ATLANTA (AP) — The prospect — albeit still dim — that Georgia could fully expand Medicaid has prompted Democrats and patient advocates to turn up the pressure on Republicans in the state legislature to act.

But political experts, advocates and policy analysts say GOP lawmakers face significant headwinds to approving a plan they have long derided as wasteful, and that could ultimately doom the effort.

“There’s reason to be a little more optimistic than one year or two years ago, but there’s not a groundswell of support and willingness to change the status quo on the part of the Republican members of the legislature,” said Harry Heiman, a health policy professor at Georgia State University.

The biggest obstacle is Georgia Pathways, the state’s limited Medicaid expansion that includes the nation’s only work requirement for Medicaid recipients, said Laura Colbert, executive director of the advocacy group Georgians for a Healthy Future.

Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has championed the program, which launched in July. Though it is off to a rocky start, with just under 2,350 people enrolled as of mid-December, the Kemp administration has sought to extend it past its September 2025 expiration date.

“Governor Kemp has put a lot of political capital into Pathways,” Colbert said.

Colbert said she was optimistic that Georgia lawmakers would eventually approve a fuller expansion of coverage for low-income adults, but not necessarily this year.

Kyle Wingfield, president of the conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation, said he, too, was skeptical Kemp would be willing to retreat from Pathways.

He also warned that Republican lawmakers could face backlash for any Medicaid deal from Republican primary voters.

Expanding Medicaid to low-income adults who make up to 138% of the federal poverty level, with the federal government picking up 90% of the cost, was a key part of the Affordable Care Act. Georgia is among 10 states that have not done it.

Wingfield said he thinks Republicans in Washington, and to a lesser extent in Georgia, have accepted that the Affordable Care Act is here to stay, but that acceptance may not be shared by rank-and-file GOP primary voters.

“When it comes to the voters in a Republican primary, I don’t think I’d want to be the one finding that out,” he said.

But Brian Robinson, a Republican political consultant who counts the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals and House GOP caucus among his clients, says he thinks Republicans face little risk from primary opponents if they vote for Medicaid.

“The political issue of the danger has faded over the time,” Robinson said. “We’ve had some mini-expansions in Georgia and there’s been no blowback on Republicans. In fact they’ve proudly touted it for groups like new mothers.”

Republicans in Georgia also risk alienating the conservative organization Americans for Prosperity with a vote to expand Medicaid coverage.

The group is opposed to expansion, even as part of a deal that would repeal permitting requirements for hospitals and health services, said Tony West, the group’s Georgia State Director. That sort of deal has emerged as a possible compromise between Republicans and Democrats.

West wants lawmakers to focus solely on repealing the permitting requirements and leave Medicaid expansion by the wayside.

“I think we’re taking our eye off the ball,” he said.

Conversely, Wingfield raised the possibility that some Democrats could balk at a deal, noting that Medicaid expansion has been a key political issue for the party in Georgia.

“What do they gain from taking one of their signature issues off the table and letting the Republicans claim a large share of the credit for it?” he asked.

At least for now, Democrats in the General Assembly don’t appear concerned about losing their ability to hammer the GOP on Medicaid. The Democratic caucus organized a lengthy hearing Wednesday focused on the economic and health benefits of expansion that featured health care providers, advocates and policy experts.

In opening remarks, Democratic state Rep. Michelle Au, a doctor, noted Georgia had one of the highest rates of uninsured residents in the country and some of its worst health outcomes.

”As we start this 2024 legislative session, it is my hope that all options are on the table,” she said.

The post For Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Medicaid expansion could still be a risky vote appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — A judge rejected a lawsuit Friday that sought to disqualify Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones from holding office because of the Republican’s participation as an elector for Donald Trump in 2020.

Butts County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson ruled that the four voters who sued couldn’t use the kind of legal action they filed to attack actions Jones took in 2020 while he was a state senator.

The suit echoed other efforts elsewhere to keep Trump and some of his supporters off ballots and to prosecute people who falsely claimed to be valid Trump electors in states Joe Biden won.

Richard Rose, a civil rights activist who is one of the plaintiffs, said Friday that he had expected Wilson to rule against him and that he anticipates an appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.

Jones “violated his oath of office, because he lied and said he was a duly qualified elector from state of Georgia, which is not true,” Rose said.

Jones says the suit is an illegitimate effort by Democrats to unseat him.

