In a Tuesday post, we told you about a 2015 redistricting bill passed by the state Legislature, which is now the topic of a federal lawsuit accusing Republicans of racial gerrymandering.
In depositions, several Republican lawmakers suggested or said outright that they’d been given a green light on the bill from Stacey Abrams, who at the time was House minority leader and is now a Democratic candidate for governor.
The measure passed the House unanimously. Only in the Senate did Democrats put up a fight – albeit unsuccessful – against House Bill 566. In an interview on Tuesday, Abrams said she had been misled about the contents of the bill by Randy Nix, R-LaGrange, chairman of the House Reapportionment Committee.
Specifically, Abrams said she and other Democrats had supported the bill “based on the word of someone with whom I worked very closely, Chairman Nix.”
She went further. “I expressed my deep discontent,” Abrams said in the interview. To Nix? Yes, she said.
One might have expected Stacey Evans, Abrams’ rival in the race for governor, to have jumped into this discussion. Evans was a member of the House Democratic caucus at the time. She didn’t – or hasn’t yet.
But House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge did. Here’s the message he sent Wednesday afternoon:
"I don't make a habit of involving myself in the other party's primary races, but I cannot stand by while someone cast aspersions on one of the House's finest chairmen. Randy Nix is the chairman of our ethics committee and a Methodist minister. His character is beyond reproach. Anyone who asserts otherwise must surely be mistaken."
It was a gentle rebuke of Abrams, but a rebuke nonetheless. An hour or so later, Randy Nix himself called. He said that, while he respects Abrams and considers her a friend, he objected to her contention that he or his GOP colleagues misled her about the contents of House Bill 566.
Nix recalled a preliminary conversation in which the House Democratic leader about the redistricting bill – when he invited her and other members of her caucus to participate. A few did, he said.
The chairman of the House Reapportionment Committee said that there was no effort to shield the contents from Abrams or other Democrats, but acknowledged that minor adjustments were made to the bill, in the form of changed boundary lines, as the measure progressed.
As for that conversation in which Abrams said she expressed her “deep discontent” with Nix? The House chairman said he does not recall the conversation ever taking place. ”I have great respect for her, but I certainly don’t think she was misled,” he said.
We presented the above statements to the Abrams campaign. A spokeswoman didn’t dispute a central point made by Nix, that he did not remember any conversation with Abrams in which she expressed anger at being steered wrong about the legislation. Her emailed reply:
"The facts are clear. Chairman Nix specifically walked Leader Abrams through several districts, and he alerted her to the fact that members of the Democratic Caucus sought changes."
But this tidbit is new:
"Leader Abrams then tasked Whip [Carolyn] Hugley, former chair of Reapportionment, with checking in about those changes with the affected members."
The rest of the statement:
Of critical note, Leader Abrams had developed an effective working relationship with a number of GOP chairmen, which facilitated the successful passage of dozens of pieces of Democratic legislation through committees and fostered inclusion of Democratic requests in the budget process; therefore, it was not unusual to have this type of discussion with Chairman Nix or others. However, as regards HB 566, no reference was made to changing the boundaries of HD 105 or HD 111.
Those last two districts are in Gwinnett and Henry counties, respectively. The federal lawsuit charges that white voters were drawn into the districts to help the Republican incumbents who held both seats.
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On her Facebook page, tea partyer Debbie Dooley is taking state Public Service Commission member Tricia Pridemore to task for past Tweets she posted that were critical of President Donald Trump. Dooley is backing Pridemore's GOP primary rival, John Hitchins. It's the first attack of that kind that we've seen in Georgia this campaign season.
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The GOP race for governor could soon get another wrinkle. A senior adviser with Citizens for Georgia's Future -- the outside group spending more than $1 million to boost Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle's campaign -- tells us its internal polls mirror the AJC/Channel 2 findings released last week.
Which is to say the group figures that Cagle has built an unassailable lead but out of range of an outright win.
So what to do with the money in the bank? This is where it gets interesting. We’re told that the organization may try to influence the race for the second spot -- a tight contest between Secretary of State Brian Kemp and former state Sen. Hunter Hill -- by airing ads that “fill some of the holes on one of the candidate’s resume.”
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Democrat Sarah Riggs Amico debuted her first TV ad this week, a 30-second spot about her logistics company's decision to provide all employees health insurance. The phrase it repeats is one she's likely to emphasize in the final stretch: "Putting people first." Watch the ad here.
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We have another sign that former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has fast become a political liability.
Hours after we reported that Republican Hunter Hill supported a state takeover of Atlanta's airport, GOP rival Clay Tippins demanded to know why he accepted an endorsement from Reed for his 2016 state Senate re-election campaign.
"Kasim Reed's record of corrupt dealings and severely liberal positions would normally put him at odds with a tough-talking conservative, as Hunter Hill is portraying himself to be,” said Tippins.
Hill’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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Earlier, Stacey Abrams confessed to a lack attention to the importance of personal relationships in the state Capitol. Democratic rival Stacey Evans said her support for Gov. Nathan Deal's "opportunity school district" was flawed. This morning, the Marietta Daily Journal asked another candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, where he'd gone wrong in the past. Cagle pointed to the push for medicinal marijuana:
Although I was initially skeptical, meeting with families whose children struggle with devastating illnesses that have benefited from this medicine helped me to understand that the benefits outweigh the potential risks. This year, we advanced comprehensive legislation to remove politics from the process that qualifies conditions for doctors to prescribe this medication, while taking steps to implement a safe, secure and reliable in-state system for patients to access low THC medical cannabis oil.
Two GOP rivals for governor, Clay Tippins and Michael Williams, have already endorsed more support for medicinal marijuana. And we eagerly await a response from state Rep. David Clark, R-Buford, who this session called the lieutenant governor "corrupt" because of his opposition to Clark's bid to allow more Georgians access to the drug – which Cagle ultimately agreed to.
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We told you last week about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's very quiet visit to a Middle Georgia elementary school to tout environmental stewardship and a "new decision on the carbon neutrality of forest biomass." An open records request shows the hour-long meeting at Bleckley County Elementary School in Cochran was arranged by a family of local tree farmers Pruitt also met with while in town. The school was told to "keep the visit very low key" until Pruitt arrived "for security reasons." The only media there was an official government photographer.
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Today in endorsement news: Republican David Shafer picked up support from GeorgiaCarry.org, a pro-Second Amendment group, and former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm. People forget that Gramm, a former U.S. senator from Texas who is now 75, was born and raised in Columbus, Ga.
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During this week's debate in the primary contest to face down U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Lawrenceville, in a Seventh District showdown, Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, a professor at Georgia State University, asked rival David Kim why he hadn't voted in the 2016 election.
Kim, a test prep company owner and the son of Korean immigrants, is now calling the question an attack on “millions of first-generation immigrants and minorities who have not felt welcome in the process.”
Said Kim on Wednesday: “It’s so hypocritical to ask for the votes of tens of thousands of first-time voters and then tell us we are not qualified to run or represent ourselves.”
Replied Bourdeaux: “It is a big jump to go from never having voted to running for the U.S. Congress.”
