Fulton election board dispute goes to Georgia Supreme Court

Today’s newsletter highlights

• Georgia lawmakers back Brian Kemp on gas tax.
• Delta hears from Congress.
• Keisha Lance Bottoms, Jon Ossoff rally together.

Election board fight

Republican Jason Frazier (right) speaks with a supporter after the public comment portion of a Fulton County Board of Commissioners meeting in 2023. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

The dispute over whether Fulton County must seat two Republican-backed members to its election board is headed to the state’s highest court.

The Georgia Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case when it returns in the fall.

Fulton County commissioners have refused to seat Julie Adams and Jason Frazier to the five-member Fulton County Board of Registrations & Elections. Both were nominated by the Fulton County Republican Party.

Adams, an incumbent election board member, voted against certifying the results of 2024’s primary election. Frazier challenged thousands of voter registrations in the heavily Democratic county.

The fight has been winding its way through the courts. Georgia’s Court of Appeals ruled in March that the county officials could refuse to seat the nominees, reversing a lower court decision.

Things to know

State Rep. Chuck Efstration, left, R-Mulberry, and Rep. David Wilkerson, right, D-Powder Springs, confer before a vote on property tax legislation during the special session in the House of Representatives at the Capitol in Atlanta. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

Good morning! Here are two things to know for today:

• House Speaker Mike Johnson says he will send a bipartisan housing bill to President Donald Trump for his signature. Its fate is uncertain but the AJC looked at what the measure could mean for Georgia.
• The special legislative session that concluded last week was notable more for what didn’t happen than what did. the AJC’s David Wickert takes a look at how the failure to pass Republican-backed property tax bills could define the upcoming midterm elections, when all 236 legislative seats are on the ballot.

Bottoms, Ossoff take aim at Trump

Democratic nominee for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms, left, and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff campaign in Savannah on Saturday. (Sarah Peacock for the AJC)

Call it the Jon Ossoff model.

The Democratic senator brought his roadshow to Savannah over the weekend, his first campaign-stage appearance since U.S. Rep. Mike Collins became the GOP nominee.

And it had all the familiar ingredients: viral one-liners, searing attacks on Republicans, a tag-team tandem with Democratic nominee for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the usual swooning from Democrats who see Ossoff as a 2028 presidential contender. No, he’ isn’t running. But he is very much running this race his way.

And in Savannah, that meant turning the House Ethics Committee probe of Collins into a centerpiece of his argument against the Republican nominee.

Collins has dismissed the inquiry as a “nothing burger.” Ossoff cast it as something far more serious, zeroing in on Brandon Phillips, a former Collins aide who Ossoff branded a “degenerate.”

“This kid was such a mess that he had to resign from the Trump campaign. But Rep. Mike Collins saw Brandon and thought he would make a great chief of staff,” said Ossoff, adding: “Fast forward four years, and as we speak both Brandon and Mike are under active federal investigation for illegally funneling federal tax dollars to Brandon’s girlfriend.”

Bottoms, meanwhile, used the rally to sharpen her own case against Republican nominee Rick Jackson, blasting the billionaire executive for winning $1 billion in state health care contracts while opposing Medicaid expansion.

“As grocery and gas prices remain too high, and families continue to struggle, it is the same Rick Jackson who says he can’t think of a single policy where he disagrees with Donald Trump,” Bottoms said. “So when Rick Jackson asks for your vote to lead Georgia, you got to ask: Lead us where, Slick Rick?”

Jackson has been preparing his own counterpunch. He released a lengthy digital ad Monday morning diving into her term as Atlanta mayor, which Republicans see has her biggest vulnerability.

“The danger isn’t what might happen,” says the narrator near the end. “It’s what already has.”

Gas tax

Gas prices are displayed at a BP station on Memorial Drive in Atlanta last Monday. (Ben Hendren for the AJC)

Gov. Brian Kemp took a beating at the polls during the Republican primary. But state lawmakers were still willing to back him up when it comes to the gas tax.

State lawmakers in March voted to suspend the state’s 33-cent-per-gallon gas tax in response to a surge in prices amid the war in Iran. But they set it to expire in May, after lawmakers had already adjourned.

Kemp chose to extend the suspension for another two weeks to cover the busy Memorial Day holiday. But then he let it expire. He took some heat from Democrats over that, who said the governor should have extended it to keep prices in check.

But in a special session that ended last week, lawmakers retroactively approved Kemp’s extension. They did not vote to suspend the tax again.

For what it’s worth, fuel prices have been falling ahead of the July 4th holiday.

Delta drama

Delta airplanes on the airport ramp at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in May. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

The Congressional Labor Caucus sent a letter to Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, calling on the company to stay neutral as some of its employees try to start a union.

The letter was signed by 170 members of Congress, but none of them were from Georgia.

“All workers should have the choice to join a union, should they choose to form one, without interference,” the letter read. “We strongly urge Delta to adopt a neutrality agreement.”

Delta, based in Atlanta, is the only major U.S. airline whose flight attendants are not unionized. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA has been trying to organize Delta’s flight attendants for years.

Listen up

Gov. Brian Kemp and first lady Marty Kemp campaigned for Derek Dooley for U.S. Senate. (Daniel Varnado/AJC)

Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast: Kemp is still Georgia’s governor, but the runoff results raised a sharper question for Republicans: Who is actually leading the party now?