A two-year study by the University System of Georgia shows classrooms are empty during most of the week.

Of the 440 classrooms at the University of Georgia, the average is used just 18.5 hours per 40-hour work week, and when used, only two-thirds of the seats are full, according to the study. That is a 31 percent utilization rate.

The highest utilization rate, 77 percent at Georgia Gwinnett College, is five times higher than the lowest.

At most schools, the results show capacity for additional courses and for some bigger classes. But system administrators say there is a limit to how crowded a classroom can be.

Towery: “This poll is very good news for Isakson and it dispels any notion that somehow Republicans might not like their senator.”

Towery, CEO of InsiderAdvantage and Fox5 Political Analyst says that the numbers suggest “voters in next year’s GOP primary might be looking for a Republican nominee more like Isakson.”

Click through for the actual numbers.

Last June the United States Department of Justice announced a lawsuit against the State of Georgia claiming that the Peach State's election procedures did not meet federal requirements for giving overseas and military voters sufficient time to vote in runoff elections for federal offices.

“We are committed to protecting the right of Georgia service members, including those serving our country overseas, to vote in our elections,” said Sally Quillian Yates, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.  

 

UOCAVA [the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act] requires states to allow uniformed services voters (serving both overseas and within the United States) and their families and overseas citizens to register to vote and to vote absentee for all elections for federal office.   In 2009, Congress enacted the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, which made broad amendments to UOCAVA.   Among those changes was a requirement that states transmit absentee ballots to voters covered under UOCAVA, by mail or electronically at the voter’s option, no later than 45 days before federal elections.   

Last month a federal judge in the Northern District of Georgia agreed with the U.S. Attorney that Georgia's current runoff elections do not allow sufficient time and ordered the state to confer with plaintiffs and propose a remedy that will ensure sufficient time for overseas ballots in federal elections.

Within twenty days (20) of the issuance of this order, Defendants shall confer with Plaintiff and thereafter submit to the Court written proposed changes to Georgia’s election laws that show full compliance with UOCAVA as to all future federal runoff elections.

Senator Saxby Chambliss announced earlier this year that he will not run for reelection in 2014, setting off a rush to succeed him, with four major candidates already announced for next year.

This weekend, former Fulton County Chair and Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel joined the fray, currently dominated by Congressmen Jack Kingston, Phil Gingrey, and Paul Broun.

Predictably, the announcements by three Congressmen in solidly Republican districts has in turn attracted candidates for those seats, ensuring that next year will be profitable for television stations, and Republican political consultants and direct mail firms.

As of this weekend's Georgia Republican Party State Convention, I count ten announced Republican candidates between the three Congressional seats being vacated with two more likely to join in the near-term. And that's before we consider the Twelfth District, where Democrat John Barrow already faces one opponent, while several top-tier candidates explore a second run for the GOP nomination.

In addition to primary elections and general elections for the voting public, two leadership slots in the State House Republican Caucus will open, as Caucus Chair Donna Sheldon runs for the Tenth Congressional District, and Majority Whip Edward Lindsey runs for the Eleventh. It is unclear whether either of these two state Representatives will vacate either their leadership positions or their seats in the state legislature in order to campaign full-time, but the jockeying for their positions has started.

In Sheldon's state house district in Gwinnett County, former county GOP Chair Chuck Efstration has announced he will run. InsiderAdvantage's Angelic Moore has announced for Lindsey's seat in the state house.

The most visible signs are at the county level where the total number of inmates in county jails has shrunk from 39,825 in April 2010 to 35,978 last month, a 9.7 percent decline. Still, 19 jails have more inmates than they are designed to house, but in 2010, 31 of them were over capacity.

The impact is not yet obvious in state prisons. The 48,088 in government and private prisons and detention centers at the end of last year compares to 46,784 at the end of 2010, a 3.3 percent increase.

Gov. Nathan Deal said he didn't expect state prisons to shrink significantly for five years as he rolls out so-called accountability courts that offer local supervision for drug and alcohol offenders and those with mental illness. Keeping those offenders in their communities and out of state prisons will free up money for their treatment, he said.

