by Ty Tagami | Aug 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Another Democrat has entered the contest to succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia’s highest elected office, a candidate with a history of winning statewide, albeit a while ago.
Michael Thurmond, who has held a wide variety of local and state elected positions, announced his bid for the governor’s office Wednesday.
He said he will be running on “a record of competence and service to the people in the state.”
Several Democrats are running for governor, but the biggest names are former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and current state Sen. Jason Esteves, who is also from Atlanta and was previously an elected school board member there.
Unlike them, Thurmond, 72, has appeared on ballots across the state.
His political fortunes rose from a foundation as a state representative decades ago when Democrats led the General Assembly. Then-Gov. Zell Miller, a Democrat who would later become a Republican, appointed him to lead the state Division of Family and Children Services.
Thurmond would parlay that into statewide electoral wins as a Democrat for labor commissioner in 1998, 2002, and 2006, leading the office during the Great Recession. He was a lonely successful statewide Democrat when Republicans, including then-Gov. Sonny Perdue, were sweeping the ballot.
Once out of statewide politics, Thurmond shifted to local office. The DeKalb County school board hired him as superintendent in 2013 to handle a governance and financial crisis. He would later win two terms as CEO of DeKalb County, leaving office this year after term limits prohibited another run.
Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face a statewide electorate that has continued to skew Republican, although the state’s two U.S. senators have won as Democrats.
Two leading Republican gubernatorial candidates are state Attorney General Chris Carr, who entered the race last year, and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who joined it last month.
Both are campaigning on issues such as immigration that appeal to President Donald Trump’s base of voters.
Thurmond said he hopes to get beyond “hyper-partisan” politics and sees an opening on issues such as education and medical care, noting that Georgia has among the worst records for infant and maternal mortality in the country.
Georgia consistently ranks as a top state for business but has room for quality-of-life improvements, Thurmond said, adding that he thinks his relationships with lawmakers in the GOP-led General Assembly would help him as a Democratic governor who wants to do things like expand Medicaid.
“I believe Georgia is underachieving,” he said. “We can do better, but we can’t do better when we are basically imprisoned in this world of hyper-partisan politics.”
by Ty Tagami | Aug 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — In Georgia, people can be held responsible for false imprisonment if they get police to arrest someone who did nothing wrong.
A former DeKalb County commissioner learned that costly lesson Monday in federal appeals court when judges sided with two women who are seeking $100,000 in damages and legal costs.
The story almost writes itself.
“This appeal is about a man who lost his wallet and, shortly after, his solvency. We begin with the wallet. We then turn to his bankruptcy,” starts the opinion of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It continues: “On July 12, 2012, Stanley Watson, a DeKalb County commissioner, entered the Tanqueray Lounge in Decatur, Georgia, and saw Shenekka Bradsher sitting at the bar.”
Things went downhill quickly.
He bought her drinks and asked her to go home with him. She felt insulted and called him “big” and “greasy.”
When Watson couldn’t find his wallet, he accused her and her friend Zarinah Ali of stealing it.
He then got an off-duty police sergeant who was providing security to arrest Bradsher, the opinion says. Watson, whom the opinion says was “intoxicated,” “belligerent,” and “irate,” then briefly drove away despite the officer’s concerns about his condition. Watson returned, then a lieutenant arrived and called a major who told the lieutenant to tell the sergeant to let someone take Watson home. Watson wanted them to arrest Ali, and they told her to remain on the scene.
The sergeant wrote in his incident report that “circumstances beyond his control” prevented his arresting Watson, adding that he did not “feel right” arresting Bradsher, whom he released with a warning.
A video of the incident shows Watson threatening to call the police chief and threatening the bar with the loss of its food certification.
The next day, Watson found his wallet in his car.
The women sued, Watson filed for bankruptcy, the case got hearings in bankruptcy court and district court, then made its way to the appeals court.
The appeals court concluded that the bankruptcy court did not err in finding Watson had “willfully and maliciously” caused the confinement of the women.
