PG A.M.: Georgia congressman protests food aid freeze in 2025 farm bill

Georgia U.S. Rep. David Scott threw the first punch in Congress’ next budget brawl on Thursday, railing against Republican plans to freeze food aid funding in next year’s farm bill.

Scott, an Atlanta Democrat and the minority party’s top-ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, charged GOP lawmakers were not negotiating in good faith. In a fiery opening statement, he accused Republicans of trying to “take food away from families” by pushing through “the largest financial cut to SNAP in 30 years.”

SNAP is an acronym for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, which are subsidies given to low-income Americans to purchase groceries.

Credit: Courtesy photo

Credit: Courtesy photo

The committee met for hours on Thursday as various amendments were presented, and frustrations were evident as discussion extended past midnight. Georgia Reps. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany, and Austin Scott, R-Tifton, are also on the panel.

The bickering got heated, with Republicans protesting what they consider a misrepresentation of the proposed bill by Scott and the Democrats. The current draft freezes the list of qualified SNAP-eligible food items and their value, albeit with inflation adjustments, rather than reducing benefits.

The move would complicate efforts to make more items, such as fruits and vegetables, available for purchase with food stamps.

The legislation would also make SNAP funds eligible for use as subsidies for farmers, specifically those who grow rice, cotton and peanuts.

The Agriculture Committee approved the $1.5 trillion package at the meeting’s end, advancing it for passage by the House. The chamber is expected to pass it largely along party lines. Meanwhile, the Senate’s version has more bipartisan support. Eventually the two chambers will need to iron out a compromise.

The current farm bill expires on Sept. 30.

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GUEST LIST. Several Georgians received invitations to Thursday night’s state dinner at the White House honoring Kenyan president William Ruto.

The guest list included former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who brought her teenage son as her guest, Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson and Reta Jo Lewis, the Georgia native who leads the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

But we took special interest in the two eligible bachelors from Atlanta who were also in attendance.

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Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens attended with broadcaster Tracy Wilson Mourning, ex-wife of former NBA star Alonzo Mourning. Dickens and Tracy Mourning have been photographed at events together recently.

The also-single U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., escorted Donna Byrd, a startup founder and the senator’s longtime friend, per his office.

Ruto, before arriving in Washington, spent time in Atlanta with Dickens and other local leaders.

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GEORGIA THIRD. The runoff for Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District is splitting the state’s political leaders.

Some of Georgia’s most prominent MAGA members are backing former Donald Trump aide Brian Jack, who has exhorted his supporters to endorse Jack in the June 18 runoff. Among them are Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Jackson. Jack’s opponent, former state Senate GOP Leader Mike Dugan has the backing of a group of his longtime Senate colleagues.

Meanwhile, many other elected officials aren’t taking sides. Chief among them is U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson, the Republican from The Rock whose retirement opened the west Georgia-based seat.

Asked Thursday if he planned to endorse in the runoff, he replied with a swift, “No.”

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RELITIGATING 2020. Several defendants in the Fulton County election interference case are looking to 2020 voting results to legitimize their actions. The AJC’s David Wickert and Mark Niesse explain the strategy of trying to prove the election was fraudulent in a story that published this morning.

Harrison Floyd, the former head of Black Voices for Trump, has requested terabytes of information from election officials, including copies of all 528,777 Fulton County ballots cast that November. Two other defendants facing racketeering charges, Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman, are likewise arguing that Trump won Georgia and that they were right to contest Joe Biden’s victory.

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MEET THE PRESS. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will be a guest on this Sunday’s edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press” to discuss threats to democracy in 2024.

We got a sneak peak at the panel, including a portion of the discussion where Raffensperger voiced support for Republican-led efforts to write a ban on noncitizen voting into the Georgia Constitution. The effort did not get the two-thirds majority needed to advance in the Georgia House this year.

Host Kristen Welker noted that illegal voting is rare and it’s already against the law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and in the state of Georgia. Raffensperger said more codification is still needed because the rules are different in some states and cities.

“I believe only American citizens should be voting in our elections,” he said. “And I ran back in 2018 saying the same thing.”

Raffensperger will be on the panel Sunday with the secretaries of state of Arizona and Michigan, both Democrats, as well as Al Schmidt, the GOP secretary of state of Pennsylvania.

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HALEY HATE. Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s announcement this week that she’ll vote for her primary election rival, former President Donald Trump, is a blow to young Republicans.

So writes Reed Howard, a Republican in his late-20s from Washington, D.C., in an opinion essay published this morning. Howard is a former District of Columbia commissioner and the chief strategy officer of Future Caucus, a bipartisan group of Gen Z and millennial lawmakers in Congress and state legislatures.

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Howard writes that Haley abandoned a growing faction of Americans who stood with her, many of them Gen Z and millennial Republicans, in her rejection of Trump.

More from Howard:

I hope my generation learns a lesson from this. We have to put our trust in principles, not politicians. We don't know what motivated Haley's reversal. But given her warnings about a second Trump term, it's clear Haley is putting her career and her own interests over the good of the country. There is a generation of Republicans who are growing up with this as a norm.

- Reed Howard

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LISTEN UP. Today on “Politically Georgia,” Quentin Fulks, the Georgia native who is serving as the second-in-command for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, joins the show to discuss his outlook on recent polling and the strengths and challenges facing Biden.

Also, Republican Eric Tanenblatt, who supported Nikki Haley’s presidential bid, reacts to her announcement this week that she plans to vote for former President Donald Trump.

And former AJC political columnist Jim Galloway makes his debut on the show.

Listen live at 10 a.m. on WABE 90.1 or follow “Politically Georgia” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you missed Wednesday’s episode, state Rep. Teri Anulewicz, D-Smyrna, talked about how turnout affected her loss in Tuesday’s primary.

And in a special segment, AJC senior economics reporter Michael E. Kanell and business editor Scott Trubey answered listeners’ questions on inflation and the economy.

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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:

President Joe Biden has no public events on his schedule. He delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Saturday.
The House and Senate are on recess until June 3.
Georgia’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, alongside other local leaders attend an event at SKC Microworkers in Covington to discuss how federal funding has helped boost computer chip manufacturing in Georgia.

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