Tonight's interesting link is to BillTrack50.com - it provides voting records for our representatives. Who knew such things even existed?? I ended up there accidentally while researching Chuck Efstration who is running for re-election against Andrea Stephenson.
Chuck is the fella that rode through my neighborhood in a golf cart a few days ago while I was working on my blog about superintendent candidates. My husband answered the door midway through preparing a bunch of chicken for dinner and I totally missed the exchange. He brought me the brochure and told me a candidate had just been at our door so I headed down the street to catch up with him (golf carts are slow). I couldn't resist the chance to meet one of the people I'd ultimately be writing about.
He was very personable & seemed to listen as I explained that I was a veteran teacher and I questioned his support of public dollars going towards private schools (it was on his brochure). I am VERY skeptical of anyone who wants to divert public dollars to private schools. He assured me that this year our government had fully funded public education and that he supported public dollars following students to whatever school parents selected for them. I can give some leeway there...I suppose...
Before running out the door to meet the guy, I did a quick Google search for him and his opponent. It's really not that hard to put information on a web page, but doggone if his opponent doesn't even have her last name on the top half of her home page. Perhaps this shouldn't be that big of a deal, but I'm struggling to get behind someone who can't assemble a decent web page with coherent information along with their last name so I know who to look for on the ballot. (Honestly, I was reminded of Homer Simpson's web page, but maybe I'm just being mean.)
Stephenson and Efstration appear to agree on a couple of issues - improving education & infrastructure. I didn't find any major red flags on either page and thankfully neither candidate resorted to mudslinging that I found.
Further digging on BillTrack50 led to this site which revealed how many races Efstration had participated in and where his money had come from. I honestly have no idea what to make of this. I clicked around quite a bit and found it interesting to see how much money various individuals and companies had contributed.
It appears that the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association has donated quite a bit of money to candidates over the years (including Efstration) and when I clicked for more information I was surprised to find that they had donated 600k-ish more to the Democratic party than the Republican party. Honestly...there is so much information out there. I had no idea.
I appreciated that Chuck listened when I talked and then asked questions as to what I thought we needed in order to make progress in education. I told him homework was the devil and car rider lines sucked. (Those things are true, but I didn't really tell him that.) I actually asked why Gwinnett County doesn't have any sort of magnet programs to serve programs like performing arts. He said he'd had that same conversation several times over the last few days and urged me to vote to pass the bond issue on the ballot in Gwinnett County which will help to fund a new high school in our district along with some other education projects.
Overall, I have no reason not to vote for Efstration. He's worked in this role for a few years, I didn't see any red flags in his voting history, he is from this area, his mom is a retired teacher, and I enjoyed talking to him.
Chuck is the fella that rode through my neighborhood in a golf cart a few days ago while I was working on my blog about superintendent candidates. My husband answered the door midway through preparing a bunch of chicken for dinner and I totally missed the exchange. He brought me the brochure and told me a candidate had just been at our door so I headed down the street to catch up with him (golf carts are slow). I couldn't resist the chance to meet one of the people I'd ultimately be writing about.
He was very personable & seemed to listen as I explained that I was a veteran teacher and I questioned his support of public dollars going towards private schools (it was on his brochure). I am VERY skeptical of anyone who wants to divert public dollars to private schools. He assured me that this year our government had fully funded public education and that he supported public dollars following students to whatever school parents selected for them. I can give some leeway there...I suppose...
Before running out the door to meet the guy, I did a quick Google search for him and his opponent. It's really not that hard to put information on a web page, but doggone if his opponent doesn't even have her last name on the top half of her home page. Perhaps this shouldn't be that big of a deal, but I'm struggling to get behind someone who can't assemble a decent web page with coherent information along with their last name so I know who to look for on the ballot. (Honestly, I was reminded of Homer Simpson's web page, but maybe I'm just being mean.)
Stephenson and Efstration appear to agree on a couple of issues - improving education & infrastructure. I didn't find any major red flags on either page and thankfully neither candidate resorted to mudslinging that I found.
Further digging on BillTrack50 led to this site which revealed how many races Efstration had participated in and where his money had come from. I honestly have no idea what to make of this. I clicked around quite a bit and found it interesting to see how much money various individuals and companies had contributed.
It appears that the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association has donated quite a bit of money to candidates over the years (including Efstration) and when I clicked for more information I was surprised to find that they had donated 600k-ish more to the Democratic party than the Republican party. Honestly...there is so much information out there. I had no idea.
I appreciated that Chuck listened when I talked and then asked questions as to what I thought we needed in order to make progress in education. I told him homework was the devil and car rider lines sucked. (Those things are true, but I didn't really tell him that.) I actually asked why Gwinnett County doesn't have any sort of magnet programs to serve programs like performing arts. He said he'd had that same conversation several times over the last few days and urged me to vote to pass the bond issue on the ballot in Gwinnett County which will help to fund a new high school in our district along with some other education projects.
Overall, I have no reason not to vote for Efstration. He's worked in this role for a few years, I didn't see any red flags in his voting history, he is from this area, his mom is a retired teacher, and I enjoyed talking to him.
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