Travel chaos spills into Georgia’s U.S. Senate race
Today’s newsletter highlights
- A Georgia woman has been charged with murder after taking an abortion pill.
- Questions answered about the surge of attack ads targeting Burt Jones.
- Chief Justice Nels Peterson presses a Clayton prosecutor about citing cases that don’t exist.
Airport turmoil
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will begin helping ease bottlenecks at Atlanta’s airport Monday morning as a partial government shutdown snarls travel for thousands and injects a new flashpoint into Georgia politics.
The move could offer temporary relief after a weekend of security lines that stretched for hours, triggering missed flights and mounting frustration at the world’s busiest airport. But it also raises the question of whether any lasting fix is within reach in Washington.
If all Senate Republicans vote for a U.S. House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, it could pass with support of seven Democrats. Up to this point, only one Democrat — Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — has crossed party lines.
What’s still unclear is whether the travel chaos is enough to trigger a compromise. In Georgia, the disruption has already spilled into the Senate race, opening a new front in the broader immigration fight.
U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley, two of Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s top GOP challengers, made a beeline to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to spotlight the delays.
“They’re responsible for this,” Collins said of Ossoff and his allies. “And we need a senator who will stand with us, not someone who causes things like this.”
Dooley struck a similar tone, while also calling for a broader deal.
“It’s exactly why we need new leadership in D.C. This is nothing about the people,” he said. “C’mon Ossoff. Fetterman agrees. He’s not for this. He’s a Democrat. And, listen, where’s the rest of Congress? Why don’t we go get in a room and figure it out?”
Ossoff fired back, blaming Republicans and President Donald Trump for the disruption.
“Donald Trump’s obstruction is denying TSA workers pay and creating havoc at airports. While negotiations continue over ICE, there is no reason TSA should be held hostage. Republicans must stop blocking TSA funding immediately,” he said.
There are also signs of a potential off-ramp — if either side is willing to take it.
Some Republicans are now willing to support the Democrats’ plan to separate funding for the Transportation Security Administration from the broader immigration fight. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Fox News on Sunday that Congress should quickly reopen as many agencies as possible and pass funding for ICE and Border Patrol through a separate measure that wouldn’t need Democratic support.
But any path forward still runs through Trump, who signaled little appetite for compromise.
He wrote on Truth Social on Sunday that his top priority isn’t funding DHS or even just TSA agents. It’s passing a federal election overhaul that Democrats oppose.
Things to know
Good morning! Here are three things to know for today:
- Fulton County said it had about 700 boxes of 2020 election materials. Yet the FBI seized only 653. Conservative activists have accused the county of hiding evidence. But the AJC’s Caleb Groves reports the feds didn’t want the boxes.
- Some members of Georgia’s congressional delegation donated their salaries to charities during the previous government shutdown. Tia Mitchell reports they aren’t doing that this time during the partial government shutdown that has caused delays in airport security lines.
- The Trump administration spent nearly $200 million to purchase a pair of vacant industrial warehouses in metro Atlanta with plans to turn them into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. The AJC’s Lautaro Grinspan reports a review of the local warehouse market shows the government did not meaningfully overpay.
Travel chaos
The travel meltdown at Hartsfield-Jackson also took center stage Sunday at the Atlanta Press Club debate in the race to fill the deep-red 14th Congressional District seat vacated by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Democrat Shawn Harris blasted Trump’s plan to deploy ICE agents to airport security lines, calling it a misguided response to an already chaotic situation.
“Why would we make a problem that’s already a problem even bigger? The reality of it is ICE needs to go back to the border. ICE needs to follow their core mission,” he said.
He added that both parties should “get this figured out and make sure that we can pay everybody” to end the shutdown.
Republican Clay Fuller, the Trump-backed front-runner, offered a starkly different take — placing blame squarely on Democrats.
“This is a Democrat shutdown. This is necessary because of a decision by Chuck Schumer, who’s trying to hold on by dear life to the minority leader position,” he said.
He added: “This is clearly the Democrat party and Mr. Harris putting illegal immigrants first and Americans last. And you’re seeing that in the lines at the Atlanta airport.”
Abortion politics
There’s a lot of things we don’t know about the case of a Georgia woman charged with murder after she took an abortion pill. But in politics, sometimes there’s no advantage in waiting.
Soon after the news broke, Jason Esteves — a Democratic candidate for governor — quickly tied the arrest to the 2019 Georgia law that made abortion illegal after fetal cardiac activity is detected. And he made sure to blame Geoff Duncan, one of his opponents in the Democratic primary, who supported that law in 2019 back when he was the Republican lieutenant governor.
