Gov. Brian Kemp and other state GOP leaders keep pleading with the party to focus on the future and not the past. But much of the lineup for the Georgia GOP convention this weekend looks like a throwback to the swirl of election fraud lies surrounding the 2020 election.
Former President Donald Trump is expected to use his speech to promote disproven lies about election fraud and revive his fight with Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and others who refused his attempt to overturn the results.
Kari Lake, the keynote speaker for a Friday gala, contested her November defeat in Arizona’s race for governor as recently as last week, even after courts rejected her claims of fraud.
Election conspiracy theorist Garland Favorito, whose lawsuit alleges counterfeit ballots tainted the 2020 election, will deliver a luncheon seminar to delegates.
Other speakers include U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, who still falsely tells audiences that “Trump won Georgia.”
Christine Tannous/AJC
Christine Tannous/AJC
Favorito’s appearance caught the eye of our AJC colleague Mark Niesse, who notes that the activist is the lead plaintiff in a recently revived lawsuit alleging there were “pristine” absentee ballots, with perfectly filled-in ovals and no fold marks, during a hand recount after the presidential election.
Election investigators did not find any fake ballots in the batches identified by Republican auditors who claimed they saw them.
After a judge dismissed the lawsuit seeking to inspect 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton, the Georgia Court of Appeals recently revived the case on procedural grounds.
The lawsuit is pending before Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is also overseeing the investigation into interference in the 2020 election (and seemingly every other big case in Georgia).
Meanwhile, Favorito’s seminar drew a sharp rebuke from a top adviser to Kemp, who is skipping the convention.
“Yet again looking backwards, not to the future. I wonder what the candidates for GAGOP Chair think about this?” (We didn’t hear an immediate response from any of them).
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READ THE ROOM. We sometimes watch the crowd’s reaction to a speech more carefully than the speech itself to gauge the support in the room for the person at the podium.
That may be the case for many this weekend when U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, takes the stage. Greene got serious heat from the far-right famous set, including Steve Bannon, after she supported House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt deal compromise last week.
Much more relevant for Greene, though, is the reaction of activists and voters in her district, some of whom will be in Columbus this weekend.
Although business owners in the Rome area breathed a sigh of relief after the vote, Greene’s base is still sorting it out.
“The word right now is that the base is confused,” one GOP insider told us. “They’re shaking their heads saying, ‘I don’t know what to do with this.’ They’re hurt.”
Another bee in the base’s bonnet: Greene’s remark last week after she voted to avoid default, unlike three fellow Georgia Republicans. “I live in reality, not conservative fantasyland” she said.
Is Columbus reality or conservative fantasyland? Greene will find out soon.
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Casey Sykes for the AJC
Casey Sykes for the AJC
FARR OUT. Gov. Brian Kemp’s chief financial officer, Kelly Farr, said Wednesday he’s leaving state government for a private-sector gig with a Connecticut-based tech firm.
Kelly Farr has run Kemp’s budget office since 2019 and helped steer the state through dicey fiscal times, our AJC colleague James Salzer reports.
But his stewardship of the office had also alienated key lawmakers. Last month, they fumed about Farr after Kemp instructed him to put a hold on more than $200 million in spending, including several initiatives near and dear to General Assembly leaders. Those same leaders only learned about the cuts after the budget was signed.
Farr will leave the state job in June and join ReFrame Solutions to work as the company’s chief strategy officer.
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Arvin Temkar/AJC
Arvin Temkar/AJC
NO GO: The Democratic majority on the Fulton County Commission voted down the nomination of Jason Frazier for the county elections board Wednesday, Mark Niesse reports. Frazier challenged the registrations of nearly 10,000 Fulton voters since last year. One commissioner said of Frazier, “This is not a serious nomination.”
Among those who did make the cut with a unanimous vote: Republican nominee Michael Heekin, a retired attorney, as well as the Democratic Party’s two incumbent board members, Teresa Crawford and Aaron Johnson.
Johnson is the chief of staff to Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman and a former staffer to U.S. Rep. Nikeema Williams, D-Atlanta.
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Natrice Miller/AJC
Natrice Miller/AJC
NOT SO FAST: Charges of domestic terrorism against activists connected to protests of Atlanta’s proposed public safety training facility last year have repeatedly been justified with a U.S. Department of Homeland Security designation that does not exist.
