In the tumultuous weeks after U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won the 2021 Georgia runoffs, a little-noticed development took place when Ossoff, the Senate’s youngest member, was appointed chairman of one of the Senate’s most storied subcommittees.
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, or “PSI,” as it’s known on Capitol Hill, has for decades been a key investigative arm of the Senate and the driving force behind some of the chamber’s highest-- and lowest-- points of using its power to drive a message.
In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy used PSI hearings to investigate suspected Communist sympathizers in and around the U.S. government. The hearings were broadcast nationwide for more than a month and McCarthy was eventually condemned by the Senate for his conduct.
In later years, PSI has used its subpoena power to drive high-profile investigations into abuses in the public and private sectors.
Under former Chairman Carl Levin, PSI famously dragged the chairman of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan in after the 2008 financial crisis and earlier investigated Enron after the energy company’s collapse.
Under Georgia’s former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, who chaired PSI for nine years, PSI investigated student loan abuses, airline safety and the spread of chemical and biological weapons.
Next week will mark Ossoff’s first public hearing as chairman when he leads a hearing on mistreatment of military families in privatized housing. It follows a months-long investigation into chronic abuses by private contractors on and around military bases.
“For eight months, we have investigated the mistreatment of military families in privatized housing on U.S. bases,” Ossoff said in a statement. “On Tuesday we will release findings, hear directly from America’s heroes, and question those responsible for their housing.”
Housing for military families has made all the wrong headlines recently. Last year, a military housing contractor pled guilty to fraud in federal court and agreed to pay $65 million for covering up shoddy housing at Ft. Gordon and other military bases around the country.
Additional PSI investigations under Ossoff and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., are also in the works.
***
Gov. Brian Kemp was at the National Infantry Museum in Columbus Monday, where he signed a bill passed during the 2022 session to exempt a portion of military retirement pay from Georgia income tax.
WRBL-TV’s Chuck Williams reports from Columbus that the measure was a very, very long time coming, having first been proposed by U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, a Democrat from Albany, when he was a state House member in 1977.
Georgia House Rules Committee chairman Richard Smith, a Republican of Columbus, finally got it over the finish line this year after working for 15 years to get some version of the bill passed along with state Sen. Ed Harbison, a Columbus Democrat.
But Smith told WRBL that the credit for getting it done goes to one man in particular-- “The reason this bill has been signed today is Gov. Kemp.”
***
It was no secret that Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance was once a sharp critic of Donald Trump. But we’re learning more about Vance’s views of the former president from an unlikely source: Vance’s roommate during his first year at Yale Law School, Georgia Democratic state Rep. Josh McLaurin.
Days after Trump endorsed the Ohio Republican, McLaurin shared a lengthy text message from Vance from 2016.
After much deliberation, McLaurin shared the private exchange, in which Vance wrote that the GOP “has only itself to blame” for Trump’s rise.
“We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working class black people in the process) or a demagogue would,” he allegedly wrote. “We are now at the point.”
The text continues: “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?”
McLauin’s tweet about Vance went viral, prompting “America’s Hitler” to trend.
It also led to stinging pushback from Vance’s campaign, which told Newsweek that coverage of Vance’s opposition to Trump six years ago is old news.
“Clearly, President Trump trusts that JD is a genuine convert, as out of all the Republican candidates running, he endorsed JD and concluded that he is the strongest America First conservative in the race,” said campaign manager Jordan Wiggins.
***
POSTED: A federal judge ruled Monday evening that a challenge to U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s eligibility to run for re-election can proceed, with an administrative law hearing scheduled on Friday.
District Judge Amy Totenberg wrote that the challenge to Greene, which cites a clause in the U.S. Constitution barring people who participated in an insurrection or rebellion against the government, brought up complex issues that deserved a full vetting.
Importantly, Totenberg also dismissed an argument from Greene’s attorneys that the challenge itself is an unfair burden on a candidate seeking office:
“Under the circumstances, the Court fails to see how the challenge process qualifies as a severe burden on Plaintiff’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. This is especially so considering that, in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court and courts in this Circuit have repeatedly rejected claims by other candidates and voters who have similarly asserted that a state’s various procedural hurdles to accessing the ballot placed a severe burden on their constitutional rights.”
