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      Georgia's Republican-led legislature passes sweeping voting restrictions

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      Georgia lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to legislation to impose sweeping new restrictions on voting access in the state that make it harder to vote by mail and give the state legislature more power over elections.The measure was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, on Thursday evening. “Significant reforms to our state elections were needed. There’s no doubt there were many alarming issues with how the election was handled, and those problems, understandably, led to a crisis of confidence,” Kemp said during prepared remarks shortly after signing the bill.It requires voters to submit ID information with both an absentee ballot request and the ballot itself. It limits the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, allows for unlimited challenges to a voter’s qualifications, cuts the runoff election period from nine to four weeks, and significantly shortens the amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterThe legislation also empowers the state legislature, currently dominated by Republicans, to appoint a majority of members on the five-person state election board. That provision would strip Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who stood up to Trump after the election, from his current role as chairman of the board. The bill creates a mechanism for the board to strip local election boards of their power.Gloria Butler, a Democratic state senator, said the bill would make it harder to vote, especially for poor and disabled people. “We are witnessing a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era,” she said just before the bill passed.“This bill is absolutely about opportunities, but it isn’t about opportunities to vote. It is about the opportunity to keep control and keep power at any cost,” Jen Jordan, a Democratic state senator, said on Thursday.Park Cannon, a Democratic state representative, was arrested on Thursday after knocking on the door of the governor’s office during a protests against the legislation’s signing. Video captured by a bystander shows Cannon, who is Black, handcuffed with her arms behind her back and being forcibly removed from the state Capitol by two officers, one on each arm. She says, “Where are you taking me?” and, “Stop” as she is taken from the building.The legislation comes after Georgia saw record turnout in the November election and January US Senate runoffs, including surges among Black and other minority voters. It has become the center of national attention because many see it as a crystallization of a national push by Republicans to make it harder to vote. Alluding to a measure in the Georgia bill that bans providing food or water to people standing in line to vote, Joe Biden called that national effort “sick” during a Thursday press conference. “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle,” he said.Facing opposition from top Republicans in the state, Republicans dropped a push to require voters to give an excuse to vote by mail. And amid national outcry, they backed away in recent weeks from proposals to prohibit early voting on Sundays, a day that Black voters have traditionally used in disproportionate numbers to cast ballots. The measure that passed on Thursday actually expands weekend early voting in the state, requiring an additional Saturday and authorizing counties to offer it on two Sundays if they choose.Republicans seized on that provision in the bill on Thursday to claim that they were actually expanding voter access in Georgia. “The bill greatly expands the accessibility of voters in Georgia and greatly improves the process of administration of elections while at the same time providing more accountability to provide that the vote is properly preserved,” Barry Fleming, a GOP state representative who spearheaded the legislation, said on Thursday.They offered little substantive justification for why the measure was necessary after an election in which there was record turnout, and in which multiple recounts in the presidential race found no evidence of fraud. Instead, they said the bill was necessary to preserve voter confidence.The nearly 100-page measure was only formally unveiled last week, when it was abruptly inserted into another two-page bill. While the legislation includes several of the measures lawmakers debated, it included some new ideas that had not been fully debated. Democrats and voting activists have accused Republicans of trying to ram through a bill without fully vetting it.Democrats and voting rights groups are expected to swiftly file a slew of lawsuits challenging the measure.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Georgia activists call for Coca-Cola boycott over ‘deafening silence’ on voting rights

