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stacey abrams
'Time to Get the Job Done': Stacey Abrams Launches New Georgia Gubernatorial Bid
"Now more than ever, it's clear Brian Kemp's days as governor are numbered."
Dec 01, 2021
Declaring that "opportunity in our state shouldn't be determined by zip code, background, or access to power," attorney, author, and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams announced Wednesday that she would once again seek the Democratic nomination for Georgia governor, setting up a rematch with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in the November 2022 contest.
"Abrams already came well within striking distance of Brian Kemp in 2018--before she mobilized millions of Democrats to flip Georgia blue in 2020."
"If our Georgia is going to move to its next and greatest chapter, we're going to need leadership," Abrams said in her announcement video. "Leadership that knows how to do the job, leadership that doesn't take credit without taking responsibility, leadership that understands the true pain folks are feeling and has real plans."
"That's the job of governor, to fight for one Georgia--our Georgia," she added. "And now, it's time to get the job done."
Abrams, who served a decade in the Georgia House of Representatives, was the first Black female nominated for a major party's gubernatorial candidacy in U.S. history. She narrowly lost the 2018 Georgia governor's race to Kemp amid widespread evidence of GOP voter suppression efforts.
\u201cI\u2019m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn\u2019t be determined by zip code, background or access to power. #gapol\n\nBe a founding donor to my campaign:\nhttps://t.co/gk2lmBINfW\u201d— Stacey Abrams (@Stacey Abrams) 1638390049
Democratic Governors Association executive director Noam Lee called Abrams "a powerhouse leader who has spent her life fighting for equal opportunity for all Georgians."
"With a historic campaign built on expanding access to healthcare and creating good-quality jobs, Abrams already came well within striking distance of Brian Kemp in 2018--before she mobilized millions of Democrats to flip Georgia blue in 2020," Lee toldThe Washington Post. "Now more than ever, it's clear Brian Kemp's days as governor are numbered."
While there was much talk of a 2020 presidential run for Abrams, she instead chose to focus on boosting voter turnout to help ensure that Georgia played a critical role in electing President Joe Biden and that the U.S. Senate passed from Republican to Democratic control with the election of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in January.
In addition to her pro-democracy work, Abrams has drawn widespread praise for paying down over $1.3 million in medical debt via her Fair Fight political action committee.
"Stacey Abrams' decision to run for governor of Georgia in 2022 is great news for the people of her state and for America."
The trouncing suffered by GOP candidates in the November 2020 and January 2021 elections motivated Georgia Republicans to pass one of the nation's most sweeping voter suppression laws, as well as to gerrymander the state's congressional districts to heavily favor the right-wing party.
While Abrams--a self-described "pragmatic" politician--has been criticized by some progressives for being too closely aligned with the corporate right wing of the Democratic Party, at least one progressive advocacy group has already endorsed her candidacy.
"Stacey Abrams' decision to run for governor of Georgia in 2022 is great news for the people of her state and for America," Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way, said in a statement.
"Stacey has been a leader and a fighter for justice and civil rights throughout the decades I have known her," he added. "She is a person of profound integrity, empathy, courage, and intellect who as governor will work tirelessly to ensure all Georgians have access to the opportunity to succeed and to live healthy and fulfilling lives."
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'Total Asymmetric Warfare': Georgia GOP Redraws Political Map as US Senate Dems Do Nothing
"It's beyond enraging that Manchin and Sinema continue to say voting rights legislation needs 60 votes," while Republicans are "rigging elections and shutting Dems out of power for next decade on simple majority party-line votes," said one expert.
Nov 22, 2021
Voting rights advocates within and beyond Georgia ramped up calls for congressional action after the Peach State's Republican lawmakers became the latest to approve a gerrymandered political map intended to give the GOP a political advantage for the next decade.
"Congress must pass federal voting rights legislation. We can't wait any longer."
Following similar moves by GOP-controlled state legislatures in Ohio and Texas, the Georgia General Assembly sent the new congressional map to the desk of Republican Gov. Brain Kemp, who is expected to sign it into law. These redistricting efforts have come as right-wingers in the evenly split U.S. Senate block various voting rights bills and a few Democrats refuse to support killing the filibuster.
The Georgia GOP's map is designed to increase the number of congressional districts the party controls from eight to nine, leaving Democrats with just five. According to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Though Georgia's voters are split between the two political parties, none of the state's 14 congressional districts would be competitive."
It's not just the new congressional districts that serve Georgia's GOP. Democracy Docketnoted that "the state House and Senate maps... were criticized by Democrats for cementing a Republican advantage in the General Assembly and failing to account for the growth of Georgia's minority population."
Common Cause Georgia executive director Aunna Dennis said in a statement Monday that "when the redistricting process is led by the politicians, the maps will be drawn to benefit the politicians--and that's exactly what state legislators have done today."
