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      Biden honors Martin Luther King Jr with sermon: ‘His legacy shows us the way’

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      Biden honors Martin Luther King Jr with sermon: ‘His legacy shows us the way’ President gave sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and spoke about the need to protect democracy Joe Biden marked what would have been Martin Luther King Jr’s 94th birthday with a sermon on Sunday at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, celebrating the legacy of the civil rights leader while speaking about the urgent need to protect US democracy.There’s one winner in the Biden documents discovery: Donald TrumpRead moreBiden said he was “humbled” to become the first sitting president to give the Sunday sermon at King’s church, also describing the experience as “intimidating”.“I believe Dr King’s life and legacy show us the way and we should pay attention,” Biden said. He later noted he was wearing rosary beads his son, Beau, wore as he died.“I doubt whether any of us would have thought during Dr King’s time that literally the institutional structures of this country might collapse, like we’re seeing in Brazil, we’re seeing in other parts of the world,” Biden said.In a sermon that lasted around 25 minutes, the president spoke about the continued need to protect democracy. Unlike some of his other speeches on the topic, Biden did not mention Donald Trump or Republicans directly.The GOP has embraced new voting restrictions, including in Georgia, and defended the former president’s role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.“Nothing is guaranteed in our democracy,” Biden said. “We know there’s a lot of work that has to continue on economic justice, civil rights, voting rights and protecting our democracy.”He praised Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who noted at a ceremony after she was confirmed it had taken just one generation in her family to go from segregation to the US supreme court.“Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the south who will do justly and love mercy,” Biden said, quoting King.Biden preached in Atlanta a little over a year after he gave a forceful speech calling for the Senate to get rid of the filibuster, a procedural rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation, in order to pass sweeping voting reforms.“I’m tired of being quiet,” the president said in that speech.A Democratic voting rights bill named after John Lewis, the late civil rights leader and Georgia congressman, would have made election day a national holiday, ensured access to early voting and mail-in ballots and enabled the justice department to intervene in states with a history of voter interference.But that effort collapsed when two Democrats, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, refused to get rid of the filibuster. Sinema is now an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.Since then, there has been no federal action on voting rights. In March 2021, Biden issued an executive order telling federal agencies to do what they could do improve opportunities for voter registration.The speech also comes as the US supreme court considers a case that could significantly curtail Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 law that was one of the crowning achievements of King and other activists. A ruling is expected by June.Biden’s failure to bolster voting right protections, a central campaign pledge, is one of his biggest disappointments in office. The task is even steeper now Republicans control the House. In advance of Biden’s visit to Atlanta, White House officials said he was committed to advocating for meaningful voting rights action.“The president will speak on a number of issues at the church, including how important it is that we have access to our democracy,” senior adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms said.Bottoms, who was mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022, also said “you can’t come to Atlanta and not acknowledge the role that the civil rights movement and Dr King played in where we are in the history of our country”.This is a delicate moment for Biden. On Thursday the attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate how Biden handled classified documents after leaving the vice-presidency in 2017. The White House on Saturday revealed that additional classified records were found at Biden’s home near Wilmington, Delaware.Biden was invited to Ebenezer, where King was co-pastor from 1960 until he was assassinated in 1968, by Senator Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor. Like many battleground state Democrats in 2022, Warnock kept his distance from Biden as the the president’s approval rating lagged. But with Biden beginning to turn his attention to an expected 2024 re-election effort, Georgia can expect plenty of attention.Warnock told ABC’s This Week: “I’m honored to present the president of the United States there where he will deliver the message and where he will sit in the spiritual home of Martin Luther King Jr, Georgia’s greatest son, arguably the greatest American, who reminds us that we are tied in a single garment of destiny, that this is not about Democrat and Republican, red, yellow, brown, black and white. We’re all in it together.”In 2020, Biden won Georgia as well as Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Black votes made up much of the Democratic electorate. Turning out Black voters in those states will be essential to Biden’s 2024 hopes.The White House has tried to promote Biden’s agenda in minority communities, citing efforts to encourage states to take equity into account under the $1tn infrastructure bill. The administration also has acted to end sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses, scrapping a policy widely seen as racist.The administration highlights Biden’s work to diversify the judiciary, including his appointment of Jackson as the first Black woman on the supreme court and the confirmation of 11 Black women judges to federal appeals courts – more than under all previous presidents.King fueled passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Members of his family attended Biden’s sermon. The president planned to be in Washington on Monday, to speak at the National Action Network’s annual breakfast, held on the MLK holiday.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS voting rightsUS politicsCivil rights movementMartin Luther KingRacenewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s political fate may have been decided – by a Georgia grand jury

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      Trump’s political fate may have been decided – by a Georgia grand juryPanel that considered whether ex-president committed crimes in trying to overturn 2020 election defeat could recommend prosecution Even as Donald Trump prepares to dial up his campaign to take back the White House, the former US president’s political and personal fate may already have been decided by the secret workings of a grand jury in Georgia.The 23-member panel, convened to consider whether Trump and others committed crimes in trying to overturn his defeat in Georgia when it appeared the state might decide the outcome of the entire 2020 presidential election, was dissolved on Monday after submitting its conclusions and asking that they be made public.Two years on from the Capitol riot: the toxic legacy of Trump’s big lieRead moreIf the grand jury’s report recommends prosecution, a county district attorney in Atlanta, Fani Willis, will face the most consequential decision of her career – whether, for the first time in American history, to charge a former president with a criminal offence.That could result in Trump sitting behind bars in Georgia when he expects to be out on the campaign trail. Provided he is not already serving time as the result of a federal investigation into his attempts to pressure election officials in several other states to rig the vote and his part in the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol.A judge has scheduled a hearing later this month to consider arguments over whether the grand jury’s report should be made public while Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, scrutinises its findings.In November, the day before Trump announced he was again running for the White House, the Brookings Institution in Washington published a report that concluded he is “at substantial risk of prosecution” in Georgia including for improperly influencing government officials, forgery and criminal solicitation. The report said Trump may even be vulnerable to charges under anti-racketeering laws written to combat the mafia.Norman Eisen, the lead author of the Brookings report and former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, said he thinks charges against Trump are “highly likely”.“The evidence is powerful and the law is very favourable to the prosecutors in Georgia,” he said. “I believe the [special grand jury] report very likely calls for the prosecution of Trump and his co-conspirators.”Eisen said that the federal case is not as far along but that the congressional committee investigating the events of January 6 laid out a “powerful case” for charges against Trump.He said that the prosecution of a former president would be “momentous”.“But, of course, so was Trump’s decision to lead an attempted coup. That was momentous in a very negative way. This is momentous as a defence of the rule of law and American democracy,” said Eisen.Georgia prosecutors have warned at least 18 other people that they are targets of the investigation and could be charged, including Trump’s close ally and lawyer, the former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani who has, among other things, been accused of spreading conspiracy theories in testimony to the Georgia legislature.Willis launched her investigation into “a multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results” just weeks after the former president left office. The investigation initially focused on a tape recording of Trump pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to conjure nearly 12,000 votes out of thin air in order to overturn Joe Biden’s win.Willis expanded the investigation as more evidence emerged of Trump and his allies attempting to manipulate the results, including the appointment of a sham slate of 16 electors to replace the state’s legitimate members of the electoral college. The fake electors included the chair of the Georgia Republican party, David Shafer, and Republican members of the state legislature who have been warned that they are at risk of prosecution.The Fulton county district attorney has told state officials that her office is investigating an array of crimes against Trump and others, including criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, intentional interference with the performance of election duties, conspiracy and racketeering. Convictions potentially carry significant prison sentences.Fulton superior court approved the appointment of the special grand jury last year at Willis’s request. She reflected on the consequence of investigating a former president as the jurors began their work.