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      Georgia activists are calling for a statewide boycott of Coca-Cola as part of an escalating effort to get major corporations to oppose significant voting restrictions Republicans in the state legislature are on the verge of approving.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterThe call for the boycott, first reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, is coming from leaders of the sixth district of the AME church, which includes more than 500 Black churches in Georgia. Bishop Reginald Thomas Jackson, the presiding prelate, said that there had been a “deafening silence” around voting rights from Coca-Cola and other companies that had put out statements last year supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.“Our position is they’ve not lived up to their own words. By your silence you’re actually being complicit. So we’re going to say to them, if you want our money, then you ought to have our back,” he said in an interview. He added that he expected other civil rights groups to join in the boycott calls soon.For weeks, activists have been placing pressure on Coca-Cola, as well as Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Aflac, UPS, and Southern Company – all based in Georgia – to use their political clout to oppose bills in the legislature that would require voters to provide ID information when they vote by mail, limit the availability of absentee drop boxes and give the state legislature more power to meddle in local election boards, among other measures.But those major companies have declined to speak out directly against the bills. The Georgia chamber of commerce released a statement earlier this month saying it had “concern and opposition” to provisions in the legislation. The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce has been a little more specific, saying earlier this month it was focused on addressing weekend absentee voting, drop boxes and ID requirements.Coca-Cola told the Guardian earlier this month it supported both chambers of commerce and a “balanced approach to elections”. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the boycott.Georgia lawmakers will probably hammer out a final version of sweeping voting changes before the legislative session ends next week. While they walked back an effort to cut weekend early voting, they still have left sweeping restrictions in bills that civil rights groups say are a blatant effort to suppress votes.Jackson said he plans to lead a protest at the Georgia capitol on Thursday and did not rule out calling on boycotts of the other major companies.“Boycotting is not something we really want to do,” he said. “Coca-Cola is a fine company. But at the same time, we think all of these major companies have responsibilities on issues of social justice.” More

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      Republicans Aim to Seize More Power Over How Elections Are Run

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      G.O.P. lawmakers in at least eight states controlled by the party are trying to gain broad influence over the mechanics of voting, in an effort that could further undermine the country’s democratic norms.In the turbulent aftermath of the 2020 presidential contest, election officials in Georgia, from the secretary of state’s office down to county boards, found themselves in a wholly unexpected position: They had to act as one of the last lines of defense against an onslaught of efforts by a sitting president and his influential allies to overturn the will of the voters.Now state Republicans are trying to strip these officials of their power.Buried in an avalanche of voting restrictions currently moving through the Georgia Statehouse are measures that would give G.O.P. lawmakers wide-ranging influence over the mechanics of voting and fundamentally alter the state’s governance of elections. The bill, which could clear the House as soon as Thursday and is likely to be passed by the Senate next week, would allow state lawmakers to seize control of county election boards and erode the power of the secretary of state’s office.“It’s looking at total control of the election process by elected officials, which is not what it should be,” said Helen Butler, a Democratic county board of elections member. “It’s all about turnout and trying to retain power.”It’s not just Georgia. In Arizona, Republicans are pushing for control over the rules of the state’s elections. In Iowa, the G.O.P. has installed harsh new criminal penalties for county election officials who enact emergency voting rules. In Tennessee, a Republican legislator is trying to remove a sitting judge who ruled against the party in an election case.Nationwide, Republican lawmakers in at least eight states controlled by the party are angling to pry power over elections from secretaries of state, governors and nonpartisan election boards.The maneuvers risk adding an overtly partisan skew to how electoral decisions are made each year, threatening the fairness that is the bedrock of American democracy. The push is intertwined with Republicans’ extraordinary national drive to make it harder for millions of Americans to vote, with legislative and legal attacks on early voting, absentee balloting and automatic voter registration laws.“Republicans are brazenly trying to seize local and state election authority in an unprecedented power grab,” said Stacey Abrams, the Democratic voting rights advocate who served as the minority leader in the Georgia State House. She said it was “intended to alter election outcomes and remove state and county election officials who refuse to put party above the people.”She added, “Had their grand plan been law in 2020, the numerous attempts by state legislatures to overturn the will of the voters would have succeeded.”As Mr. Trump carried out his pressure campaign to try to overturn the election results in swing states, he found many sympathetic lawmakers willing to go along with him — but he was rebuffed by numerous election officials, as well as state and federal courts.The new legislation across the country would systematically remove the checks that stood in Mr. Trump’s way, injecting new political influence over electors, county election boards and the certification process. In doing so, the Republican effort places a few elected officials who refused to buy into the lies and falsehoods about the election in its cross hairs.One of those officials is Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia, who rebuffed Mr. Trump in the face of mounting pressure to falsely declare the election rife with fraud, despite multiple audits that affirmed the outcome.In Georgia’s new voting bill, the State Legislature is looking to strip Mr. Raffensperger of his role as the chair of the State Election Board and make him an ex-officio member without a vote.Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, repeatedly rejected Donald J. Trump’s entreaties to help him overturn the election results.Audra Melton for The New York TimesBut perhaps more consequential is Republicans’ targeting of county election boards. If the bill becomes law, the State Election Board, under control of the Legislature, would have more authority over these county boards, including the ability to review and fire their members.“It will give the State Election Board the authority to replace a limited number, it appears, of county election superintendents, and that can be a very partisan tool in the wrong hands,” said David Worley, the sole Democratic member of the five-person state board.The provision has worried Democratic officials in major left-leaning counties like Fulton County, which is home to Atlanta, and Gwinnett County, as well as their surrounding suburbs. They fear that a partisan state board influenced by the Legislature may enact more restrictive policies for their counties, which are home to the majority of the Democratic voters in the state and a large concentration of the state’s Black voters.Jon Greenbaum, the chief counsel for the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said Republicans were engaged in an “all-out effort to change the voting rules in lots of ways that would allow for greater opportunity for them to challenge the eligibility of electors,” and that the party would “add micromanagement by state legislatures to the process of running an election.”State Representative Barry Fleming, a Republican who has been a chief sponsor of the bills in Georgia, did not respond to requests for comment. In a hearing on the bill this month, he defended the provisions, saying, “We as legislators decide how we will actually be elected, because we decide our own boards of elections and those of the counties we are elected from.”Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, has not weighed in publicly on the changes to election administration and oversight. Asked for comment, his office offered only that he was in favor of “strengthened voter ID protections.”At the local level, at least nine Republican counties in Georgia have passed local legislation since November dissolving their current election boards — often composed of three Republicans and two Democrats — and replacing them with a new membership entirely appointed by the county commissioner, resulting in single-party boards.A new law in Iowa restricting access to voting also targeted county election officials. In addition to barring them from proactively sending out absentee ballot applications, the bill introduced criminal charges for officials who fail to follow the new voting rules.The threat of increased punishment seemed to be directed at three county election officials in the state, who last year chose to mail absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in their counties, drawing the ire of state Republicans.“We can be fined heavily now, removed from office,” said one of those officials, Travis Weipert, the Johnson County auditor. “And instead of just saying, ‘Don’t do it again,’ they brought the hammer down on us.”He joked on Facebook that he would be setting up a GoFundMe page because “I have a pretty good idea which auditors will be fined first.”Election officials checked information on absentee ballot envelopes in Newton, Iowa, in October. A new law in the state restricting access to voting has targeted county election officials. Kathryn Gamble for The New York TimesBobby Kaufmann, the Republican state representative in Iowa who sponsored the voting bill, said the county auditors’ actions were “as much the inspiration for the bill as anything,” pointing to their decisions to mail out ballots with prepopulated information.“There were multiple things that these county auditors did to take the law into their own hands, which is why we put these strict punishments and oversight in for auditors that go beyond the scope of their job,” Mr. Kaufmann said, referring to the auditors who proactively mailed ballots. “That’s the role of the Legislature, not the role of an auditor.”In Arizona, the Republican-controlled Legislature is pursuing multiple paths to tip the scales of election oversight. One bill gives the Legislature the authority to approve the state election manual, an essential planning document that is drawn up every two years by the secretary of state. It had previously been approved by the governor and the attorney general.The effort has been roundly criticized by election officials in the state.“They don’t serve any purpose, except for the Legislature just trying to insert themselves into the process, create obstruction, and say that they did something in the name of election integrity without actually doing anything that does that,” said Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state in Arizona.Ms. Hobbs, who was the target of many Republican attacks after the 2020 election, said that purely partisan politics were at play in the bills.“The Legislature wasn’t interested in control over elections until I got here and happened to have a ‘D’ by my name,” she said.Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a Republican state senator who has been a sponsor of many of the bills, did not respond to a request for comment.Republicans are also introducing measures to give them more electoral oversight in some states, like Michigan and New Jersey, that have Democratic governors who would most likely veto such bills. In North Carolina, which also has a Democratic governor, Republican legislators have publicly discussed introducing a similar bill, but have not yet done so.Efforts in other states to muddle with the mechanics of elections have gone beyond state legislatures. In Michigan, the state Republican Party has indicated that it is unlikely to ask a G.O.P. member of the State Board of Canvassers who chose to certify last year’s election results to return to his post.That member, Aaron Van Langevelde, sided with the two Democrats on the state board in November, clearing the path for Michigan’s Electoral College votes to be awarded to President Biden.If Mr. Van Langevelde is ousted from the board, election officials in Michigan worry that the state Republican Party may again seek to hold up certification of a statewide election and possibly succeed, regardless of the success and security of the vote.It is nearly assured that almost all of these bills will face legal challenges from Democrats, who have signaled that combating the efforts to restrict voting will be a top priority through both federal legislation and the courts.And Democrats could find a path to challenging some of these laws in deep-red Kansas.That state’s Republican-led Legislature put forward a proposal similar to those in Georgia and Arizona, seeking to limit the authority of the secretary of state to make emergency decisions and provisions for elections. But the Republican secretary of state, Scott Schwab, informed the Legislature that the proposal “could run afoul” of federal voting laws regarding military and overseas voters.The legislation was quickly amended the next day. More