“Democrat activists in Georgia are trying to use the legal system to overrule the will of the voters, just like liberal activists in places like Colorado and Maine are trying to do to President Trump,” Jones said in a statement. “I’m glad to see the court throw out this ridiculous political attack.”

The lawsuit came as a decision remains in limbo on whether to prosecute Jones on state charges, due to a lack of a special prosecutor willing to take the case.

The plaintiffs asked a judge in December to declare Jones ineligible to hold office in Georgia, alleging that he violated his oath of office as a state senator by signing his name as a Trump elector. Biden was certified as winning Georgia’s 16 electoral votes in 2020’s election.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of a Colorado court ruling keeping him off the 2024 presidential ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The court will be considering for the first time the meaning and reach of a provision of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment barring some people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office.

In Georgia, challengers argued the same clause prohibits Jones from holding office and called him “an insurrectionist against the Constitution of the United States of America.”

Jones’ lawyer argued the challenge lacked evidence to prove insurrection, a position the judge agreed with.

Jones was one of 16 Republicans who gathered on Dec. 14, 2020, at Georgia’s Capitol, claiming to be legitimate electors. The meeting is critical to the prosecution of Trump and 18 others who were indicted by a Georgia grand jury in August for efforts to overturn Biden’s narrow win.

Of those in Georgia indicted in August, only three acted as Trump electors, and all were indicted for crimes beyond that.

Michigan and Nevada have also criminally charged Trump electors. In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans settled a civil lawsuit last month and admitted their actions sought to overturn Biden’s victory.

An earlier special Georgia grand jury recommended Jones face felony charges. But Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was barred from indicting Jones. A judge ruled Willis, an elected Democrat, had a conflict of interest because she hosted a fundraiser for the Democrat who lost to Jones in 2022’s election for lieutenant governor.

The state Prosecuting Attorneys Council is supposed to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Jones’ actions were criminal, but hasn’t yet acted.

The post Judge rejects lawsuit to disqualify Georgia’s lieutenant governor for acting as Trump elector appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia state senator is joining the race for an open congressional seat.

Mike Dugan, a Carrollton Republican, filed papers with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday to start raising campaign contributions for the 3rd Congressional District.

The seat is opening up because four-term incumbent Drew Ferguson announced in December that he would not seek reelection. The solidly Republican district hugs the Georgia-Alabama state line as far south as Columbus and includes some areas south of Atlanta as far east as Barnesville and Griffin.

Dugan was first elected to the state Senate in 2012. Upon his resignation Thursday, a special election for his seat will take place.

“It is time to get back to a government that works for the people, and I would be honored to be the voice that represents Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District,” Dugan said in a statement.

Dugan rose to Senate majority leader in 2019, but lost a 2022 bid to become president pro tem, the top post elected by the members. That left his influence downgraded, and Dugan expressed unhappiness with how Carroll County was split in the special redistricting session that ended in December.

Dugan is a former Army Ranger and paratrooper who retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2008 after more than 20 years of service. More recently he has worked as a construction contractor.

The Republican field in the race already includes state Rep. David Jenkins of Grantville, a farmer and retired Army helicopter pilot; Jim Bennett, a party activist from Carroll County who has criticized Ferguson as insufficiently conservative; and Michael Corbin, who previously ran for Congress in Gwinnett County.

Other Republicans who could run include state Sen. Matt Brass of Newnan; former state Rep. Philip Singleton of Sharpsburg; state Sen. Randy Robertson of Cataula; Brian Jack, a former White House political director for President Donald Trump and former aide to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy; and Chris West, who lost a bid for southwest Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District in 2022 to longtime Democratic incumbent Sanford Bishop. West recently moved from Thomasville to Newnan.

Democrat Rodney Moore is also running.

The congressional primary is May 21, and a runoff for the Republican nomination would be June 18 if needed. The general election is Nov. 5.

The post Georgia state senator joins Republican congressional race for seat opened by Ferguson’s retirement appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — The people who successfully sued to overturn Georgia’s congressional and state legislative districts told a federal judge on Wednesday that new plans Republican state lawmakers claim will cure illegal vote dilution should be rejected.

The plaintiffs argued before U.S. District Judge Steve Jones in an hourslong hearing in Atlanta that the new maps don’t increase opportunities for Black voters to elect their chosen candidates. They also said they do not remedy vote dilution in the particular areas of suburban Atlanta that a trial earlier this year had focused on.