“I don’t want you to think I’m naive or I don’t get the gravity of the situation,” Willis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I get the gravity of it … But it’s just like every other case. You just have to do your due diligence.”Special grand juries are rare in Georgia. Unlike the regular kind, they cannot indict. But they can sit for much longer and have wider powers to subpoena. Willis recognised that if she was to build a case against such a divisive political figure as Trump, and convince a jury in a criminal trial, the evidence would have to be rock solid, and that would take time and depth.Willis used the grand jury’s powers to good effect. She called a parade of witness, including many of Trump’s closest allies and lawyers. Some fought their subpoenas including Senator Lindsey Graham who went all the way to the US supreme court in a failed attempt to avoid giving evidence.The star witness was Raffensperger, a Republican who voted for Trump and oversaw his state’s elections. When the numbers stacked up against the president in Georgia, Trump knew where to turn.Raffensperger spoke to the special grand jury for several hours in June. Georgia’s secretary of state has not commented publicly about his testimony but in his book, Integrity Counts, Raffensperger recounts receiving a call from Trump as he sat in his kitchen with his wife, Tricia, on 2 January 2021. He put the president on speakerphone.Raffensperger had an idea what to expect. Trump had already “tweeted insults and threats at me and Georgia governor Brian Kemp”. For an hour, the president tried to persuade Raffensperger to overturn the vote.“So, we’ve spent a lot of time on this and if we could just go over some of the numbers, I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia,” Trump said on the call.Raffensperger said he was tempted to interrupt and disagree but did not out of respect.Trump went on: “I just want to find 11,780 votes … because we won the state.”Raffensperger told the president he “could not do that because the data did not support it”.Trump tried to claim that the vote had been rigged by alleging that ballot boxes were stuffed and other irregularities. Then the president said: “All of this stuff is very dangerous stuff when you talk about no criminality. I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.”Raffensperger saw that for what it was.“I felt then – and still believe today – that this was a threat,” he wrote. “Others obviously thought so, too, because some of Trump’s more radical followers have responded as if it was their duty to carry out this threat.”Raffensperger said he and his wife were subject to death threats.Willis had more than the witness’s word for it. Raffensperger recorded the call, providing powerful and indisputable evidence.The Fulton county district attorney brought a parade of other witnesses before the grand jury including the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Graham, who placed calls to Raffensperger to suggest he should throw out some absentee ballots.Giuliani is likely to have been asked about false testimony he gave to Georgia legislators the month after the presidential election, including claims that voting machines were rigged and that thousands of teenagers below the voting age had cast ballots. A New York court suspended his licence to practice law last year over his “demonstrably false and misleading statements regarding the Georgia presidential election results”.Willis has also gathered evidence about attempts to pressure a Fulton county poll worker and her daughter to wrongly say they committed election fraud by ballot stuffing, the sudden resignation of a US attorney in Atlanta under pressure from Trump officials to more aggressively investigate alleged election fraud, and of an IT services company hired by one of Trump’s lawyers that illegally copied confidential voter data from voting machines.Those who have worked with Willis say she is unlikely to shy from prosecuting Trump if she deems it appropriate. She is known to be a fan of anti-racketeering laws, having used them to prosecute public school teachers who were part of a cheating scandal.If Willis decides to press ahead with the case, she will need to convene a regular grand jury which has the authority to hand down indictments.Trump has dismissed the threat to his freedom with his usual bluster. He described his conversation with Raffensperger as “perfect” and the hearings as a “witch-hunt”. He has called Willis’s investigation a “political prosecution” and “racist”, presumably because she is Black.TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS politicsUS elections 2020featuresReuse this content More

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      Special Grand Jury in Georgia Trump Inquiry Concludes Its Investigation

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      A hearing will be held to determine whether the report will be made public. Any criminal charges would have to be brought by a regular grand jury.ATLANTA — Eight weeks into Donald J. Trump’s latest run for president, a special grand jury investigating Mr. Trump and his allies for possible election interference in 2020 concluded its work on Monday. But the panel’s findings remain private for now, including whether it recommended criminal charges against the former president.The special grand jury was dissolved days after producing a report that was reviewed by the 20 judges on the Superior Court of Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta. Its members were sworn in last May.