Capitol Recap: Georgia governor gets good news, bad news in court ruling

Only the governor, the eventual Democratic nominee for governor and a few legislative caucuses can create the committees, which can raise unlimited amounts of cash, even while the Legislature is in session.

Statewide candidates, such as those running for governor, are currently allowed to raise $7,600 from individual donors for the primary and again for the general election, plus $4,500 per runoff.

Kemp formed his committee shortly after signing into the law the legislation allowing its creation, Senate Bill 221. He reported this past week that since then, it has raised $2.3 million.

That money included contributions as much as $250,000, and many of the donors had a big interest in what goes on at the Capitol.

By law, the governor and other state elected officials cannot raise money during a legislative session.

Now, though, the leadership committees give companies and individuals with an interest in legislation an opportunity to donate huge sums while those bills and resolutions are being debated or even while the governor is deciding whether to sign them into law or veto them.

Kemp has other money to fall back on. His campaign still has $12.7 million in the bank.

He may need to use a lot of that to fend off Perdue, who has the backing of former President Donald Trump, a favorite of the state’s GOP base.

If Kemp gets through the primary, money could grow even more important.

He would likely face Abrams, who set fundraising records when she ran against him in 2018. Shortly after her narrow loss in that campaign, she started the voting rights group Fair Fight, which has raised more than $100 million since then. She also has raised $9.2 million since December, when she launched her new campaign.

Jones resets sights from Governor’s Mansion to Congress

Former Democrat Vernon Jones is now also a former candidate for governor.

He’s a Republican running for the U.S. House in northeast Georgia’s 10th Congressional District.

And that’s a race where he got something he couldn’t get when he was running for the Governor’s Mansion, an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

On his way out of the governor’s race, Jones endorsed former U.S. Sen. David Perdue — Trump’s pick in the GOP primary to pursue his goal of unseating Gov. Brian Kemp for not doing more to illegally overturn the former president’s defeat in Georgia in the 2020 election.

Jones has worked hard to gain Trump’s backing. While still a Democrat, he endorsed Trump’s reelection bid in 2020. He spoke at the Republican National Convention that year and also appeared at a Trump rally in October 2020 in Macon, where he made a splash by crowd-surfing.

But without Trump’s endorsement in the GOP race for governor, Jones was running a distant third. He only managed to get about 10% support in a recent Quinnipiac poll. That was too steep a hill for Jones to win, but it could have been enough to cost Perdue any chance of beating Kemp. That same poll showed the former senator trailing the governor by about 7%.

Now, Jones enters a crowded field, with about a dozen candidates vying for the seat U.S. Rep. Jody Hice is giving up so he can run for secretary of state — with Trump’s support.

The front-runner in the 10th District is Republican Mike Collins, who narrowly lost to Hice in the 2014 GOP runoff. A recent poll showed Collins, the son of former U.S. Rep. Mac Collins, with a commanding lead. In that same poll, Jones was in the single digits.

Also running in the race are Patrick Witt, an ex-Trump administration official who recently boasted of winning the endorsement of the legal team that tried to overturn former president’s defeat; former U.S. Rep. Paul Broun; state Rep. Timothy Barr, who has the support of Hice; and David Curry, a former state revenue commissioner.

Proposed raises for state workers and bonuses for teachers advance

Gov. Brian Kemp’s $29.9 billion midyear spending plan made headway in the state House this past week, and that could mean raises for state workers, bonuses for teachers and refunds for taxpayers.

The plan represents a $2.6 billion boost in state spending for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.

That was made possible by a $3.7 billion surplus from the past fiscal year, plus a 17.9% increase in revenue for the first seven months of the current year.

The midyear budget is typically used to fund enrollment increases in schools and Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor, disabled and those needing nursing care.

But Kemp, who’s running for reelection this year, is using those big gains in revenue to do more.

He has proposed $5,000 raises for state workers and $2,000 bonuses for full-time k-12 employees.

The plan also calls for $1.6 billion in refunds to state taxpayers when they file their income tax returns this year.

The budget would also spend about about $390 million to reverse cuts to k-12 schools that lawmakers approved in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was expected to cause a severe recession.

Other big expenditures include $432 million to get a start on a proposal to buy a private prison and build a new one, plus a $250 million increase in Medicaid spending.

The state Senate will also get to weigh in on the budget.

Meanwhile, work continues on the fiscal 2023 budget.

Judge suggests delaying Georgia primary if new political maps are needed

A federal judge raised the possibility of delaying Georgia’s primary elections if he determines the state needs to redraw its political maps to protect the voting strength of Black voters.

The primary could be moved back, possibly until June or July, if U.S. District Judge Steve Jones finds that the maps the General Assembly produced in November weaken the representation of the state’s African American voters.

