Latest news with #BrandonBeach
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Gold Dome nuggets: No raises for powers that be, Senator Treasurer, Dem disarray
During the penultimate week of the 2025 legislative session, Sen. Brandon Beach marked his new gig as President Donald Trump's U.S. Treasurer by signing fake $100 bills at the Capitol for fellow state lawmakers. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder Back by popular demand, it's nuggets, tasty little tidbits of news from the Gold Dome. Lawmakers are getting ready for the last day of the 2025 legislative session on Friday, but they still drop some nuggets everywhere they go. This week: Democratic discontent comes to the dome, a ride-or-die always Trumper gets rewarded with a new gig and some funny money, and state leaders try to decide whether to add more real money into their yearly salaries. House lawmakers quickly swatted down a last-minute Senate plan to give the governor and other statewide officials pay raises. The Senate had added the salary bumps Thursday to a bill adjusting the pay of judges at higher levels in Georgia. Under the plan, Gov. Brian Kemp would have been tied with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for the highest earning governor in the country. 'You may have seen a little something about the amendment in the news over the last 24 hours,' the bill's original sponsor, Elberton Republican Rep. Rob Leverett, said to his colleagues Friday. 'I think that is a discussion we as a body need to have at some point, but we shouldn't have it as an amendment to a bill in the last two or three days of session,' Leverett said. 'I believe it needs to be thought through a little more and it needs a little more study.' Some senators also tried to increase lawmaker pay in another judicial pay bill focused on superior court judges. Critics argued that the legislative pay amendment would sabotage a bill intended to create uniform statewide pay for Georgia Superior Court judges. The proposed pay raise amendment to House Bill 85 would have increased the salaries of lawmakers from $24,341 to about $55,000. Sen. Randal Mangham, a Stone Mountain Democrat, argued it would put Georgia lawmakers in line with the national average of $44,320 in 2024, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. He referenced the limited funding he receives for his staff. '$7,000 for an entire year with my budget for expenses to run the people's business. It's a $40 billion enterprise,' Mangham said, referring to the state budget. Sen. John Kennedy, a Macon Republican, urged senators prior to voting to consider how passing the amendment would come across to the taxpayers. 'Colleagues, are you willing to look at your constituents in the eye and tell them you need more of their tax dollars in your pocket and out of their pocket?' Kennedy said. The debate ended with the legislative pay amendments failing 33 to 18 before the superior court legislation passed with nearly unanimous support. In the wake of a bitter loss to President Donald Trump, Democrats across the country are trying to figure out where it all went wrong. A recent Politico analysis of a Quinnipiac poll found that for the first time in the poll's history, a majority of Democrats view members of their party in Congress unfavorably. Just 40 percent of Democrats polled said the party is doing a good job, compared to 49 percent who said the opposite. A March NBC News poll found 65% of self-identified Democrats want the party to fight Trump rather than seek compromise, even if that leads to gridlock in Washington. Around this time in Trump's first term, only 33% of Democrats felt that way, the pollster found. That discontent could be springing forth at the state level as well. The Forsyth County Democrats released a statement castigating Democrats in Congress and the state Legislature for 'voting like Republicans.' 'With democracy itself at stake – and with the public's frustration with figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk high – we cannot afford to hand political or legislative victories to Republicans or to validate their agenda while our constituents and values hang in the balance,' the statement reads. 'Likewise, here in Georgia, amid widespread discontent with Governor Brian Kemp's hard-right legislative push, it is imperative that Democrats stand together rather than bolster Kemp's initiatives that harm the public interest.' The statement lists three pieces of legislation where some Democrats broke rank – Senate Bill 68, Kemp's priority lawsuit overhaul bill, supported by three Democrats; Senate Bill 144, liability protections for fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers with the support of nine Democrats and House Bill 267, which bans transgender girls from playing on girls' school sports teams and got votes from three Dems. Republican Sen. Brandon Beach's selection as President Donald Trump's choice to become the next U.S. Treasurer has boosted his popularity. Beach signed fake currency featuring the face of Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch reading 'In Goochie We Trust' that was passed around the Capitol last week. The 63-year-old Beach's signature as U.S. treasurer could soon be emblazoned on the front of real legal tender in the future. The senator's role in state government will end shortly after the Legislature gavels out on April 4 for the final day of the 2025 session. Beach will act as a liaison between the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, as well as oversee the U.S. Mint and Fort Knox. The president is boosting a conspiracy theory these days that some of the gold is missing from Fort Knox and says he plans to go to Kentucky to see for himself if the country's treasure is still secured. Inside the Senate chamber Wednesday, fellow Trump loyalist GOP Lt. Gov. Burt Jones celebrated Beach's new job opportunity. Jones recalled that not long ago they were part of a small cadre of hardline Trump supporters in the Senate who were persona non grata, even among fellow Republicans. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Georgia lawmaker revives wrongful conviction compensation bill with penalties for disqualified DAs
Sen. Brandon Beach, recently appointed U.S. Treasurer by President Donald Trump, amended a bill by Rep. Katie Dempsey to allow for wrongful conviction compensation when district attorneys are subsequently disqualified. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder A bill that would grant compensation to wrongfully convicted Georgians was just given a second chance after lawmakers spliced it into a bill inspired by President Donald Trump's election interference case in Georgia. Senate Bill 244, which is aimed at allowing criminal defendants to recoup their legal costs if the prosecuting attorney in their case is disqualified for personal or professional misconduct, now includes the bulk of House Bill 533, which would establish a standardized process in Georgia state law for people who have been exonerated. It passed out of the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee in a contentious vote Thursday afternoon. House lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have faced an uphill battle in their efforts to properly compensate those who have been wrongfully incarcerated. The process is currently done on a case-by-case basis through individual compensation resolutions that must pass through the full legislative process like any other bill. Legislation to standardize the process was initially introduced by Atlanta Democratic Rep. Scott Holcomb in 2022, and re-introduced in 2023, but his efforts have repeatedly been stalled in the Senate by Republican opposition. This year, HB 533, also known as the Wrongful Conviction Compensation Act, was sponsored by Rome Republican Rep. Katie Dempsey. It passed through the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee unanimously ahead of Crossover Day but never made it to a vote on the House floor. House lawmakers did, however, overwhelmingly pass a measure that included individual compensation resolutions for five people who served time in prison after being wrongfully convicted. In contrast, SB 244 was sponsored by state Sen. Brandon Beach, an Alpharetta Republican and staunch Trump ally who was recently appointed by the president to serve as U.S. Treasurer. It was originally aimed solely at allowing criminal defendants to recoup their legal costs in the event that the prosecuting attorney in their case was disqualified as a result of 'improper conduct.' The bill, Beach said, was inspired by Trump's election interference case in Georgia, in which Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified after an appeals court judge found that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a ''significant' appearance of impropriety.' 'When you think about somebody getting indicted, it's somewhat of a scarlet letter,' Beach said at a committee hearing on the bill Tuesday. 'It is tough. It can ruin your life, and it can definitely cost you a lot in attorney's fees to defend yourself. And so I just am doing this so that people that have been wrongly accused and then the case goes away, they have some type of ability to recoup some of their fees and reasonable cost.' Democratic lawmakers on the committee objected to Beach's portion of the bill, pointing out that the bill would benefit Sen. Shawn Still, a Johns Creek Republican who was indicted in the Fulton County election interference case alongside Trump and 17 other codefendants. 'My concern is that we are specifically aiding one of our colleagues, not to mention the issue that Rep. Dempsey and Rep. Holcomb's bill is essentially being used, essentially, as political extortion,' said Rep. Esther Panitch, a Sandy Springs Democrat. Democrats also raised concerns about the disproportionate impact the law would have on smaller counties with more limited budgets, as well as fears that local district attorneys could be discouraged from prosecuting complicated cases out of fear of having to cover the cost of defendant's attorney fees, but they ultimately failed to successfully amend the bill. Dempsey also made an effort to distance her language from Beach's proposal as she presented the substitute bill to the committee. 'This is truly quite separate from the measure that Senator Beach has on the front,' Dempsey said. 'This is a completely different conversation. We are not trying to target anyone. We are trying to take a process and make it fair and remove it from the hands of the Legislature and put it into administrative law judges' hands, who are much better skilled and equipped to handle those decisions.' Though Dempsey said she was grateful that the language regarding wrongful convictions has a second chance to pass through the Legislature this year, she admitted that it may be an uphill battle to get the bill through both chambers before the 2025 legislative session ends on April 4. But in its new form, she has reason to be optimistic, she said. 'This bill is a priority for Senator Beach,' Dempsey said, adding that he could be instrumental to the bill's passage. Deputy Editor Jill Nolin contributed to this report.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump selects Georgia state lawmaker Brandon Beach to be next US Treasurer
(Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he had picked Georgia's Republican state Senator Brandon Beach to be the next Treasurer of the United States, a role that has oversight of the U.S. Mint and involves liaison with the Federal Reserve. "Brandon will uphold the Values of Fiscal Responsibility, Economic Growth, and help unleash America's Golden Age," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Reuters
27-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Trump selects Georgia state lawmaker Brandon Beach to be next US Treasurer
March 26 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he had picked Georgia's Republican state Senator Brandon Beach to be the next Treasurer of the United States, a role that has oversight of the U.S. Mint and involves liaison with the Federal Reserve. "Brandon will uphold the Values of Fiscal Responsibility, Economic Growth, and help unleash America's Golden Age," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Georgia Sen. Brandon Beach nominated to serve as US treasurer, would control US Mint if confirmed
Georgia State Sen. Brandon Beach of Alpharetta was nominated to serve as the U.S. treasurer by President Donald Trump. The Georgia Chamber of Commerce released a statement congratulating the senator Friday afternoon. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, 'The treasurer of the United States has direct oversight of the U.S. Mint and Fort Knox and is a key liaison with the Federal Reserve. Additionally, the treasurer serves as a senior advisor to the (treasury) secretary on community development and engagement.' The U.S. Mint is the part of the federal government that has control of maintaining U.S. currency, including the issuing of dollars and cents. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] TRENDING STORIES: Ford recalls Bronco, Edge, Explorer, and F-150 vehicles due to engine problem NTSB warns of dangerous bridges as part of Key Bridge investigation Construction worker dies after falling from 19th floor in downtown Atlanta Similarly, Fort Knox is the U.S. military base that makes up the U.S. Bullion Depository, where the federal government stores the metal bullion reserves used to mint official U.S. coins, such as quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. In the statement from the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO Chris Clark said: 'The Georgia Chamber congratulates Senator Beach on his nomination as treasurer of the United States, and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership with him in Washington D.C. Sen. Brandon Beach has tremendous experience in economic development, having served as a board member of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, former president of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, and being one of the founders of the North Fulton Community Improvement District. While serving as a member of the Georgia State Senate, Sen. Beach established himself as an expert on monetary and economic policy. His strong legislative background and professional expertise makes Sen. Beach uniquely qualified to be treasurer of the United States. Sen. Beach will bring his strong business mindset to the Treasury Department, ensuring it remains an efficient government agency.' Beach confirmed the news to Channel 2′s Richard Elliot, though an official statement had not yet been issued by the White House. Fulton County Manager Dick Anderson posted earlier Friday congratulating Beach. 'Congratulations to the next treasurer of the United States and my longtime good friend, Brandon Beach!' he wrote online. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