"While these maps might be beneficial to the politicians in power, they are a complete disgrace to the voters of Georgia," Dennis declared. "None of the maps accurately reflect the changing population of our state."
"Our preliminary analysis shows that despite population growth in the state being driven largely by Black, Latinx, and Asian populations, and despite the state's share of the white population decreasing by about 5% from 2010 to 2020, the amount of majority-BIPOC districts in these proposed maps have extremely marginal increases," she noted. "In fact, the new congressional map decreases the amount of majority-Black districts from the former district map."
Dennis said the maps were "intentionally designed to silence" communities of color and accused state leaders of continuing "to ignore the voters throughout the entire process." She also reiterated her group's support for independent redistricting commissions, saying that "district lines need to be drawn putting the interests of people, not politicians, first."
The Journal-Constitution reports that Georgia Rep. Mariam Paris (D-142) said the new district lines endanger two Democratic Black women in the state's congressional delegation, Congresswomen Nikema Williams and Lucy McBath.
"At a time when women are already underrepresented, particularly women of color, we should not be drawing maps that target women incumbents to make it harder for them to run and win in new districts," Paris said during the House debate. "But the map before us today does exactly that."
As the newspaper details:
The map redraws the Democratic-leaning district held by McBath, making it more Republican by extending north from metro Atlanta into conservative strongholds in Forsyth and Dawson counties. McBath won reelection last year with 55% of the vote, but under the new map, Republican voters would outnumber Democrats by 15 percentage points in next year's elections, according to the AJC's analysis.
McBath flipped the 6th Congressional District in 2018, winning election in an area that was once a Republican bastion represented by Newt Gingrich, who became speaker of the House and led the GOP to take control of the U.S. House in 1994. Now the district is poised to return to Republican representation.
McBath--whose 17-year-old son was shot and killed in 2012 by a man who confronted him about the volume of his music--said Monday that Kemp, the Republican Party, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) "will not have the final say on when I am done fighting for my son."
\u201cThe GOP couldn\u2019t beat me, so they redrew the lines.\n\nHere is what they didn\u2019t account for: Brian Kemp, the NRA, and the GOP will not have the final say on when I am done fighting for my son.\n\nSupport here: https://t.co/TYqvI1JqrQ\u201d— Lucy McBath (@Lucy McBath) 1637603195
Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams--a Democrat who formerly served as minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives and narrowly lost the gubernatorial race to Kemp in 2018--suggested in a series of tweets Monday that the new map shows the GOP is struggling to compete in the state.
"The bill will be eagerly signed by a man who has spent more than a decade using his status to disempower voters of color and intimidate the groups and individuals who organize them," Abrams said. "But neither Lucy McBath nor Georgia's organizers and voters of color will give up so easily."
\u201cDemocrats won two highly competitive U.S. Senate races earlier this year. High turnout from voters of color secured those victories. Yet this map dilutes the electoral power of communities of color and creates a 9-5 seat advantage in a closely divided state.\u201d— Stacey Abrams (@Stacey Abrams) 1637612590
President Joe Biden narrowly won Georgia in 2020--prompting then-President Donald Trump to pressure Kemp to call a special election and to ask Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" over 11,000 votes, moves that led to a criminal probe in Fulton County.
Mother Jones' Ari Berman, who wrote the book Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, noted Monday that the new congressional map gives Republicans "64% of seats in state Biden won with 49.5%."
Highlighting that the Georgia map is part of a national trend of GOP state lawmakers trying to give Republican congressional candidates clear advantages, Berman expressed frustration with U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who refuse to support abolishing the filibuster to pass federal voting rights protections.
"It's beyond enraging that Manchin and Sinema continue to say voting rights legislation needs 60 votes when [the] GOP [is] rigging elections and shutting Dems out of power for next decade on simple majority party-line votes," he said, calling it "total asymmetric warfare."
\u201c\u201cRepublicans are erasing decades of long-fought gains for voters of color, returning parts of the South to a pre-1965 status quo where conservative whites have effectively denied political representation to previously disenfranchised communities of color\u201d https://t.co/kbsXzSVAK1\u201d— Ari Berman (@Ari Berman) 1637601696
Calls for Senate Democrats to scrap the filibuster have mounted as the chamber's Republicans have blocked the For the People Act, Freedom to Vote Act, and John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance on Monday even labeled the United States a "backsliding" democracy.
"Voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around," tweeted U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). "Today's partisan redistricting decision at Georgia's State Capitol undermines voters' voices and harms our democracy."
"Congress must pass federal voting rights legislation," he added. "We can't wait any longer."
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After Being Cut Off by GOP Senator, Stacey Abrams Releases 6-Minute Rundown of Georgia's Attack on Voting
"In Fulton County, our largest county and one that is predominantly African American, the number of drop boxes will be reduced from 38 to eight."
Apr 27, 2021
One week after Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana repeatedly cut off voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams as she tried to explain her objections to the voter suppression law recently passed by GOP lawmakers in Georgia, Abrams on Tuesday shared an uninterrupted video in which she outlined how specific provisions of Senate Bill 202 restrict Democratic-leaning constituencies' access to the ballot.
