Sonny Perdue

After serving as a member of the Houston County Planning & Zoning Commission in the 1980s, Perdue ran as a Democrat for a seat in the Georgia General Assembly.[14] He defeated Republican candidate Ned Sanders in 1990 and succeeded Democratic incumbent Ed Barker as the senator representing the 18th district.[18]

Perdue was elected as a Democrat in 1991, 1994, and 1996. He served as his party's leader in the Senate from 1994 to 1997 and as president pro tempore.[19] After his first year in office, Senator Perdue wrote then Lt. Governor Pierre Howard asking for more responsibilities, and Howard obliged. He shortly thereafter became a committee chairman, then climbed the leadership ladder to majority leader and to Senate president pro tempore. Many credit Pierre Howard for helping Perdue build the early foundation of what would become his future political career.[20]

His committee assignments included Ethics, Finance & Public Utilities, Health & Human Services, Reapportionment, and Economic Development, Tourism & Cultural Affairs.

He switched party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in 1998 amid feuding with then-Majority Leader Charles Walker and was re-elected to the State Senate as a Republican.[21] He also won reelection in 2000.

In December 2001, Perdue resigned as state senator and devoted himself entirely to running for the office of Governor of Georgia. He won the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial election, defeating Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes 51% to 46%, with Libertarian candidate Garrett Michael Hayes taking 2% of the vote.[22] He became the first Republican governor of Georgia in 131 years since Benjamin F. Conley.[4]

In 2006, Perdue was re-elected to a second term in the 2006 Georgia gubernatorial election, winning nearly 58% of the vote. His Democratic opponent was Lieutenant Governor Mark Taylor. Libertarian Garrett Michael Hayes was also on the ballot.[23]

Perdue advocated reforms designed to cut waste in government, most notably the sale of surplus vehicles and real estate.[24] Prior to Perdue's becoming governor, no state agency had compiled an inventory of what assets were owned by the state.[24]

In January 2003, Perdue signed an executive order prohibiting himself and all other state employees from receiving any gift worth more than $25.[25] During his governorship, Perdue collected at least $25,000 in gifts, including sporting event tickets and airplane flights.[25]

Late in the evening of March 29, 2005, the penultimate day of the legislative session, Representative Larry O'Neal, who also worked part-time as Perdue's personal lawyer, introduced legislation making capital gains tax owed on Georgia land sales deferrable if the income goes to purchase out-of-state land, also, unusually, making the tax break retroactive.[26] Perdue signed the legislation into law on April 12, 2005, three days before tax day.[26] Perdue then used the new law on his 2004 tax return to defer $100,000 in taxable gains from the sale of land.[26]

In 2007, Perdue convinced a skeptical legislature to approve a $19 million fishing tourism program he called Go Fish Georgia. Perdue then decided that the Go Fish Education Center would be built down the road from his home.[12]

In education, Perdue promoted the return of most decision-making to the local level. After Perdue took office, in 2003 and 2004, Georgia moved up from last place in the country in SAT scores. Although it returned to last place in 2005,[27] Georgia rose to 49th place in 2006 in the combined math and reading mean score, including the writing portion added to the test that year.[28] In 2007, Georgia moved up to 46th place.[29] In 2008, Georgia moved up again, to 45th place.[30] Perdue also created additional opportunities for charter schools and private schools.[31]

In 2001, Democratic governor Roy Barnes replaced the 1956 state flag, which incorporated the battle flag of the Confederacy, and which had been adopted by Georgia largely as a protest against desegregation. In his 2002 election campaign, Perdue promised that he would let the state's citizens vote to determine the state flag.[32] The choices were a modified version of the First National Flag of the Confederate States of America, with the Georgia State Seal prominently displayed inside a circle of 13 stars, or the flag created in 2001 by the Roy Barnes administration. The design of the 2001 Georgian flag was widely unpopular, being derisively named the "Barnes flag". The North American Vexillological Association had deemed it the ugliest U.S. state flag.[33] Perdue disappointed some Georgians by not making the 1956 flag one of the choices on the ballot, despite a campaign promise to do so. However, Perdue was faced with a Democratic House that would not allow the 1956 flag to be included in the referendum, due to its Confederate origins, and he needed support for a tobacco tax he wanted to pass to raise revenue.[34]

In 2004, Perdue sued the Environmental Protection Agency to block environmental regulations on reformulated gasoline.[35] In a 2014 editorial published by National Review, Perdue criticized attempts by "some on the left or in the mainstream media" to connect climate change to weather events. Perdue wrote that "liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality."[36]

In 2006, Perdue signed a law that gave Georgia "some of the nation's toughest measures against illegal immigrants."[37]

On November 13, 2007, while Georgia suffered from one of the worst droughts in several decades, Perdue led a group of several hundred people in prayer on the steps of the state Capitol. Perdue addressed the crowd, saying "We've come together here simply for one reason and one reason only: to very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm" and "God, we need you; we need rain." According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "As the vigil ended, the sun shone through what had been a cloudy morning. In fact, for the next two weeks after the prayer, the state's epic dry streak grew worse."[38]

According to a March 5, 2008, proclamation by Perdue, "Among those who served the Confederacy were many African-Americans, both free and slave, who saw action in the Confederate armed forces in many combat roles. According to the Georgia government's website on Confederate History Month, they also participated in the manufacture of products for the war effort, built naval ships, and provided military assistance and relief efforts ..."[39] The proclamation was criticized by historians for its historical inaccuracies,[40] although there were, in fact, African-Americans who served the Confederacy. However, most served in the early years of the war and were either forced at gunpoint or feared reprisals for disloyalty.[41]

In 2008, Perdue worked with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to implement Ready Georgia, a campaign to increase disaster preparedness throughout the state.[42] The next year, Georgia was affected by the September floods, which were the most severe in Georgia's recorded history.[43] The floods resulted in Perdue declaring a state of emergency in 17 counties.[44]

Beginning in 2007, Governor Perdue began to pursue the goal of making Georgia the "bass-fishing tourism mecca". The administration began acquiring bond money for the Go Fish Education Center near his home in Perry, GA. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, payments on the Go Fish bonds, approved by Perdue and the General Assembly in 2007, runs through December 2027 with most payments $1 million a year in bond money.[45]

Upon the end of Perdue's term as governor, many in the Georgia General Assembly condemned the project and Perdue after an advisory council (appointed by Perdue) began to funnel additional bond money to the project located in his home county. "To me it was a boondoggle because of the amount of money they were spending and the location," said Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. "You have got to have stuff where there is a lot of traffic. It's a little off the beaten path."[46]

The project overall has been scrutinized as a waste of taxpayer money due to mismanagement of bond money and extremely low visitors. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources figures showed 21,101 people visited the Perry facility in fiscal 2015, which ended June 30. It generated $102,077 in revenue or about 11 cents for every dollar it cost to run the center in years past.[46]

During his governorship, the Georgia State Ethics Commission received thirteen complaints against Perdue.[25] The State Ethics Commission ruled against Perdue twice, finding that he had taken improper campaign contributions from donors including SunTrust Banks and that he had improperly used one of his family business's airplanes on the campaign, for which the commission fined the sitting governor.[25]

In mid-2003, Perdue purchased 101 acres (0.41 km²) of land next to his Houston County, Georgia, home.[47] The land was adjacent to the 20,000 acres (81 km²) Oaky Woods preserve being sold by Weyerhaeuser.[47] The land was eventually sold to developers; however, the state was evaluating bidding on the property and keeping it as a reserve.[47] After the state dropped out of the bidding and the land was sold to developers, the value of Perdue's property more than doubled.[47] Perdue failed to disclose his ownership of the property in required financial disclosure forms.[47]

In December 2004, Perdue bought $2 million worth of land near Disney World from a developer who he had previously appointed to the state's economic development board.[12] A 2005 tax bill passed by the Georgia Legislature allowed residents to gain a tax break if they sold a property in Georgia to buy similar property in another state, and made the change retroactive to 2004. The new law saved Perdue $100,000 in state taxes.[48]

Perdue was constitutionally ineligible to seek a third consecutive term as governor in the 2010 Georgia gubernatorial election. In 2011, he founded Perdue Partners, which facilitated the export of U.S. goods and services.[49]

During meetings with Georgia state port officials, then-Governor Perdue discussed his family business's use of a terminal, then started a new export company in Savannah soon after leaving office.[25]

In June 2021, a news story broke of financial dealings Perdue had after his nomination as Secretary of Agriculture but before his confirmation. On December 30, 2016, Perdue's company AGrowStar purchased property and a facility from Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), a large American agribusiness corporation that the Department of Agriculture regulates. The property (in Estill, South Carolina) had originally been purchased by ADM for 5.5 million dollars, and independent assessments and government tax assessors agree on that as a fair range; however, AGrowStar was offered the property for US$250,000, a fraction of its value. After the sale, the huge boiler on the property was sold for approximately $500,000, easily covering the cost of the purchase even if the rest of the land had been valueless. A low-ball estimate of the value of storage in the grain silos was US$3 million. Critics argued that the deal should be investigated, and speculated that ADM, which spends millions of dollars on lobbying regardless, used the property sale as a bribe for favorable treatment.[68]

Perdue's assets during his time as Secretary were placed in blind trusts, as is common to prevent financial conflicts of interest. The complex arrangements were criticized as breaking the spirit of the rule, however, and that Perdue and his family's ties to his corporation were not distanced as much as the law intended. AGrowStar (including the assets acquired as part of the Estill deal) was sold by Perdue's trusts in 2018 for 12 million dollars, but due to the secretive nature of the trusts, this was not widely disclosed.[68]

Regardless of whether the deal was intended to influence Perdue's actions, and if it was if it actually had any impact, the Perdue years were good ones for ADM. The Washington Post detailed several wish-list items that ADM achieved: loosening of regulations on pork production, fewer inspections, helping lobby against proposed government bans on glyphosate by Thailand and Vietnam, and promoting ethanol and biodiesel.[68]