ATLANTA – Republican Herschel Walker launched the first TV ad of the general election campaign for U.S. Senate Wednesday, a positive portrayal that depicts the University of Georgia football great as a uniter.
In the 30-second ad, Walker takes positions in support of the police, the Constitution, the right to exercise religious beliefs, and in favor of a strong military.
“I believe in peace through strength,” Walker says early in the ad. “If we have no strength, we’re going to have no peace.”
There’s no mention in the ad of incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, whose own ads have characterized Walker as being unready to represent Georgia in the Senate.
In the most recent examples, Warnock and his allies have taken aim at the Republican for pitching a product Walker said would kill COVID-19 and launching an organization purported to help veterans that allegedly preyed upon them.
While Walker’s new ad doesn’t talk about Warnock, a news release issued in conjunction with the ad accuses the Democrat of making personal attacks on Walker instead of talking about inflation and rising fuel prices.
“Simply put, if this election is about the issues, Raphael Warnock will lose – and he knows it,” Scott Paradise, Walker’s campaign manager, said Wednesday.
Walker’s new ad will run statewide on broadcast, cable, and digital outlets.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Labor reached last week is in limbo after the state agency withdrew its consent to the agreement.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) announced last Thursday that it had reached a preliminary settlement with the labor department in a suit over unemployment claims during the pandemic. A group of Georgians experiencing delays in claims processing since the pandemic began in March 2020 took the agency to court.
The settlement in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia could help jumpstart stalled unemployment determinations, payments, and appeals for Georgians still facing problems sorting out their claims.
But the labor department withdrew its consent to the agreement last Friday, according to court filings.
The state attorney general’s office – on behalf of the labor department – claimed that the Southern Poverty Law Center had already violated the terms of the settlement by posting a press release about the new agreement unilaterally.
The settlement agreement required a joint press release, the department claimed in its motion to withdraw its consent.
Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler confirmed that the department had filed a motion to withdraw its consent to the agreement.
Butler said the labor department had already instituted some of the improvements mentioned in the settlement agreement prior to the lawsuit, such as a claim status tracker.
“[The labor department] will continue to work with the plaintiffs’ attorneys to find common ground in this lawsuit, but not to the detriment of the men and women who have worked tirelessly for the past two years on issuing over $23 billion in unemployment insurance and pandemic relief benefits,” Butler added
It’s unclear what will happen to the settlement agreement for now.
But if adopted as outlined in federal court filings, the agreement will focus on helping Georgians whose unemployment insurance cases are still stalled and on improving communication.
One focus is on clearing backlogs of claimants who still need help resolving the 2020 and 2021 delays. The SPLC will submit a list of names to the labor department of people who are still having problems getting payment, and the agency will attempt to resolve the cases.
The settlement also outlines steps the agency will take to clear out a backlog of appeals by the end of this year, including hiring a vendor to scan documents to allow for electronic processing and setting up an “automated validity determination system.”
Another focus is on improving communication between the labor department and Georgians applying for unemployment insurance.
One of the major complaints of Georgians facing difficulty getting unemployment insurance during the pandemic was finding someone to speak to at the agency. The labor department has already instituted a modernized telephone answering system, according to the preliminary agreement.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani urges state Senate members to pick the state’s Electoral College electors at a hearing on Dec. 3, 2020. (Georgia Senate video)
ATLANTA – The Fulton County special grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia has subpoenaed two of then-President Donald Trump’s top lawyers and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, according to court filings.
Subpoenas for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, Trump campaign lawyer John Eastman, and Graham, R-S.C., were issued late last month and early this month and signed by Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury.
The subpoenas cite appearances by Giuliani and Eastman before members of the state Senate in December 2020 in which they blamed Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia on widespread voter fraud, allegations that have been disproven.
Giuliani presented a video of election workers at State Farm Area in Atlanta producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots, a video that was quickly debunked by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.
