After the Nashville city council voted to reinstate Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones to the state legislature, he and his supporters left the chambers immediately and marched to the state Capitol.
They took a deliberate route down John Lewis Way, a street named for the late Georgia Congressman after his death in 2020. Some of the same Republican state legislators who voted to expel Jones and another Black lawmaker last week had also attempted to take Lewis’ name off a portion of the street.
There was an unsuccessful effort to name a few blocks after former President Donald Trump instead. That was abandoned after protests which didn’t make the same national splash but foreshadowed some of the racial animus to come.
Credit: Jon Cherry/The New York Times
Credit: Jon Cherry/The New York Times
In the recent controversy, Jones and fellow Democrats Justin Pearson of Memphis and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, were chastised by their GOP colleagues for leading a gun control protest onto the House floor. Progressive and young voters had called on the state to act after a school shooting led to the death of three 9-year-olds.
Technically, the lawmakers had broken House rules by approaching the podium without being recognized. The GOP supermajority kicked out Pearson and Jones, who are Black. The vote to expel Johnson, who is white, failed by a single vote.
Republicans faced national criticism, accused of hypocrisy for moving so quickly to oust the lawmakers while slow-walking or flat out refusing to discipline members of their own party accused of far worse.
Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Nashville on Friday after the expulsion votes, encouraging the “Nashville 3″ and their supporters to keep fighting for change. She spoke on the campus of Fisk University, Lewis’ alma mater where a social justice institute is named for him. Jones also graduated from Fisk, and he has studied at the John Lewis Center for Social Justice.
Harris told the crowd to remember Lewis and other civil rights leaders as they continue to fight for change.
“We have seen over 7,000 students and young leaders go to the capitol to talk about what John Lewis and Diane Nash talked about — the importance of freedom, the importance of liberty, the importance of respecting the right of all people to live where they receive dignity, where they live in a place that they can be free from harm,” Harris said.
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TRAINING CENTER CRITIC One of Atlanta’s most prominent civil rights advocates penned a commentary criticizing the proposed public safety center that’s championed by the city’s most powerful political and corporate interests.
The Rev. Bernice King, chief executive of The King Center and daughter of the slain civil rights hero, called on Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and his allies to “expand your efforts in police and justice reform” and take holistic steps toward public safety.
“I also urge you to revisit the programming and design of the training center and to identify a more suitable location,” she wrote in the AJC piece. “Ignoring the calls of the community will only multiply the cries.”
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
She joins a group of environmentalists, criminal justice advocates and other critics who oppose the $90 million center. Dickens and other supporters see it as crucial to train police officers and firefighters who have long endured inadequate facilities.
King also had sharp words for opponents who have turned to violence to thwart the construction, including demonstrations that were “infiltrated with anarchy.”
“It is imperative that we reject physical retaliation and center our actions in nonviolence as we exercise our power to participate,” she wrote.
And she urged the city’s corporate leaders to “reconcile the racial equity and social justice pledges made during the 2020 uprisings and beyond to ensure your financial contributions are stewarded in a way consistent with those commitments.”
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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
DRUG COSTS. Three major pharmaceutical companies have already capped the price of insulin at $35 a month. The nation’s top health official believes more will soon voluntarily join the movement.
“Guess what? The mojo is with us. The momentum is with the president and his efforts to lower prescription drug costs,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters in Atlanta.
He added: “We’re now going to get to do the same thing and use that momentum when it comes to other drugs.”
Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi — the three dominant makers of insulin — each announced this year they would cut the price of their insulin drugs to $35 a month.
It came after U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath helped lead the charge for a provision tucked into the Inflation Reduction Act to establish a $35 monthly cap on insulin for Medicare recipients.
Warnock last month introduced a new proposal with U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, to broaden the cap to all patients, regardless of insurance status.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff also touted the caps at Monday’s press conference.
“This is about life and death,” said Ossoff. “This is about the ability of seniors in America to sustain themselves.”
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Credit: Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times
Credit: Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times
ABORTION DRUG PLANS. With a Texas judge’s ruling that the abortion drug mifepristone was approved improperly more than 20 years ago, NBC News spoke with abortion clinics in nine states, including Georgia, about their next moves if access to the drug is curtailed later this week.
One clinic said it is preparing for more surgical abortions, while several said they will continue to prescribe a single drug, misoprostol, that is usually used in combination with mifepristone, to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks.
One provider said staff in her clinic fully expect to lose access to mifepristone, even with a Justice Department appeal of the Texas decision.
“We have no faith in the system to take care of the women at all,” she said. “We’re not expecting much from any court — not from the judge, not from the 5th Circuit [the relevant federal appeals court], not from the Supreme Court.”
NBC estimated it could take years for the drug to regain full FDA approval if appeals to the decision fail.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
EASIER SAID THAN DONE. While some Democrats are eager to back a primary challenge against state Rep. Mesha Mainor over her votes with the GOP on school voucher and public safety issues, it’s not clear who will run.
Some senior party figures have tried to recruit former state Rep. “Able” Mable Thomas to mount a comeback against Mainor, who now holds parts of the Atlanta-based district Thomas once represented.
But Thomas told us she’s got her eye on a bigger prize.
“I’m still interested in Congress,” said Thomas, who mounted an unsuccessful 2020 bid for the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis.
Our pal Niles Francis has an illuminating interview with Mainor in which she describes her maverick tendencies – and has barbed words for Democrats who seek to oust her.
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Credit: Al Drago/The New York Times
Credit: Al Drago/The New York Times
TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden will travel today to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and will spend the rest of the week touring this region as well as the Republic of Ireland.
- The U.S. House and Senate are on an Easter and Passover recess until April 17.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
WISHFUL THINKING. Are Gov. Brian Kemp Kemp and President Joe Biden’s Health Secretary, Xavier Becerra, having an unexpected bipartisan moment?
That was our question when a news release listed Kemp as the top guest at a Becerra press conference Monday in Atlanta on the “State of Black Georgia Health Report.”
When one of your Insiders inquired about the odd coupling, Kemp’s office said the governor was not invited to the event and did not attend. An HHS spokeswoman later said there was a miscommunication.
“An invite was mistakenly read as a confirmation on our end,” the spokeswoman wrote on Twitter.
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DOG OF THE DAY. If you live in Gainesville, you’ve probably heard WDUN’s Martha Zoller on her morning radio show.
But what you didn’t know is that Cissy, the St. Bernard-boxer mix, was likely keeping Zoller company while prepped for the show that day.
Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
Zoller adopted the once-abused pup last year from a St. Bernard rescue in Milledgeville. She then gave Cissy her new name “because she’s from a bad home,” and moved her to Gainesville.
Along with Cissy’s new radio gig, she spends her time posing for iPhone pics, napping on the back deck, and now, being the Jolt Dog of the Day. Congrats, Cissy!
Send us your pups of any political persuasion — and cats on a cat-by-cat basis to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us on Twitter @MurphyAJC.
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AS ALWAYS, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
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