Sonny Perdue

Sonny Perdue From Democrat To Georgia Gop Leader

... Just down the road from Evans' diner are six 49-foot-tall silos and a green, wood-framed, single-story building containing a white board listing crop prices, known as the Bonaire Board of Trade. No flashing neon sign spells it out, but this is Houston Fertilizer and Grain, the home of the Perdue business empire. With six locations in Georgia and one in West Monroe, La., it sells farmers fertilizer and seed and buys their crops to sell in bulk to big distributors. Since building Houston County's first grain elevator, Perdue has also expanded into the trucking business. Football and vet school. He didn't start out planning to run a grain business any more than he grew up wanting to be governor. Perdue played quarterback at Warner Robins High School and was recruited by several colleges. He decided to be a walk-on at the University of Georgia, where he studied to be a veterinarian. His football career didn't get very far at the big school. "I had a problem with SEC football. I was small, but I was slow, " he jokes. In his second year, he gave up football to prepare for vet school. Still, he managed to stay above the crowd. When he ...

Trump Names Perdue As Agriculture Secretary Nominee

... care and getting less - less access, less quality, and fewer choices," he said in a statement after introducing legislation to repeal Obamacare in May. (Credit: Getty Images / Alex Wong). Seema Verma: Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Seema Verma was selected to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency that oversees government health programs and insurance standards, the Trump transition team said Nov. 29, 2016. Verma is the president, CEO and founder of SVC Inc., a health care policy consulting company. Verma previously worked with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in Indiana to expand Medicaid coverage for the state's poor using federal funding. (Credit: Getty Images / Drew Angerer). Don Mc Gahn: White House counsel. Trump named attorney Donald Mc Gahn his White House counsel, a senior transition official said on Nov. 25, 2016. A partner at law firm Jones Day and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Mc Gahn served as counsel to Trump during his presidential campaign. He has also previously served as counsel to the National Republican Congressional ...

That Time Sonny Perdue Prayed For Rain

... His office sent out invitations for the service a week in advance, and noted to reporters that Perdue had held similar prayer services in the past. So had his predecessors: In 1986, then-Gov. Joe Frank Harris held a prayer service in hopes of ending another historic drought. (Harris would recall later that rain started falling right after the vigil ended. “You could feel the spirit of the Lord was there,” he said.). Perdue’s service was held on the statehouse steps, attracting more than 250 people, dozens of reporters – and 22 protesters with a local atheist group, Atlanta Freethought Society, waving signs that read “Hail Priest-King Perdue” and “Pray on the Church Steps, not the Capitol Steps.”. As the service began, a church choir belted out “What a Mighty God We Serve” and “Amazing Grace.” Some swayed with the rhythm, some stood with eyes closed and arms outstretched. A trio of Protestant ministers joined Perdue and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. “God, we need you,” ...

Diverted Funds Aid Sonny Perdue Projects

... directly involved in the negotiations for Oaky Woods. But Perdue also served as chairman of the State Properties Commission, which ultimately voted to buy Oaky Woods. Efforts to reach Perdue for comment for this article were unsuccessful. Pet projects. The audit of the state's use of bond money showed the long and ironic journey of the cash used to buy Oaky Woods: The money was first intended to pay for the pet project of one powerful politician but wound up, many years later, paying for the pet projects of a different powerful politician in a different political party. The saga begins with a proposal in the 1990 s to sell about $50 million in bonds to finance a reservoir in Bremen, the west Georgia hometown of then-House Speaker Tom Murphy. But the legendary Democrat, who ruled the state House for 28 years and was among the most influential politicians in Georgia history, lost his seat to a Republican in 2002. The reservoir project collapsed soon after - state officials said they weren't able to get the necessary permits - although the bonds had already been ...

Political Insider Blog

... the Georgia mainstay. That relative blank slate could work …. Sonny Watch: Why is it taking so long for Trump to pick an ag chief. 10:56 am Jan. 18, 2017. Donald Trump still hasn’t announced his agriculture secretary just days before he is to be sworn in as the nation’s new president. And the delay in filling his final Cabinet position has put former Georgia …. That time Sonny Perdue prayed for rain. 6:00 am Jan. 10, 2017. Nearly 10 years ago, then-Gov. Sonny Perdue stepped to a podium outside the state Capitol and led a solemn crowd of a few hundred people in prayer. Demonstrators chanted in protest as he spoke, while …. Sources: Sonny Perdue is Trump’s top contender for ag chief. 10:23 am Jan. 2, 2017. Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is a leading contender to serve as Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary, two people with direct knowledge of the situation said ...

Trump Is Said To Pick Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue To Lead Agriculture Department

... Cabinet position for which Trump hasn't named a candidate. Perdue began his political career as a Democrat in the state Legislature in 1991. But it was after switching his allegiance to the Republican Party that Perdue made Georgia history. In 2002, Perdue was elected the state's first Republican governor since the end of Reconstruction more than 130 years earlier. Perdue's victory over an incumbent Democrat completed Georgia's shift to a solidly Republican state, ending generations of Democratic control of state government. Under Perdue's watch, Georgia adopted tough new food safety regulations after a deadly U. S. salmonella outbreak was traced to Georgia-made peanut butter. He moved the state office that issues water permits for irrigation and other agricultural uses from Atlanta to rural south Georgia, where it would be closer to farmers. And Perdue poured millions of state ...