During a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week on voting rights, Kennedy asked Abrams to "give me a list of the provisions that you object to."
Abrams began to list several anti-democratic components of the new law. She expressed her opposition to provisions that: remove access to the right to vote; shorten the federal runoff period from nine weeks to four weeks; and restrict the time that a voter can request and return an absentee ballot application--before being interrupted by Kennedy.
She went on to mention that the law "eliminates over 300 hours of drop box availability" and "bans nearly all out-of-precinct votes." In addition, Abrams noted, enabling counties to adopt a 9:00 am to 5:00 pm voting window instead of using the previous statewide standard of 7:00 am to 7:00 pm limits the franchise, especially for working-class individuals "who cannot vote during business hours."
After just a couple of minutes, Kennedy "threw in the towel," as political reporter Greg Bluestein put it in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"Okay, I get the idea. I get the idea," said the Republican senator.
But Abrams, the founder of a voting rights group called Fair Fight Action, hadn't finished.
On Tuesday, Abrams tweeted a nearly six-minute video that describes additional provisions that she and other progressive critics of Senate Bill 202 say will make it harder for Georgians--particularly those living in communities of color where Democratic candidates enjoy much stronger support than their Republican counterparts--to vote.
"I know we got cut off before, so let me continue," she began on Tuesday.
\u201cI was asked for a list of my objections to Georgia Republicans' voter suppression law, so here's a video.\n\n#gapol #SB202\u201d— Stacey Abrams (@Stacey Abrams) 1619528380
In the video, Abrams provides a thorough account of the anti-democratic features of the new Georgia law, which she says:
- criminalizes the distribution of water or food to voters waiting in long lines;
- "codifies voter caging, meaning that an individual can challenge the eligibility of an unlimited number of voters in their county";
- removes Georgia's secretary of state from the state's board of elections;
- authorizes the state Legislature to appoint a majority of members on the state's board of elections, "stacking it with their allies";
- allows the state's board of elections to unilaterally replace local election officials;
- limits the number and location of ballot drop boxes;
- requires voters without a driver's license or state ID to "surrender their personal information and risk identity theft just to receive an absentee ballot";
- reduces the time frame to request an absentee ballot by 109 days and stops the request period 11 days before the election;
- bans mobile voting units used by 11,000 elderly and disabled voters last year in Fulton County;
- sets a new minimum standard of just eight hours for early voting;
- prohibits early voting locations from operating outside of specific hours; and
- "eliminates the online absentee ballot request portal, forcing county boards to manually enter every application."
The new video also has clips from Abrams' interaction with Kennedy last week, including when the senator asked, "Is that everything?"
"Nope!" Abrams responded Tuesday. "With all due respect, I'm not done yet, senator."
Abrams pointed out that GOP lawmakers attempted to include even more restrictive measures in earlier versions of Senate Bill 202.
"Let's not forget that Republicans wanted to eliminate Sunday voting, but we stopped them," Abrams said. "And Republicans wanted to eliminate no excuses absentee voting, but we stopped them. And Republicans wanted to eliminate automatic voter registration."
"But, wait for it, we stopped them," she added.
Senate Bill 202--which Georgia's Republican lawmakers and Gov. Brian Kemp have characterized as an attempt to "restore confidence in the integrity of the state's electoral system"--is part of the GOP's nationwide attack on voting.As of March 24, legislators had introduced 361 bills with restrictive provisions in 47 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
In addition to Georgia, voter suppression bills have been signed into law in Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Utah.
Mother Jones journalist Ari Berman, a voting rights expert, has argued that in the wake of former President Donald Trump's failed attempt to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, state-level Republicans are "weaponizing Trump's lies" about fraud in an attempt to roll back voting rights following last year's historic turnout.
While the GOP has attempted to justify its increasingly extreme voter suppression push by appealing to the need to strengthen "election integrity"--even though President Joe Biden's victory came in an election the federal government's top cybersecurity official called "the most secure in American history"--right-wing figures have on more than one occasion admitted the real reason they are opposed to making voting more accessible is because doing so hurts Republicans' electoral chances.
"If we don't do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country," Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News host Sean Hannity last November.
In Tuesday's video, meanwhile, Abrams noted that "in Fulton County, our largest county and one that is predominantly African American, the number of drop boxes will be reduced from 38 to eight for no good reason other than Republicans want to make it harder for people of color to vote."
Last month, Biden signed an executive order promoting access to the polls, while House Democrats, without the support of a single Republican, passed the For the People Act, a sweeping set of popular pro-democracy reforms.
Voting rights advocates say that Senate Democrats can "thwart virtually every single one" of the GOP's voter suppression bills by passing the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. If Senate Republicans try to stand in the way, progressives say, the Democratic-led Congress will need to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster rule.
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