The same language was also used last week against the three people who run a bail fund assisting protestors and who had their home raided by a SWAT team last week and were charged with financial crimes.
Each of their arrest warrants had a sentence tying their charity to extremism, saying it raised money to “fund in part the actions of Defend the Atlanta Forest, a group classified by the United States Department of Homeland Security as Domestic Violent Extremists.”
But the department confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday that’s not accurate.
“The Department of Homeland Security does not classify or designate any groups as domestic violent extremists,” a spokesman said in a statement.
While state officials and the GBI are standing by their use of that language, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock has asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to clear things up.
“I am seeking clarification about whether DHS has designated any group in Georgia as a DVE, and if not, I request that DHS share this policy clarification with any relevant state and local law enforcement partners,” Warnock said in a letter to Mayorkas.
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Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Kenny Holston/The New York Times
HOUSE MELTDOWN. For the second day in a row, House conservatives angry with Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling compromise ground the chamber to a halt.
Hardliners, including U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, and allies like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, filed in and out of McCarthy’s office throughout the day.
But they never reached a deal to give Republicans enough votes to move forward with pending legislation. The bills being blocked are GOP proposals that would get even conservatives’ widespread support if the stalemate wasn’t in the way.
But there is no deal in place and nothing else that is ripe for floor action. So McCarthy announced late Wednesday that the House would not vote for the rest of the week this week. Members were sent home a full day ahead of schedule.
Greene, R-Rome, told a reporter this is not what her constituents want.
“I think Republican voters and donors worked too hard for us to have this majority, and they really want to see us getting to work,” she told Punchbowl News.
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Miguel Martinez/AJC
Miguel Martinez/AJC
NEW ROLE. One Georgian who doesn’t have to worry about the unpredictable House schedule anymore is former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux. The moderate Democrat from Suwanee lost her reelection bid in 2022 after Republicans redrew U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath’s Sixth Congressional District and McBath decided to run against Bourdeaux in the Seventh District instead.
Bourdeaux has joined the national board of the Concord Coalition, the nonpartisan organization focused on fiscal responsibility. That’s a topic Bourdeaux knows all about as a former budget staffer in the U.S. Senate and director of the state Senate budget office. She was also among a handful of Democrats who pushed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold off on trillions in social spending in 2021 to prioritize infrastructure investments first.
One famous Georgian close to the Concord Coalition is former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn. During his time as co-chair of the board, the country saw its last annual budget surpluses.
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden meets with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the White House.
- The U.S. House is done for the week.
- The Senate has more confirmation votes lined up.
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HOUSING SHOWCASE. A tiny house builder based in Snellville is participating in an exhibition this weekend on the National Mall.
Dragon Tiny Homes is the latest to join the list of 50 exhibitors representing federal agencies, educational institutions and the private sector at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Innovative Housing Showcase.
According to the Dragon website, the company builds tiny homes as small as 16 feet in length up to a 32-foot “luxury” tiny home in its 30,000 square-foot shop outside of Atlanta.
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Courtesy of Mike Haskey
Courtesy of Mike Haskey
NOT OHIO. How did Columbus land the Georgia GOP convention anyway? According to WRBL-TV’s Chuck Williams, that was the handiwork of local Republican Alton Russell.
Although the state party had initially decided on the Cobb Galleria as its 2023 convention cite, just a stone’s throw from party chairman David Shafer’s home turf, Russell inserted language into a resolution pegging Columbus as the second choice if the Galleria did not work out. After the Galleria fell through, the choice for where to go next was already made.
“I guess we kind of snookered them,” Russell said.
He’s eager to show his hometown off to this weekend’s estimated 2,000 visitors and prove to them that “there’s only one significant Columbus in America, and that’s Columbus, Georgia.”
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Courtesy photo
Courtesy photo
DOG OF THE DAY. Some dogs have all the luck. That’s our takeaway from Brodie Derrickson, the 6-year-old, blue-eyed Aussiedoodle who calls Susie and Frank Derrickson his people.
Along with his natural good looks, Brodie gets to split his time between Atlanta and Tybee Island. He loves screen porches, beach walks, and watching the Derricksons read The Jolt, since they’re VIP AJC subscribers.
And even though he jumps on their houseguests, his people still love him. How lucky can you get?
Send us your dogs 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.