Opposition Mounts Against Perdue As Ag Chief

... Why don't THEY settle on a gr 8 VOICE FOR AGRICULTURE BILL NORTHEY Iowa secretary of Ag for 10 yrs. Trump has locked up most of his top administration picks and all but two of his secretary-level Cabinet appointments. Only the agriculture job and the head of the Veterans Affairs departments remain vacant. President Barack Obama’s Harvard Law Review article gives a shout-out to Gov. Nathan Deal’s criminal justice overhaul. During my time in office, we have seen many states make important strides on a host of issues — from sentencing reform to policing reform to expanding alternatives to incarceration for addiction and mental illness. These include states such as Oklahoma, Georgia, and Texas in which Republican governors and legislatures have been vocal proponents of promising and important reforms. Given that the vast majority of Americans who interact with the justice system do so at the state and local levels, it is critical that this kind of bipartisan leadership continues and that states continue to demonstrate ways that others (including, at times, the federal government) can strive to achieve better outcomes. (A side note: He also gave the ...

3 Minutes, 1 Tax Bill, $100,000 For Sonny Perdue

... the House a week later. It passed the Senate Finance Committee a week after that, on March 17, 2005. However, before the bill could make it to the full Senate, it was bounced back to the Senate Finance Committee. On March 22, O'Neal appeared before the committee asking for approval of HB 488 - with a revision, meeting records show. He wanted committee members to agree to make the tax break retroactive to 2004. Like the members of previous committees, several members of the Senate Finance Committee - Republicans and Democrats - don't remember much. Among those who don't recall the events leading up to the bill's retroactive change are Casey Cagle of Gainesville, who at the time headed the committee. He is now the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Mitch Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg), a Senate Rules Committee member who made the motion to move HB 488 back to the Finance Committee, said, "I can't remember a thing about it.". Graham, the revenue commissioner, said he wasn't at the meeting and ...

Sonny Perdue Will Be 'great' Agriculture Secretary

... feed. Steven Mnuchin, nominee for secretary of the Treasury, appears before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing on Jan. 19, 2017. Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY. Rick Perry, nominee for Energy secretary, is sworn in for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 19, 2017. Jack Gruber, USA TODAY. Sonny Perdue, the former governor of the Georgia, is Trump's pick to be Agriculture secretary. Albin Lohr-Jones, Pool/European Pressphoto Agency. Nikki Haley, nominee for U. N. ambassador, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 18, 2017. Jack Gruber, USA TODAY. Scott Pruitt, nominee for administrator of the EPA, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public ...

Trump Returns To Nyc, Holding Meetings At Trump Tower

... fever in this room has finally broken,’ the president told the group, according to a person in the meeting. ‘We’re no longer in nation-building mode.’ What Mr. Obama meant was that no one in the Situation Room that day, himself included, thought that the United States - after 14 years of war, billions of dollars spent and more than 2,000 American lives lost - would ever transform Afghanistan into a semblance of a democracy able to defend itself.” __link__ h Jvw 7 c. WHITE HOUSE SOUTH - NYT A 9, “Mar-a-Lago, the Future Winter White House and Home of the Calmer Trump,” by Maggie Haberman: “At night, the couches are moved out and tables are added to accommodate the evening cocktail crowd, among whom Mr. Trump moves from one table to the next, the most powerful greeter in the world. Mr. Trump; his wife, Melania; and their 10-year-old son, Barron, inhabit a residential area of the club. His adult children and their families usually stay in nearby cabanas on the property. ...

Donald Trump Has Already Broken A Promise About His Presidency

... to look like. Trump: My administration will be made up of every, all groups from this country and that would be women. It would be African-Americans. It would be Hispanics. It would be, I mean that’s so vital to have that. I think it’s absolutely. Now at the same time it would be the most competent people. We need the most competent people, but they’ll be the most competent people from those groups, absolutely. It’ll be made up of everybody. In failing to honor his promise to "absolutely" include Latinos in his cabinet, Trump becomes the first president since Ronald Reagan to not have a Latino member of their cabinet coming into the White House. It was actually Reagan who broke that particular barrier, nominating Texas Democrat Lauro Cavazos as Secretary of Education in 1988. Made up almost entirely of wealthy white men, Trump's cabinet is the least diverse in decades. At one point in December, Trump was allegedly  "desperate" to add a Latino name to his roster of secretaries, with even Newt Gingrich opining that "there has to be more Hispanics in the administration." Trump was rumored to be interviewing ...

Sonny Perdue Is Trump’s Top Contender For Ag Chief

... in 1998. His surprise victory over Gov. Roy Barnes in 2002 – making him Georgia’s first GOP governor since Reconstruction – triggered a Republican wave in Georgia that flipped the state Senate and then the state House. Georgia Republicans now control every statewide office in Georgia. As governor, he carved out a reliably conservative record that included legislation that aimed at cracking down illegal immigration and new photo ID requirements for Georgia voters. He also oversaw Georgia’s decades-long water dispute with Alabama and Florida and the state’s response to an epic drought that prompted him to call for stiff water restrictions. He drew national headlines for leading state lawmakers in a prayer for rain at the height of the drought in 2007. Since leaving office in 2011, Perdue has run a string of trucking, agriculture and logistics firms from his base in middle Georgia – a role he helps will burnish his appeal to Trump. If he’s selected for the job, he would be the first agriculture secretary from a Southern state since Mike Espy of Mississippi headed the department in the early 1990 ...