“The state of Georgia is playing games,” lawyer Abha Khanna said of the new maps. “We’re going to make you chase us all over the state from district to district to achieve an equal opportunity for Black voters. It’s a constant game of whack-a-mole.”

But an attorney for the state argued that lawmakers added the Black-majority districts that Jones ordered in October, including one in Congress, two in the state Senate and five in the state House. The state says that the plaintiffs’ dislike of the legislature’s partisan choices made in a recent special session to protect GOP majorities doesn’t let the judge step in and draw his own maps.

“Clearly the state added the additional district,” Bryan Tyson said of the congressional plan. “That’s the cure to the vote dilution injury.”

Jones indicated he would rule quickly, saying he’s been told the state needs the maps by Jan. 16 for the 2024 elections to occur on time. If he refuses to adopt the state’s maps Jones could appoint a special master to draw maps for the court.

Arguments on the congressional map focused, as expected, on whether it’s legal for lawmakers to dissolve Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath’s current district in the Atlanta suburbs of Gwinnett and Fulton counties — while at the same time they were drawing a new Black-majority district west of downtown Atlanta in Fulton, Douglas, Cobb and Fayette counties.

McBath could have to switch districts for the second time in two years after the first district where she won election was made decidely more Republican.

Khanna argued that the most important question was whether Black voters would have an “additional” district where they could elect their choice of candidate, as Jones ordered. She said the total number of such districts statewide would stay at five of 14, instead of rising to six. Georgia’s U.S. House delegation is currently split among nine Republicans and five Democrats.

Khanna also argued that the state was committing a fresh violation of Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which is supposed to guarantee opportunities for minority voters, by wiping out the current 7th District. That district is majority nonwhite, but not majority Black, with substantial shares of Hispanic and Asian voters as well.

But Jones seemed to undercut that argument when he declared that the case had focused on the rights of Black voters and that there was no evidence submitted at trial about Asian and Hispanic voter behavior. He also said he was reluctant to rule on the claim of a new violation in such a short time frame.

Tyson, for his part, argued that federal law doesn’t protect coalitions of minority voters, saying it only protects one group, such as Black or Hispanic voters, a point Jones questioned. Tyson repeatedly claimed the plaintiffs were mainly trying to elect Democrats

“Now the claim is ‘Oh, no, no, it’s about all minority voters,” Tyson said. “So we have continually shifting theory. At the end of the day, the only thing that’s consistent is protecting Democratic districts.”

One of the sets of challengers to Georgia’s legislative maps had different arguments, telling Jones that the state had failed in its duty because while it drew additional Black-majority districts, it avoided drawing them in the parts of Atlanta’s southern and western suburbs where the plaintiffs had proved Black voters were being harmed.

“If the remedy isn’t in the area where the vote dilution is identified, it doesn’t help the voters who are harmed,” attorney Ari Savitzky argued.

He focused particularly on the lack of changes in key areas in the state Senate plan, saying no Black voters in Fayette and Spalding counties and only a few thousand voters in Henry and Newton counties had been moved into majority Black districts. Instead, he said, Republican lawmakers added tens of thousands of Black voters from areas farther north in Cobb, Fulton and DeKalb counties in creating two new Black majority districts.

“This isn’t a new opportunity for Black voters in south metro Atlanta,” Savitzky said. “It’s a shell game.”

The post Challengers attack Georgia’s redrawn congressional and legislative districts in court hearing appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s government will put a little extra jingle in the pockets of state, university and public school employees, paying them a $1,000 year-end bonus, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday.

The Republican governor also said he would propose a permanent $104 million yearly allocation for school security going forward, enough to provide $45,000 to every Georgia public school, as he makes further plans to spend Georgia’s $11 billion in surplus funds.

Officials said the roughly 112,000 state and university employees would get the extra $1,000 by the end of the year, while school districts will determine when the roughly 196,000 teachers and support staff get the bonus. Elected officials and judges won’t get the cash.

“We have heard from our agency heads about the need to retain those with valuable skills and knowledge,” Kemp said during a news conference at the Georgia Capitol. “This one time end-of-year retention payment will help us do just that.”

The governor’s administration says it’s still studying whether it will propose permanent pay raises in the upcoming budget. But with all state representatives and senators up for election in 2024, Kemp and top Republican lawmakers are beginning to hint that they expect permanent pay boosts. They delivered $7,000 in pay raises to teachers and state and university employees during Kemp’s first five years.