“The court thanks the grand jurors for their dedication, professionalism and significant commitment of time and attention to this important matter,” Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the panel, wrote in an order dissolving it.A hearing will be held on Jan. 24 to determine whether the report will be made public, as the special grand jury is recommending, according to the judge’s order. Special grand juries cannot issue indictments, so any criminal charges would have to be sought from one of the regular grand juries that consider criminal matters in the county.Regular grand jury terms last two months. Defendants who are indicted can request speedy trials that begin by the close of the term that follows the two-month period in which they are indicted. Because of those protocols, most charges would most likely be brought at the beginning of the next grand jury term in early March, or further down the road.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes work

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      Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes workFulton county district attorney to decide on any indictments after special grand jury heard from dozens of witnesses over six months The special grand jury convened by prosecutors in Atlanta to investigate whether Donald Trump committed crimes in his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia has finished its work.Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney, who was overseeing the panel, issued an order on Monday that dissolved the special grand jury, after it completed a final report on its inquiries.The decision whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury will be up to the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis.🚨By order of Judge Robert McBurney, the Georgia special purpose grand jury investigating 2020 election interference by Trump and his allies is dissolved. The grand jury voted to make its report public. A hearing will be held on Jan. 24 to determine if it will be published. pic.twitter.com/mMBE7b2nEY— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) January 9, 2023
      Over the course of about six months, the special grand jury has heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including numerous close Trump associates and assorted high-ranking Georgia state officials.The case is among several around the country that threaten legal peril for the former president as he seeks a second term in 2024.Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments but instead can issue a final report recommending actions to be taken.On 3 January 2021, Trump, the then US president, pressured the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in a phone call to “find” enough votes from the state’s electorate to overturn then president-elect Joe Biden’s victory there that Trump had refused to concede.The call was recorded and released and sparked widespread outrage, including calls for a second impeachment. That did not happen but Trump ended up confronted with a historic second impeachment for inciting the insurrection three days later, where his supporters broke into the US Capitol in Washington to try to stop the official congressional certification of Biden winning the presidency from Trump.After news of the call with Raffensberger broke, Bob Bauer, then a senior Biden adviser, said: “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.”Georgia law says that grand juries are “authorized to recommend to the court the publication of the whole or any part of their general presentments” and that the judge must follow that recommendation. The special grand jury voted to recommend that its report be published.There will be a hearing on 24 January on whether to publish the special grand jury’s report and the district attorney’s office and news outlets will be given a chance to make arguments.Willis opened the investigation in early 2021. Willis is focusing on several different areas: phone calls made to Georgia officials by Trump and his allies; false statements made by Trump associates before Georgia legislative committees; a panel of 16 Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors; the abrupt resignation of the federal prosecutor in Atlanta in January 2021; alleged attempts to pressure a Fulton county election worker; and breaches of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county.Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney, confirmed before he was questioned by the special grand jury in August that they were told he faces possible criminal charges. The 16 Republican fake electors have also been told they are targets of the investigation, according to public court filings.Of all the legal threats Trump is facing, is this the one that could take him down?Read moreTrump and his allies have consistently denied any wrongdoing. The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, former chief of staff to Trump Mark Meadows and Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, also all testified before the grand jury.It is unclear if Trump himself could face charges based on what the jurors determine.It is far from the only investigation into Trump. The Department of Justice is examining election interference that as well as Trump’s role in the Capitol attack, and both cases have been handed to special prosecutor Jack Smith.Smith is also expected to decided whether to bring charges against Trump and others over the government secrets discovered at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats Face Obstacles in Plan to Reorder Presidential Primary Calendar

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      The party is radically reshuffling the early-state order, but Georgia and New Hampshire present challenges.Democratic efforts to overhaul which states hold the first presidential primaries entered a new and uncertain phase this week, with hurdles to President Biden’s preferred order coming into focus even as several states signaled their abilities to host early contests, a key step in radically reshaping the calendar.But in Georgia, Democrats face logistical problems in moving up their primary. And New Hampshire, the longtime leadoff primary state, has officially indicated that it cannot comply with the early-state lineup endorsed by a D.N.C. panel, under which the state would hold the second primary contest alongside Nevada.That panel backed a sweeping set of changes last month to how the party picks its presidential nominee, in keeping with Mr. Biden’s vision of putting more racially diverse states at the beginning of the process.Democratic nominating contests have for years begun with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Under the new proposal, the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar would begin in South Carolina on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27.Those states — several of which played critical roles in Mr. Biden’s 2020 primary victory — had until Thursday to demonstrate progress toward being able to host contests on the selected dates. According to a letter from the co-chairs of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan have met the committee’s requirements for holding early primaries.Both Georgia and New Hampshire are more complex cases.In the letter, sent on Thursday, the committee’s co-chairs recommended that the two states be granted extensions to allow for more time to work toward meeting the requirements of the new calendar.“We expected both the New Hampshire and Georgia efforts to be complicated but well worth the effort if we can get them done,” wrote Jim Roosevelt Jr. and Minyon Moore, in a letter obtained by The New York Times. They added, “We are committed to seeing out the calendar that this committee approved last month.”Under the new D.N.C. proposal, Georgia would host the fourth Democratic primary in 2024. A onetime Republican bastion that helped propel Mr. Biden to the presidency, Georgia also played a critical role in cementing the Democratic Senate majority and has become an undeniably critical battleground state. Atlanta has been vying to host the Democratic National Convention and is considered one of the stronger contenders.President Biden, if he seeks re-election, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.David Degner for The New York TimesBut there are challenges in moving up Georgia’s Democratic primary. Republicans have already agreed to their own early-voting calendar, keeping the order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and rules from the Republican National Committee are clear: States that jump the order will lose delegates, and party rules have already been set (though the R.N.C. is in a period of tumult as its chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, faces a challenge to her leadership).In Georgia, the primary date is determined by the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican. Officials from his office have stressed that there is no appetite to hold two primaries or to risk losing delegates.“This needs to be equitable to both political parties and held on the same day to save taxpayers’ money,” Jordan Fuchs, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state, said in a statement this week.Georgia Democrats hoping that the money and media attention that come to an early primary state might persuade Gov. Brian P. Kemp, a Republican, to intercede for them may be disappointed, too.“The governor has no role in this process and does not support the idea,” Cody Hall, an adviser to Mr. Kemp, said on Wednesday night.The situation is fraught for different reasons in New Hampshire, which has long held the nation’s first primary as a matter of state law. Neither the state’s Democrats nor its Republicans, who control the governor’s mansion and state legislature, are inclined to buck the law, playing up the state’s discerning voters and famed opportunities for small-scale retail politicking.That tradition puts New Hampshire’s Democrats directly at odds with the D.N.C. mandate to host the second primary in 2024. Officials in the state have signaled their intent to hold the first primary anyway, risking penalties.In a letter to the Rules and Bylaws Committee before the deadline extension, Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, wrote that the D.N.C.’s plan was “unrealistic and unattainable, as the New Hampshire Democratic Party cannot dictate to the Republican governor and state legislative leaders what to do, and because it does not have the power to change the primary date unilaterally.”He noted a number of concessions New Hampshire Democrats would seek to make, but urged the committee to “reconsider the requirements that they have placed,” casting them as a “poison pill.”The early-state proposal is the culmination of a long process to reorder and diversify the calendar, and Mr. Roosevelt and Ms. Moore said later Thursday that the tentative calendar “does what is long overdue and brings more voices into the early window process.”D.N.C. rules stipulate consequences for any state that moves to operate ahead of the party’s agreed-upon early window, as well as for candidates who campaign in such states.If New Hampshire jumps the line, Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, assuming he runs, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.While few prominent Democratic officials expect, as of now, that he would draw a major primary challenge if he runs — making much of the drama around the early-state calendar effectively moot in 2024 — a lesser-known candidate could emerge and camp out in New Hampshire, some in the state have warned.The eventual calendar is not set in stone for future elections: Mr. Biden urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee has embraced an amendment to get that process underway.And there are still a number of steps this year.The Rules and Bylaws Committee is expected to meet to vote on the proposed extensions. The D.N.C.’s. winter meeting, where the five-state proposal must be affirmed by the full committee, is scheduled for early February in Philadelphia, and there is certain to be more jockeying ahead of that event.“The first real inflection point is the meeting of the full D.N.C.,” Mr. Roosevelt said in an interview late last month. More

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      ‘It’s not about winning an election’: Stacey Abrams’ legacy in Georgia

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      ‘It’s not about winning an election’: Stacey Abrams’ legacy in Georgia Abrams did not win the vote, but she created the conditions for increased voter turnout among key parts of Georgia’s electorateAfter a critical runoff election that helped Democrats cement their majority in the US Senate, Georgia’s status as a political battleground with national influence has become more apparent. Georgia now boasts a highly engaged electorate that continues to turn out in record numbers election after election.While various factors contribute to this, many in Georgia point to the state’s grassroots coalition, built over the last decade, that sought to register, engage and educate voters like never before. At the helm of this coalition sits former state House minority leader and two-time gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.Star Trek makes Stacey Abrams president of United Earth – and stokes conservative angerRead moreThroughout the south, Black women have a long history of organizing their communities to redefine and exercise political power. Abrams is one of the latest in a long line of Black women, which includes civil rights activists Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker, who are building upon this legacy and joining in the marathon of the fight for democracy.Despite two losses in her race for governor, Abrams’ impact has continued to shape Georgia’s political sphere. Abrams, the founder of two of Georgia’s largest voting rights organizations, Fair Fight and New Georgia Project, embarked on a mission nearly a decade ago to expand and engage the state’s electorate by courting voters whose voices had long been ignored.“The state [Democrats] were at a crossroads,” said Kendra Cotton, the CEO of New Georgia Project. “We were either going to continue down that path of pursuing the white moderate, or we were going to move and be all in on the path of expanding the electorate and really trying to educate and intentionally engage Black folks, Brown folks and young folks, into participating in the electoral process at a higher level.”Through a multi-racial, cross-movement, grassroots campaign, Abrams and her allies developed a political infrastructure that increased turnout among Black, Asian, Latinx, low-income and youth voters, who tend to vote for more progressive candidates. Organizations like Black Voters Matter, Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, and New Georgia Project, all led by Black women, served as pillars within a growing coalition, reaching communities across the state to register and engage record numbers of voters.At the close of the 2022 runoff election, Georgia had over seven million active voters, according to the secretary of state’s office. Of that seven million, 18 to 24-year-olds represent the largest voting population.While it is clear that Abrams is not the only force behind Georgia’s growing electorate and a renewed focus on voting rights throughout the nation, Cotton said she serves as a “flashpoint” in the history of American politics that many were able to galvanize around.“We weren’t buying into Abrams as a candidate, but into the vision that the future of the elections really does lie within its young folks and Black and Brown people who have been the backbone of this nation for generations, but didn’t fully know how to assert the power that they had.”Santiago Mayer, founder and executive director of the youth-led voting organization Voters of Tomorrow, says that Abrams served as an inspiration for his organization and his work as a youth organizer working to support and amplify the voice of young voters.“The work of getting people to vote and make their voices heard is simply one of the most important jobs anyone can do because it guides our future,” said Mayer. “Stacey Abrams showed us how to carry that legacy and build upon it, and what we can accomplish when you help those whose voices have been neglected so long really make an impact and generate real action.”Young Black voters in Georgia reached a new record during the 2020 election, with 500,000 Black voters aged 18 to 29 turning out. This greatly contributed to the overall growth of Georgia’s Black voters. In total, the number of Black voters in the state increased 25% from 2016 to 2020, as Asian and Latinx voters experienced a 12% and 18% increase, respectively.Still, as Georgia’s electorate expanded, so grew opposition. After the 2020 election, Georgia took the national stage as Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the election. Abrams was a focus of GOP ire, receiving attacks from Trump and his allies