Stop Stacey Inc., an Athens-based group formed by Kemp allies, isn’t waiting to see whether Abrams will run. It’s already collected $240,533 this year. The biggest chunk of that money, $145,000, came from Georgia United Victory, a political action committee that was formed last year to support then-U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s unsuccessful bid to win a full term.

Under state law, “independent committees” such as Stop Stacey can’t coordinate with a candidate’s campaign. So Stop Stacey isn’t supposed to plan what it’s doing with the Kemp reelection campaign.

But committees such as Stop Stacey are important tools for any campaign because they can raise unlimited amounts of cash from individuals, PACs and special interests. Meanwhile, Kemp’s official reelection campaign can only take about $18,000 from any one donor.

Republicans in the General Assembly added to the fundraising toolbox this year by passing legislation to create “leadership committees” that top incumbents and candidates can form to collect unlimited amounts.

If she wins her party’s nomination, Abrams will be able to form a similar committee, but not until after next year’s primary. That gives Kemp a big head start.

Even though Abrams is biding her time, she shouldn’t have a hard time raising money. She spent $27.4 million on her 2018 campaign, outpacing the $21.4 million Kemp paid out. The total cost of that election, once you count all the expenses of supporting groups, exceeded $100 million.

Abrams followed up that election by creating the voting rights group Fair Fight, which has since become a financial force in campaigns in Georgia and across the country. It has raised more than $100 million in the past 2 1/2 years.

Fair Fight played a major role in Georgia Democratic successes in 2020, and it’s expected to play a similar role in 2022, most likely supporting Abrams and other party hopefuls aiming to capture statewide posts that have been in Republican hands for more than a decade.

As of the end June, the group reported having about $25 million on hand.

But before Kemp faces Abrams or any other Democrat, he has to beat back a primary challenge from Vernon Jones.

Jones, a former Democratic state representative, has raised $650,000 in 10 weeks thanks to help from members of the inner circle of former President Donald Trump.

Trump has vowed to defeat Kemp after the governor refused to overturn the results of the presidential election Georgia. But the former president has not endorsed Jones. Still a Trump ally, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, offered his backing at a fundraiser last week.

— In the U.S. Senate race, Republican Latham Saddler has collected more than $1.4 million in the first 10 weeks of his campaign.

That’s an impressive haul for a newcomer, falling just short of the $1.5 million that Democrat Raphael Warnock — the man Saddler hopes to replace — took in during the first quarter of his candidacy last year.

— In the lieutenant governor’s race, state Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller was set to announce that he had raised about $2 million since joining the contest five weeks ago.

On the Democratic side, state Rep. Erick Allen reported raising roughly $106,000 and has $99,000 on hand. State Rep. Derrick Jackson says he took in about $73,000 and has about $70,000 in the bank.

— In the attorney general’s race, Republican incumbent Chris Carr raised about $570,000 over the past three months, bringing his total to $1.3 million. He still has about $1 million in cash on hand.

One of the Democrats hoping to replace Carr, state Sen. Jen Jordan, reported raising about $673,000.

—In the contest for secretary of state, U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican from Greensboro, raised $575,000.

David Belle Isle, the former Republican mayor of Alpharetta, says he’ll report collecting about $160,000, with $100,000 in the bank.

On the Democratic side, state Rep. Bee Nguyen has taken in about $386,000 since launching her campaign in early May. She still has nearly all of it.

— In the race for labor commissioner, Republican state Sen. Bruce Thompson reported raising about $100,000 and loaned himself an additional $150,000.

That’s outpacing the incumbent, fellow Republican Mark Butler, who collected about $31,000 in donations and loaned himself an additional $64,000. He’s got $95,000 in the bank.

— In the 10th Congressional District, Republican Matt Richards reports raising slightly more than $100,000 since entering the race a month ago.

Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS

Duncan could be a campaign spender in 2022

What do you do with campaign money if you have no campaign?

That’s the question now facing Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan.

Duncan announced earlier this year that he will not seek reelection after drawing the scorn of former President Donald Trump and other fellow Republicans for rejecting false claims that the election in Georgia was stolen.

But Duncan still has $827,000 in his campaign account.

The lieutenant governor has no specific plans for the money just yet. He has some options, though, including giving it to other candidates’ state campaigns.

His largest expense in the first half of 2021 was $17,000 he paid for polling in April. He announced in mid-May that he would not run in 2022.

Duncan also runs a separate fundraising committee called Advance Georgia that he began ahead of last year’s election to help preserve the GOP’s dominance in the state Senate. It had more than $100,000 at its disposal at the end of 2020, and some special interests down at the Capitol continued to throw checks its way earlier this year.

Ruling backs voting law, at least for now

Georgia’s new voting law survived its first court showdown this past week. But it was matter of timing, not the measure’s merits.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee wrote in his order that he wouldn’t “change the law in the ninth inning” with runoffs underway for seats in the state House.

Boulee’s ruling applies to the plaintiffs’ request for immediate action, but the underlying lawsuit remains pending in federal court.

The lawsuit — filed by the Coalition for Good Governance, an election security organization — opposed new requirements that voters request absentee ballots at least 11 days before election day, a deadline that limited the time available to vote by mail in the runoffs. The suit also seeks court intervention to prevent restrictions on election observation.

The plaintiffs had sought an injunction to halt enforcement of the voting law, Senate Bill 202, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed March 25.

This lawsuit, one of eight filed so far against the voting law, opposes prohibitions on observing voters casting ballots on brightly lit touchscreens, reporting problems to anyone but election officials, estimating absentee ballots cast and photographing voted ballots.

It differs from the most recent suit, which the U.S. Justice Department filed last month opposing voter ID requirements, ballot drop box limits, provisional ballot rejections and a ban on volunteers handing out food and water to voters waiting in line.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cheered the ruling.

“This is just another in the line of frivolous lawsuits against Georgia’s election law based on misinformation and lies,” he said. “We will continue to meet them and beat them in court.”

Boulee, who is handling all eight cases, based his order on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said courts generally shouldn’t change existing rules when elections are imminent. The court found that altering election rules could bewilder voters and discourage them from participating.

Early voting is underway in runoffs for two state House special elections. Election day is Tuesday.

In Cobb County, Republican Devan Seabaugh faces Democrat Priscilla Smith in a contest to replace former state Rep. Bert Reeves, a Republican from Marietta who resigned to take a job at Georgia Tech.

In a South Georgia race, Republicans Leesa Hagan and Wally Sapp are seeking the seat of former state Rep. Greg Morris, a Republican from Vidalia who quit to join the State Transportation Board.

GOP ads link Warnock voting stance to ‘welfare’

CNN ranks Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s seat No. 2 on its list of “most likely to flip” in next year’s election.

The network says national Republicans, sensing that vulnerability, are hitting Warnock for his support for the wide-ranging voting legislation known as the For the People Act, with television ads calling the bill “the welfare for politicians plan” because it includes a provision for public financing of campaigns.

The “welfare” angle appears to be aimed at Warnock, who grew up living in public housing. Similar ads that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has targeted at other senators it perceives as vulnerable do not use the word.

Critics cite a language barrier in redistricting process

Advocates are seeking a voice in the redistricting process for nearly 1.5 million Georgians for whom English is not a first language.

That’s about 14% of Georgia’s 10.7 million residents who speak a language other than English at home, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Another way to look at it: the population of almost two of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Critics say the state could be excluding these residents from a process that will determine how congressional and legislative districts will be drawn, resulting in who will represent them in state and federal government.

“There is so much about the process that is not designed to include everybody’s voices, and to not have any information available in any other language, it’s just another aspect of that,” said Djemanesh Aneteneh, a redistricting coordinator with Fair Count, a nonprofit that Democrat Stacey Abrams founded after losing the 2018 governor’s race. “It’s excluding lots of people from this process of choosing how they want their communities to be seen and represented.”

At a public forum the House and Senate reapportionment committees held in Dalton — where the U.S. Census Bureau reports about 46% of residents identify as Hispanic — a speaker pointed out that there was no sign language interpreter for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Kaleb McMichen, a spokesman for House Speaker David Ralston, said the committee is “using the same procedures as the other standing committees of the Georgia House of Representatives.” Legislative committees don’t offer meetings in languages other than English.

The committee still has five more town hall meetings scheduled:

Georgians who can’t attend the town hall meetings in person can submit written testimony on the General Assembly website at www.legis.ga.gov/news/senate/submit-written-testimony-to-senate-and-house-redistricting-committees.

Credit: Alyssa Pointer

Credit: Alyssa Pointer

Indicted lawmaker exits House GOP leadership

There will be at least some shake-up in the Republican leadership of the state House when the Legislature next meets.

State Rep. Trey Kelley is giving up the post of House majority whip, saying in an email to colleagues that he wants to “dedicate more time and energy to my professional and personal life.”

The Cedartown lawmaker confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he plans to keep his seat in the General Assembly.

Kelley was indicted in December by a Polk County grand jury on misdemeanor charges of reckless conduct stemming from his actions following a fatal hit-and-run in 2019.

Records show Kelley’s friend Ralph Dover III called him instead of calling 911 after Dover hit a bicyclist and left the scene of the accident.

Prosecutors say Kelley, who arrived at the scene shortly after he received the call, called the local chief of police, who also did not call 911.

Kelley told the AJC last year that he did not initially call 911 because he didn’t know exactly what happened.

“At that time, I still did not know another human being was involved,” he said in a statement. “I fully cooperated with law enforcement.”

Greene makes another Nazi-virus reference

A few weeks ago, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene issued an apology, saying: “I should own it. I made a mistake.”

That followed her comparison of mask mandates to the Nazis forcing Jewish people to wear gold stars.

Now, she has once again likened efforts to halt the coronavirus pandemic to the actions of the Third Reich.

In response to President Joe Biden’s call for a door-to-door campaign to promote inoculations against the coronvirus, Greene said on Twitter that people “don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations.”

The “brown shirts” were the Nazi militia that helped Adolf Hitler rise to power in Germany.

Candidates, endorsements, etc.:

— Retired General Michael Flynn, former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, has endorsed Vernon Jones in his race against Gov. Brian Kemp in the GOP primary.

— Matt Richards, a Republican running in the 10th Congressional District, gained the endorsement of Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith.