PG A.M.: Georgia Supreme Court justice gets GOP help in election bid
Georgia conservatives are launching a rescue mission for Georgia Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson ahead of a May 21 election that pits him against former Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow.
House Speaker Jon Burns, Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King as well as several lawmakers are among the Republicans boosting Pinson. A Burns-connected group called Georgia’s Future has financed pro-Pinson digital ads.
The Georgia Life Alliance on Wednesday joined other conservative groups, including the Faith and Freedom Coalition and Frontline Policy Action, with plans to distribute “voter guides” amplifying their stances on abortion and other issues.
And Attorney General Chris Carr sent an email Wednesday to supporters warning that Pinson -- and the entire judicial system -- is under siege by a candidate who “openly admits he will not be impartial when deciding cases.”
“Georgia Supreme Court races have historically been nonpartisan and avoided the vitriolic and negative nature of typical partisan races,” Carr wrote. “It is extremely important that we maintain the integrity of the Supreme Court.”
It’s the latest escalation in the nonpartisan race for the only of the four Supreme Court seats to face a challenge.
Barrow is aiming to turn the race against Pinson, a Gov. Brian Kemp appointee, into a referendum on reproductive freedom.
And he’s fighting in court to block the state’s judicial watchdog agency from restricting him from making pledges to “protect” abortion rights if he’s elected to a six-year term on the state’s top bench. He shrugged at the latest developments.
“If I had his record on women’s rights, I’d need a ‘rescue mission,’ too,” Barrow said of Pinson. “I wouldn’t bet against women.”
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ABORTION RIGHTS. Sticking with that topic, second gentleman Doug Emhoff was in Atlanta on Tuesday to speak to a group of mostly young men about the role they can play in fighting Republican-led abortion limits.
The event at The Gathering Spot was timed to mark what Emhoff called the “unhappy” five-year anniversary of Gov. Brian Kemp’s signing of Georgia’s abortion restrictions.
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SIGNING DAY. Gov. Brian Kemp closed out the legislating end of his 2024 duties Tuesday by signing and vetoing a number of bills passed earlier this year by the Georgia General Assembly.
Kemp rejected a dozen pieces of legislation, including measures to suspend sales tax breaks on new data centers, reinforce a ban on foreign campaign contributions, increase a property tax homestead exemption and allow college students to use their HOPE scholarship on graduate-level courses.
Kemp signed several bills at the deadline as well, starting with the 2025 state budget. One closely watched measure he also inked was Senate Bill 189, which establishes new rules for challenging voters’ eligibility and could allow more third-party presidential candidates on Georgia’s ballot.
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RUNOFF WIN. The newest member of the Georgia House is Carmen Rice, who won a special election runoff Tuesday to complete the term of Rep. Richard Smith, R-Columbus. The former Muscogee County Republican Party chairwoman received 56% of the vote to defeat Sean Knox, a Columbus businessman.
The special election win is a springboard for Rice heading into the 2024 election cycle. Her seat, along with all the others in the Georgia General Assembly, will be on the ballot in November.
Her predecessor, Smith, died in January after fighting the flu. Smith served 20 years in the House and had chaired the powerful House Rules Committee since 2020.
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CURBING CHILD EXPLOITATION. President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a law requiring internet providers and websites to submit reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children when they obtain evidence that a child is being sexually exploited online.
The legislation was sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, an Atlanta Democrat. He championed the measure after hearing from child welfare advocates about the rise in reports of online sexual abuse schemes targeting minors. In September, he and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, launched a Senate inquiry into the FBI’s ability to respond to these crimes.
The final version of the legislation also incorporated language that U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, championed in a House proposal.
McBath’s portion of the bill extends the time period that technology companies are required to preserve child sexual abuse images they report to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. This allows law enforcement agencies a longer window to investigate and potentially bring charges.
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MTG’S STILL ON PAUSE. After meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, said the ball is in his court to meet her requests and avoid a vote on removing the Louisiana Republican from his leadership post.
It was the second time the two had met in as many days. And neither provided much insight afterward on what Johnson had and had not agreed to.
Prior to the meeting, Johnson shrugged off concerns that he was empowering one of his most vocal critics by engaging with her.
“It’s not a negotiation,” he said.
But Greene has outlined a four-part request list for Johnson in return for abandoning her quest to have him ousted as speaker.
She asked Johnson to agree not to support any more money for Ukraine and to remove funding for special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into alleged criminal acts by former President Donald Trump.
Greene also asked that Johnson not bring bills to the floor unless a majority of Republicans said they were in favor of the legislation and to include mandatory across-the-board 1% spending cuts to any future stopgap government funding bills.
If Johnson refuses, it remains to be seen whether Greene will follow through with her threatened “motion to vacate.”
“That’s up to Mike Johnson, and it can’t drag out,” she told reporters.