and Governor Brian Kemp and his allies.Following unfounded claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election by Trump and his allies, Kemp and Georgia’s GOP seemingly developed a solution to a problem that never existed. The result was a comprehensive and strict new voter law that impacted everything from who’s allowed to help voters register to where resources can be distributed to voters waiting in Georgia’s notoriously long precinct lines.Kemp and other GOP officials also worked to mark Abrams as an election denier because of her claims of voter suppression throughout the state in 2020.Nonetheless, Abrams was one of the key players in expanding Georgia’s electorate in 2022, delivering a key democratic victory during the presidential election to the chagrin of Trump.Because of the state’s highly engaged voting rights coalition and clear voting rights infrastructure helmed by Abrams, voters and activists alike were equipped to navigate a system that placed new barriers on the path to casting a ballot. They moved in step with uniform messaging, spreading out across the state and guiding voters through the ever-changing electoral landscape of Georgia.And the results were clear. With concerted efforts to encourage voters to vote early to mitigate potential issues this election season, nearly 3 million people cast early votes, a record for the state. The turnout, experts say, illustrates the gradual progress critical to enacting the lasting change necessary for strong political shifts.Stacey Abrams on Republican voter suppression: ‘They are doing what the insurrectionists sought’Read more“Party building on a state and a national level takes time and resources to build an apparatus to harness those shifts into real political change, and we can’t forget that,” said Dr Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University. “[Abrams] was able to help galvanize Georgia democrats, build a bridge between various groups of constituents and really energize the electorate.”While Abrams did not necessarily bear the fruit of this energized electorate during her two gubernatorial campaigns, many Democrats, both on a statewide and national level, did. Most notably, Georgia voters played a significant role in the 2020 election of Joe Biden, the first democratic candidate to win Georgia’s electoral votes in two decades.“Any time you see [senators] Ossoff and Warnock and President Biden in Washington, you are looking at the work of Stacey Abrams,” said the Rev Al Sharpton.Whether because of policy, party, gender or race, Abrams did not find success in her bids to be the next governor of Georgia. However, her ability to mobilize voters, expand political power and develop a political infrastructure actively redefining the South will not soon be forgotten. As Cotton explains, “The gains that we have now cannot be divorced from the vision that she had then.”In her only post-election interview earlier this month, Abrams revealed that while she may run again, she will maintain her role in the fight to redefine voter outreach, expand the electorate and amplify the voices of voters long ignored.“The work that I do and the work that I am so committed to is about engaging voters year-round because it’s not just about somebody winning an election,” Abrams said. “It’s about your life getting better and that should be our mission.”TopicsStacey AbramsThe fight for democracyGeorgiaUS politicsDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Georgia’s Top Election Official Calls for End to Runoff System

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      Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, said that a newly tightened timeline for runoff elections had put added strain on election workers.ATLANTA — Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, called for the state legislature to end the use of runoff contests during general elections on Wednesday, a potential move that would overhaul Georgia’s heavily debated system of choosing its leaders.Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican who oversees the state’s elections, cited the recently condensed timeline for runoff elections as one problem, saying that it had put added strain on poll workers. The runoff window was shortened to four weeks from nine under a major 2021 election law backed by Republican state lawmakers.“No one wants to be dealing with politics in the middle of their family holiday,” Mr. Raffensperger said in a news release. “It’s even tougher on the counties who had a difficult time completing all of their deadlines, an election audit and executing a runoff in a four-week time period.”Mr. Raffensperger does not have any legislative power and did not endorse any other specific changes on Wednesday. But his early support for eliminating the runoff system could influence how Republican state lawmakers approach the question.The Republican-controlled legislature would need a simple majority to alter or end the system, and then Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, would have to sign the measure. Republican leaders in the General Assembly and Mr. Kemp have not indicated yet whether they would support changes to the runoff system.Mr. Raffensperger also noted that Georgia is one of very few states that still use a runoff system for general elections. Louisiana is the only other state that requires a runoff in a general election if no candidate receives at least 50 percent of the vote. The system is a relic of Jim Crow-era laws that aimed to limit Black voters’ political power.In recent years, however, Georgia Democrats have won several high-profile runoff victories, including that of Senator Raphael Warnock against Herschel Walker last week. That race had soaring turnout that led to long lines at precincts in heavily populated, Democratic-leaning counties. Democrats also successfully sued to hold early voting for an extra day on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Raffensperger said that his office would present several proposed runoff changes to the state legislature when it reconvenes in January. They include mandating that larger counties open more voting locations to cut down wait times, lowering the threshold needed to win an election outright to 45 percent from 50 percent and instituting a ranked-choice instant-runoff system that would not require voters to return to the polls after the general election. More