“It’s going to be a good Christmas and New Year here in Georgia,” Kemp said. “And there’s more good news coming in the weeks and months ahead. So, stay tuned.”

Lawmakers and Kemp have previously delivered multiple rounds of one-time school security grants totaling $184 million. The new plan would give each school $45,000 each year, allowing for ongoing spending. Kemp said schools could use that for whatever security purpose they believe is most pressing, but said it’s meant to underwrite a security officer for each school.

“This $45,000 number was really a number where if the schools want to hire school resource officer, this funding should be able to take care of that. That’s what it was designed for, really, so we could have a school resource officer in every school, if that’s what the locals want.”

Superintendents, though, have said a police-certified school resource officer costs substantially more, as much as $80,000 including benefits.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who supports Kemp’s plan, has also proposed paying teachers and school employees an additional $10,000 a year to become certified to carry a gun in school. Kemp declined to express an opinion on that plan, although House lawmakers have greeted it coolly.

The nearly $330 million in overall bonuses will come out of the current year’s budget, said Kemp spokesperson Garrison Douglas, with lawmakers approving the money in a budget amendment once they return in January. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, a Dublin Republican, said lawmakers don’t object to Kemp spending the money now even though they haven’t officially appropriated it.

“We’ve signaled our support,” Hatchett said.

Kemp can propose new spending because state tax collections are on track to run another multibillion dollar surplus despite signs that tax revenue is in slight decline. Georgia has already built up $11 billion in unallocated surplus, in addition to its legally-designated $5.4 billion rainy day account, that Kemp and lawmakers can spend as they like.

Earlier this month, Kemp and Republican lawmakers said they would speed up an already-planned state income tax cut, setting a flat income tax rate of 5.39% starting Jan. 1. That cut, from Georgia’s current system with a top 5.75% tax rate, is projected to cost $1.1 billion in forgone tax revenue. Kemp earlier rolled back gasoline and diesel taxes for a little more than two months at an estimated cost of $450 million.

The post Georgia’s governor says the state will pay a $1,000 year-end bonus to public and school employees appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s state Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to approve rules for a new commission to discipline and remove state prosecutors, meaning the commission can’t begin operating.

Some Republicans in Georgia want the new commission to discipline or remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for winning indictments of former President Donald Trump and 18 others.

In an unsigned order, justices said they have “grave doubts” about their ability to regulate the duties of district attorneys beyond the practice of law. They said that because lawmakers hadn’t expressly ordered justices to act, they were refusing to rule one way or the other.

“If district attorneys exercise judicial power, our regulation of the exercise of that power may well be within our inherent power as the head of the Judicial Branch,” justices wrote. “But if district attorneys exercise only executive power, our regulation of the exercise of that power would likely be beyond the scope of our judicial power.”

State Rep. Houston Gaines, an Athens Republican who helped guide the law through the state House earlier this year, said he believed lawmakers could as soon as January remove the requirement for the court to approve the rules, letting the commission begin operating.

“This commission has been years in the making — and now it has its appointees and rules and regulations ready to go,” Gaines wrote in a text. “As soon as the legislature can address this final issue from the court, rogue prosecutors will be held accountable.”

Georgia’s law is one of multiple attempts nationwide by Republicans to control prosecutors they don’t like. Republicans have inveighed against progressive prosecutors after some have brought fewer drug possession cases and sought shorter prison sentences, arguing Democrats are coddling criminals.

Beyond the hurdle of state Supreme Court approval of rules, four district attorneys are suing to overturn the commission, arguing that it unconstitutionally infringes on their power.

Sherry Boston, the Democratic district attorney in suburban Atlanta’s DeKalb County and one of the four plaintiffs, said in a statement Wednesday that the order “shines a bright light on the fundamental failings” of the law.

“We are pleased the justices have taken action to stop this unconstitutional attack on the state’s prosecutors,” Boston said.

A Georgia judge in September denied an request to freeze the law from the four district attorneys, suggesting she will ultimately rule against their lawsuit.

The plaintiffs argue prosecutors are already changing their behavior because they’re worried about getting investigated.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker found the suit is unlikely to succeed, noting the Georgia Constitution “expressly authorizes the General Assembly to impose duties on district attorneys” and to create disciplinary and removal processes.

Opponents say the law creates a bias in favor of prosecuting people, but supporters including Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, argue that if district attorneys don’t prosecute, they are violating their oaths of office.