Jones has been considering court challenges to the maps that are seeking more majority-Black districts after the state’s African American population grew by 16%, or nearly 500,000 people, over the past decade. The white population fell 1% over that same period.

The lawsuits contend that redistricting did not reflect that growth in Black voters. That includes new congressional maps that make it likely Republicans will add another seat in the state’s delegation to give them a 9-5 majority.

Defenders of the maps have maintained that the changes don’t discriminate based on race or violate the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court has upheld redistricting for partisan purposes.

The hearings began the same week conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court put on hold a lower court ruling that would have required Alabama to draw new congressional districts to address increased Black voting power there. The hold was ordered, in part, because there’s little time to craft new maps before that state’s primary on May 24, the same date of the Georgia primary.

Jones suggested, however, that new maps might be more important than timing.

“I could change the whole calendar,” Jones said. “I need to hear all the evidence before I make a decision,” likely soon after the court hearings on the Georgia suits conclude early in the coming week.

Attorneys defending the state said redoing redistricting or delaying elections could cause major problems for rushed election officials responsible for accurately updating 7.7 million voter records to ensure everyone is assigned to the correct congressional, state House, state Senate, county commission and school board districts.

But changes do happen. In 2020, the state’s presidential primary was postponed twice — originally scheduled for March of that year, it eventually took place in June.

Some county election directors testified for the plaintiffs that if the primary were delayed, they’d have more time to run a smooth primary before the general election on Nov. 8.

Fulton County Election Director Richard Barron said it’s important that voters feel that redistricting has given them adequate opportunities for representation.

“That can affect participation if voters feel the process isn’t fair,” Barron testified.

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Probe’s early findings show double voting isn’t nearly the problem alleged

Three hundred is not 1,000.

An investigation by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office found that he missed the mark by a wide margin in September 2020 when he alleged that during the June primary and August primary runoff of that year that 1,000 people might have voted twice.

It was more like 300, according to the preliminary findings of the investigation, and it wasn’t as sinister as some might think. Almost all those double votes were the result of mistakes by confused voters and poll workers.

A variety of factors contributed to the problem that started with the chaotic June primary. An unprecedented number of voters, during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, chose to cast absentee ballots. Poll worker shortages, also fueled by the pandemic, hit many county elections departments. And those poll workers who did make it to the precincts were dealing with a new voting system.

Investigators confirmed that double voting occurred in 22% of 1,339 suspected cases. The other 78% appear to have only voted once. Those numbers could change because about 100 cases remain under investigation.

The additional votes didn’t change any election results.

Raffensperger said his investigation was justified based on election records that initially showed absentee and early voters had also cast ballots on election day.

“One case of double voting is too many,” Raffensperger said in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A government accountability organization, American Oversight, said Raffensperger’s office knew from the start that most potential cases of double voting were unintentional.

The group obtained an email from Raffensperger’s general counsel the same day the secretary announced the allegation about double voting. It stated that people inadvertently cast two ballots because they weren’t sure their mailed absentee ballots had been returned in time.

“Behind closed doors, the secretary of state’s senior staff was very clear about what had been true for a very long time: Voter fraud is exceptionally rare, and errors during voting happen frequently but not because of intent,” American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers said. “The secretary’s comments were deeply irresponsible and could suggest an intent to scare people away from voting.”

When the secretary of state’s office completes its investigation, the cases will be presented to the State Election Board, which has the power to levy fines or forward cases to prosecutors. It’s unclear when the investigation will be finished.

Candidates, endorsements, etc.:

— The Republican Governors Association has paid $500,000 for an ad supporting Gov. Brian Kemp in his primary race against former U.S. Sen. David Perdue. It’s the first time in the group’s history that it has financed a television ad to support an incumbent facing a GOP challenger.

— Protect Our Future, a new super PAC, plans to spend $2 million in support of U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath in her Democratic primary fight with U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in the Gwinnett County-based 7th Congressional District.

— Ben Souther, a former FBI agent and SWAT team member who also played football at the University of Georgia, is running as a Republican in the 9th Congressional District. Republican U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde represents the district and plans to run for reelection, although his home in Athens is no longer located within the new boundaries of the district after the Legislature drew new congressional maps in November.

— The Democratic Attorneys General Association is backing state Sen. Jen Jordan for attorney general in the state’s Democratic primary. Jordan’s opponent in that race is Sandy Springs attorney Christian Wise Smith, who launched his campaign earlier this month.

— Democrat Dustin McCormick has announced plans to run in a special election to fill the state House seat Rep. Matt Dollar, a Republican from east Cobb County, gave up to take a job as deputy commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia. McCormick also intends to run in the newly drawn House District 45 in November.

More can be found online

Here’s a sample of other stories about Georgia government and politics that can be found at www.ajc.com/politics/: