Four years ago, newly elected Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan had to stave off an attempt to strip his powers before he even took office. On Monday, Duncan took a final victory lap, celebrating a group of legislative priorities he muscled through the state Senate despite tough odds in his last year as LG.
His standing seemed certain to erode after the 2020 election, when he faced Donald Trump’s wrath for speaking out, even on CNN and MSNBC, to counter Trump’s election fraud conspiracies.
When Duncan opted not to run for a second term, the Capitol crowd was sure his lame-duck status would further sideline him. Instead, Duncan has an unexpected force in the state Capitol in 2022.
He relegated the Buckhead cityhood push to the dustbin, helped ensure that Speaker David Ralston’s mental health package survived an onslaught of misinformation, and worked to negotiate the income tax cut that Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law.
“There’s no doubt the lieutenant governor maintained his traditional role as one of the three legs of the stool that normally runs that building,” said Chris Carpenter, a veteran lobbyist and former aide to Gov. Roy Barnes. “He was certainly more effective than most thought he’d be – and that’s a credit to him and his staff.”
So how did he avoid the curse of the lame duck? We caught up with the lieutenant governor and his allies shortly after Kemp signed into law a Duncan-backed measure that creates a $75 million tax break for Georgians who donate to law enforcement agencies. Here’s what he told us:
- He made the most of a power vacuum. As rival factions in the GOP-controlled Senate all maneuvered for more influence in an election year, Duncan positioned himself as an above-the-fray voice.
- He “hit the ignore button” on outside groups pushing misinformation about the mental health measure and his move to kill the Buckhead cityhood referendum. His staff, led by top aide Macy Mcfall, set the tone.
- He worked with Democrats, several of whom joined him at the signing ceremony on Monday. “Almost no decision was made in this office without considering what the Democrats’ reaction would be,” he said. “I’m a proud conservative, but we certainly understood the importance of trying to build a coalition.”
- Finally, he stopped caring about Trump’s backlash and pushed his own vision of the GOP.
“I think a lot of Republicans are vicariously living through me and my talking points around GOP 2.0. I think I’m saying what they wish they could say. But everyday there’s more and more folks that have the confidence to walk out in front of what used to look like a freight train but now is just a matchbox car.”
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POSTED: David Perdue lagged far behind Gov. Brian Kemp in his latest fundraising report - and finished the quarter with about $900,000 in the bank, less than a tenth of the war chest that Kemp is sitting on heading into the final weeks of the regular primary season.
Also posted: Stacey Abrams is outpacing both Kemp and Perdue in fundraising. She’s also outspending them, too.
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It’s good to be governor while you’re governor. Case in point: Gov. Brian Kemp will mark Memorial Day tomorrow at the state Capitol, weeks ahead of the national holiday, but in the heart of early voting for the GOP primary.
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We told you yesterday that Stacey Abrams had singled out state Sen. Butch Miller in her speech to the Human Rights Campaign, pointing specifically to his bill to keep transgender girls out of girls high school sports.
It seems nobody could have been more pleased with Abrams’ words than Miller himself, who quickly launched a fundraising push for his lieutenant governor bid off of Abrams’ focus on his legislation.
“Friends,” he writes in his appeal, “Stacey Abrams is now rallying her liberal friends against me & I need your help to fight back.”
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The Washington Post magazine has a lengthy piece on Herschel Walker’s run for Senate in Georgia. It delves into Walker’s background, his considerable support among GOP voters in the state, and his diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder, which many who knew him as a young man remain skeptical of.
It also includes a reminder that Walker never voted in any election before he cast his ballot for Donald Trump in 2020.
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We’re not economic reporters here at the Jolt, but we couldn’t help noticing that Rivian shares plunged 20% Monday after its stock lockup period for early investors expired.
The EV company is planning a $5 billion manufacturing center about an hour east of Atlanta. Its Rutledge, Ga. location and the $1.5 billion of state incentives to get it there have been a hot topic in Gov. Brian Kemp’s GOP primary battle against David Perdue.
The Wall Street Journal used its editorial page editorial page to mark the stock’s precipitous fall this morning, with this note of caution: “Many great companies survive rough markets, and Rivian may ride this one out and prosper. But its stock rise and fall is a warning about too much money chasing too little profit too soon.”
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Gov. Brian Kemp has a new ad up, moving past his primary fight against David Perdue and aiming straight at Stacey Abrams.
The ad accuses Abrams of “planning to raise your taxes.” But it links back to a 2011 article in the AJC that details how then-House minority leader Abrams raised concerns that a GOP income tax proposal, pitched as a tax cut, actually “worked out to be an increase on the average middle-class taxpayer.” Her move triggered a rank-and-file GOP revolt of the measure.
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A group of Georgia legislators led by state Sen. Tyler Harper, the GOP nominee for agriculture commissioner, have penned a letter to U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock criticizing a proposed federal rule to revise the definition of “navigable waters.” They warn the move could give the federal government the authority to regulate ditches, drainages, streams, and other lowland on farms.
Here’s a snippet:
“The proposed rule revision would place significantly onerous regulations on Georgia’s farmers, producers, and residents, result in millions of dollars in increased costs, fees, and inspections, and potentially cause irrevocable harm to our state’s number one industry.”
Powerful farm groups, including the Georgia Farm Bureau and the Georgia Poultry Association, also signed on to the letter.
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Today in Washington:
- With all Democratic senators in Washington and Vice President Kamala Harris ready to cast a tie breaking vote, the Senate is poised to try again today to confirm Lisa Cook. The Georgia-native would become the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve.
- The House is in session and expected to consider legislation providing additional $40 billion in aid to Ukraine.
- President Joe Biden will deliver remarks at the White House about fighting inflation and lowering costs for American families.
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Jamie DuPree flags in his Regular Order newsletter this morning that the Senate approved a bipartisan bill last designed to step up personal security for members of the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of protests following the leak of the draft opinion that could signal the end Roe v. Wade.
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In endorsement news:
- Attorney General Chris Carr has picked up endorsements from 96 Republican members of the General Assembly, including House Speaker David Ralston, Speaker Pro-Tem Jan Jones, state Rep. Barry Fleming, outgoing Appropriations Chairman Terry England and England’s counterpart, state Sen. Blake Tillery.
- The National Federation of Independent Business has also endorsed Carr.
- U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and his political committee, Our Revolution, have endorsed Vincent Fort in the 13th Congressional District Democratic primary. Fort made an ally out of Sanders in 2016 when he flipped his support from Hillary Clinton to Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary.
- GA2A, the gun rights group formerly known as Georgia Carry, is backing state Sen. Butch Miller in the race for lieutenant governor. The group was influential in passing the state’s permitless carry law this year and says it’s their first major endorsement of the 2022 election cycle.
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Chief Jolter Emeritus Jim Galloway is spending his retirement as any good journalist does-- woodworking and considering historical precedents for attempts to overthrow a duly elected president. He’s excelling at both.
Case in point: Over on Chief’s Facebook page, he writes that the December 2020 wildcat session of the Georgia GOP, huddling in the state Capitol as the legal Joe Biden electors cast Georgia’s electoral votes for the future president, was not the first attempt in Georgia to do the same.
As a matter of fact, there was a plot launched in 1952 to steal the election away from President Harry Truman, if he had decided to run for what was essentially a third term. (FDR’s death had handed Vice President Truman the presidency in the spring of 1945.)
The plot originated with the governor of Georgia. It didn’t get very far, but it existed.
He tracked down a Macon Telegraph column that detailed a 1952 law designed to keep Truman out of the White House through sleight of hand with Georgia’s electoral votes. Truman announced six weeks later he would retire, so the plan was never put into motion, but he ends with this kicker:
The Legislature was in on the 1952 plot -- so in a way, that conspiracy got further along than the Georgia GOP effort to negate Biden’s vote a mere 18 months ago.
But they have a common thread. Both reflect desperation born of looming racial shifts in Georgia’s political world.
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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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