Esteves said Duncan and Republicans like him “enacted one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country,” and they “ignored and denigrated the countless women and health care professionals who warned them of these consequences.”
As our colleague Adam Van Brimmer reported, the woman — Alexia Moore — has not been indicted. If she is, it’s unclear if the 2019 anti-abortion law will be cited. Moore allegedly told hospital nurses she had taken the opioid oxycodone and the abortion pill misoprostol.
Duncan is battling for a second spot in what will likely be a runoff with front-runner and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. He has traveled the state trying to convince Democratic primary voters that he’s a changed man.
Duncan has reiterated his pledge that, if elected governor, he would sign an executive order “to clarify that doctors can practice medicine” and promised to introduce legislation to repeal the abortion law.
“This is a horrible situation and should never happen in the state of Georgia or anywhere else,” Duncan said. “I was wrong on this issue in the past. Today I stand emphatically against the state’s abortion law.”
That was awkward
The Georgia legal community is buzzing about an unusual interaction last week between an attorney and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
Deborah Leslie, an assistant district attorney for the Clayton Judicial Circuit, was finishing up her argument before the court when Chief Justice Nels Peterson confronted her about an order she had prepared that included “at least five citations to cases that don’t exist.”
Leslie took an uncomfortably long pause to shuffle through her papers before telling Peterson she “was not aware of that, but I would be glad to research that and provide the court with a supplement.”
The court has since issued an order asking Leslie for “a complete explanation” by next week.
Under the Gold Dome
It’s Day 36 of the legislative session. Some happenings:
- 10 a.m.: House convenes
- 10 a.m.: Senate convenes. They’re scheduled to vote on House Bill 1009, which would ban high school students from using cellphones during class.
- 1 p.m.: House Education Committee meets to discuss Senate Bill 425, which would require public schools to teach cursive handwriting to all students by no later than the third grade.
- 1 p.m.: Senate Public Safety Committee meets to consider House Bill 1023, which would require school districts to use weapon detection systems in certain school buildings.
- 2 p.m.: House Special Rules Committee meets to consider House Resolution 1789, which would express support for dissolving the U.S. Department of Education and restoring educational authority to the states.
Listen up
Monday on the “Politically Georgia” podcast we answer listener questions about the surge of anonymous attack ads targeting Lt. Gov. Burt Jones as he runs for governor. We also break down the increasingly unpredictable lieutenant governor’s race.
You can listen and subscribe to “Politically Georgia” for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Have a question or comment for the show? Email us at politicallygeorgia@ajc.com or give us a call at 770-810-5297 and you could be featured on a future episode.
Today in Washington
- Trump will visit Memphis today to talk about federal intervention to reduce crime, News Nation reports.
- The House returns Tuesday.
- The Senate will vote on the nomination of Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to serve as the secretary of Homeland Security.
Battle in Chickamauga
The former mayor of Chickamauga, Trey Deck, officially resigned from office Friday after a lengthy battle to keep his job following allegations of misconduct.
According to Chattanooga’s News Channel 9, Deck’s resignation came after an earlier 4-to-1 council vote to remove him, mediation with the city council, a formal appeal and a court ruling against him.
Deck had been accused of making both racist and sexist comments to city staff. A packed public hearing included recordings he allegedly left on a city employee’s voicemail. Although his attorneys challenged the constitutionality of his removal, Walton County Superior Court upheld the process laid out in the city’s charter.
On Friday, the city of Chickamauga issued a statement saying, “Mr. Deck and the City both wish the best for the City of Chickamauga and hope that the citizens heal and move forward from this most difficult situation.”
Mayor Pro Tem Evitte Parrish will be mayor for the rest of Deck’s term through 2028.
Shoutout
Today’s birthday
- Mark Peevy, chief of staff for the Technical College System of Georgia.
Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.
Before you go
Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia lawmakers last week handed out some $1.5 billion in tax relief, part of a yearslong drive to return money to taxpayers that has taken on new urgency amid rising prices.
That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider information to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.
About the Authors
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
Tia Mitchell is the AJC’s Washington Bureau Chief and a co-host of the "Politically Georgia" podcast. She writes about Georgia’s congressional delegation, campaigns, elections and the impact that decisions made in D.C. have on residents of the Peach State.
Patricia Murphy is the AJC's senior political columnist. She was previously a nationally syndicated columnist for CQ Roll Call, national political reporter for the Daily Beast and Politics Daily, and wrote for The Washington Post and Garden & Gun. She graduated from Vanderbilt and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
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