The Jolt: Atlanta NAACP pens ‘rare repudiation’ of former Mayor Reed

We’ve never seen anything quite like it: Less than two weeks before the election for Atlanta mayor, the Atlanta NAACP released a scathing statement with a “rare repudiation” of front-runner Kasim Reed.

The statement, signed by president Richard Rose, amounts to a laundry list of complaints about the former mayor’s two terms in office. Rose told the AJC’s Wilborn Nobles the organization’s leadership team agreed he should pen the letter on behalf of the chapter.

Rose assails the former mayor for offering generous tax breaks to luxury housing projects and the Mercedes-Benz Stadium development; for his criminal justice approach; for a fight with historically black colleges over land deals; and for failing to remove Confederate monuments.

The letter also highlighted the ongoing federal corruption probe that ensnared several members of Reed’s administration.

“Atlanta can and must do better than elect Kasim Reed again,” Rose wrote. “Thirteen other candidates are running, some with proven leadership ability and political experience and none with a record of administrative corruption. Please educate yourself on their records. Let’s choose wisely.”

Reed didn’t immediately comment, even as the letter took off on social media Wednesday night. Around the same time it dropped, he was scheduled for a conversation on the audio app Clubhouse with entertainer Tyrese.

Reed’s personal attorneys have said he’s not under investigation.

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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed Sen. Jon Ossoff’s Prison Camera Reform Act by “unanimous consent,” meaning no roll-call vote. The measure attempts to reduce crime and civil rights abuses in U.S. prisons by requiring the Federal Bureau of Prisons to ensure all correctional facilities have the proper security camera coverage.

Ossoff’s office said this is the first standalone measure authored by the first-year senator that has passed the U.S. Senate this year. The bill now goes to the House for consideration.

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Former President Donald Trump admitted what everyone in Georgia knew during the January runoffs: That his obsession with his own election defeat contributed to the Democratic victories that unseated Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

Trump’s comments come in a new book on his presidency by David Drucker, a Washington Examiner reporter who closely follows Georgia politics.

The book, “In Trump’s Shadow,” reports that Trump didn’t campaign as emphatically as he could have for the two GOP incumbents because he was still smarting over his November defeat in Georgia.

From a Business Insider article on the book:

“They didn’t want to vote, because they knew they got screwed in the presidential election,” Trump told Drucker of Georgia Republicans, acknowledging that the depressed GOP turnout for Loeffler and Perdue cost Republicans control of the Senate.

Drucker then asked Trump what he thought could have happened if Trump had instead said that, “despite some irregularities that deserved looking into, the state’s voting system was reliable” and urged his supporters to vote.

“I don’t know,” Trump said. “I did two very successful rallies — very successful rallies. I did say a version of that, but not as strongly as you said, because I was very angry with what happened there.”

Tens of thousands of reliably Republican voters wound up sitting out the January election after voting in November, a drop-off that was sharpest in conservative strongholds in south Georgia and the northwestern part of the state.

The possibility of a Loeffler-Perdue redux in 2022 is keeping Republicans awake at night, particularly after Trump suggested this month that GOP voters could boycott the election if his lies about election fraud weren’t addressed.

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POSTED: Police arrested a Kentucky woman on charges she threatened a Georgia judge and his family after he dismissed a lawsuit alleging fraud during the 2020 election, the AJC’s Mark Niesse reports.

Erin Northup, 42, is accused of leaving a threatening voicemail with Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero’s judicial assistant soon after he issued his ruling last week, according to the Henry County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities declined to release details about the call.

Amero received “a plethora of calls” after he threw out the last remaining major lawsuit over Georgia’s 2020 election. The lawsuit, filed by supporters of former Republican President Donald Trump, asked the judge to unseal 147,000 absentee ballots cast in Fulton County so they could search for counterfeits.

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A Georgia state representative is among the elected officials exposed as members of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing extremists group that was a major player in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

State Rep. Steve Tarvin, a Republican from Chickamauga, told ProPublica that he signed up for the militia group at a booth in White County in 2009 when he was running for Congress.

He said he didn’t view Oath Keepers as a militant organization then and continues to stand by the pledge he signed to uphold the Constitution. Tarvin also told ProPublica that he wasn’t aware the group was involved in the attack on the Capitol.

More than 20 members and associates of the Oath Keepers have been arrested and charged in the deadly Jan. 6 mob that stormed the seat of democracy.

ProPublica obtained a list of more than 35,000 members of the Oath Keepers from a whistleblower group that initially received the information by an anonymous hacker.

Tarvin is among 48 state and local government officials listed, all of them Republicans.

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An advocacy group that works to elect scientists launched a digital ad campaign focused on Gov. Brian Kemp’s “refusal to condemn the dangerous anti-science conspiracy theorists” targeting school board members, organizers said.

The group, called 314 Action, launched the ads as part of a $10 million nonpartisan advocacy campaign for the 2022 cycle.

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An advocacy group tied to U.S. House Republican leadership is spending $800,000 on broadcast TV ads in Atlanta encouraging U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux to oppose Democrats’ social spending and climate change bill.

The ads are part of a $4.5 million effort by American Action Network targeting 15 vulnerable House Democratic. The spot mentioning Bourdeaux describes the bill as leading to inflation and tax increases that will harm seniors.

Democrats are in the process of scaling down the features of the package, which is currently at $3.5 trillion over 10 years but could end up in the $1.8 trillion range. It includes taxes on wealthy Americans, as well as things like universal prekindergarten, paid family leave and Medicaid expansion.

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Your latest filibuster update from Washington: Senate Leader Chuck Schumer made good on his promise to bring a compromise federal election bill supported by all 50 Democrats to the floor.

And Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made good on his promise to block it from receiving the 60 votes it needed to proceed to debate. The final vote was 49-51 because Schumer flipped from a “yes” to “no” to retain the ability to bring the bill back to the floor for reconsideration later.

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Former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon could be held in criminal contempt by the U.S. House today, which is taking a vote on whether he should be punished for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee.

With Democrats in control, the measure is likely to pass. But we’ll be looking to see how many Republicans, and if any from Georgia, vote “yes.” If the bill is approved, the U.S. Attorney in Washington will investigate and decide whether Bannon should be prosecuted.

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s new chief of staff is Ed Buckham, who served in the same role for former House GOP Leader Tom DeLay of Texas. Buckham has a controversial past, which includes ties to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal of 2006. After becoming a pariah in Washington, Buckham held odd jobs like selling RVs, according to Punchbowl News.

Greene’s former chief of staff, Patrick Parsons, left to become an executive at the American Firearms Association, an alternative to the NRA.

Greene also told the Washington Examiner that she will soon come out with a slate of endorsements of candidates in 2022 races as part of her effort to flip the U.S. House back to GOP control.

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We told you earlier this week that the Republican National Committee was opening an office in College Park aimed at mobilizing more Black GOP voters in 2022.

Last night’s event at the Georgia Black American Community Center was attended by RNC chair Ronna McDaniel and Senate candidate Herschel Walker, among others.

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Atlanta mayoral candidate Antonio Brown presented a city proclamation to musician Lil Nas X Wednesday night.

Brown, a member of the City Council, recognized the “Old Town Road” performer for his success and plugged his mayoral campaign.

“I’m running to be the mayor of Atlanta,” he told Nas, an out gay man. “I would be the first LGBTQ mayor in the history of this city. And you inspire me to allow me to believe that I can do it.”

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As always, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.

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