Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a Tuesday voting access event that strict new election laws enacted by Republican lawmakers around the country — including in Georgia — are discouraging people from voting.
And Bottoms, a Democrat who is now a senior aide for public engagement to President Joe Biden, raised concerns about a lack of enthusiasm ahead of midterm elections that will not only decide control of statewide offices, but the U.S. House and Senate.
Bottoms said Georgia’s voting law, passed in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020, includes provisions that especially harm minority voters.
Georgia, which Biden carried by about 12,000 votes, enacted new rules on absentee voting and restricted the use of drop boxes, two targets of Trump’s false claims of widespread voting fraud here and in other states.
People of color cast absentee ballots at a higher rate than white voters in 2020, and they’re less likely to have a driver’s license, the primary form of ID for absentee voting under the law.
“We’ve talked about the ID laws and all of these other things that make it more challenging for people to vote,” Bottoms said. “This takes us again back to 1964, 1965. It doesn’t appear on the surface as extreme, but the result is still the same.”
Bottoms was a featured speaker Tuesday at an Axios Media event in Washington, D.C.. Axios, like The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a Cox Enterprises company.
Bottoms’ remarks closely echoed those by Biden and other administration officials who have likened new Republican-backed voting changes to Jim Crow-era restrictions.
Federal courts have upheld parts of the law so far against several court challenges. Though absentee voting declined in the June primaries, overall turnout reached record levels for a midterm primary, according to Georgia election data.
Democrats have portrayed the law as “Jim Crow 2.0″ and Republicans touted it as improving “election integrity,” but results of the primary analyzed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution have shown a more nuanced impact.
Voting rights advocates have said the law motivated Georgians to make their voices heard at the polls after church leaders and voting organizations worked to engage and register voters since the law passed.
Bottoms said she’s concerned because she doesn’t see any enthusiasm for the election even though Republicans and Democrats need to maintain momentum for voting.
She said the biggest motivator for turnout will be the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the nearly half-century ruling granting abortion rights.
Bottoms urged people to support the Biden administration in convincing Congress to pass federal protections for voters. U.S. Senate Republicans would likely use a 60-vote filibuster to hinder those bills from advancing, so Bottoms said the senators should overturn the filibuster in this case for the sake of democracy.
“I think putting things in place that make it more difficult and not easier for people to vote is the antithesis of what this country was founded upon,” Bottoms said.
The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Trump demonstrated democracy’s fragility, Bottoms said.
Bottoms has long served as a campaign surrogate for Biden. But earlier this summer, Bottoms joined the Biden administration as a White House senior advisor for public engagement.
She said during the event that she’s now limited in what she can disclose because of her administration role. She also clarified that she is no longer privy to the president’s reelection strategies.
However, Bottoms did voice support for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ expected reelection bid in 2024.
When Bottoms was asked about her White House role, she admitted leaving her family in Atlanta has been stressful for her. She joked about needing a psychiatrist given her time in politics, noting how she previously turned down a job in Biden’s cabinet months before she ended her mayoral reelection bid.
“It was a very difficult decision, but just one that I couldn’t say no to again,” said Bottoms. “My commitment was to stay through the midterms. We’ll see what happens.”
— Staff writer Mark Niesse contributed to this article.
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