The law raises key questions about prosecutorial discretion, a bedrock of the American judicial system that allows prosecutors to decide what criminal charges to seek and how heavy of a sentence to pursue. The Georgia law states a prosecutor can’t refuse to prosecute whole categories of crimes, but must instead decide charges case by case. It applies both to district attorneys and elected solicitors general, who prosecute lower-level crimes in some Georgia counties.

Commissioners have said they can’t start operations until rules take effect. They voted in September not to investigate any acts that take place before rules are approved. It’s unclear how that decision might affect petitions asking the commission to discipline Willis, who won indictments of Trump and others in August.

Randy McGinley, the district attorney for Newton and Walton counties who has been named to lead the commission, declined comment Wednesday. McGinley said he would seek to have the commission meet next week to discuss the issue.

The post Georgia Supreme Court ruling prevents GOP-backed commission from beginning to discipline prosecutors appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia says it will appeal a judge’s order to redraw some congressional and state legislative districts, but that it won’t fight in court to pause the order for now, meaning a special session later this month to draw new lines is likely to proceed.

The filing came Wednesday in a second case challenging Georgia’s electoral districts being pursued by different plaintiffs. A three-judge panel later Wednesday indefinitely postponed that second trial, which had been scheduled for Nov. 13, after the state said it wouldn’t seek a stay of the first ruling. The judges said they wanted to wait for the results of the special session and the appeal before proceeding.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, both Republicans, have yet to comment on the substance of the order to redraw the districts and why the state isn’t seeking a stay pending its appeal.

A federal judge ruled last week that some of Georgia’s congressional, state Senate and state House districts were drawn in a racially discriminatory manner, ordering the state to draw an additional Black-majority congressional district.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, in his 516-page order, also ordered the state to draw two new Black-majority districts in Georgia’s 56-member state Senate and five new Black-majority districts in its 180-member state House.

Jones ordered Georgia’s Republican-majority General Assembly to fix the maps by Dec. 8, saying he would redaw districts if lawmakers did not. Hours after the ruling, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp issued a call for a special session to begin Nov. 29 to redraw congressional and legislative districts.

Jones’ ruling followed an eight-day trial in September in which the plaintiffs argued that Black voters are still fighting opposition from white voters and need federal help to get a fair shot, while the state argued court intervention on behalf of Black voters wasn’t needed.

The Georgia case is part of a wave of litigation after the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year stood behind its interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, rejecting a challenge to the law by Alabama.

Courts in Alabama and Florida ruled recently that Republican-led legislatures had unfairly diluted the voting power of Black residents. Legal challenges to congressional districts are also ongoing in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Jones wrote that he would not allow the 2024 elections to be conducted using districts he has found to be “unlawful.”

Jones’ order explicitly anticipated an appeal by the state. If Georgia doesn’t seek a stay, that’s likely to mean that an appeal would preserve use of the current districts only if a decision came quickly.

The qualifying deadline for congressional and legislative offices in March 8 and the U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that judges shouldn’t require changes to districts too close to an election.

That means it’s possible that Georgia could use redrawn districts in 2024 and revert to the current districts later.

State House and Senate Republicans called for an appeal after the ruling.

A new map could shift one of Georgia’s 14 congressional seats from Republican to Democratic control. GOP lawmakers redrew the congressional map from an 8-6 Republican majority to a 9-5 Republican majority in 2021. Jones ruled that lawmakers could not eliminate minority opportunity districts elsewhere when they redraw maps.

Orders to draw new legislative districts could narrow Republican majorities in the state House, where the GOP has a 102-78 edge, and in the state Senate, with a 33-23 edge.

The judge ordered one new Black-majority congressional district in western metro Atlanta, two additional Black-majority state Senate districts in southern metro Atlanta, two additional Black-majority state House districts in and around Macon, two additional Black-majority state House districts in southern metro Atlanta and one additional Black-majority state House district in western metro Atlanta.

The post Georgia says it will appeal a judge’s redistricting decision but won’t seek to pause ruling for now appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — Two Georgia juvenile court judges on Monday told U.S. Sen Jon Ossoff that the head of the state’s child welfare agency asked judges to violate state law by keeping some children inappropriately locked in juvenile detention centers.

The judges said during a hearing in Atlanta that Human Services Commissioner Candice Broce asked judges to order children with mental and behavioral problems detained by the Department of Juvenile Justice while the state’s Division of Family and Children Services looked for a place to house them.

“Commissioner Broce said that DFCS was not set up to be caregivers for these children and she asked judges to consider detaining the children, locking them up in a juvenile detention center for a few days so that DFCS could maybe find a placement for them,” said Paulding County Juvenile Judge Carolyn Altman, who said the request would violate state law. “As judges, we do not lock up children, especially special needs children, because we cannot find a place for them.”

Gwinnett County Juvenile Judge Nhan-Ai Sims also testified that Broce made the request in an August meeting.

Spokespersons for Broce and Gov. Brian Kemp didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The testimony calls into question what Broce has touted as one of her top goals, reducing the number of foster children held in hotels or state offices because the state has no other place to put them.

Last month, Broce told a state Senate committee that children in hotels had fallen to zero on Sept. 8 and had been hovering near zero in the weeks before that. At the beginning of the year, the number was 50 to 70 a night. Hoteling typically costs the state $1,500 per child per night, ties up social workers, and denies children a stable environment and needed treatment.

Sims warned pressure to meet that goal is causing DFCS to refuse to take “the most complex and heart-wrenching cases” into custody, leading to “a false sense of competence and the effectiveness of our system.”

“What I’ve seen develop in my time on the bench is a culture of child protection by the numbers — cases triaged to boost statistics and then closed prematurely in misleading triumph,” Sims testified.

The testimony from the judges came in the third event that Ossoff, a Democrat, has hosted in a week, saying an investigation by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Human Rights Subcommittee that he leads shows the Georgia agency is dysfunctional and failing to protect vulnerable children.

“Your testimony today has helped to shine a light on the urgency of reform and accountability in this system to protect the most vulnerable children in our state from serious threats to their lives, their physical and mental health, their safety and their future prospects,” Ossoff told the judges.

In a hearing last week, Ossoff discussed findings of “systemic” breakdowns by DFCS in responding to allegations of physical and sexual abuse. The agency sharply disputed the findings. Ossoff also disclosed that an internal audit from earlier this year found DFCS failed to address risk and safety concerns in 84% of reviewed cases. On Friday, Ossoff discussed an analysis that found 1,790 children in state care were reported missing between 2018 and 2022. It’s unclear how that number compares to other states.

It’s not clear what Ossoff may propose to remedy the problems. He says the investigation is still gathering facts. He and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, started the inquiry in February after questions about breakdowns in Georgia’s child welfare system, including a report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Ossoff will be up for reelection in 2026, and the Republican Kemp could challenge him. Questions about the child welfare system could be a campaign issue.

Kemp put Broce, his longtime aide, in charge of the sprawling Department of Human Services in 2021. The lawyer had previously been named director of the department’s Division of Family and Children Services. It’s unusual for one person to hold both jobs.

Broce pushed a law during Georgia’s legislative session this year that made it harder for juvenile court judges to place a child into DFCS custody. During that push, Broce told lawmakers that some juvenile judges were improperly placing children in state custody. Broce also accused some parents of jettisoning difficult children into foster care.

Judges, though, said that the law doesn’t solve children’s problems.

“On the state level, I see our child-serving agencies creating legislation to circumvent the responsibilities and shifting blame onto other agencies when confronted with their own failures to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our children,” Sims said.

The post Judges say Georgia’s child welfare leader asked them to illegally detain children in juvenile jails appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

WINDER, Ga. (AP) — Georgia’s lieutenant governor said Wednesday that he wants to pay teachers $10,000 a year to encourage them to carry guns in schools.

Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, speaking at Austin Road Elementary School in Winder on Wednesday, said he wants the state to spend more money on school safety, including paying for teachers and other non-officers to take firearms training, and paying teachers who hold a firearms training certificate an annual stipend.

His plan also calls for stricter standards for already-required school safety plans and boosting money the state gives schools to hire school resource officers with police certification. Salary and benefits for such officers can cost $80,000 or more.

“We feel like this is the best way to prepare faculty, but also prepare law enforcement and the system however we can,” Jones said, saying the state should be “proactive” to prevent shootings.

Former President Donald Trump and others have called for arming teachers, saying gun-free school zones are targets for armed assailants.

But Lisa Morgan, the president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said her teacher group “categorically” opposes anyone besides certified officers carrying guns in schools. She suggested Jones instead write legislation to hire more counselors.

“Teachers should not be armed in the classroom,” Morgan said. “We are not there to serve as law enforcement and introducing more firearms into the school is not a way to solve the problem of violence in our schools.”

Critics also say that lots of practice will be needed to use a gun properly in an emergency, and that there’s a history of even regular police officers accidentally shooting guns at schools.

Barrow County Superintendent Chris McMichael said that although his district allows its security chief to carry a gun, the school board would have to carefully examine arming other employees. He supports increased funding for school resource officers, saying the district has 15 or 16 officers, not enough to have one in each of its 20 schools.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith was more enthusiastic, saying armed teachers could be a “force multiplier” in case of a shooting.

The Professional Association of Georgia Educators, the state’s largest teacher group, called for school safety funding to be rolled into the state’s school funding formula, making it reliable from year to year, instead of being doled out in one-time grants.

Margaret Ciccarelli, PAGE’s top lobbyist, said that in a recent survey, 4,000 members ranked letting non-officers carry guns as last among preferred school safety measures. Top priorities were mental health interventions, more school resource officers and better safety plans.

Since 2014, Georgia has allowed local school boards to permit trained people who aren’t police officers to carry guns at schools, including teachers. It’s unclear how many districts have done so, although at least five school districts allow some non-officers to carry guns. In Barrow and Cobb counties, that policy only applies to security personnel without police certification, not teachers.

Jones and his allies emphasize the program would be voluntary. Teachers wouldn’t be required to participate, and teachers could carry guns only in districts where a school board voted to allow it.

“These are not mandates,” said state Sen. Max Burns, a Sylvania Republican who said he will sponsor the legislation in 2024. “These are local decisions by a local school board to tailor programs that fit the unique situations in your school system.”

Georgia has 180 school districts and more than 2,300 public schools teaching 1.75 million students. State Department of Education figures show Georgia schools have close to 2,000 school resource officers. Seven school districts and 15 in-person charter schools report no officers.

Jones, who needs conservative credentials if he runs for governor in 2026 against other Republicans, said he wouldn’t support restrictions on guns in any school safety package.

“I’m not talking about that. We’re talking about trying to protect the school systems right now,” Jones said.

It’s unclear if other top Republicans support Jones’ proposed legislation. Kaleb McMichen, a spokesperson for state House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington, said Burns hasn’t seen the plan. A spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp declined comment. State Superintendent Richard Woods didn’t immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

Jones’ program is modeled on a proposal in Texas that did not pass. It would have paid teachers an extra $25,000 a year if they took firearms and mental-health training and learned first aid. That proposal came after a 2022 shooting in which a gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers in 2022 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Instead, Texas mandated that every campus should have a certified officer. Texas schools have struggled to meet that mandate, saying they lack money and that police officers are in short supply.

Like Georgia, Texas already allows teachers to carry guns, but has had few takers.

The post Georgia’s lieutenant governor wants to pay teachers $10,000 a year to carry guns at school appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) — It was a bad place to keep a secret.

When Republicans gathered on Dec. 14, 2020, claiming to be legitimate electors casting the state’s 16 electoral votes for Donald Trump, they met at the Georgia Capitol in a room just upstairs from the building’s public entrance. A Trump campaign official asked for the electors’ “complete discretion,” telling them to say only that they were meeting with two state senators who were there.

“Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion,” Robert Sinners wrote in an email uncovered by investigators.

But reporters for The Associated Press and other news organizations noticed the Republicans entering the building and were eventually admitted into the room, where they photographed and recorded video of the proceeding. In the chaotic weeks after the 2020 election, the gathering’s significance wasn’t immediately clear. But it has emerged as a critical element to the prosecution of Trump and 18 others who were indicted by a Georgia grand jury in August for efforts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state.

The meeting was cited as a central element in court proceedings Friday as part of a last-minute deal with attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

Chesebro, who prosecutors have said helped originate the plan for Republican electors to meet in states where Biden was certified as the winner, is now one of three people who have pleaded guilty in the case. Attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty Thursday to six misdemeanors accusing her of intentionally interfering with the performance of election duties as part of a broader conspiracy prosecutors say violated Georgia`s anti-racketeering law.

The meeting was led by David Shafer, then chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. Lending it the air of an official proceeding, a court reporter was present, something Shafer denied during questioning by Fulton County prosecutors in April 2022. That denial contributed to a charge of false statements and writings against Shafer.

More improvised elements of the meeting became clear as the group considered its officers. Shawn Still, who is now a state senator, wasn`t initially elected as secretary, for instance. But halfway through the meeting, Shafer noted that Still’s name was printed as the secretary on documents.

“I would like to avoid reprinting the documents,” Shafer said, asking the electors to replace another Republican with Still.

One of only three people the grand jury indicted for participating in the vote, Still may have been dragged into legal jeopardy when he was elected secretary. The third indicted elector, Cathy Latham, was also charged for helping outsiders access state voting equipment in south Georgia’s Coffee County.

As the meeting unfolded, the Republicans sought to replace four electors who were previously lined up to support Trump. One had registered to vote in Alabama and was no longer eligible. State Sen. Burt Jones, later elected lieutenant governor with Trump’s backing, took his spot.

Three other electors didn’t show up, including John Isakson Jr., son of late Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. Isakson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2022 that he stayed away because the meeting seemed like “political gamesmanship.”

Prosecutors allege Shafer and Still committed yet more felonies by creating a document claiming to fill those vacancies. State law says that action needed Gov. Brian Kemp’s consent. The Republican governor had days earlier certified Biden as Georgia’s winner for a second time after a recount.

Sinners, the Trump official, printed new elector certificates on a noisy portable printer. The racket of the machine gave the meeting a mundane, bureaucratic feel in an unadorned space usually set aside for state lawmakers to host constituents.

One by one, the 16 Republicans were called. Each rose and walked to the table, signing certificates pronouncing Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence as the preferred choice of Georgia voters. That’s the moment, grand jurors allege, when they committed the felonies for which they’ve been charged: impersonating a public officer, first degree forgery and making false statements in writing.

“They were fake electors; they were impersonating electors. They were no electors,” Fulton County prosecutor Anna Cross told a federal judge in September, adding there was no evidence that Shafer, Still, Latham or other Republicans believed Trump had actually won.

Their defenders call them “alternate” or “contingent” electors, saying they were just trying to keep Trump’s legal options open as a lawsuit challenged Georgia`s election results. Some Republicans argue Trump never got a fair shake in Georgia because that lawsuit was never tried, despite a state law calling for election challenges to be heard within 20 days. A Georgia Republican Party website raising money to defend electors calls them “patriots who served.”

“If we did not hold this meeting, then our election contest would effectively be abandoned,” Shafer said during the December meeting, talking to attorney Ray Smith, who was there advising the electors and was also indicted. “And so the only way for us to have any judge consider the merits of our complaint, the thousands of people who we allege voted unlawfully, is for us to have this meeting.”

Shafer defended his actions then and now by citing an episode that played out in Hawaii in 1960. Democrats met that year after Republican Richard Nixon was certified as the state’s winner and sent three electoral votes to the U.S. Senate backing John F. Kennedy.

Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia, signed a July 11 declaration concluding actions by Shafer and other Georgia Republican electors were “lawful, reasonable, proper and necessary” considering the election contest and the Hawaii precedent.

Lawyers for the indicted electors argue it was up to Congress to determine which slates should be counted.

But Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office, in a court filing, disputed Shafer’s claim that the actions of Georgia Republicans in 2020 bore any similarity to those of Hawaii Democrats in 1960. Her staff cites a major distinction, Democrats eventually won a recount in Hawaii that a court affirmed and the governor certified, sending official documents to the Senate.

“The factual situations are so readily distinguishable as to make the comparison meaningless,” Willis’ team wrote, arguing against Shafer’s attempt to remove his case to federal court. Willis’ office wrote that the Republican meeting “was used to further a clumsy but relentless pressure campaign on the vice president and state legislatures, and as a means to publicly undermine the legitimate results of the presidential election.”

Sinners, the Trump campaign staffer who helped arrange the meeting, now rejects its purpose. He denies the notion that Trump won Georgia and now works for Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who came to national attention for rebuffing pressure from the then-president to “find” enough votes to ensure his win. Sinners cooperated with the U.S. House committee that investigated the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. He hasn’t said whether he’s cooperating with Willis.

In an interview, he made his regrets clear about what unfolded in the Georgia Capitol during one of the most turbulent periods in American politics.

“This was an ill-advised attempt by the former president’s campaign to create a false reality a victory,” Sinners said.

The post Inside the meeting of Republican electors who sought to thwart Biden’s election win in Georgia appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.