Democratic State Sen. Jen Jordan (left) is challenging Republican incumbent Attorney General Chris Carr (right). (Official Senate office and Attorney General office photos)
ATLANTA – Despite their differences, the two candidates for Georgia attorney general share one important commonalty: Both were trained at the University of Georgia law school.
Incumbent Republican Chris Carr, who graduated from UGA in 1999, touts his conservative values and his successes prosecuting gangs and human traffickers as reasons Georgians should vote for him for a second full term.
Democrat Jen Jordan, a state senator from North Atlanta and a 2001 UGA law grad, has staked her claim to the top legal job on her strong defense of abortion rights.
Jordan cemented her statewide political reputation in a fiery 2019 speech on the Senate floor opposing a Georgia law that banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. She described her personal experiences with multiple miscarriages and staked her pro-choice stance on a woman’s right to privacy.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn a 1973 ruling guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion allowed Georgia’s “heartbeat law” to finally take effect this summer and pushed abortion to the center of this fall’s political debates.
Carr has vigorously defended the Georgia law. He says that an attorney general must uphold all state laws. Just after the Supreme Court issued its ruling on abortion, he asked a federal circuit court to allow the Georgia law to take effect.
“It’s the job of the attorney general to defend and uphold the laws of Georgia passed by the General Assembly and signed by our governor,” he said. “That’s what I do. That’s what the state constitution requires.”
But Jordan disagrees.
“I don’t think it’s constitutional,” Jordan said of the Georgia heartbeat law a few days after the Supreme Court decision. “I would not defend it because I don’t think it’s lawful.”
Jordan’s position has garnered endorsements from national pro-choice groups—and drawn incumbent Carr’s ire.
Beyond abortion, Carr touts his record prosecuting human trafficking and gangs as a top achievement.
Carr created a Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit in 2019. So far, the unit has convicted six people and indicted more than 40.
Carr also recently formed a Gang Prosecution Unit, said spokeswoman Kara Richardson. The unit currently is pursuing more than a dozen cases.
The incumbent Republican is also a strong supporter of gun rights. He joined coalitions of attorneys general calling on federal courts to overturn laws limiting magazine capacities in New Jersey and California.
Jordan says gang activity and gun violence have been on the rise during Carr’s tenure as attorney general and change is needed.
“I pledge to crack down on the illegal gun trade and work with law enforcement to tackle gun violence,” she said. “I will prioritize my efforts to combat gang crimes, and I will aggressively prosecute individuals implicated in such activity.”
A fundamental part of Carr’s legal philosophy is his opposition to what he calls “federal overreach.” His office filed five separate lawsuits against federal mask and vaccine mandates during the COVID pandemic.
“Chris is pro-vaccine personally, but he knew it was unconstitutional for the president [Biden] to turn private companies into the ‘health police’ against their employees,” his campaign website states.
Carr also opposed a Biden administration ban on oil drilling permits on federal lands and advocated for reversing the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming a ban would drive up energy costs and cause job losses.
Jordan touts her campaign against a medical sterilization facility in Cobb County that was emitting carcinogenic air pollution as one of her top achievements.
“Although [the factory] is in operation, the fight isn’t over,” she said. “It is for this reason, and more, that I am running to be the next attorney general of Georgia.”
Jordan also authored a law this year that legalized fentanyl testing strips in Georgia. The test strips can help people identify fentanyl, an often deadly opioid, to better protect themselves and minimize risk.
“This law will save lives,” she said.
For his part, Carr has led Georgia through health-care settlements with large corporations that will return money to the state. Georgia is expected to receive around $636 million as part of a national opioid settlement and around $19 million as part of a settlement with vaping company JUUL.
Carr – like other top Georgia Republicans – has been forced to steer a delicate path when it comes to the national political divisions created during the Trump presidency. He supported many Trump policies and – along with other Republican attorneys general – opposed the 2020 impeachment of the then-president.
But after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Carr signed on to a letter to then-U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen condemning the riot.
Closer to home, Carr has defended Georgia’s voting laws.
“My office won case after case that have targeted Georgia election laws because we followed the facts, not the political rhetoric,” he said.
Jordan said she would be a strong defender of voting rights if elected the state’s top lawyer.
“I will respond swiftly to allegations of voter fraud or any claims of voter intimidation, and work to ensure every Georgian’s vote is counted,” Jordan said.
A galvanizing moment in Carr’s career came when young Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed after being accosted by three white men in February 2020 in Brunswick.
After it emerged that local district attorneys had ties to the accused murderers and had fumbled the investigation, Carr appointed Cobb County District Attorney Joyette Holmes – a Black woman – to lead the prosecution in the racially sensitive case.
Carr also asked both the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the federal Department of Justice to investigate the matter.
“The loss of Ahmaud Arbery was a tragedy that should have never occurred,” Carr said when the three white men were convicted last year.
Jordan said law enforcement reforms are needed. Her campaign website says that the “overcriminalization of drug offenses” has led to “mass incarceration.”
“As your attorney general, I will partner and work with law enforcement to strengthen police accountability mechanisms and to build community-led public safety strategies,” she said.
Martin Cowen, a Libertarian candidate, is also running for the attorney general position.
The three candidates will debate Oct. 18 as part of the Atlanta Press Club Loudermilk-Young debate series.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s “heartbeat” abortion law will continue to operate while a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law is pending, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Monday.
The order represents a setback for abortion-rights advocates who had argued the judge should immediately block the law while their case against it was pending.
The Georgia law bans most abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.
Though Georgia’s law was initially adopted in 2019, abortion-rights groups challenged it in federal court and prevented the law from taking effect until this year.
A federal appeals court put Georgia’s law into immediate effect last month, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the way by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion.
The group of plaintiffs – including reproductive-rights groups Planned Parenthood Southeast and SisterSong – then turned to state courts, claiming that the abortion law violates the Georgia Constitution’s right to privacy.
During last week’s hearing, the groups asked the court to block the Georgia law from taking effect while the lawsuit was pending.
McBurney declined to do so Monday, stating that “the court is dismissing the motion not on its merits but because the court lacks jurisdiction to consider its merits.”
He made clear the case will continue to examine the constitutionality of the abortion law.
“The question of whether it is constitutional for the state to force a woman to carry to term a six-week-old embryo against her wishes, even in the face of serious medical risk, remains to be answered,” McBurney concluded his Monday order.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Judge Robert McBurney (photo credit: Fulton County Superior Court)
ATLANTA – Lawyers for abortion-rights groups asked a state judge Monday to temporarily block Georgia’s new abortion law.
The law – which bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected – took effect in July. Initially approved by the General Assembly in 2019, it had been under legal challenge in federal courts. Last month, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the Georgia law and put it into effect immediately.
Lawyers for abortion-rights groups including Planned Parenthood Southeast and SisterSong then took their fight to state court, contending that the abortion ban violates the Georgia Constitution’s right to privacy.
They argued the law was void from the moment it passed the General Assembly three years ago because it violated then-settled U.S. Supreme Court precedent about the right to an abortion.
The state – represented by Solicitor General Stephen Petrany – countered that Georgia law does not require a judge to temporarily block a law before he or she has issued a decision on the case.
Although the 2019 law did not necessarily fit the Supreme Court’s abortion precedents at the time, the Georgia abortion law represented legislators’ – and through them, Georgians’ – will, Petrany said. Therefore, it was valid from the start.
McBurney indicated he would issue a ruling on the request for an injunction soon.
In a brief press conference after the hearing, abortion-rights advocates said Georgians have been directly harmed by the new abortion ban.
“The Georgia Constitution says there is a right to privacy and that right to privacy extends to a person’s body and a person’s health,” said Susan Lambiase, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
“[People] either have to forcibly remain pregnant, or they have to figure out a way … to go to some state that provides more access [to abortion].”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia abortion rights advocates filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state’s post-six-week abortion ban in Fulton County Superior Court.