We complete another State Convention for Georgia Republicans last weekend. As a newly “out of the closet” Republican since my run for Congress, I decided to jump in with both feet. I covered the convention for www.ZPolitics.com and had a team of 6 interns walking the halls signing folks up for the site. That was my business hat for the convention.

I was a delegate for Hall County and the 9th District. There was a glitch with the list that was sent out and my email and phone number weren’t sent out with the list of other delegates. That saved some of the calls you get when you are a delegate, which is a good thing. I served on the Resolutions Committee as the representative from the 9th District and I helped to nominate John Padgett for State Chair. I was busy.

The best part of the convention was being in Athens. I like to say you get younger and better looking the closer you get to Athens. So from that standpoint it was a great weekend. I’m on the “Bring the GAGOP State Convention to Jekyll Island Committee” for 2015. I’m a committee of “1” right now, but I think we can make this movement grow.

Here are the 5 things I learned in this Convention:

Editor's Note: This first appeared on my own website, GaPundit.com as a two-part series. Allen West had enough to say about politics that I think it's worth sharing with InsiderAdvantage subscribers as well.

Todd Rehm: “You're not coming here to announce that you're running for the U.S. Senate from Georgia, are you?”

Allen West: “No, I think if I were to do that, I'd have everyone from Paul Broun to Phil Gingrey to Jack Kingston, and who's this other...Karen Handel.... I don't know if I could fight my way out of that. I mean it's bad enough that I'm in Athens, Georgia, and I'm a University of Tennessee graduate, from Georgia, so it is tough being here, but that's okay.”

Todd Rehm: “One of the big issues that we're beginning to struggle with as a party is outreach to African-Americans....”

Allen West: “First of all, I would rather you say Black American, because when people say ‘African-American,’ that is a collectivizing term. I have friends in South Florida who are Caucasian and they're from the former Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, they're from South Africa, and now they're American citizens, and they consider themselves what? I think that we have to be careful about that because the other side does a good job of balkanizing us and so I don't like to hyphenate. I'm an American Black. That's how I like to be referred to.”

Todd Rehm: “One of the problems that we as white Americans have is we're afraid to say ‘Black,’ we're afraid we're going to offend somebody.”

Allen West: “You're terrified. But you see, Todd, that's the exact thing we need to look at and talk about. The other side has been so successful at managing lexicon and the language that they have white Americans afraid. Afraid to say anything.”

Collins, son of ex-Rep. Mac Collins, R-Jackson, made the announcement at the trucking company in Jackson where he had already followed his dad into the business world. And like his father, he stressed that his business background would be useful in Washington fighting government waste and regulation.

"I'll put my twenty years of business and managerial experience to work for the people of central Georgia," said Collins.

The younger Collins is a graduate of Georgia State University and is involved in industry and civic organizations, but he says he learned his main lessons at home.

"My father taught me about public service, but more importantly he taught me the values of hard work and getting the job done," the candidate said. "My first job was sweeping the floors in the truck garage for a dollar an hour. Now, we ship millions of metric tons throughout the U.S. each year."

In a story from yesterday's InsiderAdvantage, Walter Jones wrote that affordable energy makes American manufacturing competitive against the rest of the world, according to a Federal Reserve Bank economist.

In Georgia, our affordable, reliable, and innovative energy markets help us be competitive for manufacturing jobs against other states, and demands for energy have even sparked some jobs of their own.

In 2012, Governor Nathan Deal, the five Republicans on the Georgia Public Service Commission, and the legislature prioritized energy competitiveness by removing the state sales tax on energy used in manufacturing.

And the dividend has been new high-paying jobs across Georgia.

Governor Deal has publicly credited the removal of the sales tax on energy used in manufacturing as part of the impetus for many of the new jobs he has announced.

"When those liberals start mixing into policy, it's murder."

That quote came from none other than John F. Kennedy in 1962, taken from a source in a Newsweek article, and later discussed with his friend Ben Bradlee, then of Newsweek and later the head of The Washington Post during the Watergate years. It seems, looking back at Watergate and observing the events unfolding at lightning speed in Washington, that Kennedy was correct — not only about pointy-headed liberals, but about any political crowd that becomes either so dogmatic or so comfortable with power that they begin to feel "too cool for school."

As usual, some reader will disclaim JFK's dislike for liberals during much of his term. But it is a fact, and friends such as Bradlee — who certainly morphed toward the liberal side of things in his later years — chronicled the struggle in his diary of conversations with JFK.

Of course, a liberal in 1962 and one today are likely two different animals. But the concept of those who feel their own sense of "manifest destiny" to be that of imposing their better judgment on everyone else remains a problem in 2013.

That brings us to the topic of likely every column to be written in the next few days, the "trifecta" of edited Benghazi talking points, IRS targeting of conservatives and the DOJ's decision to seek the opportunity to have a look at phone calls made to and by Associated Press reporters. Of course, we all know in the world of the media establishment which of these sins is the biggest — that of snooping on The Associated Press.

But regardless, all three issues highlight the same general problems. As Kennedy noted (he did want to tell one of his liberal White House scholars that the quote had come from his close aide Kenny O'Donnell, but he never denied saying it), those who operate from a left-of-center philosophy generally see the world as one in which the unwashed, uneducated masses must be led toward enlightened policy.

William Strauss, senior economist at economic advisor at the Fed's Chicago branch, told members of the Georgia Automobile Manufacturers Association that while factory hiring has indeed been declining for 60 years, output and profits are growing faster than the overall economy.

"Really, what it comes down to -- how well manufacturing is doing -- depends on the metric you use," he said.

Output has consistently grown an average of 3 percent annually for the last 60 years. At the same time productivity has soared where 167 workers today can produce as much as 1,000 people at the end of World War II.

There is currently a movement to at least hold open discussions about moving the Georgia Republican Party to nominate candidates by caucus instead of primary elections.

Dale Jackson, recently-elected Chairman of the Third District Georgia Republican Party, penned an editorial advocating such a move, and it is rumored that a resolution on the issue may be dropped in the hopper for possible consideration by this weekend's Georgia Republican Party State Convention. All of the candidates for state GOP Chair have spoken in favor of at least studying the idea.

I suspect it's doomed to fail. But it may widen the breach between some in the grassroots of the party and Republican legislators.

One theme that has emerged from the debates for GOP Chairman is that many believe the party should have some way of holding legislators accountable for adherence to conservative principles. But if that means office holders should be accountable to anyone other than their constituents, it runs into the principles of representative government.

When Republican gather at their statewide convention in Athens this weekend, one thing is for sure—no one will enter Saturday’s open race for Chair of the state GOP as a clear frontrunner.

Here is the rundown on the candidates and where they are as of this week.

InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery, a past GOP statewide convention chairman observes “I think it most likely that Van Gundy and Padgett emerge in the final round but Johnson may have a surprisingly strong early showing."

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Three women appear on the move on the political front.

The pace of announcements for Congress and United States Senate hasn't slackened, and a flurry of announcements for the Gold Dome seats being vacated in favor of Washington, DC's bigger dome is sure to follow.

To no one's surprise, Tricia Pridemore announced last night that she's running for Congress in the Eleventh District, where Congressman Phil Gingrey is leaving to run for the Senate. Pridemore was the candidate for Georgia Republican Party Chair supported by Governor Deal in 2011, and has also worked in the Deal administration as Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development.

In Savannah, David Schwarz joined the race to replace his former boss, Jack Kingston.

This morning, David Perdue announced his exporatory effort for the US Senate via twitter and his website came up as well. So far, Perdue, cousin to former Governor Sonny, is the most intriguiing outsider candidate. A former Fortune 500 CEO, he presumably brings both personal money and a valuable rolodex to the primary.

Since President Barack Obama's November re-election, party operatives have talked about how demographics changes are challenging the Republican Party, nationally and in Georgia. The voters in the Democrats' corner, such as blacks and other ethnic minorities, are growing faster than the whites the GOP relies on.

Higher birth rates and in-migration rates tell the story.

