Crazy Qualifying Season Finally Completed

Update 31 March 2014: Withdrawals of Thomas Sims and Don Thieme from Lowndes County Commission District 3 and of Crawford Powell from House 174. See also school board election.

Additional entries in County Commission Districts 3 and 5, plus a swap and a withdrawal, continued the musical chairs in local qualifying. Plus three out of four County Commission seats up for election will actually be decided in May, not November. And one state House seat and the state Senate race are hotly contested.

The three County Commission seats that will be decided May 20th are:

  • District 2: only Republicans qualified
  • District 4: only the incumbent Democrat, Demarcus Marshall, qualified
  • District 5: both Democrats and Republicans qualified, but it’s a special election to fill an unexpired term, so it’s actually a nonpartisan race, and unless there’s a runoff the final election is May 20th, with the winner to take office immediately upon being the election being certified, which usually happens within a week.
In the remaining race, for District 3, both Republicans and Democrats qualified, so there will be a primary May 20th, but the final decision will be in the general election November 4th.

Here’s who’s running for County Commission:

  • District 2: Scott Orenstein (R), Jody Hall (R)
  • District 3: Crawford Powell (incumbent switched to House 174), Mark Wisenbaker (R), Thomas Sims (R), Don Thieme (D), Tom Hochschild (D)
  • District 4: Demarcus Marshall (D incumbent)
  • District 5: John Page (incumbent switched to Senate 8), Roger Christie (withdrew), Clay Griner (changed from District 2), Norman Bennett (former Chairman who brought us Sterling Chemical and privatized the landfill), Gretchen Quarterman (ran for Chairman last time and got 47%)

See Gretchen’s writeup, Qualifying Wrap Up – Lowndes County Commission for details.

And let’s not forget the rest of the races:

  • House 174: Ellis Black (switched to Senate 8), Crawford Powell (switched from County Commission District 3), Jessie Smith (D), John L. Corbett (R)
  • House 175: Amy Carter (R incumbent)
  • House 176 Jason Shaw (R incumbent)
  • House 177: Dexter Sharper (D incumbent)
  • Senate 8: Richard Raines (R not running again for County Commission District 2), Ellis Black (R switched from House 174), Bikram Mohanty (D ran last time and placed well), John Page (R switched from County Commission District 5).

Break out the popcorn!

And seriously, folks, some of these people will represent you, and some of them will say there’s nothing you can do. Which would you prefer?

And then there’s the Lowndes County School Board, which I would tell you about, but once again as it has been off and on for days, the Georgia Secretary of State Qualifying Candidate Information page seems to be broken. Maybe we need some new people in the statewide elected positions who can actually keep Georgia’s government working.

-jsq