access-date=January 7, 2021|date=November 20, 2020}}</ref><ref name=swing>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/08/georgia-swing-state-democrats/?arc404=true|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|title=How Georgia became a swing state for the first time in decades|access-date=January 7, 2021|date=November 8, 2020}}</ref>

In a 2020 study, Georgia was ranked as 49th on the "Cost of Voting Index" with only Texas ranking higher.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=J. Pomante II |first1=Michael |last2=Li |first2=Quan |title=Cost of Voting in the American States: 2020 |journal=Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy |date=15 Dec 2020 |volume=19 |issue=4 |pages=503–509 |doi=10.1089/elj.2020.0666 |s2cid=225139517 |url=https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/elj.2020.0666 |access-date=14 January 2022}}</ref>

===Politics===
{{Main|Politics of Georgia (U.S. state)}}

During the 1960s and 1970s, Georgia made significant changes in civil rights and governance. As in many other states, its legislature had not reapportioned congressional districts according to population from 1931 to after the 1960 census. Problems of malapportionment in the state legislature, where rural districts had outsize power in relation to urban districts, such as Atlanta's, were corrected after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in ''[[Wesberry v. Sanders]]'' (1964). The court ruled that congressional districts had to be reapportioned to have essentially equal populations.

A related case, ''[[Reynolds v. Sims]]'' (1964), required state legislatures to end their use of geographical districts or counties in favor of "one man, one vote"; that is, districts based upon approximately equal populations, to be reviewed and changed as necessary after each census. These changes resulted in residents of Atlanta and other urban areas gaining political power in Georgia in proportion to their populations.<ref name="epstein">[https://books.google.com/books?id=CmPKNI2z5-AC&pg=PA753&lpg=PA753?+Apportionment?#v=onepage&q=Was%20Georgia%20dominated%20by%20rural%20districts%3F%20Apportionment%3F Lee Epstein, Thomas G. Walk, ''Constitutional Law: Rights, Liberties and Justice 8th Edition''], SAGE, 2012, p. 753</ref> From the mid-1960s, the voting electorate increased after African Americans' rights to vote were enforced under civil rights law.

Economic growth through this period was dominated by Atlanta and its region. It was a bedrock of the emerging "[[New South]]". From the late 20th century, Atlanta attracted headquarters and relocated workers of national companies, becoming more diverse, liberal and cosmopolitan than many areas of the state.

In the 21st century, many conservative Democrats, including former U.S. Senator and governor [[Zell Miller]], decided to support Republicans. The state's socially conservative bent results in wide support for measures such as restrictions on abortion. In 2004, a state constitutional amendment banning [[same-sex marriage]]s was approved by 76% of voters.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Georgia_Constitutional_Amendment_1_%282004%29 |title=Georgia Marriage Amendment, Question 1 (2004) |publisher=Ballotpedia |access-date=May 22, 2010}}</ref> However, after the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in ''[[Obergefell v. Hodges]]'', all Georgia counties came into full compliance, recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry in the state.<ref>{{Cite news | first=Greg | last=Bluestein | title=Top Georgia court official: Judges are following the law on gay marriages | url=http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/06/29/top-georgia-court-official-judges-are-following-the-law-on-gay-marriages/ | publisher=Atlanta Constitution-Journal | location=Atlanta, Georgia | date=June 29, 2015 | access-date=September 25, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170903081750/http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/06/29/top-georgia-court-official-judges-are-following-the-law-on-gay-marriages/ | archive-date=September 3, 2017 | url-status=dead | df=mdy-all}}</ref>

In [[United States presidential election|presidential elections]], Georgia voted solely Democratic in every election from [[1900 United States presidential election|1900]] to [[1960 United States presidential election|1960]]. In [[1964 United States presidential election|1964]], it was one of only a handful of states to vote for Republican [[Barry Goldwater]] over Democrat [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]. In [[1968 United States presidential election|1968]], it did not vote for either of the two parties, but rather the [[American Independent Party]] and its nominee, [[Alabama]] Governor [[George Wallace]]. In [[1972 United States presidential election|1972]], the state returned to Republicans as part of a landslide victory for [[Richard Nixon]]. In [[1976 United States presidential election|1976]] and [[1980 United States presidential election|1980]], it voted for Democrat and former Georgia governor [[Jimmy Carter]]. The state returned to Republicans in [[1984 United States presidential election|1984]] and [[1988 United States presidential election|1988]], before going Democratic once again in [[1992 United States presidential election|1992]]. For every election between that year and [[2020 United States presidential election|2020]], Georgia voted heavily Republican, in line with many of its neighbors in the [[Deep South]]. In [[2020 United States presidential election|2020]], it voted Democratic for the first time in 28 years, aiding [[Joe Biden]] in his defeat of incumbent Republican [[Donald Trump]]. Prior to 2020, Republicans in state, federal and congressional races had seen decreasing margins of victory, and many election forecasts had ranked Georgia as a "toss-up" state, or with Biden as a very narrow favorite.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/georgia-demographic-shift-vote-democrat-republican-1.5794314|title=Georgia was reliably red. Young, Black voters helped turn it blue|publisher=CBC News|author=Mark Gollom|date=November 8, 2020}}</ref> Concurrent with the 2020 presidential election were two elections for both of Georgia's United States Senate seats (one of which being a special election due to the resignation of Senator [[Johnny Isakson]], and the other being regularly scheduled). After no candidate in either race received a majority of the vote, both went to January 5, 2021, run-offs, which Democrats [[Jon Ossoff]] and [[Raphael Warnock]] won. Ossoff is the state's first Jewish senator, and Warnock is the state's first Black senator. Biden's, Ossoff's, and Warnock's wins were attributed to the rapid [[Historical racial and ethnic demographics of the United States|diversification]] of the suburbs of Atlanta<ref>{{cite news |last1=Green |first1=Emma |title=How Georgia Flipped Blue for Biden |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/biden-win-georgia-democrats-senate-runoff/617001/ |access-date=March 7, 2021 |work=The Atlantic |date=November 13, 2020}}</ref> and increased turnout of younger [[African American]] voters, particularly around the suburbs of Atlanta and in [[Savannah, Georgia]].<ref name=stacey1>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/07/georgia-senate-runoff-black-voters-stacey-abrams|title=How Black voters lifted Georgia Democrats to Senate runoff victories|work=The Guardian|access-date=January 7, 2021|date=January 7, 2021}}</ref><ref name=progressive>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/02/raphael-warnock-might-be-too-radical-georgia-senate/|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=January 7, 2021|date=December 2, 2020|title=Raphael Warnock might really be too radical for Georgia}}</ref><ref name=progressive2>{{cite web|url=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2021/01/06/last-night-in-georgia-black-americans-saved-democracy/|title=Last night in Georgia, Black Americans saved democracy|access-date=January 7, 2021|date=January 6, 2021|publisher=The Brookings Institution|quote=Both candidates ran on progressive agendas}}</ref>