He said in a statement that Kemp “caved to Stacey Abrams before 2020 and allowed massive election fraud to take place” — even though multiple counts by hand and machine have debunked those claims and legal challenges filed by Trump and his supporters have failed to make any headway in the courts.

Despite his own loyalties to Trump, whom he served as both a campaign chairman and adviser in the White House, Steve Bannon blasted Perdue’s entry in the race without allowing any of what he said turning into praise for Kemp.

Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast that Perdue is “the last person in the world” to challenge Kemp, adding that Perdue was “dead silent” about Trump’s loss in 2020 and “did not support” his efforts to overturn his defeat.

“There’s no difference between Kemp and Perdue,” Bannon said.

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson brought up the result of Perdue’s last race, a loss in one of January’s U.S. Senate runoffs, as an assessment of his campaign skills.

“David Perdue was unable to beat a spectacularly unaccomplished Jon Ossoff,” Erickson said. “Why does he think he can beat Stacey Abrams?”

But Randy Evans, long a big shot among Georgia’s Republicans and an ambassador under Trump, sees Perdue as the candidate who can beat Abrams, although that really depends on the GOP.

“If the party comes together, Perdue will be the nominee and then he’ll go on to be governor,” Evans said. “And if the party comes apart, which if the bitterness and divisiveness continues with this kind of rhetoric, then Kemp will be the nominee and Stacey will be the governor.”

That’s the same case Perdue has tried to make for running.

“I’ve been all over the state this year, trying to unite the party,” Perdue told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “And it’s sorely divided. I don’t think Kemp will pull it together.”

Perdue also did a little time on talk radio this past week, talking to WDUN’s Martha Zoller, where he made an odd case for himself.

The former senator took a shot at one of Kemp’s biggest arguments for being the party’s choice in 2022 — that he’s already beaten Abrams once — by saying that wouldn’t have happened if Perdue had not worked his “rear end off” to defeat the Democrat. That included persuading Trump to hold a rally just before the 2018 election in Macon.

“I promise you, had that not happened, I don’t believe Brian Kemp would have won in ‘18,” Perdue said.

So Perdue says he should be governor because Kemp, who he says should not be governor, would not be governor without him.

Other GOP candidates try to stay out of the crossfire

While talk radio drilled in on the clash between former U.S. Sen. David Perdue and Gov. Brian Kemp, other Republican candidates generally held their tongues.

That included some who boast of support from Donald Trump, even though the former president has been feuding with Kemp and strongly encouraged Perdue to make a bid for the Governor’s Mansion.

A spokeswoman for Herschel Walker, Trump’s choice in the field of four Republicans trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, said he doesn’t plan to endorse any candidates this cycle. Walker, who Trump said would be part of an “unstoppable team” with Perdue at the top of the ticket, wants to stay “laser-focused on winning” his own contest, the spokeswoman said.

That must have sounded like a good line to state Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, who’s running for lieutenant governor. His spokesman said the candidate is “100% focused on his race.”

Miller’s chief GOP competitor for lieutenant governor and Trump’s choice in that race, state Sen. Burt Jones, would not take sides in the Kemp-Perdue clash.

Neither would U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, who has Trump’s support in the race for secretary of state. The man he’s trying to unseat, fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, also was not swayed either way by Trump’s endorsement in the governor’s race, even though he has been targeted in many attacks by the former president after rejecting his demand to “find” about 12,000 votes to overturn the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia.

Two others running in the GOP primary against Walker — Kelvin King and Latham Saddler — had no opinion on Perdue vs. Kemp, at least no opinion they cared to share. The fourth GOP contender for the Senate, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, could not be reached.

John Barge, who once ran for governor himself, giving up his position as state school superintendent, also was noncommittal. He’s too busy trying to get back his old job.

State GOP Chair David Shafer said the party won’t play a role in the Perdue-Kemp fight. That’s only notable because Shafer did upset some in September by joining Trump’s rally in Perry for Walker, Jones and Hice.

Some prominent Georgia Republicans did choose to get involved by backing Kemp: Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (who is not running for reelection), Attorney General Chris Carr (who is seeking reelection), Insurance Commissioner John King (another candidate trying to hold onto his job, which Kemp gave him after Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck was indicted, and later convicted, on fraud charges) and state Sen. Tyler Harper (who is running for agriculture commissioner).

Credit: Nathan Posner

Credit: Nathan Posner

Candidates target state income tax, but legislative help is unlikely

Some Republican candidates have started saying the state’s income tax has to go.

But they’ll have to do much more than that before they win over one of the Legislature’s top leaders in the ways of finance.

Georgia Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, who aspires to become the state’s next lieutenant governor, got the ball rolling last month when he proposed legislation to end the tax.

“Taxation is theft. Pure and simple,” Miller declared as he announced his bill in a press release issued by the taxpayer-funded Senate Press Office.

Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, while announcing that he will challenge Gov. Brian Kemp in the GOP primary, also seized on the tax this past week as ripe for elimination.

Perdue told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the tax is hurting the state’s efforts to attract industries, even though many a Republican likes to cite magazine articles that proclaim Georgia is the No. 1 state for doing business.

“This is my wheelhouse,” Perdue said. “We’ve got to be more competitive. There are ways to pay for it, and other states have accomplished that. I’ll work with the Legislature on it — instead of fighting with them — to make this a reality.”

But neither Miller nor Perdue has offered much detail about how they would close a $14 billion hole in the state budget if the income tax vanished.

House Appropriations Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, has ideas how it could be done, but he doesn’t like them.

“Well, you either eliminate k-12 education — that’s about what we put into it — or if you don’t want to do away with that, I think you would wind up with a 17% state sales tax rate to offset the loss of revenue, if you don’t change the base.”

England notes that the state’s current mix of revenue — which mostly comes from the 5.75% income tax and 4% sales tax — has kept finances stable and allowed Georgia to annually balance its budget. Bond-rating agencies have been impressed, citing the revenue mix as one of the reasons Georgia has maintained its AAA bond rating for decades, allowing it to borrow money at the lowest interest rates.

Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, a Democrat from Stone Mountain, is also not a fan of any plan to eliminate the tax, suggesting that voters “beware of those peddling shiny objects.”

“A move like this would gut public schools, our university system and many other services Georgians rely on,” she said. “Make no mistake, those peddling this scheme will find the money somewhere, and it will likely come from our pockets in the form of a sales tax.”

State officials recently looked at the idea. Under a proposal, to make up for the revenue lost by phasing out the income tax, the state sales tax could increase to 7% and the state could broaden the base to include taxing services such as for using a Realtor, financial adviser or dry cleaner, or for maintenance or repair work at your home.

Throw in local sales taxes, and consumers in Atlanta, for instance, could pay a rate of about 12%.

Even then, it would take a few years before the state recovered hundreds of millions of dollars lost when the income tax disappeared, according to a state auditor’s report.

England said he doesn’t foresee the General Assembly killing the income tax in the legislative session that begins in January.

Suspended judge agrees to pay ethics fine

Suspended Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Christian Coomer will pay $25,000 to settle a range of accusations, including that he illegally used campaign contributions to support his private law practice and to pay for trips to Hawaii and Israel.

The state ethics commission voted to approve the consent degree signed by Coomer, a former Republican whip in the state House.

An ethics complaint was filed in 2020 that said Coomer made transfers from his former state House campaign account between 2015 and 2019, when his former law firm appeared to need a cash infusion. Ethics officials called them “short-term loans.”

The complaint also alleged that Coomer failed to disclose those expenditures from his former account on disclosure forms that political candidates and campaign committees are required to file.

Under state law, elected officials can only use campaign contributions to run for election and maintain their office. Personal expenses unrelated to a campaign or anything that would enrich the candidate or his or her business is forbidden.

Commission lawyers described the trips to Hawaii and Israel as “mixed use” because Coomer also did some official business on the trips.

Coomer’s lawyer, Doug Chalmers, said that his client’s campaign, law firm and personal banking accounts were all with the same bank, and the wrong account was occasionally accessed when doing transfers online.

“When the error was caught, a reverse transfer was done promptly ... in most cases the same day or within 24 hours,” Chalmers said.

The lawyer also said Coomer could have fought the complaint but wanted to “take responsibility” for what happened. He said Coomer cooperated with the ethics investigation.

David Emadi, the commission’s executive secretary, portrayed things a little differently.

“It’s clear and we believe all of these transactions and transfers of money were intentionally done by Mr. Coomer,” Emadi said. “That, however, is not an element of the statute that needs to be charged or alleged pursuant to any consent order.”

Georgia conservatives, liberals partner in opposing defense bill

When the U.S. House voted this past week to approve the National Defense Authorization Act, it revealed an odd set of Georgia allies among the 70 representatives who said “nay.”

On the right were Republican U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jody Hice. Joining them from the left were Democratic U.S. Reps. Hank Johnson and Nikema Williams.

During negotiations that produced the final bill, Democrats agreed to remove language that would have required young women to register for the military draft, as their male counterparts now do.

Candidates, endorsements, etc.:

— State Rep. Donna McLeod of Lawrenceville filed paperwork to become the third Democrat to announce a run in the newly drawn 7th Congressional District. U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux is seeking reelection from the district she already represents, while U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath — after seeing the Republican-dominated General Assembly redraw her 6th Congressional District to make it GOP-friendly — has announced she will run in the 7th, which has been transformed into solidly Democratic turf.

— Jason Esteves, a member of the Atlanta school board, plans to run for the Georgia Senate seat held by state Sen. Jen Jordan. Esteves is also the treasurer of the state Democratic Party.

— Emily’s List and Georgia WIN List, both organizations designed to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, endorsed Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor; state Sen. Jen Jordan, who is running for attorney general, and state Rep. Bee Nguyen, who is running for secretary of state. Georgia WIN List also threw its support behind Nicole Horn, who is running for labor commissioner.

— Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen, who is running for secretary of state, picked up numerous endorsements from state legislators, county commissioners and a Gwinnett County school board member. They included state Sens. Michelle Au, Kim Jackson, Nikki Merritt and Sheikh Rahman.

— After dropping out of the race herself, Paulding County Democrat Lateefa Conner issued an endorsement on Twitter supporting Rome City Councilwoman Wendy Davis’ bid to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Rome in the 14th Congressional District.