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      Trump Endorses a Loyalist, Jody Hice, for Georgia Secretary of State

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      By supporting a challenger to Georgia’s current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, the former president signaled that he wants Republicans who opposed his election falsehoods to pay politically.Former President Donald J. Trump on Monday took aim at a Georgia official he considers one of his biggest enemies: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused Mr. Trump’s pressure to overturn the state’s election results last year.By endorsing Jody Hice, a Republican congressman, in his bid to unseat Mr. Raffensperger, the former president made his most prominent effort yet to try to punish elected officials who he believes have crossed him. Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, is among the top targets for Mr. Trump, along with the state’s governor, Brian Kemp.Mr. Raffensperger and other Georgia election officials certified President Biden’s victory after conducting several recounts. They have said the results were fair and accurate, dismissing Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.In a statement issued shortly after Mr. Hice announced his candidacy for the position on Monday, Mr. Trump praised him as “one of our most outstanding congressmen,” and alluded to his own baseless claims of voter fraud, which he has said deprived him of victory in the state. “Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity,” Mr. Trump said. “Jody will stop the Fraud and get honesty into our Elections!”The race in Georgia for secretary of state — until the 2020 election a relatively low-profile job across the country — carries outsize implications in the battleground state, with Republicans there working to roll back voting rights and Democrats fighting those efforts.Should Mr. Hice beat Mr. Raffensperger in the Republican primary, his nomination could energize Democrats who are alarmed by the prospect of elections in the state being run by a Trump loyalist. No date for the primary has been set yet.Mr. Hice, who represents Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, stretching south and east from Atlanta, in January condemned the second House impeachment of Mr. Trump as “misguided” and aimed at “scoring cheap political points.” In the weeks after the November election, he supported Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud, including a challenge before the Supreme Court that sought to overturn the results in states Mr. Trump lost.Mr. Hice also served in the House Freedom Caucus with former Representative Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s fourth and last chief of staff. Mr. Meadows was integral in Mr. Trump’s efforts to recruit Mr. Hice, two Republicans briefed on the discussions said.As he seeks to retain control of the Republican Party, Mr. Trump is determined to remain a kingmaker for down-ballot elections, while seeking retribution against those he perceives as having betrayed him.So far, he has endorsed only one other candidate running against someone he feels personally aggrieved by: Max Miller, a former White House aide, who is challenging Representative Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican representing Ohio’s Sixth Congressional District. Mr. Gonzalez was one of 10 House members who voted for Mr. Trump’s impeachment.Mr. Hice’s challenge — against a Trump nemesis in a critical swing state — will be a higher-profile test of Mr. Trump’s political clout among Republicans.The move to back Mr. Hice against the sitting secretary of state is also extraordinary given that Mr. Raffensperger has confirmed his office is investigating Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results, including a phone call the former president made to him. Mr. Trump is also under investigation by Fulton County prosecutors into whether he and others tried to improperly influence the election.Mr. Raffensperger was on the receiving end of a now-infamous call in early January, in which Mr. Trump pushed baseless claims of widespread election irregularities and asked the secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse the win for Mr. Biden.“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state,” Mr. Trump said during the call.Mr. Raffensperger repeatedly told him his data was wrong. “We have to stand by our numbers,” he said. “We believe our numbers are right.”Mr. Trump, when he had a Twitter feed, repeatedly attacked Mr. Raffensperger for not acceding to his demands.In a statement on Monday afternoon, Mr. Raffensperger was scathing about his future opponent. “Few have done more to cynically undermine faith in our election than Jody Hice,” he said, adding, “Georgia Republicans seeking a candidate who’s accomplished nothing now have one.”Richard Fausset More

