Senate Majority Leader Chip Roger’s property tax reform bill looks sure to pass the Senate with Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s support.

“We must bring fairness and equality to an antiquated and subjective system,” Cagle said in a statement today. “Simply put, many citizens are taxed far more than the value of their home and the appeals process is often daunting and confusing. Georgians do not pay higher taxes when the value of their cars decrease and property taxes should be no different. Today we are taking the first step to bring real changes and our goal is simple: increased transparency and fairness to a system that is broken.

Funny story … I was at my desk at around 5 p.m. today, getting ready to go to the Athens-Clarke Commission, when the phone rang. It was Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s press secretary, Jaillene Hunter, wanting to know if we’d use her boss’s tweet in our story about Uga VII dying.

As we say back home in Alabama, “Do what?”

It was the first I’d heard of it. A quick Google search, and I realized it was the first anyone had heard of it. So I told my editor, and we all started calling around trying to get it confirmed. Ten minutes later, we had it, and 10 minutes after that, our initial short story was up on the Web.

Cagle’s tweet, by the way, read “Just got word that Uga VII died. As many in the Bulldog Nation will no doubt say, he was a darn good Dawg.”

Four Athens-area sheriffs – including a Democrat – are among the 70 who’ve endorsed Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s re-election, Team Casey announced today.

Clarke County Sheriff Ira Edwards is not among them, but fellow Democrat Mike Smith of Oglethorpe County is on board the Cagle campaign. So are Republicans Scott Berry in Oconee County, Jud Smith in Barrow County and Stan Evans in Jackson County.

Sheriffs’ endorsements are politically valuable, but they may have jumped the gun just a little. Cagle has drawn no opposition, either in the GOP primary or the general election.

Blake.aued@onlineathens.com

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s spinal surgery today went fine, according to a statement from Emory University, where the surgery was performed, released by Cagle’s office.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is dropping out of the governor’s race, and the dominoes are falling behind him, according to Republican sources.

Cagle had a press conference scheduled for 1:30 p.m. to make a “major announcement.”

That announcement is that, because of a medical problem, he is running for re-election as lieutenant governor.

Word is that state Sen. Eric Johnson, who was running for lieutenant governor, will now run for secretary of state. The other candidate for lieutenant governor, state Sen. David Schafer, is switching to insurance commissioner. Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and Secretary of State Karen Handel are staying in the governor’s race, and House Majority Leader Jerry Keen may jump in as well.

Here’s the full Cagle press release: