Last month, our AJC colleague Ernie Suggs broke a most unusual story. State Rep. Angela Moore, a DeKalb County Democrat, received a stinging letter from one of the nation’s most respected Black sororities.
The message from Delta Sigma Theta was blunt. It demanded she stop misrepresenting herself as a member of the famed sorority since there were no records that she was a Delta.
Moore didn’t respond to calls or messages for Suggs’ story. But on Wednesday she told WSB’s Audrey Washington she was “sorry that we had to take you through this” while maintaining she was a sorority member.
She said she pledged to join the sorority under a former married name but then changed the name after a divorce to distance herself from her ex-husband. That’s why her name doesn’t match Delta’s records.
Moore told Washington she “refused” to disclose her former married name and ignored several additional messages from Suggs seeking more details, such as where and when she joined the sorority.
She said she intends to prove she is a member of the sorority, which still disputes her membership.
There’s more, too. WSB reported other claims that Moore had misrepresented herself as a military veteran and an OB-GYN physician in the past.
Moore said she characterized herself as a “family veteran” because she has relatives who served in the military. And she said she is no physician but “worked in an OB-GYN” practice.
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GEORGIA THIRD. As a June 18 runoff approaches, former Donald Trump aide Brian Jack hasn’t raised enough cash to replicate the full-scale campaign blitz that helped fuel his first-place finish in the May primary for Georgia’s 3rd District seat.
But he’s getting some backup from the conservative Club for Growth in his race against former Georgia Senate GOP leader Mike Dugan.
The organization said it was spending $120,000 to finance a round of 30-second ad buys on Fox News for pro-Jack ads that feature Trump’s endorsement.
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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
RUNOFF RIFTS. The GOP split over the candidates vying to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson isn’t the only deep partisan divide in the June 18 runoff. There’s also an interesting Democratic proxy battle underway for a reconfigured Middle Georgia legislative seat.
Democrats Tangie Herring and Juawn Jackson are squaring off for the open Georgia House seat, and both have attracted rival Democrats to their camps.
Herring, a schoolteacher, initially sought to challenge House Minority Leader James Beverly, who she labeled ineffective. But she was drawn out of his district last year in a Republican-led overhaul of state and federal legislative boundaries. Now Beverly is one of her opponent’s most important backers.
Herring has drawn support from an opposing camp of Democrats. They include former Gov. Roy Barnes, Macon-Bibb Mayor Lester Miller and state Rep. Sam Park — the second-ranking Democrat in the House — along with Reps. Stacey Evans and Shea Roberts.
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RETRIBUTION. Republicans in Congress left Capitol Hill this week talking about revenge for the 34 guilty verdicts delivered by a New York jury against former President Donald Trump but haven’t really mapped out a plan of what they might try to pass in the House.
Our pal Jamie Dupree says the GOP goal is simple — to retaliate against New York prosecutors, the U.S. Justice Department’s special counsel, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
JANUARY 6. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is the target of a probe by U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the Cassville Republican who chairs a House Oversight subcommittee reviewing the investigation conducted by the January 6th Select Committee in 2021 and 2022.
On Thursday, Loudermilk called for Willis to reveal any contacts she had with Cassidy Hutchinson, the White House aide to former President Donald Trump whose testimony became a centerpiece of the Jan. 6 investigation. Hutchinson also testified before a Fulton County special purpose grand jury investigating alleged criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. Trump and 18 others were later indicted.
Loudermilk says it’s already known that Willis asked the January 6th Select Committee for records which might help her investigation into Trump’s effort to overturn his election loss in Georgia.
The Georgia Republican set a deadline of June 20 for Willis to respond.
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Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
BANNON CONTEMPT. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, responded angrily to the news Thursday that a judge had ordered former President Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon to report to prison by July 1 to serve a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.
Bannon was convicted on the charge in 2022 after refusing to cooperate with the January 6th Select Committee’s investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol. A federal appeals court upheld that ruling last month.
“I have been begging, pleading, and practically yelling at my Republican House colleagues and our Speaker to DO SOMETHING,” Greene posted on social media on Thursday, again demanding immediate retaliation.
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Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
GEORGIA 2024. The day after Senate Republicans blocked an effort to codify nationwide access to contraception, key Georgia Democrats held a news conference touting President Joe Biden’s reproductive rights stance.
“President Biden has always fought for women, and he will continue to do so,” said former state Sen. Jen Jordan. “There is so much at stake in this election. For women, there is more at stake than ever before.”
Democrats have pushed for federal legislation protecting birth control access in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Following that ruling, justices raised the specter of reviewing other precedents that could threaten the right to contraception.
Senate leaders also previewed a vote scheduled for next week involving access to in vitro fertilization treatments. Democrats have pressed for legislation protecting access to IVF since an Alabama court ruled that embryos at any stage, including those used in IVF, are legally children.
That state’s legislature responded by drafting and passing a law that protects IVF.
Democrats in the Georgia General Assembly pushed a state-level measure this year to protect IVF that never gained traction. But a bipartisan group of House lawmakers rallied behind a non-binding resolution that declared there “should be no question that in vitro fertilization will remain available in the State of Georgia.”
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Credit: Christina Matacotta for the AJC
Credit: Christina Matacotta for the AJC
LISTEN UP. Today on “Politically Georgia,” former state Sen. Jen Jordan joins the show to look at the importance of women’s rights this election year.
Listen live at 10 a.m. on WABE 90.1 or follow “Politically Georgia” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you missed Thursday’s show, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens updated us on the city’s water supply and infrastructure and offered a look at how the water main break crisis unfolded last week.
Also, former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan discussed his latest AJC commentary on the political fallout of former President Donald Trump’s recent felony convictions. And immigration attorney Charles Kuck detailed President Joe Biden’s executive order limiting migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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Credit: John Spink/AJC
Credit: John Spink/AJC
OLD PIPES. Last weekend’s water main breaks in Atlanta have prompted a deep dive into the history of the city’s infrastructure by the AJC reporting team. A search of our own news archives turned up an interesting nugget: In 1921, the Atlanta City Council voted to spend $562 for a water main on 11th St. in the same meeting they approved the purchase of 10 mules for the sanitation department.
As AJC Deputy Managing Editor Jennifer Brett wrote in a recent social media post, “When they talk about aging infrastructure, they are not kidding.”
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden continues to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day with a speech on the importance of defending democracy at Pointe du Hoc in France.
- The House and Senate are in recess until Tuesday.
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Credit: Stephen B. Morton for the AJC
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for the AJC
‘MILLION DOLLAR SCHOLAR.’ Recent high school grad Madison Crowell’s academic success is drawing praise from Republicans and Democrats alike, even in an election year.
The Hinesville resident received nearly $15 million in scholarship offers from more than 200 colleges. The awards are believed to be a national record and prompted letters of congratulations from President Joe Biden, Gov. Brian Kemp and Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
AJC contributor Ariel Felton spent an afternoon with Crowell recently to learn how the stellar student monetized her smarts and why she decided to attend High Point University in North Carolina.
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AS ALWAYS, Politically Georgia readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.vanbrimmer@ajc.com.
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