News and analysis from the politics team at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Advocates for Chicago’s push to land the Democratic National Convention have ratcheted up their pitch for the Windy City to host the party’s showcase event over Atlanta and New York.
Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson held a private call with President Joe Biden last week immediately after he won the city’s closely watched runoff election, when he again promoted the city to host the convention, NBC News reported on Friday.
And the Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet reported last week that the Democratic National Committee’s technical advisory committee ranked Chicago first when it considered key factors for host cities like transportation options, high-speed internet and fundraising capacity. Wealthy Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has also assured national party leaders that the party would emerge “debt-free” from an event in the Windy City.
“I am told Chicago came up on top based on a variety of items — most likely hotel capacity, transportation, security, financing and overall logistics,” Sweet writes, although she also notes the ultimate decision is Biden’s to make and could consider additional factors, including politics.
But our own reporting tells us Atlanta is still high up in the mix, with a pitch from boosters that includes affordable hotel accommodations for state delegations, top-of-the-line convention and meeting spaces, plentiful parking and a city and region rich in Civil Rights history to align with the party’s message for the future.
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Image | Title “One year in: Sonny Perdue’s reign as chancellor of University System of Georgia”
Caption: Chancellor Sonny Perdue recently speaks with the AJC about the challenges he faces going into his seconding year as chancellor of the University System of Georgia. (Miguel Martinez /The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
SONNY DAYS. Our colleague James Salzer reported last week about Sonny Perdue’s journey from being a governor, who had proposed hundreds of millions of dollars in University System budget cuts in the 2000s, to becoming the chancellor fighting a recent $66 million spending reduction approved by lawmakers.
The irony wasn’t lost on lawmakers who were around for those earlier cuts, although they acknowledged times were different. Today the state is on a three-year revenue run that has produced record surpluses, while Perdue’s cuts came during two fiscal downturns, including the Great Recession.
Perdue acknowledged the impact of the cuts from his tenure earlier this year, telling lawmakers that in 2001 the state covered about 75% of college costs, while student tuition covered the rest. By the end of the Great Recession’s hammering of state finances, the state-covered portion had dipped to 47%.
“I don’t know who the governor was in here when that occurred,” he joked to lawmakers. “You can see somebody didn’t like higher education, obviously. But you all know what happened with the greatest recession we’ve had since World War II.”
One Capitol veteran said $66 million in cuts is a relative drop in the bucket compared with those days, but he still expected university officials to paint dark scenarios about the impact of the reduction on schools and students.
“It’s like having a bucket of water and legislators took a spoonful of water from the bucket and (they’ll say) we can’t survive,” the Capitol veteran said.
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Image | Title “Black Radio Town Hall”
Caption: Gov. Brian Kemp won’t be using his line-item veto to eliminate lawmakers’ $66 million cut to the University System of Georgia budget. (Natrice Miller/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
LINE ITEM VETO. We’ve fielded multiple questions from readers about whether Gov. Brian Kemp could use his line-item veto to eliminate the $66 million cut to the university system budget that state senators initiated this year.
The AJC’s money man James Salzer tells us that’s off the table, since a line item veto of a spending cut would essentially increase spending by $66 million. That would then unbalance a budget that is constitutionally required to be balanced each year.
More directly, the line item cut would be attached to the University System teaching budget authorized by the General Assembly. That figure, again, can’t be increased by a veto of part of that budget.
Although Sonny Perdue once vetoed an entire midyear budget as governor and brought legislators back for a special session to redraft it, there is no indication that will happen in this situation.
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Image | Title “Abortion Pills”
Caption: U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will travel to Gwinnett County today to celebrate the White House efforts to lower insulin costs. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)
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TOUTING INSULIN CAPS. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will travel to Gwinnett County today to highlight White House efforts to lower insulin costs.
Becerra will join U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff for an event with local elected officials, health care executives and Gwinnett seniors to promote the $35-per-month cap on insulin costs for Medicare recipients that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Becerra will also speak more broadly about the White House’s health care agenda.
Becerra is just the latest high-level Biden Administration official to visit Georgia as part of the “Investing In America” tour intended to highlight the president’s agenda during his first two years in office.
The cost of insulin has been a major focus for Georgia’s U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, too. Warnock was credited last year for the insulin cap included in the Inflation Reduction Act.
And last month, Warnock introduced additional legislation with U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican of Louisiana, to extend the insulin cost cap to all patients, regardless of insurance status.
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Image | Title “Abortion Pill Texas Judge”
Caption: In this file photo, Matthew Kacsmaryk listens during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in 2017. Kacsmaryk is now a Texas judge who sparked a legal firestorm with an unprecedented ruling halting approval of the nation’s most common method of abortion, Friday, April 7, 2023. (Senate Judiciary Committee via AP)
Usage instructions: AP PROVIDES ACCESS TO THIS PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTED HANDOUT PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE; MANDATORY CREDIT.
ABORTION PILLS. Over the weekend, Sec. Xavier Becerra also addressed a federal court ruling Friday in Texas that threatened the availability of mifepristone, a key drug used for medication abortions.
“We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision,” Becerra told CNN, adding that he didn’t rule out defying the judge’s initial ruling. U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, suspended FDA approval of the drug Friday, while another federal judge in Washington State issued a conflicting order.
Mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000 for use before 10 weeks of pregnancy. It is widely used, including in Georgia, where nearly all are abortions are banned after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.
“Everything is on the table,” Becerra said Sunday. “The president said that way back when the Dobbs decision came out. Every option is on the table.”
The reaction from Georgia Democrats was swift, too.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams wrote, “If you are seeking care please know that right now, mifepristone remains LEGAL and AVAILABLE.”
And state Rep. Michelle Au, a Democrat from Johns Creek who is also a physician, wrote on social media, “Judge Kacsmaryk has determined he, not the FDA, can decide what medications are safe and effective based on ideology, not science. What FDA-approved meds might be next? Birth control pills? COVID treatments? Vaccines?”
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COLLEGE PREP. While the Class of 2023 is making its final decisions about whether and where they’ll head to college in the fall, members of the Georgia congressional delegation will meet with Georgia high school students about the U.S. service academy nomination process.
The event is sponsored by U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, along with U.S. Reps. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr., Hank Johnson, Lucy McBath, and Rich McCormick.
Every congressional office in the country nominates a slate of students to the five service academies each fall to be considered for appointment and acceptance.
Academy Day will be at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 22.
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Image | Title “House Oversight”
Caption: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., takes her seat during the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s hearing about Congressional oversight of Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 29, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
GREENE TOWN HALL. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene made international headlines defending Donald Trump in New York last week, but she’ll be in Lafayette tomorrow to hear from her constituents at a town hall meeting.
Attendance is limited to residents of Greene’s 14th congressional district and registration and a government ID are required.
Greene is among the shrinking number of members of Congress who continue to hold in-person town hall meetings. For security, scheduling, or other reasons, more and more representatives have moved their open meetings to a “tele-town hall” or online format.
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Image | Title “White House Easter Roll”
Caption: President Joe Biden, accompanied by first lady Jill Biden and Easter Bunnies, speaks on a balcony at the White House during the White House Easter Egg Roll, April 18, 2022, in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with their spouses, host the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.
- The U.S. House and Senate are on an Easter and Passover recess until April 17.
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Image | Title “Dog of the Day Bachi King”
Caption: Bachi King, seen here dressed as the Easter Bunny, lives in Atlanta’s Virginia Highland neighborhood. (Courtesy photo)
DOG OF THE DAY. Last week we named not one, but four, subscriber bunnies as Dogs of the Day in a pre-Easter nod to the non-dog owners in Jolt Nation. Naturally, we then received multiple submissions of dogs dressed up as the Easter Bunny.
On the off chance that you didn’t get your fill of bunnies last week, meet Bachi King, a 6-year-old Maltipoo who lives in Atlanta’s Virginia Highland neighborhood, and Alfred, an English bulldog from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Bachi calls Jolt subscriber Kathryn King his person. His hobbies include chasing anything thrown to him, eating anything near his mouth and, obviously, dressing up as the Easter Bunny.
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Image | Title “Dog of the Day Alfred”
Caption: Alfred frequently visits Atlanta Journal-Constitution subscriber Alicia Allen’s Chestnut Mountain home. (Courtesy photo)
Alfred is an English bulldog who lives most days in Tennessee, but stays w/ AJC subscriber Alicia Allen in Chestnut Mountain, Georgia, when his people are traveling. Unlike Allen, we’re told Alfred is not as faithful an AJC reader, but only because it interferes with his ball playing time. With a face like that, Alfred, we forgive you!
Send us your pups of any political persuasion — and cats on a cat-by-cat basis to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us on Twitter @MurphyAJC.
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AS ALWAYS, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