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      Trump backs challenge to Georgia official who refused to overturn election

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      Donald Trump advanced his quest on Monday to purge elected Republicans who refused to go along with his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election, announcing an endorsement in Georgia in an effort to unseat a key election official.

      The secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, infuriated Trump last year by refusing a point-blank request to fake the presidential election result in Georgia.
      Jody Hice, a Republican member of Congress who supported Trump’s effort to overturn Joe Biden’s win, announced on Monday he would challenge Raffensperger in a summer 2022 primary. Trump endorsed Hice immediately.
      “Unlike the current Georgia secretary of state, Jody leads out front with integrity,” Trump said in a statement that repeated his false claims of election fraud and declared his “complete and total endorsement” of Hice.
      Two months out of office, Trump has begun an effort to flex his influence with core Republican voters who will decide the party’s nominations in thousands of races across the country next year.
      Trump boasted of the effort in an appearance on a podcast hosted by a Fox News contributor, The Truth with Lisa Boothe.
      “The fact that I give somebody an endorsement has meant the difference between a victory and a massive defeat,” he said. “They’re all going to win and they’re going to win big.”
      Trump has shown a high success rate with endorsements in Republican primaries. He has repeatedly endorsed losing candidates in general election contests, however – including both Georgia US Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who were beaten by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in January, tipping the Senate to Democratic control.
      Some Republicans fear Trump’s intervention in primary elections could produce extreme nominees who might be relatively weak in general election contests.
      Other Republicans high on Trump’s hitlist include the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, and Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, the only Republican senator up for re-election in 2022 to vote to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial.
      Raffensperger is the most prominent elected official to be targeted by Trump so far with an endorsement of a challenger. In a phone call after the election, Trump told Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” so he could win the state, which no Republican presidential candidate had lost in three decades.
      “The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump told Raffensperger in a call Raffensperger recorded. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

      In an interview with the Guardian about his decision to defend the election result, Raffensperger said he voted for Trump but would not help him steal the election.
      “I’m a conservative Republican. Yes, I wanted President Trump to win,” he said. “But as secretary of state we have to do our job. I’m gonna walk that fine, straight, line with integrity. I think that integrity still matters.”
      Since being banned from his longtime social media megaphone, Twitter, for spreading election lies, Trump has tried new methods for getting messages out, in the form of statements e-blasted to reporters – and now, podcast appearances.
      Trump told Boothe the new format was better than Twitter.
      “We’re sending out releases, they’re getting picked up much better than any tweet,” he said. “When I put out a statement, it’s much more elegant than a tweet, and I think it gets picked up better.” More

