by Dave Williams | Jul 31, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A tearful Georgia woman told a U.S. Senate subcommittee a harrowing story Wednesday of giving birth while serving a five-year sentence in a state prison.
Jessica Umberger, who now serves as a care navigator for the Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative in Atlanta, said she was forced to undergo a Cesarean section against her will because she had had one 18 years earlier. She gave birth to a daughter, Jordan, in August 2018 at the state Department of Corrections’ Helms facility in Atlanta.
“I had only two short hours to hold and look at my baby,” Umberger testified at a hearing held by the Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights, chaired by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. “It would be the last time I would see her for about three years.”
Umberger said her troubles didn’t end after she gave birth. After being transferred to Lee Arrendale State Prison in Habersham County, she said she was held in solitary confinement for three weeks after complaining that her cell was unsanitary.
She said she received no medical support while she was in solitary, and her C-section wound became infected.
“I didn’t think I would make it out of there alive,” she said.
The subcommittee launched an investigation last February into abuse of pregnant women in prison. The subcommittee interviewed more than 100 current or formerly incarcerated women, civil rights lawyers, medical providers, and academics.
“We identified over 200 human rights abuses in state prisons and jails,” Ossoff said at the start of Wednesday’s hearing. “We’ve heard from mothers forced to give birth in prison showers, in hallways, or on dirty cell floors, mothers who gave birth into toilets. … These women repeatedly requested and even begged for help, but help came too late if at all.”
“You cannot say in America that you’re pro-life and allow the horrors that are going on right now in American prisons to continue,” added Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. “Federal action is needed to ensure that we treat incarcerated women with the dignity they deserve.”
Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Johns Hopkins University, testified that there are no national statistics available on the incidence of abuse of incarcerated pregnant women.
“If we don’t know how many pregnant women are behind bars, then people think they don’t exist,” she said. “And if people think they don’t exist, it makes it easy for prisons and jails to neglect their health-care needs. … Without data, we cannot know the full scope of the problem.”
Sufrin said 41 states have laws on the books prohibiting incarcerated women from being shackled, but prison officials frequently ignore those laws.
“The fact that in 2024, pregnant women are shackled while giving birth, putting them and their babies at risk, is a profound assault on their dignity, safety, and human rights,” she said.
Ossoff said the subcommittee’s investigation remains active and ongoing.
by Dave Williams | Jul 31, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – State School Superintendent Richard Woods has apologized for failing to effectively communicate why he is not recommending adding an Advanced Placement African American studies course to the state’s curriculum offerings.
But in a statement released Wednesday, Woods said he has not changed his mind about not moving forward during the new school year with an AP course that was piloted in several school districts in 2023-24.
Woods said he came to his decision after reading the course standards and framework and concluding that they violated the controversial “divisive concepts’ law the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed two years ago. The bill, which passed along party lines, prohibits teaching U.S. history in a way that might make any student feel guilty or that they are superior or inferior to anyone else based on their race.
Wood wrote that the course’s most glaring violation is on the topic of “intersectionality,” which focuses on how interlocking systems of oppression play out in individual lives.
“If the Advanced Placement course had presented a comparative narrative with opposing views on this and other topics, an argument could be made that the course did not violate Georgia law,” he wrote. “If I moved this forward for approval, I would break my oath of office and ask the state Board of Education and our local school districts to ignore the law.”
Following word of Woods’ decision on the AP course last week, legislative Democrats and educators protested for the same reasons they opposed the divisive concepts bill in 2022. They argued that scrapping the course would amount to failing to teach Georgia students the full history of the state and the nation, both the good and the bad.
On Wednesday, Woods responded that students wishing to take African American studies still have options.
“Can students currently take a course on African American studies? Yes,” he wrote. “I passed an African American studies course in 2020. Though not specific in content, districts have had the ability to offer this course to all students, not just those taking an AP class.
“Can a district use the AP African American studies standards and framework as its accepted content for the state course? Yes. Under Georgia policy, a district may do this without the state school superintendent’s or the state Board of Education’s approval.
“Students may take the associated AP test to possibly receive college credit. However, the content may be challenged at the local level for violating (the divisive concept law) if all of the AP course content is adopted.”
Woods said he has asked for a legal clarification of the law.
“Should the ruling reverse my decision, then I will follow the law,” he wrote.
by Dave Williams | Jul 31, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Georgia man has pleaded guilty in federal court to threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome.
Sean Patrick Cirillo, 34, of Atlanta pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting interstate threats. A sentencing date has not been scheduled.
According to U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan and court records, Cirillo called Greene’s Capitol Hill office three times last Nov. 8 and spoke with her staffers. During the calls, he made multiple threats against the congresswoman, indicating he was planning to kill her the following week.
“Threatening to kill a public official is reprehensible,” Buchanan said Tuesday. “Our office will not tolerate any form of violence, threats, or intimidation against public officials. The prosecution of individuals who threaten the lives and welfare of public servants is a top priority for our office, as well as for our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners.”
The case is being investigated by the FBI.
by Dave Williams | Jul 30, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Vice President Kamala Harris brought her newly minted presidential campaign to Georgia Tuesday night, promising to build up the middle class and daring former President Donald Trump to debate the issues.
In a 20-minute speech to a roaring crowd of supporters at the Georgia State University Convocation Center in downtown Atlanta, Democrat Harris characterized Republican Trump’s bid to return to the White House as a campaign of the past and described her effort as a campaign of the future.
Calling out Project 2025, a playbook for Trump’s second term developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Harris accused the former president of planning to cut Medicare and Social Security, give tax breaks to billionaires that would raise taxes on middle-class families, repeal the Affordable Care Act then-President Barack Obama steered through a Democratic Congress more than a decade ago, and enact a nationwide abortion ban.
“America has tried those failed policies before, and we’re not going back!” she said.
In contrast, Harris pledged to defend voting rights and women’s right to choose and fight gun violence by pushing Congress to pass legislation requiring background checks and banning assault weapons.
Harris, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, attacked Trump’s criminal record in what already has become a familiar theme since she stepped forward to declare her candidacy just nine days ago when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
“I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain, so hear me when I say, ‘I know Donald Trump’s type,’ ” she said.
The crowd followed immediately with chants of “Lock him up! Lock him up!” in a reprise of the chants Trump supporters aimed at Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent in 2016.
Harris also took on Trump on the issue of immigration, accusing the former president of intervening to kill immigration reform legislation that had the backing of Democrats and even conservative Republicans.
“He tanked the bipartisan bill because he thought it would help him win an election,” she said. “Donald Trump does not care about border security. He only cares about himself.”
The Republican National Committee, responding to Harris’ visit to Georgia, turned the tables on the immigration issue, accusing Harris of failing to solve the problem in her role as “immigration czar” for the Biden administration.
“If she really cared about Georgia, she would end the border bloodbath that led to the brutal murder of Laken Riley, who was killed at the University of Georgia,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said. “A vote for dangerously pro-criminal Kamala is a vote for another four years of soft on crime and open border policies that are making our communities around the country less safe.”
Harris chastised Trump for waffling over a previous commitment to a second debate in September, a pledge he made back when the presumptive Democratic nominee was Biden, who Trump trounced in the first debate last month in Atlanta. She noted that Trump and Republican running mate J.D. Vance have been highly critical of her.
“As the saying goes, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face,’ ” she said, addressing Trump directly.
Harris acknowledged that she’s the underdog in the race, even though she has pulled closer to Trump in Georgia and a handful of other battleground states since Biden abandoned the campaign.
“We have our work cut out for us,” she told the crowd. “But when we fight, we win!”
Georgia will remain the focus of the presidential contest as July turns to August. Trump and Vance are scheduled to address a rally Saturday inside the same venue on the Georgia State campus.
by Dave Williams | Jul 30, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The State Election Board voted unanimously Tuesday to rescind preliminary approval of two rules changes and decide those matters instead at the board’s next meeting on Aug. 6.
Board members held a special called meeting Tuesday after a watchdog group filed a lawsuit charging the board with violating Georgia’s Open Meetings Act for meeting July 12 without the legally required public notice or a quorum. State Attorney General Chris Carr also expressed concerns that the meeting was illegal.
At the July 12 meeting, the board’s three Republicans gave preliminary approval to rules changes that would require local election officials to post daily updates on their websites and inside polling places during early voting and give poll watchers greater access on election nights while votes are being processed.
Action on the two rules had been postponed from three days earlier when the board’s regularly scheduled meeting ran long.
On Tuesday, board member Dr. Janice Johnston argued that the board recessed the July 9 meeting to July 12 in “good faith” and “in keeping with Georgia law.” Johnston, who made the motion Tuesday to rescind the July 12 actions and decide them instead on Aug. 6, said she did so in response to a “weirdly overdramatic alarm” that was raised about those votes.
She said the board’s goal is to provide elections that are “transparent, fair, free, uniform, and orderly.”
Under the schedule agreed upon Tuesday, the board will hold preliminary votes on the two proposed rules changes on Aug. 6. If approved then, a final vote would take place on Aug. 19.
Chioma Chukwu, interim executive director of American Oversight, the group that filed the lawsuit, criticized the quick turnaround after Tuesday’s vote.
“We’re pleased that our lawsuit, along with pressure from partner organizations on the ground in Georgia, has prompted the board to withdraw the illegally approved rules from its sham July 12 meeting,” she said.
“However, we remain deeply concerned by the board’s decision to promptly revisit these problematic measures — including those coordinated with the state and national GOP — that serve to intimidate election workers and grant partisan advantage to preferred candidates this November.”