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      Unapologetic Black Power in the South

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      I’m a strong advocate of Black reverse migration — Black people returning to Southern states from cities in the North and West in order to concentrate political power.This reverse migration was already happening before my advocacy, and it continues. As the demographer William H. Frey wrote for the Brookings Institution in September, the reversal “began as a trickle in the 1970s, increased in the 1990s, and turned into a virtual evacuation from many Northern areas in subsequent decades.”There are many reasons for this reversal, primarily economic, but I specifically propose adding the accrual of political power — statewide political power — to the mix.One of the ways that people often push back on what I’m proposing is to worry aloud about the opposition and backlash to a rising Black population and power base in Southern states.Well, Georgia is providing a proving ground for this debate in real life.I heard so many people after the Georgia runoff in which Raphael Warnock defeated Herschel Walker who said some version of “Yes, but it was still too close.”It seemed to me that those comments — and many others — missed the bigger point: Something absolutely historic is happening in Georgia that portends a massive political realignment for several Southern states.Georgia voters proved this year that the historic election of a Black senator from a Southern state by a coalition led in many ways by Black people was not a fluke.And that coalition sent Warnock back to the Senate in the face of fierce opposition. Not only did the Georgia state legislature and Gov. Brian Kemp do their best to suppress voters — a tactic almost always designed to marginalize nonwhite voters — but Republicans also turned out in droves to try to retain power that they see slipping from their grasp.Furthermore, in the general election, Black turnout was down. According to Nate Cohn, the Black share of the electorate fell to its lowest level since 2006.But then in the runoff, when the choice was narrowed and sharpened, the Warnock coalition bounced back, stronger and defiant.According to the Georgia secretary of state’s office, Black voters only account for 29 percent of registered active voters in the state. During early voting, Black voters outperformed. They went to the polls to prove a point. They voted to flex. According to a Pew Research Center report, the number of Black people registered to vote in Georgia increased 25 percent from 2016 to 2020, a far larger increase than any other racial group.Yes, many, like me, were offended by the presence of Walker as the alternative, and were voting as much to defy Walker as to affirm Warnock.But even there, I think we have to step back, take a breath, and soberly assess how historic his presence was. The power structure in Georgia was so shocked by what this Black-led coalition had done that they allowed Donald Trump to foist a thoroughly unqualified Black Republican on them, thinking that he would help them win back power.Georgia Republicans thought they could fracture the Black vote. They couldn’t. It held strong and united.There is a great, nearly inexpressible exhilaration in this realization as a Black citizen and voter. Black people and other minorities weren’t simply being called upon to tip the balance when white voters split down the middle. Every other Black senator in American history has been elected by a coalition led by white liberals. Warnock is the first elected by a coalition led by Black people.Black people were leading the charge in his election, and he was solid, bright and competent. This startling new reality of electoral politics demolished any lingering lies about inferior Black leadership or intemperate Black voters. Black voters want what any other voter should want: solid leaders who are responsive to them.Some may look at the defeat of Stacey Abrams in the governor’s race and see it as a sign of caution, that the “Old South” is alive and well. But I see it differently. Power will not be passively relinquished. Those with it will fight like hell to retain it. And in that power struggle, they will win some of the battles.Each election will depend on candidates and campaigns. The race between Kemp and Abrams is not a predictor of what is possible. Black voters in Georgia keep reminding themselves what’s possible when they focus their attention and effort as they did in this runoff.That kind of engagement — and the reward of winning — is psychologically powerful. Once a people taste power, state power, it seems to me that it will be hard to turn away from it. Having it begins to feel normal and expected.That is a reality that many in this country have feared for centuries. That is a reality that I now relish.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More