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      'We all know hate when we see it': Warnock rejects FBI chief's view of Atlanta shootings

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      Law enforcement officials including the director of the FBI have said the shootings in Atlanta in which eight people were killed do not appear to have been racially motivated, but the Georgia senator Raphael Warnock said on Sunday: “We all know hate when we see it.”Six women of Asian descent, another woman and a man were killed on Tuesday, in a shootings at spas in the Atlanta area.Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, was charged with the murders. He told police his actions were not racially motivated, and claimed to have a sex addiction.Speaking to NPR on Thursday, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, said: “While the motive remains still under investigation at the moment, it does not appear that the motive was racially motivated.”But such conclusions are rejected by protesters who see a link to rising attacks on Asian Americans in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China, and racially charged rhetoric from former president Donald Trump and others.Warnock, a Democrat, took office in January as the first African American elected to the US Senate from Georgia. On Saturday he and his fellow Democratic senator Jon Ossoff spoke to protesters near the state capitol in Atlanta.“I just wanted to drop by to say to my Asian sisters and brothers, ‘We see you, and, more importantly, we are going to stand with you,’” Warnock said, to cheers.On Sunday, he told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I think it’s important that we centre the humanity of the victims. I’m hearing a lot about the shooter, but these precious lives that have been lost, they are attached to families. They’re connected to people who love them. And so, we need to keep that in mind.“Law enforcement will go through the work that they need to do, but we all know hate when we see it. And it is tragic that we’ve been visited with this kind of violence yet again.”Warnock also cited a Georgia hate crimes law passed amid outrage over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a young African American man, and which prosecutors may decide to use against Young.“I’ve long pushed for hate crimes laws here in the state of Georgia,” Warnock said. “It took entirely too long to get one on the books here. But thankfully, we do have that law on the books right now.”Calling for “reasonable gun reform”, Warnock also linked official responses to the Atlanta shootings to efforts by Republicans to restrict voting among minority groups.“This shooter was able to kill all of these folks the same day he purchased a firearm,” Warnock said. “But right now, what is our legislature doing? They’re busy under the gold dome here in Georgia, trying to prevent people from being able to vote the same day they register.“I think that suggests a distortion in values. When you can buy a gun and create this much carnage and violence on the same day, but if you want to exercise your right to vote as an American citizen, the same legislature that should be focused on this is busy erecting barriers to that constitutional right.”Young bought a 9mm handgun at Big Woods Goods. Matt Kilgo, a lawyer for the store, told the Associated Press it complies with federal background check laws and is cooperating with police, with “no indication there’s anything improper”.Democrats and campaigners for gun law reform said a mandatory waiting period might have stopped Young acting on impulse.“It’s really quick,” Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told the AP. “You walk in, fill out the paperwork, get your background check and walk out with a gun. If you’re in a state of crisis, personal crisis, you can do a lot of harm fairly quickly.”According to the Giffords Center, studies suggest purchase waiting periods may bring down firearm suicides by up to 11% and homicides by about 17%.David Wilkerson, the minority whip in the Georgia state House, said Democrats planned to introduce legislation that would require a five-day period between buying a gun and getting it. More

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      Atlanta spa shootings: Georgia hate crimes law could see first big test

