Gov. Brian Kemp’s patience with school districts that have refused to reopen classrooms is wearing thin. And his frustration is starting to boil over as he struggles with how to convince administrators to resume in-person instruction.
Most of Georgia’s 180 public school districts have returned to some form of face-to-face instruction, but a handful of holdouts, including Clayton and DeKalb counties, continue to offer only online instruction.
The Republican doesn’t want his announcement Thursday clearing the way for teachers to be vaccinated in March to give those reluctant school districts a pretext to wait until all staffers are inoculated to go back to in-person teaching as late as next fall.
“I’m not ordering schools to open, but I believe now with this other tool, there should be no reason for us not to get kids back into the classroom,” Kemp said. “It would be a disaster, in my opinion, if we wait” until late summer or the next school year to reopen.
So what can he do if schools won’t reopen? Presumably, he can turn to the state School Board of Education or his own executive powers to try to compel those few remaining school systems to reopen, though it risks a nasty war with a powerful constituency.
So far, Kemp has seemed reluctant to force a move. He said Wednesday that he didn’t want to “force people to get back in the classroom” before fuming about the demand earlier this month from the Atlanta Public Schools to vaccinate teachers.
“It does make you lose your patience a little,” he said.
We asked him specifically Thursday what options he’s considering if schools don’t follow through.
“We can’t keep finding excuses not to do something,” he said, adding: “We have the ability to do it. We have the vaccine, we’re opening it up to our educators. Hopefully those that are eligible will take advantage of this opportunity to get the vaccine and hopefully the leaders will move to get their kids back into class.”
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Under the Gold Dome (Legislative Day 24):
- 7:30 am: House and Senate committees meetings begin;
- 10:00 am: The House convenes;
- 10:00 am: The Senate Convenes.
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One of the items we are watching at the Capitol today: Senate Bill 221, a bill dealing with leadership PACs for the governor, lieutenant governor, party nominees and majority & minority caucuses in the House and Senate.
SB 221 was introduced Monday and went straight to the Rules Committee, which quickly approved it Thursday. Swift movement in the laborious legislative process always catches our eyes, especially when the topic is political fundraising by the people passing the bills.
SB 221 includes also this language:
“The contribution limits in Code Section 21-5-41 shall not apply to contributions to a leadership committee or expenditures made by a leadership committee in support of a candidate or a group of named candidates.”
We’ll keep you posted on this one.
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Also in the Capitol this week:
- The Senate passed Senate Bill 100, which calls for Georgia to observe standard time year round;
- The House approved Speaker David Ralston’s House Resolution 119, to rename a bridge near the Port of Savannah after retired U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.
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Calling all legal eagles. When U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their Senate seats in January, they also took over the responsibility for nominating candidates for U.S. Attorney, U.S. Marshall and federal judicial vacancies to the White House.
The partisan shift in January from Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue to Warnock and Ossoff, along with the change in the White House from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, means that Democrats, not Republicans will be choosing people for these plum jobs in Georgia.
It also opens up a world of opportunities for Democratic lawyers and law enforcement-types who have not been up for these jobs in the state in years.
To start the process, the two new senators have established a Federal Nominations Advisory Commission to review potential nominees in all three of Georgia’s judicial districts.
As a part of that, they’ve also created an online application where interested candidates should apply.
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Georgia is at the fore of an intriguing tech battle.
The New York Times reports that the state is one of at least three debating legislation that would prevent Apple and Google from forcing companies in the state to fork over a share of their app sales.
Some smaller companies have argued that Apple and Google force app makers to pay an artificially high fee only because of their sheer dominance. The two companies' software underpins nearly all of the world's smartphones.
The bill would prohibit Apple and Google from requiring apps to use their payment systems, which enable them to collect their commissions.
It would also require Apple and Google to allow users of their smartphones to download apps from outside their flagship app stores, though Mr. Davison said he was trying to remove that provision to ease some of his colleagues' concerns. Google already allows such downloads, but Apple does not.
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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s campaign spending doesn’t quite match up with her persona as a D.C. outsider, reports AJC investigative reporter Chris Joyner.
In her year-end campaign filing, Greene reported spending campaign donations on a $717.60 dinner at BLT Prime, a pricey steakhouse inside the Trump International Hotel; another $653.15 to dine at the Beltway hangout Capital Grille; a $4,000 sponsorship payment to a conservative institute; and $825 to join the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican-only social club where lobbyists, staffers and elite donors come to rub elbows with members of Congress.
“That’s not where the revolution typically gets launched,” Doug Heye, a Washington veteran and former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said of the Capitol Hill Club.
But Greene still isn’t blending in with her new colleagues.
This week, CNN revealed that Greene is a “close friend” of a man who admitted he and other Trump supporters entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
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On the same day that protesters gathered at the Georgia Capitol to oppose voting restrictions proposed by Republicans, Stacey Abrams told lawmakers in Washington that federal laws are needed to protect voting rights across the country.
Testifying to a U.S. House committee Thursday, Abrams said more than 253 bills have been proposed in 42 states under the guise of increasing the integrity of elections. Instead, she argued, the measures amount to voter suppression.
She also had a tense exchange with Georgia’s U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who equated her refusal to concede the 2018 governor’s race to Brian Kemp to former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Georgia and other states. Loudermilk, R-Cassville, is among those who supported Trump’s disinformation campaign.
“There is absolutely no correlation between what I did, which is to increase access to the right to vote, and what he attempted, which is to limit those who are allowed to participate in our elections,” Abrams told the congressman.
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POSTED: The U.S. House passed the Equality Act, a law that would expand the Civil Rights Act to include protections for members of the LGBTQ community. Georgia’s delegation split along party lines with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.
The bill has an uncertain future in the Senate, even with Democrats in control. Unless 10 Republicans are willing to sign on, a filibuster can block action to stop the measure.
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The impact of John Lewis continues to live on at the U.S. Capitol seven months after his death.
- Ahead of passage of the Equality Act, several Democrats recognized him as a champion of gay rights and dedicated their votes to him.
- U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia, has introduced a measure to award Lewis and the 12 other original Freedom Riders with the Congressional Gold Medal.
- U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock and Mitt Romney and U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams introduced a resolution to honor Lewis’ life on what would have been his 81st birthday on Feb. 21.
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