Now comes a report from the U.S. Census Bureau that compounds that by revealing the turnout rate of racial and ethnic groups in presidential elections. Nationally, blacks have been voting at an increasing rate while the turnout rate among whites has been declining.

That pattern is the same in the Southeast, including Georgia.

The difference sounds small; 66.2 percent of eligible blacks voted compared to 64.1 percent of whites in the 2012 election. But the trend is what's interesting.

In presidential elections since 1996, black voter turnout has steadily risen from 53.0 percent. At the same time, white turnout started higher than blacks at 60.7 percent in '96, then peaked at 67.2 percent in 2004 before dropping the next two elections.

In just over a week’s time, the federal government will once again reach its statutory debt limit. This will trigger what the Treasury Department terms as “extraordinary measures” to continue operating.

If past is precedent, the coming days will feature campaign-style speeches from President Obama saying that congressional Republicans are threatening default and economic calamity by refusing to give him a blank check.

There is something on which we can all agree: defaulting on the national debt would wreak havoc on our economy and have a lasting, negative impact on the future of this country.

It would almost certainly send us back into the throes of a recession and would send interest rates skyrocketing. As a result, the cost of servicing our national debt would begin to crowd out every other program.

The President’s threats, however, ignore the fact that only one person could decide to force America into default. That would be the President himself.

Deal signs ethics legislation, credits media

Gov. Nathan Deal credited the news media with ethics legislation as he signed it into law Monday.

"The issue of ethics is something that you in the media led the charge on," he told reporters gathered in the Capitol for the brief ceremony.

Home Brew Legislation — Home brewers can legally make more, transport

Amateur brew masters no longer have to break the law to compete with the signing Monday of legislation that doubles their limit and allows them to transport their beer for the first time.

New law limits red drum to recreational fishing 

Fans of blackened redfish or fresh red drum will either have to catch it themselves or buy it from someone out of state now that Georgia has a new law prohibiting its commercial harvest.

New law eases sheriff-candidate requirements 

Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law House Bill 139 Monday that will allow candidates for sheriff to submit transcripts in place of a diploma to prove high school graduation.

Most Americans are familiar with the Rorschach test, in which a subject's interpretation of the pattern in an inkblot is said to reveal their mind's inner workings. For many politicos of both parties, Democratic Congressman John Barrow and his Twelfth Congressional District in Georgia have become sort of a Rorschach test, revealing their assumptions and aspirations.

The last white Democratic Congressman in the Deep South, Barrow has frustrated Republicans at both the national and state levels for years, beating a parade of GOP nominees.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has a new program aimed at ousting Barrow and several other Democrats thought to be vulnerable, while some in the Democratic Party hoped Barrow might run for the United State Senate and help put another seat in the senior chamber into Democratic hands.

Liberal columnist Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that Barrow's ability to cobble together enough Democrats with a smattering of moderate and Republican white voters does not represent the future of the party, which in his mind is considerably to the left of Barrow.

But after his reelection in 2012, Barrow heralded his victory as a step toward bringing the middle back to the Democratic Party or the party back to the middle-of-the-road.

The Republican National Committee recently released its “Growth and Opportunity Project Report,” a much-touted post-mortem of the 2012 Presidential election. But I don't think they expected, or even understand, the level of pushback they're getting from Georgia. And there's a reason for that.

I've been in Washington for three days, and yesterday the group I'm traveling with met with two political officials from a major party organization and a private political pollster. Both treated the Report as though it contained the keys to the salvation of both the Republican Party and our Republic.

Now granted, the meetings were both billed as opportunities for us to hear from DC experts, but I'm struck by the fact that neither the GOP officials nor the pollster had much interest in what actual voters, here described as Republican leaders from Georgia, had to say about their plans.

During the meeting with the party representatives, I brought up the fact that as our state prepares to elect a new Republican Party Chairman, who will have a seat on the Republican National Committee, I have yet to hear any of the candidates or any activists say anything positive about the report, although the criticism is vociferous and public. They seemed both shocked and dismissive, although it sounded like a majority of my fellow Georgians were at least in agreement that none of the candidates like the Report, if not necessarily unanimous in their rejection of its top-down approach.