ATLANTA — Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms pitched more proposals to help Georgians cover major expenses in her bid to be the state’s next governor.
Last week, the Democrat and her Republican opponent, businessman Rick Jackson, touted their affordability plans for farmers.
In early September, Bottoms rolled out her plan to encourage local sales tax cuts on groceries, then Jackson rolled out an expansive plan that offered everything from tax cuts to expedited building permits and a tuition freeze at public colleges and universities.
On Sunday night, Bottoms said she would expand access to affordable housing with a special fund.
“I want to create an affordable housing trust fund statewide,” she said at an Atlanta event hosted by Courier Georgia, a new online publication focused on Democratic priorities.
Bottoms also said she wanted to help students pay for two years of college.
“I want to create a pathway for free technical and community college in this state,” she said at the event, which was moderated by Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor. “If you are a college student or a young person who wants to go to college, but you want two years of it free, we want to make sure that we can provide that for you.”
The Technical College System of Georgia already offers tuition-free study in 18 programs for high-demand career fields, such as precision manufacturing, welding and joining, and practical nursing.
And Bottoms said she would create a division of state government to help what she called “microbusinesses” grow.
Also at the event at Atlanta’s Loudermilk Conference Center was state Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, the Democratic nominee for Georgia attorney general, the state’s chief legal officer.
Miller said she would crack open data center deals, using subpoenas to ensure transparency in utility contracts.
The GOP-led Georgia Public Service Commission has said its regulations require that electricity contracts require data centers to pay their share of the costs to build the generation and transmission capacity to serve them.
But critics such as the Southern Environmental Law Center say contractual secrecy makes it difficult to confirm those promises, noting that some related costs, such as for new natural gas pipelines, are excluded.
And Democrats and some Republicans were critical when the GOP-led General Assembly failed to approve legislation that would have prohibited electric companies from passing on data center costs to other ratepayers.
“I think this would be one way to make sure that when the utility companies try to raise your rates, they are doing it in comportment with the law,” Miller said. “They can’t tell you that if they do this, it won’t raise your rates and then turn around and raise your rates. So, we need someone with subpoena power to be constantly checking that math.”
Miller’s opponent, state Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, has said local governments should get to choose whether to let data center companies build.
But as attorney general he also said he would vet those decisions.
“We are the lawyers for the environmental protection division,” he said in an interview with 11Alive a month ago. “Our job as attorney general is to say, OK, this was approved by this local government, but are you protecting our waterways, are you following our environmental laws, are you actually getting the permits that are required? … That’s such an important role that I want to double down on.”