Republican ad tries to blame Democrats for killing property tax relief
Today’s newsletter highlights
- Test your knowledge with our weekly news quiz.
- Brian Kemp signs law delaying a ban on QR code vote-counting
- Rick Jackson says he will debate Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Battle lines
House Republicans lost a property tax fight with Democrats this week. But the GOP didn’t leave the special session empty handed.
Georgia’s Future, the nonprofit associated with House Speaker Jon Burns, launched a digital ad framing the fight as Democrats voting to keep property tax bills high.
“House Republicans put forward a plan to slash property taxes. But Georgia Democrats killed it — three times,” a narrator says during the 30-second video.
The ad, and an associated website, are the first strikes in what is likely to be an intense battle to define the five-day special session for voters ahead of the midterms. Democrats have been making gains in the House, and they need to flip 10 seats to win control of the chamber for the first time since 2004.
The Republican proposals would have let voters decide whether to raise local sales taxes to lower their property tax bills. Democrats say the sales tax increases would have raised prices on things like groceries and gasoline at a time when many Georgians are struggling with higher prices.
Democrats aren’t sitting still ahead of November. The Democratic Party of Georgia will open seven new field offices this weekend in Augusta, Duluth, Macon, Rome, Roswell, South Atlanta and Valdosta.
The expansion brings the coordinated campaign to 17 active field offices, staffed by 45 full-time field organizers working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
“Georgia Democrats know that winning in 2026 will take an unprecedented organizing operation that reaches every voter in every corner of the state, and we’re not wasting a moment in building it,” Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey said.
Speaking of the special session, Sophia Eppley tallied the cost for the five days lawmakers spent at the state Capitol. The bill totaled about $300,000.
Friday news quiz
Good morning! How closely did you follow the news this week? Find out by taking our quiz. You’ll find the answers at the end of the newsletter.
Georgia’s Republican candidates gathered in Perry last week for a rodeo that doubled as a party fundraiser. What prominent GOP candidate skipped the event?
- A) U.S. Senate nominee Mike Collins.
- B) Governor nominee Rick Jackson.
- C) Lieutenant governor nominee Greg Dolezal.
- D) U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick.
A bank co-founded by Bernice King, daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., launched a new debit card. How will the bank use a portion of the profits?
- A) Provide guaranteed income to mothers in government housing.
- B) Fund scholarships for students attending historically Black colleges or universities.
- C) Provide gasoline gift cards for low-income earners.
- D) Donate to the Feeding America network of food banks.
Atlanta is hosting eight matches during the World Cup this summer. But fans of what country might have had a hard time watching a match in person this week because of U.S. travel restrictions?
- A) Haiti
- B) Qatar
- C) Congo
- D) Uzbekistan
The DeKalb County Commission voted down some data center legislation this week. What would the measure have done?
- A) Banned all new data center construction in the county.
- B) Imposed a 2% tax on data center revenue to offset the use of water and electricity.
- C) Capped the size of data center campuses on developed land at 1 million square feet.
- D) Prohibited data centers from within 2,000 feet of residential neighborhoods.
All done
Gov. Brian Kemp postponed a combustible fight over Georgia’s touchscreen voting system on Thursday when he signed a bill delaying a deadline to scrap QR-code vote-counting.
The move spares the term-limited governor from having to wade into a fight over the state’s voting technology. But he will select three of nine members of a committee that will help shape Georgia’s electoral future.
Unlike the other appointees to the committee, who are required to be legislators, Kemp must only choose registered voters. The committee is expected to issue recommendations for a new system by early next year.
Kemp was secretary of state from 2010 to 2018. His successor, Brad Raffensperger, isn’t allowed to appoint anyone to the committee. The law ensures the current secretary of state is excluded from “the selection, certification, or procurement” of the future system. Some Republican lawmakers have tried to pin the blame on Raffensperger for not solving the Legislature’s self-made vote-counting mess.
Raffensperger took a shot at lawmakers earlier this week in an email to legislators, saying his office has been ready to implement the law eliminating QR code vote counting but the Legislature never provided funding to do so. Attached was a timeline and a graphic emblazoned with “THE RECORD SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.”
“As you can see from the attached timeline, my staff and I have held over 10 meetings and submitted multiple funding requests, many in public meetings, to help implement the measure,” Raffensperger wrote. “The legislature has taken no action.”
Split ticket
We may have our highest-profile example yet of a split-ticket voter.
Last week, conservative WSB commentator Shelley Wynter surprised many Republicans by endorsing Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff. On Thursday, he endorsed Republican billionaire Rick Jackson for governor.
It’s a reminder that Georgia’s 2026 electorate may not fall neatly along party lines.
In 2022, plenty of voters backed both Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock. This cycle, we expect to see some Ossoff-Jackson voters, too.
If you’re one of them, we’d love to hear from you.
Debate showdown
“Of course I’ll debate her.”
Earlier this week, Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms challenged Jackson to a series of debates. On Thursday, the Republican gubernatorial nominee said he’s in during an interview with Wynter.
But he did not say how many debates he’ll accept or which invitations he’ll commit to.
Listen up
There is no “Politically Georgia” podcast today. We’ll be back on Monday.
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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.
Rough week
Members of the U.S. House went home for the weekend a day early after a group of hard-line Republicans shut down the floor in protest of the Senate’s inaction on an election overhaul bill backed by President Donald Trump.
House Speaker Mike Johnson met with Trump for several hours on Thursday. Afterward, the president sent a message on social media telling the lawmakers to fall in line and allow legislation to move forward. “No more grandstanding, please!” he wrote.
We’ll have to wait until lawmakers return on Monday to see if his words have any impact.
Johnson also sent a bipartisan housing bill to Trump after the meeting, a sign that the president is back on board with the legislation just one day after he canceled a bill signing at the last minute. He could sign the bill into law this afternoon.
Today in Washington
- Trump will speak at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference and participate in a Republican National Committee fundraiser.
- The House and Senate are done for the week.
Toss up
Inside Elections has changed the rating of the Georgia governor’s race between Keisha Lance Bottoms and Jackson from “tilt-Republican” to toss-up. It was one of three governor’s races that moved toward Democrats in a year that “continues to deteriorate for Republicans.”
In Georgia, they wrote, “Democrats have a chance to break their losing streak in this political environment, and Bottoms may be helped by her partner on the Democratic ticket, Sen. Jon Ossoff.”
Shoutouts
Today’s birthday:
- State Rep. Mary Frances Williams, D-Marietta.
Upcoming birthday:
- State Rep. Carter Barrett, R-Cumming. (Saturday)
Wedding anniversary:
- Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns and his wife, Dayle Burns, are celebrating 50 years of marriage today. The Georgia House passed a resolution on Monday honoring the couple. “For all of you that think it’s been 50 years of bliss, I’ll meet you in the anteroom to tell you the whole story,” Dayle Burns joked.
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
Answers to this week’s news quiz:
- B) Governor nominee Rick Jackson. His campaign said he had a scheduling conflict.
- A) Provide guaranteed income to mothers in government housing. The debit card was launched on Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.
- A) Haiti. The country’s national team lost to Morocco in Atlanta 4-2 on Wednesday.
- C) Capped the size of data center campuses on developed land at 1 million square feet. At least a dozen residents had spoken against the legislation in a public hearing.
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.