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      A hate crimes law passed in Georgia amid outrage over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery could get its first major test as part of the murder case against a white man charged with shooting and killing six women of Asian descent at Atlanta-area massage businesses this week.Prosecutors in Georgia who will decide whether to pursue a hate crimes enhancement have declined to comment. But one said she was “acutely aware of the feelings of terror being experienced in the Asian American community”.Until last year, Georgia was one of four states without a hate crimes law. But lawmakers moved quickly to pass stalled legislation in June, during national protests over racial violence against Black Americans including the killing of Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was pursued by several white men and fatally shot while out running in February 2020.The new law allows an additional penalty for certain crimes if they are motivated by a victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender or mental or physical disability.Governor Brian Kemp called the new legislation “a powerful step forward”, adding when signing it into law: “Georgians protested to demand action and state lawmakers … rose to the occasion.”The killings of eight people in Georgia this week have prompted national mourning and a reckoning with racism and violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. The attack also focused attention on the interplay of racism and misogyny, including hyper-sexualized portrayals of Asian women in US culture.Many times Asian people are too silent, but times changeRobert Aaron Long, 21, has been charged with the murders of six women of Asian descent and two other people. He told police the attacks at two spas in Atlanta and a massage business near suburban Woodstock were not racially motivated. He claimed to have a sex addiction.Asian American lawmakers, activists and scholars argued that the race and gender of the victims were central to the attack.“To think that someone targeted three Asian-owned businesses that were staffed by Asian American women … and didn’t have race or gender in mind is just absurd,” said Grace Pai, director of organizing at Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Chicago.Elaine Kim, a professor emeritus in Asian American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said: “I think it’s likely that the killer not only had a sex addiction but also an addiction to fantasies about Asian women as sex objects.”Such sentiments were echoed on Saturday as a diverse, hundreds-strong crowd gathered in a park across from the Georgia state capitol to demand justice for the victims of the shootings.Speakers included the US senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and the Georgia state representative Bee Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American in the Georgia House.“I just wanted to drop by to say to my Asian sisters and brothers, we see you, and, more importantly, we are going to stand with you,” Warnock said to loud cheers. “We’re all in this thing together.”Bernard Dong, a 24-year-old student from China at Georgia Tech, said he had come to the protest to demand rights not just for Asians but for all minorities.“Many times Asian people are too silent, but times change,” he said, adding that he was “angry and disgusted” about the shootings and violence against Asians, minorities and women.Otis Wilson, a 38-year-old photographer, said people needed to pay attention to discrimination against those of Asian descent.“We went through this last year with the Black community, and we’re not the only ones who go through this,” he said.The Cherokee county district attorney, Shannon Wallace, and Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, will decide whether to pursue the hate crime enhancement.Wallace said she could not answer specific questions but said she was “acutely aware of the feelings of terror being experienced in the Asian-American community”. A representative for Willis did not respond to requests for comment.The US Department of Justice could bring federal hate crime charges independently of state prosecutions. Federal investigators have not uncovered evidence to prove Long targeted the victims because of their race, two unnamed officials told the Associated Press.A Georgia State University law professor, Tanya Washington, said it was important for the new hate crimes law to be used.“Unless we test it with cases like this one, we won’t have a body of law around how do you prove bias motivated the behavior,” she said.[embedded content]Given that someone convicted of multiple murders is unlikely to be released from prison, an argument could be made that it is not worth the effort, time and expense to pursue a hate crime designation that carries a relatively small additional penalty. But the Republican state representative Chuck Efstration, who sponsored the hate crimes bill, said it was not just about punishment.“It is important that the law calls things what they are,” he said. “It’s important for victims and it’s important for society.”The state senator Michelle Au, a Democrat, said the law needed to be used to give it teeth.Au believes there has been resistance nationwide to charge attacks against Asian Americans as hate crimes because they are seen as “model minorities”, a stereotype that they are hard-working, educated and free of societal problems. She said she had heard from many constituents in the last year that Asian Americans – and people of Chinese descent in particular – were suffering from bias because the coronavirus emerged in China and Donald Trump used racial terms to describe it.“People feel like they’re getting gaslighted because they see it happen every day,” she said. “They feel very clearly that it is racially motivated but it’s not pegged or labeled that way. And people feel frustrated by that lack of visibility and that aspect being ignored.” More