We now have a bill outlining the $1.75 trillion social services and climate change package Democrats hope to pass soon. But with details still being ironed out and a trust gap between House Democrats and centrist senators, plans for a speedy vote quickly fell apart Thursday.
President Joe Biden unveiled the plan to House Democrats in the morning and later in a speech to the nation from the White House.
“No one got everything they wanted, including me, but that’s what compromise is,” he said. “That’s consensus.”
By Thursday’s end, it was clear that there may be consensus among Democrats on what to do, but not on when and how to do it.
The spending package has been whittled down from $3.5 trillion, partially to gain the support of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Provisions like paid family leave and allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug costs were also axed.
But plenty of Democrats’ priorities remained: money to address climate change and establish universal free preschools, extending the child tax credits and adding hearing aid coverage for Medicare recipients.
The biggest win for Georgia Democrats was the inclusion of Medicaid expansion here and in 11 other Republican-led states that have declined to do so under the Affordable Care Act. Under the current framework, uninsured Georgians would receive federal subsidies to purchase insurance plans on exchanges.
Sen. Jon Ossoff said negotiations are still ongoing and the plan could change, but he was willing to support what is on the table. He and Sen. Raphael Warnock have made the Medicaid expansion a top priority.
“The necessary outcome is Georgians in the coverage gap get access to insurance and care at the highest standard and that they can now afford it,” he said.
Ossoff was also celebrating the inclusion of language he proposed to widen the use of solar technology and new transit funding that would benefit Atlanta’s MARTA system, something he negotiated with the help of House Democrats including Rep. Hank Johnson.
Biden had hoped that House Democrats would vote Thursday on a separate $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. But progressives nixed that idea, saying both bills need to pass at the same time. And the spending plan still needs so much work that will take days, if not weeks.
Instead, the House passed emergency surface transportation funding to avoid the Oct. 31 furlough of thousands of federal employees. The Senate is expected to follow suit today. Congress members will head home to their districts this weekend and get back to work on the spending plan on Monday.
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Three years after the contentious 2018 race for governor, the voting rights organization Common Cause Georgia has won $166,000 in attorney’s fees for a lawsuit it brought against the state over ballot counting, the AJC’s Mark Niesse tells us.
Common Cause had alleged that Georgia’s voter registration system was vulnerable to security breaches, which could have resulted in eligible voters being unable to vote had the system been breached.
A federal judge ordered Secretary of State Robyn Crittenden to delay certifying election results in 2018 by two days to ensure vote counts were correct and complete. The court also required election officials to create a hotline for provisional voters to check whether their ballots were counted, and the state was ordered to investigate provisional voter eligibility.
This week a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision in favor of Common Cause.
All three judges were appointed by Republican presidents: Chief Judge William Pryor, Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa and District Judge Harvey Schlesinger.
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POSTED: Rich McCormick, the Republican physician who wants a rematch against U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in the 7th Congressional District, is among the doctors who have made questionable statements regarding COVID-19 that drew complaints to the state’s medical board.
The AJC’s Johnny Edwards reports that the board has been reluctant to discipline doctors for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus.
In one case, while wearing a white lab coat over hospital scrubs, McCormick told the cable channel One America News about hospital admissions plummeting and intensive care units clearing out and added, “My theory, based on just the evidence that we see firsthand, is that we probably do have a herd immunity."
That was in June 2020, as President Trump was saying COVID-19 was dying out. Public health experts believed nothing of the sort, and by late June the nation was setting new records each day for infections. McCormick doubled down on the herd immunity claim in early September, as a summer surge put Georgia's death toll above 6,000. “We've reached a point of saturation," he said during a Rotary Club candidates' forum.
McCormick told the AJC that he made some of his statements when case counts in Georgia were on the decline.
“Just like Fauci – and I want you to quote that – just like Fauci, I have not always been 100% accurate on everything,” McCormick told Edwards, referring to President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser.
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Ever since we reported that former U.S. Sen. David Perdue is considering a primary challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp, the rumor mill has gone into overdrive.
Expect it to kick up another notch if Perdue appears with Trump at Truist Park this weekend when the former president catches Game Four of the World Series. We won’t be surprised if the two are spotted together in a luxury box doing the Tomahawk Chop.
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With a number of Democrats running for suburban mayors’ offices that have long been held by conservatives, state Senate GOP leader Butch Miller wants to counteract the trend.
Miller, a candidate for lieutenant governor, said Friday he has contributed to GOP candidates in nonpartisan races across Georgia and he is working to boost turnout in five suburban Atlanta races.
They include support for Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul, a former state GOP chair; Tucker Mayor Frank Auman; and Johns Creek mayoral candidate John Bradberry.
Wins for Miller’s candidates Tuesday in the vote-rich Atlanta ‘burbs could give a boost to Miller’s campaign as he heads into 2022.
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With Election Day just days away, former Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed picked up a big endorsement Thursday from Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat.
Labat was an appointee in Reed’s previous administration.
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We told you in Thursday’s Jolt about an article from Vice that included U.S. Rep. Jody Hice as a member of a group of Trump-backed candidates who joined forces with conspiracy theorists in hopes of winning offices that can influence state elections.
Hice’s campaign pushed back against Vice’s reporting yesterday, calling the Hice-related portion of the article completely inaccurate.
A spokeswoman said that Hice was not at the conference described in Vice’s account and that has had no contact with the QAnon-aligned group.
“Jody and Dee Dee prayerfully made the decision to run for secretary of state on their own,” the spokeswoman said.
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Here’s a wild one from the AJC’s Maya T. Prabhu: A former aide to Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan apparently impersonated the LG in emails to access information about her divorce.
Beth Green, who worked as director of operations in Duncan's office from January 2019 until July, turned herself into the Paulding County Sheriff's Office on Monday on charges of impersonating a public officer or employee, computer invasion of privacy and computer trespass.
… Deputies accuse Green of sending seven emails in July on her state-issued computer impersonating Duncan from his email address to get information about her divorce from her divorce attorney.
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The Metro Atlanta Chamber made its support known for Gov. Brian Kemp’s plan to spend $110 million in federal COVID-19 relief money to help court systems facing backlogs due to the pandemic.
Our AJC colleague James Salzer reports the money would be used to add temporary prosecutors and senior judges, larger facilities for court proceedings, and funds for the Georgia Public Defenders Council.
The business lobby called it a “constructive” step to crack down on violent crime.
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Get used to seeing even more of the Buckhead City Committee and its forest green stag logo. The group will kick off the grand opening of its headquarters Sunday on the heavily trafficked corner of Peachtree and Pharr Roads in, of course, Buckhead. That’s the old Three Dollar Cafe for the ATL-longhaulers among you.
PR blitz man Bill White says the Halloween event will have food trucks, Buckhead swag, bounce houses for kids, and what he calls “tres chic” merch for sale, for those who want to donate to the breakaway effort.
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Since it’s Friday, we always like to send you into the weekend with a little light reading, including:
- Jamie Dupree’s Thursday column, “Lots of complaints, but few answers in Congress on Big Tech;”
- Tuesday’s Political Insider Column, “For the love of baseball, leave the Braves out of politics;”
- And a look ahead at Sunday’s column, “The most important election of Atlanta’s lifetime.”
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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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