The lawsuit represents the latest step in attempts to block the so-called “heartbeat” law, which was upheld last week by a federal appellate court. Plaintiffs in the new case include SisterSong, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and Planned Parenthood Southeast.
Initially adopted during the 2019 legislative session, the law bans abortions in Georgia after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.
Last week’s ruling by the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals put the Georgia law into effect immediately. The federal court’s decision came in the wake of last month’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
Now, Georgia abortion rights advocates are turning to the state constitution to block the law. They contend its guarantees of privacy makes the abortion ban illegal under state law.
“This lawsuit is grounded in more than a century of Georgia Supreme Court precedent, establishing that the Georgia Constitution is highly protective of an individual’s right to be free from political interference with their body, health, and life,” said Julia Kaye, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.
Kaye said the group has requested a hearing for next Tuesday to ask the judge to grant a temporary injunction to block the law pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
“It is difficult to imagine a greater infringement on an individual’s right to liberty and privacy than to be forced to undergo 34 weeks of pregnancy and hours or days of labor and delivery and then in most cases, parent a child for the rest of their lives,” she said.
Gov. Brian Kemp pushed the heartbeat bill, officially known as the Georgia LIFE Act, through the General Assembly during his first year in office.
“Georgia is a state that values life at all stages, and the Georgia LIFE Act, which is now law, is one of many measures that reflects those values,” Kemp spokeswoman Katie Byrd said Tuesday. “We will continue the important work of protecting life at all stages and increasing supportive services for mothers and their children before, during, and after birth.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
By Rebecca Grapevine Staff Reporter Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Georgia’s “heartbeat” abortion law Wednesday, finding the ban on abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat at around six weeks is legal.
The victory for Gov. Brian Kemp and other pro-life Georgians was made possible by last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and found that there is no constitutional right to abortion.
Georgia’s General Assembly passed legislation in 2019 banning most abortions in Georgia after a fetal heartbeat could be detected – usually around six weeks of pregnancy.
Now that the appellate court has upheld the law, it takes effect immediately, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the groups that challenged the law.
The ACLU called the court’s move to reinstate the law immediately “highly unorthodox,” saying normally the court would wait 28 days to issue a mandate.
“The court took this action on its own, without any request from the state, and outside of the normal court procedures,” the group stated. “This means the state’s six-week ban takes effect today, pushing abortion out of reach for Georgians before many even know they’re pregnant.”
The ACLU, SisterSong, Planned Parenthood, and other reproductive care providers initially successfully sued to block the law from taking effect in U.S. District Court in 2020. The state then appealed that decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Late last week, both sides in the Georgia case filed new briefs laying out their arguments in light of the Supreme Court ruling. Wednesday’s decision confirms that the Georgia law will stand and reiterates the Supreme Court’s position that there is no constitutional right to an abortion.
Abortion rights advocates criticized the ruling.
“Across the state, providers are now being forced to turn away patients who thought they would be able to access abortion, immediately changing the course of their lives and futures. This is horrific,” the ACLU – joined by other plaintiffs in the case – said in a statement Wednesday. “We’ll continue doing everything in our power to fight for abortion access in Georgia in the face of these harmful attacks on people’s ability to control if and when to have a child.”
Kemp praised the decision for finally allowing Georgia’s heartbeat law to take effect.
“As mothers navigate pregnancy, birth, parenthood, or alternative options to parenthood – like adoption – Georgia’s public, private, and nonprofit sectors stand ready to provide the resources they need to be safe, healthy, and informed,” the governor said.
“It is the constitutional duty of the Georgia Attorney General to defend the laws of our state,” Attorney General Chris Carr added. “Today, our arguments have prevailed, meaning the Eleventh Circuit has allowed Georgia’s LIFE Act to take effect immediately.”
State Sen. Jen Jordan, the Democrat challenging Carr on the November ballot, said the battle over abortion rights isn’t over.
“The U.S. Supreme Court said this fight belongs in the states, so we must challenge this law in the state courts, and we must elect state leaders who will protect access to reproductive health care,” she said. “That’s why I’m running for Georgia Attorney General.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