The women also received a judgement against Watson for slander, but the bankruptcy court determined that Watson didn’t have to pay that $50,000. However, he remains liable for the $100,000 stemming from false imprisonment.
The moral of this story: it’s safe to relay facts to an officer and share an opinion that a person should be arrested. But one may be held liable for false imprisonment if one “actively instigates or procures” an arrest.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Derek Dooley, the football coach and son of legendary Bulldogs leader Vince Dooley, has joined the campaign to unseat Democrat Jon Ossoff from his U.S. Senate seat in Georgia next year.
“Lawlessness, open season on the border, inflation everywhere, woke stuff. That’s what they represent,” Dooley, who is running as a Republican, said on YouTube Monday as he announced his candidacy.
To get to Ossoff, he will have to go through two Georgia congressmen who are already vying for the GOP nomination. U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter from St. Simons was the first to enter the race in the spring after Gov. Brian Kemp, who had been expected to run, said he was out. State Insurance Commissioner John King then joined the fray but suspended his campaign in late July. U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Jackson, then announced his candidacy.
Although Dooley praises President Donald Trump in his video, Democrats noted that he did not vote in multiple elections when Trump was on the ballot. They also attacked Dooley’s professional career.
“This chaotic, crowded Republican primary just got messier with the entrance of failed and fired former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley, who has failed to live up to his family name throughout his career,” Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Charlie Bailey said Monday. “We’ll see what’s harder for Dooley — answering for a Trump bill that strips health care for 750,000 Georgians, or remembering which SEC team to root for.”
by Ty Tagami | Jul 31, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Cobb County Court Clerk Connie Taylor was indicted Thursday in connection with alleged destruction of documents in 2022, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office said.
The indictment on two counts each of destruction of public records and violation of oath of office stems from allegations that Taylor told an employee to delete government emails and financial records in response to an open records request in October 2022, Carr’s office said.
“Georgians deserve honesty and transparency from their elected officials, and anything less undermines public trust,” Carr said. “Any attempts to conceal or destroy government records are serious allegations that cannot be ignored, and those responsible will be held accountable.”
Taylor’s staff would not put calls through to Taylor or take messages from Capitol Beat Thursday afternoon. On a fourth call, a staffer forwarded the call to a local newspaper in Marietta.
The indictment came after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and the attorney general’s White Collar and Cyber Crime Unit presented evidence to a Cobb County grand jury.
“The intentional destruction of public records is a serious offense that undermines transparency and public trust,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said.
Neither agency disclosed the subject matter of the documents that allegedly were destroyed.
Carr’s office noted that indictments are merely allegations and that Taylor should be presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
It is not the first time Carr has pursued public officials in connection with open records requests. In 2019, his office obtained a conviction against a former press secretary of the City of Atlanta on two counts of violating the Georgia Open Records Act, which is a misdemeanor offense. The press secretary had told a spokesperson for the city’s Watershed Management Department to delay the release of records requested by a local television news station, according to Carr’s office.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 30, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A former Democratic state representative has entered the election to succeed Republican Chris Carr as attorney general.
Former House Minority Leader Bob Trammell on Wednesday became the first Democrat to announce his candidacy to become the state’s top attorney, saying he wants to “bring about real change” during a tumultuous era.
“At a time when Georgians are feeling the pressures of an erratic economy, corporate corruption, insidious frauds and scams, and the erosion of our rights, Georgians deserve someone who will fight for them,” the Luthersville attorney said.
Carr is running for governor, and the race to succeed him is wide open.
Two Republicans are already competing for the office: state Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, a lawyer who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, a lawyer who chairs the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee.
Strickland filed a campaign contribution report on July 8 that showed he had raised $435,000. Cowsert filed one the same day showing he had brought in $531,000. Trammell registered his intent to raise money on July 1 but has not filed a contribution report.
Trammell grew up in Luthersville in Meriwether County and served as county attorney there. He was also the top Democrat in the state House, as minority leader from 2017-2021.
He graduated from the University of Georgia and the University of Virginia School of Law. He and his wife Jenny, a pharmacist, have three children.