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LISTEN UP. Today on the “Politically Georgia” radio show, Republican strategist Alice Stewart along with Wendy Davis, a Georgia delegate for this year’s Democratic National Convention, join the show to talk about the presidential contest and political news of the day.
Listen live at 10 a.m. on 90.1 FM, at AJC.com and at WABE.org.
If you missed Tuesday’s episode, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan discussed why he’s urging other conservatives to vote for President Joe Biden.
Also, Democrat and Mableton Mayor Michael Owens and Cobb County Republican Jason Shepherd talked about how members of different political parties can disagree better.
And finally, Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols shared the latest updates regarding expansion of Plant Vogtle and how much it will cost Georgia Power customers.
Listen at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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CAMPAIGN COFFERS. Ahead of the May 21 primary and nonpartisan election, candidates this week filed disclosures to show how much money they’ve raised, the AJC’s campaign finance guy James Salzer notes.
A couple of closely watched races include:
- Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ reelection bid. Willis, who has been a little busy of late in the 2020 election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his allies, raised $227,000 in the last three months and had $332,000 campaign cash on hand as of April 30. Among her larger contributions was $3,300 from the law firm of former Gov. Roy Barnes, who testified that he was her first choice to be special prosecutor in the case, Salzer noted.
- Her opponent in the primary, former prosecutor Christian Wise Smith, raised a little under $78,000 and had $58,000 banked.
- In a race for a seat on the Georgia Supreme Court, incumbent Andrew Pinson raised $628,000 in the last few months, including hundreds of contributions from lawyers. He reported having raised $1.33 million in total for reelection, with $731,000 cash in the bank.
- His opponent, former U.S. Rep. John Barrow, reported raising $806,000 in the past few months, with $275,000 left on hand as of April 30. Most of Barrow’s money came from cash he’d previously raised to run for the Georgia Supreme Court in 2020.
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ELECTION WATCHDOG. The State Election Board on Tuesday ordered an independent monitor to watch over the Fulton County elections this year in response to findings that the county likely scanned over 3,000 ballots twice during the recount of the 2020 presidential election.
Our colleague Mark Niesse reports an investigation exposed errors in Fulton’s 2020 recount but didn’t indicate any fraud in the election, which Democrat Joe Biden won by a 11,779-vote margin in Georgia over Republican Donald Trump.
Three vote counts — two by machine and one by hand — each showed similar results. In the recounts, Trump gained 939 net votes against Biden in Fulton County, where Biden received 73% support, according to the results.
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden travels to Racine County, Wisconsin, to deliver remarks on his economic agenda. Later, he hosts a campaign fundraiser in Chicago.
- The House votes on a bill that would require a citizenship status question on the U.S. Census starting in 2030.
- The Senate has no votes scheduled but is working on an agreement to reauthorize federal aviation laws before Friday’s deadline.
- Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser testifies during a House Oversight Committee hearing on campus protests and the rise of antisemitism.
- U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams joins members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus for a Mother’s Day themed news conference.
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GEORGIA 2024. President Joe Biden’s campaign launched a new ad in Georgia this morning that slams former President Donald Trump’s efforts to gut the Affordable Care Act.
The ad will run as part of a $14 million TV blitz for the month of May and will air in Georgia and other competitive states. Watch the ad here.
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‘USEFUL IDIOT.’ Lt. Gov. Burt Jones rebuked his predecessor, Geoff Duncan, for his commentary publicly backing President Joe Biden — and encouraging other conservatives to do so as well.
Jones and Duncan are both Republicans but represent opposing ends of the GOP spectrum. Jones is a Trump loyalist who embraces the former president’s “Make America Great Again” approach, while Duncan is among those in the GOP who are critical of Trump.
Said Jones in response to Duncan’s stance: “Every village has a useful idiot. I guess the Democrat Party has found theirs.”
Insider Greg Bluestein has more reaction, including from Democrats, in a story that published Tuesday.
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DOG OF THE DAY. If your pooch is ready for his or her 15 minutes of newsletter fame, send them our way! Pups of any political persuasion considered, as are cats on a cat-by-cat basis. Horizontal photos are especially welcome. Send to patricia.murphy@ajc.com.
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AS ALWAYS, Politically Georgia readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.vanbrimmer@ajc.com.
About the Authors
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
Tia Mitchell is the AJC’s Washington Bureau Chief and a co-host of the "Politically Georgia" podcast. She writes about Georgia’s congressional delegation, campaigns, elections and the impact that decisions made in D.C. have on residents of the Peach State.
Patricia Murphy is the AJC's senior political columnist. She was previously a nationally syndicated columnist for CQ Roll Call, national political reporter for the Daily Beast and Politics Daily, and wrote for The Washington Post and Garden & Gun. She graduated from Vanderbilt and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Adam Van Brimmer is a journalist who covers politics and Coastal Georgia news for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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