***
A year ago, plenty of political wags considered Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s reelection bid dead on arrival. Now, polls show the Republican still in the fight for the GOP nomination.
On Tuesday Raffensperger unveiled a pair of ads. The first attacks Stacey Abrams and credits Raffensperger – rather than the Republican-dominated Legislature – for a law that “outlawed ballot harvesting.”
The second targets U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, Raffensperger’s Donald Trump-backed adversary, for failing to pass “not one election security bill” during his seven years in the U.S. House.
“Jody Hice accomplished nothing during seven years in Congress. Now Jody wants to be Secretary of State,” the narrator intones.
***
“The complaint is as egregious as it is straightforward.”
That’s from an ethics complaint filed by a Georgia voter against former Democrat Vernon Jones, a GOP candidate for U.S. House who missed the deadline last week to file his financial disclosure with the Federal Elections Commission.
Jones, who ditched the race for governor to run for Congress with Donald Trump’s blessing, blamed “technical difficulties” and said the FEC was notified of the issues.
His campaign filing was uploaded on Monday. It showed that Jones raised $265,651.39 during the first three months of 2022 and ended the period with $128,627.35. He announced one month into the quarter that he would change races from governor to run for the 10th Congressional District instead.
Fueled by a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, Jones’ Q1 fundraising outpaced another leading candidate in CD-10, trucking executive Mike Collins.
Collins raised $143,903.93 in donations during the period, but he still has significantly more cash on hand: $743,953.40.
***
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux and U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, the two Democratic congresswomen running in the 7th Congressional District, are both running ads this week focused on passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
The first is from Bourdeaux, whose spot titled, “Can,” begins with a focus on Bourdeaux’s win in 2020, making her the only Democrat to flip a Republican-controlled U.S. House seat that cycle. She then says if Democrats stick together, they can pass the VRA, too.
The ad has already been running online, but her campaign announced that it will also be her first TV ad, running on broadcast and cable stations starting today as “part of a substantial six-figure TV buy.”
Meanwhile, McBath, has released her second TV ad, “Let freedom ring.” The spot recounts McBath’s attendance as a child at the March on Washington and pushes for renewed legislation now.
***
From the personnel files: The Georgia Department of Human Services has hired Melody DeBussey, a well-respected state Senate Budget and Research Office staffer, to be the deputy commissioner in the state’s Office of Family Independence.
In her new role, DeBussey will help oversee 2,600 employees working in the state’s eligibility system for Medicaid, SNAP assistance and other social safety net services. It’s a timely move given the election-year focus on Medicaid.
***
Speaking of Medicaid, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday confirmed it would not weigh in Arkansas’ defunct attempt to impose work requirements on Medicaid patients in its Medicaid expansion. But experts said that doesn’t affect Georgia’s case, which can continue.
The AJC’s Ariel Hart explains that states including Arkansas and Georgia have tried to expand Medicaid to more low-income adults -- with the condition that the new Medicaid recipients work or engage in specified activities for 80 hours a month. The Trump administration approved those “waivers,” but the Biden administration opposed them and withdrew its approval.
Now under the Biden administration, Georgia could expand Medicaid to adults below the federal poverty level, but only without the work and engagement requirement.
Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr have continued to fight for the requirement and are now scheduled to file motions against the Administration by June 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia in Brunswick.
Since Georgia’s case seems unlikely to reach the Supreme Court any time soon, this all seems to set Medicaid expansion up as an election issue between Kemp, if he’s the GOP nominee, and Stacey Abrams this November.
***
Dentons has picked up former U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley as a lobbyist in its public policy practice.
Crowley is well known in D.C., having been rumored as a potential House Speaker before he lost his Queens, N.Y., seat in a primary to then little-known Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018.
Crowley goes to Dentons from DC lobbying super-shop, Squire Patton Boggs. For the purposes of our #gapol readers, Eric Tanenblatt remains the top dog at Dentons for global public policy.
***
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.
Sign Up to receive the Morning Jolt & AJC Politics newsletters in your inbox.
