ATLANTA – President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will participate in a debate June 27 at CNN’s studios in Atlanta, the network announced Wednesday.
The 9 p.m. debate will be aired live by CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español, CNN Max, and CNN.com with no audience present, a highly unusual arrangement for presidential debates.
The first presidential debates between Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat John F. Kennedy took place in 1960 without audiences present. But since presidential debates resumed in 1976, all have taken place in front of live audiences.
The two candidates wasted no time engaging in trash talk as they announced the debate.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020,” Biden said in a video released Wednesday. “Since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal, I’ll even do it twice.”
“I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website. “Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”
It’s uncertain whether any third-party candidates will be on the stage for the Atlanta debate. To participate, candidates must get their names on a sufficient number of state ballots to potentially reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls.
Moderators for the debate and additional details will be announced at a later date.
The Nathan Deal Judicial Center in downtown Atlanta is home to the Georgia Supreme Court. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Two Democratic politicians arrested for protesting in the Georgia Capitol Rotunda in separate incidents neither intended to disrupt the General Assembly nor actually caused any disruptions, an Atlanta civil rights lawyer told the state Supreme Court Wednesday.
Gerald Weber – representing former state Sen. and current U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, state Rep. Park Cannon and several other Georgians – urged the justices to rule the state law used in making the arrests overly broad and, thus, unconstitutional.
“We have people who were at a protest and didn’t say a word … people with signs and buttons engaging in conduct that was constitutionally protected,” Weber said toward the end of Wednesday’s oral arguments before the high court.
But Principal Deputy Solicitor General Ross Bergethon said state law treats the state Capitol differently from other parts of the Capitol complex, such as Liberty Plaza across the street.
“The Capitol building is not a public park,” he said. “It’s the seat of two branches of government.”
Williams and several Georgia residents were arrested by Capitol Police in November 2018 for protesting inside the Capitol Rotunda. Cannon was arrested in March 2021 for knocking on the door of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s office door as he was signing controversial election law changes that had just been passed by the General Assembly’s GOP majorities.
Weber argued that the 2018 arrests took place in a portion of the Capitol building historically set aside for the public.
“All of our citizens were arrested in the Rotunda, a traditional public forum,” he said.
In Cannon’s case, the plaintiffs maintained her knocking on the governor’s door was a nonverbal act not covered by the state statute.
That argument seemed to draw support from Justice Charles Bethel.
“What does knocking on a door to the governor’s office have to do with disrupting the General Assembly?” Bethel asked Bergethon.
Bergethon responded that the governor’s office – unlike the Capitol Rotunda – is not a public forum.
“The governor’s entitled to keep people out,” he said.
The court is expected to issue a ruling later this year.
ATLANTA – U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is vowing to pause until next year a postal service restructuring plan that has caused massive delays in processing mail at a regional distribution center in Palmetto.
In a letter to U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, DeJoy acknowledged complaints he has received from Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., a member of the committee, and other senators citing delays in on-time delivery of mail processed at distribution centers in Georgia and other states.
During a committee hearing last month, Ossoff revealed that only 36% of inbound mail handled by the Atlanta Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Palmetto was being delivered on time as of the end of February, shortly after the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) consolidated a group of local mail distribution offices into the single regional center.
“In response to the concern you and your colleagues have expressed, I will commit to pause any implementation of these moves at least until after Jan. 1, 2025,” DeJoy wrote to Peters. “Even then, we will not advance these efforts without advising you of our plans to do so, and then only at a moderated pace of implementation.”
DeJoy told the committee the delays in mail processing in Georgia and at a second regional distribution center in Richmond, Va., occurred as the postal service was rolling out a restructuring plan aimed at making the agency financially self-sufficient and better able to compete with private shippers.
DeJoy added at the time that plans to expand the new system nationwide had been put on hold while the postal service resolves the issues causing the delays. His letter to Peters, dated May 9, served to confirm and put a timeframe on that pause.
As he did last month, DeJoy insisted that the restructuring plan is necessary but will take time to work.
“We do not see these planned actions as at all consequential to service,” DeJoy wrote. “Rather, they are important elements of achieving a network that can provide greater service reliability in a cost-effective manner.”
Peters announced the commitment from DeJoy to pause the restructuring plan on social media.
“I’ll keep pushing the postmaster general and USPS Board of Governors for a plan that won’t interfere with critical mail service,” Peters wrote.
ATLANTA – The top leaders of the Georgia House and Senate are forming a joint committee to investigate reports of delays in the processing of business licenses by the secretary of state’s office.
“We have received numerous complaints from businesses across Georgia regarding substantial inefficiencies in reviewing and obtaining the licenses and certifications necessary for their operation,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said Monday.
“In response, we have appointed a joint committee to identify opportunities for improvement – and subsequently determine a path forward for resolving this critical issue.”
“It has become increasingly clear that the secretary of state is incapable of handling such duties,” added Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the state Senate’s presiding officer. “We must ensure that the government is not impeding Georgians from starting or expanding businesses.”
In response, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his office’s Professional Licensing Division historically has been underfunded.
“Small business owners are expecting the level of service that they are paying for, yet the majority of their fees are being redirected to the general fund,” Raffensperger wrote in a letter to Burns and Jones dated Tuesday.
“As secretary of state, I believe that 100% of fees should go toward servicing the applicant. … It’s time for the funds to follow the applicant.”
Raffensperger formed and led a commission last year that looked for ways to reform the state’s business licensing process. Several of its recommendations were incorporated into legislation the General Assembly passed this year, including bills expediting the licensing process for military spouses and allowing veterans to use their military experience toward licensure as a certified nursing aide.
But two other bills the secretary backed fell by the wayside, Raffensperger wrote.
“House Bill 1096 would have allowed for the professional licensing division to move to a completely modern mode of tracking continuing education, and freed up my staff to focus on processing new applications, instead of hand-auditing continuing education,” he wrote.
“House Bill 1190 would have allowed for our division director to administratively issue not-controversial licenses instead of requiring applicants to wait for their application to be heard by a licensing board, some of which meet only every few months.”
Raffensperger added that funding help is on the way. The new fiscal year beginning in July will mark the first time the licensing division will receive an operating budget of more than $10 million.
Georgia Southern University and six other Georgia colleges and universities will restore test-score requirements for incoming freshmen in the fall of 2026.
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents voted Tuesday to rescind a temporary waiver of test-score requirements for undergraduate admissions starting with the fall semester of 2026.
The university system began waiving test requirements for 23 of the system’s 26 institutions in 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The waiver has been in effect for all but 10 months since then.
“Putting COVID a little bit behind us feels good,” board Chairman Harold Reynolds said before Tuesday’s unanimous vote.
Under the policy change the regents approved Tuesday, minimum SAT and ACT test scores will be enforced at seven USG institutions beginning in the fall of 2026: the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Georgia College & State University, Augusta University, Kennesaw State University, and Georgia Southern University.
Test-score requirements will be optional at the other 19 colleges and universities in the system.
System Chancellor Sonny Perdue said bringing back test-score requirements for freshman admissions will give administrators on each campus a helpful tool in evaluating the needs of entering freshmen moving forward.
“The standardized testing will be a great instrument for us to determine the strengths and weaknesses of every student coming in,” he said.
Kennesaw State President Kathy “Kat” Schwaig and Kyle Marrero, president of Georgia Southern, spoke out in favor of going back to test-score requirements and said the two-year window before the new policy takes effect will allow time to adjust to the change.
“This is an important step for us,” Marrero said. “We’re ready to move forward.”
