DEL.ICIO.USVoter registration issue puts rising star on the hot seat
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, October 19, 2008
In 2002, Karen Handel was a political newcomer, losing a tight race for a Fulton County Commission seat in an election marked by missing ballots.
Six years later, Handel is Georgia’s secretary of state and is being dogged by criticism as her office aggressively verifies new voters’ registrations. The actions have brought a lawsuit and an inquiry from the Justice Department, the latter after Georgia made nearly 2 million requests to Social Security to verify voter identities, far more than any other state.
CURTIS COMPTON / ccompton@ajc.com
Secretary of State Karen Handel is considered a front-runner to replace Gov. Sonny Perdue in 2010. No stranger to confrontation, she says verifying voters is just following election law.
• Letter from Social Security to Karen Handel
• Letter from Justice Dept. to Karen Handel
• Letter from Obama campaign to Karen Handel
• Handel's response to Obama campaign
KAREN HANDEL IN HER OWN WORDS
"People are tired of their antics." Fur industry spokeswoman Handel in 1993 referring to anti-fur protesters and increasing sales.
"If we don't see construction this year at Windward and Ga. 400, I'm going to crank the bulldozer up myself." Chamber of Commerce President Handel in 2001 expressing frustration on a road project.
"There's a lot of testing to see just how tough I am." Fulton County Commission Chairwoman Handel in 2004 on how she was accepted by the contentious board.
"It's a myth, y'all." Secretary of State Handel at the 2008 Republican Convention telling delegates there is no surge of new voters for Barack Obama.
Recent headlines:
• Metro and state news
Handel argued that she was simply following election law. A federal judge agreed last week, allowing the verification to continue.
But Handel has never recoiled from controversy. Since that 2002 defeat, she has worked for the state’s first modern-day Republican governor, led Fulton County’s fractious commission, was elected statewide in a tough battle and now is a considered a front-runner to replace Gov. Sonny Perdue. And the upcoming election may brighten the spotlight on her.
Her ambition draws grudging respect, even from ardent foes.
“I have admiration for anyone who comes from meager beginnings and achieves,” said Fulton Commissioner Bill Edwards, a Democrat who often fought with the Republican Handel for the three-plus years she was commission chairwoman. “My problem is she was very partisan. She is very hard-nosed about a lot of things. I’m sure she, in her own mind, believes she’s doing right [in her actions concerning voter registration].”
Former state Sen. Rusty Paul, who once headed the Georgia GOP, knows a political dynamo when he sees one.
“The speed she has moved up the food chain shows what kind of candidate she is,” Paul said. “She’s relentless, extremely hard working and knows how to network. She used contacts from the chamber [Handel headed north Fulton’s Chamber of Commerce] to get on the County Commission. She networked the state’s county commissioners to become secretary of state.”
Handel, 46, does not disagree. In an interview last week in her office in the Capitol across from Perdue’s, Handel said several mentors have guided her along the way.
“I’ve had incredibly rare opportunities because so many people helped me and had confidence in me,” she said. She does not have a college degree but said she has an edge: “No one will outwork me. Being a hard worker is a vastly under-rated quality.”
The Maryland native has advanced by honing her skills while keeping her eyes open for a break. She started as a typist and advanced through several jobs until catching the eye of Marilyn Quayle, the wife of then-Vice President Dan Quayle, becoming her scheduler.
In the early 1990s, she moved to the Atlanta area with her husband, Steve, and got a job as a spokeswoman for the fur industry, defending a product beset by protests.
“That was a strategic job,” she said. “I wanted some press experience, so what better way to get that than by managing difficult situations?”
Later, while living and working in north Fulton, Handel became acquainted with the area’s Republican Party. In the early 1990s, an outspoken band of proponents from north Fulton coalesced, arguing that Democrats from south Fulton spent an inordinate amount of the county’s money for their purposes.
North Fulton has for years turned out ambitious, hard-nosed conservatives like state Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter, U.S. Rep. Tom Price and former Fulton chairman Mitch Skandalakis.
“North Fulton is a hotbed. It’s more competitive,” said Paul, now a Sandy Springs councilman. “You have to compete to get out of that milieu. It makes the survivors tough-minded.”
In 2003, Handel was urged to run for Fulton’s chairmanship when Mike Kenn decided to go into the private sector. After winning, she immediately walked into a budget battle and, being outnumbered by Democrats, was often on the losing side of contentious votes. Her time there was dominated by budget fights, $7 million of sheriff’s funds that were illegally invested and a tax assessing system that was dysfunctional.
“She did a great job as chairman,” said Albert Maslia, a member of the board of assessors often criticized by Handel. “She was smart enough to go for the next job.”
Her races in Fulton in 2003 and three years later for Georgia’s secretary of state may provide a glimpse of what lies in store if she runs for governor in 2010. In the earlier race, she dominated Republican strongholds but also did well in many Atlanta neighborhoods that usually go to Democrats.
In the 2006 Republican primary, former state Sen. Bill Stephens tried to paint Handel as a Fulton liberal to pull in votes statewide. It worked — sort of. “She got 70 percent of Fulton County, I got 70 percent of Fannin County,” Stephens cracked. Fannin, a mountain county, has just 22,000 residents.
Handel quickly put her stamp on the office. She developed a system to track complaints coming to its professional licensing board and put prohibitions on ex-employees leaving to work for vendors.
At the Republican National Convention this summer, she told fellow GOP members she’d be watching for voter fraud this fall. While it is unknown who new voters will support, Republicans nationwide allege that Democrat-leaning grass-roots organizations play fast and loose while performing registration drives.
“In challenging the voting rolls, she’s probably playing to what she sees as a Republican base,” said Matt Towery, CEO of InsiderAdvantage, an Atlanta polling firm, and a former Republican legislator. “The real test for her is how she’ll deal with Election Day. There’s going to be a lot of complaints. It has the potential to be a very testy day.”
One brewing election battle concerns Democratic Public Service Commission candidate Jim Powell, whom Handel wants removed from the ballot because of questions about his residency. Handel has overruled an administrative judge and is appealing a Superior Court judge’s ruling.
Veteran election attorney Lee Parks, who represents Powell, said the massive voter verification program — an issue separate from the PSC case — ultimately hurts Georgia.
“It makes a case for pre-clearance from the Justice Department,” Parks said, referring to the process that mandates that Georgia and other states with a history of discrimination must get changes to their election process approved by federal authorities. “It makes us seem like we match the stereotype they have for Georgia.”
Civil rights groups pushing the lawsuit argue the screening process could lead to a systematic purging of new voters. Handel’s office disputes making 2 million checks to Social Security. As of last week, there were 406,000 new voters this year in Georgia. No one can explain the discrepancy between those two numbers.
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