Just received this press release.

Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield to become Executive Director of GreenLaw, will not seek re-election to State House

State Representative Stephanie Stuckey Benfield has announced her plans to become the new Executive Director of GreenLaw, a Georgia environmental advocacy organization, dedicated to clean air and clean water. Benfield will begin her new position at the conclusion of this year’s legislative session.

An outdoors enthusiast and nature lover, Rep. Benfield has been a vocal environmental advocate during her 14 years as a member of the Georgia House’s Natural Resources Committee. Her commitment to clean water and clean air issues grew even stronger after her son was diagnosed with asthma.

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This was mentioned at the last Decatur City Commission meeting.

Decatur’s State Representatives Mary Margaret Oliver and Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, along with State Senator Jason Carter are holding a “town hall meeting” at 6:30p in the city commisison meeting room at Decatur City Hall.

Patch says that HOPE scholarships are one potential topic of conversation, since Senator Carter has been pushing for changes to the scholarship programs –  including a cap on family income eligibility and downsizing the size of the commission’s staff – as recently reported by the AJC.

There’s also likely to be talk about the recent redistricting, which will provide future challenges for some state reps, especially Rep. Benfield.

All I can say is thank goodness for these AJC maps.

Sure, the Georgia legislature released their proposed new district maps last week, but it took a while before anyone really understood the implications.  I thought about just throwing up the map and letting the more geo-politically minded explain the changes, but I figured someone would give me a nice, sweet little summary for Decatur/DeKalb that I could point to.  Well, now it’s days later, and here’s the best thing I’ve found thus far - interactive AJC maps, where RED represents a “contested district” (two incumbents now represent the same district), yellow notes “new representation”, and green means the district remains unchanged.

Not a lot of green in ol’ Decatur when it comes to the House maps, as you can see from the above.  The “contested” area in red is a new vertical district, where Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield’s district has been combined with Howard Mosby’s district to the south.  Stuckey-Benfield said last week that her district had been “targeted by the Republican redistricting process” and that seems to have played out.

Elsewhere around Decatur, Mary Margaret Oliver would soon only represent a portion of the northwest part of the city (when before she represented most of the northside), while Rahn Mayo, who’s current district (PDF) is almost all south of I-20 would represent the largest % of Decatur voters, taking over the entire east side of the city.  Rep. Stacey Abrams’ 84th district, who currently represents the southeast corner of the city would be shifted to the west and out of the city entirely.

Of course, all of this is pending a federal court battle, due to the Voting Rights Act, but unless the Obama Justice Department decides to reject the maps, this seems to be the new political reality.

Oh!  And here are the Senate maps in case you’re interested, though for Decatur residents, Jason Carter’s District 42 continues to represent all of of the City of Decatur.

With Georgia’s 2011 legislative season well under way, the city of Decatur’s full list of legislators plan to hold a “town hall” style meeting at Decatur’s City Hall on Tuesday, February 1st from 6p-7p to hear from their constituents, according to a press release sent by Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield.

In addition to Rep. Benfield, Senator Jason Carter, Rep. Stacey Abrams, Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, and Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd will be in attendance to listen and respond to concerns of Decatur residents regarding this year’s legislative session.

What are some of the hot topics in this year’s session?  Well I asked Rep. Benfield that very question!  Here is her response…

The tax issue is the biggie. If the Tax Reform Council’s proposal moves forward, we’ll be looking at greater sales taxes and taxes on services. That will affect everyone who buys groceries and numerous services – from plumbing to selling girl scout cookies to prescription drugs. All of these would be taxed under the new plan.

We’ll likely see some water legislation with a focus on increasing supply through reservoirs.

And education is always a hot topic, with funding for the HOPE Scholarship and pre-K programs to be at risk.

Additionally, Rep. Benfield hinted that she’s working on legislation that will “help Georgia breweries expand their businesses…to allow breweries and brew pubs more opportunities to promote and sell their product”.  However, she’s still working on a draft of that legislation, so we’ll have to be patient for more details on that front!

For more information about any of this, you can contact Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield at (404) 964-7025.

I was intrigued enough by the recent Atlanta Business Chronicle article about metro Atlanta’s new majority at the State Capitol that I asked for a bit more perspective from one of our own state representatives, Stephanie Stuckey Benfield.

She was good enough to provide us with this additional perspective on the whole issue and brainstorm other potential issues that a may be affected by the reappointments due to the 2010 Census.

It’s true there will likely be new metro seats in the Legislature through reapportionment. That does not translate into a power grab. Water is the entire state’s problem, as is transportation. Georgia will only succeed if we recognize that statewide issues require statewide solutions. There will be regional complexities, of course, and legislators will have to resist the temptation to become mired in them.

In addition to water and transportation, another issue of importance to the metro area is trauma care and funding for Grady Hospital. I suspect that we’ll see another effort in the near future to provide a permanent source of trauma care funding in the wake of the failed amendment on this issue. The tobacco tax is one likely proposal.

Every elected official must listen to her or his constituents, but most issues we examine impact all Georgians. The state of affairs in Atlanta impacts those in Albany and as an urban elected official, I must always be mindful of this.