Eastman urged Georgia lawmakers to replace the Democratic Party’s slate of presidential electors due to unfounded claims of election fraud, according to his subpoena. He also drafted a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count some of the Electoral College votes for Biden during the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress that was interrupted by an attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
Graham made at least two phone calls to Raffensperger and members of his staff during the weeks following the election urging them to reexamine certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia “to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome” for Trump, according to his subpoena.
Fulton District Attorney Fanni Willis’ office has been investigating Trump’s efforts to reverse Biden’s victory in Georgia for months. However, the special grand jury wasn’t impaneled until May to subpoena witnesses and begin hearing evidence.
Raffensperger and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appeared before the special grand jury last month.
Gov. Brian Kemp is scheduled to give video testimony later this month.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
The General Assembly suspended the fuel tax in March as inflation began raising pump prices above $4 a gallon. Kemp extended that break in May and again on Friday.
Kemp also suspended the state sales tax on locomotive fuel, which he said would help fight rising consumer costs.
“I am committed to fighting to ease the economic burden hardworking Georgians are facing due to disastrous policies from Washington politicians,” Kemp said.
Kemp said President Joe Biden’s administration had not done enough to combat inflation and rising fuel prices.
In June, Biden called on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax (18 cents per gallon) until the end of September.
Biden has also ordered releases of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the nation’s emergency oil stockpile.
Georgia’s gas prices are about 50 cents below the national average, according to AAA.
On Friday, Kemp also extended an April executive order declaring a state of emergency in Georgia due related to supply chain disruptions. The order prohibits price gouging by gas station operators and relaxes some rules on commercial trucking in Georgia.
Kemp extended that executive order until August 13.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s new mental health parity law takes effect Friday, July 1.
Under the state’s new law, Georgia health insurers must cover mental health treatment at the same level they cover physical ailments
“Parity kicks in immediately,” Rep. Todd Jones, R-South Forsyth, said about the new law’s July 1 start date.
Jones, along with Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, co-sponsored the omnibus bill in the state house of representatives earlier this year.
“Georgia families hopefully have a greater opportunity to receive treatment they’re entitled to,” Oliver said of the change introduced by the new parity law.
“Folks that have not been getting adequate treatment: new funding is coming, new attention is coming,” Oliver said.
Oliver – along with several other mental health advocates – pointed out that Georgians can report suspected parity violations to the state insurance department. Georgians’ reports about their experiences would be key to making sure the law is enforced, Oliver said.
Georgia’s new mental health law sends the message that “mental health matters and is just as important as your physical health,” Kim Jones, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Georgia, said.
To explain mental health parity, Jones gave the example of a health insurer that offers out-of-network coverage for urgent medical services.
That insurer must also cover out-of-network urgent mental health and substance use treatment under the parity rule, Jones explained.
The Georgia insurance department will soon hire a new mental health parity officer to help oversee the law, Weston Burleson, director of communications officer for the insurance department, said.
Down the line, the department will collect and publish detailed information about how health insurers perform on mental health parity, Burleson added.
The mental health law also sets up a new MATCH (Multi-Agency Treatment for Children) team.
The team will start meeting soon and look carefully at the problem of Georgia children in state custody who lack stable placements, Oliver said.
“The issue of emergency placement for these children needs a lot of attention,” Oliver said, noting that some of these children are staying in hotels or offices.
The new law also helps set up mental health co-responder programs, Oliver said, with funds provided by the FY 2023 budget.
Co-responder programs pair mental health professionals with law enforcement officers to help respond to mental health and substance use crises. The programs often provide follow-up services as well.
Later this year, the state will solicit proposals from communities that want to set up assisted outpatient treatment programs. The new mental health law provides for five such programs on a “pilot” basis.
In these programs, courts – working with community mental health and law enforcement agencies – can require people to get treatment for mental health and substance use disorders.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s mental health commission is planning another round of recommendations and sub-committees are meeting monthly, Oliver said.
And the mental health commission is keeping a close eye on the progress of the new law’s provisions.
“There’s a lot of work going to make sure to ensure that our oversight creates a successful implementation,” Oliver said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
