Georgia On All Our Minds

 

(cold open)

[Archival clip – former President Trump’s January 2021 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger]

Robert Pease (host) 

I know you know this, but it does bear repeating: That’s the President of the United States asking Georgia’s Secretary of State to find enough votes to overturn the 2020 election.

[Archival clip – news announcement of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock’s win in the Georgia Senate runoffs]

Robert Pease (host) 

And those were the unexpected results of the U.S. Senate seat runoffs in Georgia a few days after that White House call, producing two Democratic senators from a deep Southern state for the first time in decades. Those 2020 election events are still very much in play today within Georgia’s 2022 primaries. In fact, former President Trump has endorsed 7 loyal populists against more establishment, rule-based candidates like the current Georgia Governor, Brian Kemp:

[Archival clip – Governor Brian Kemp certifying the 2020 election in Georgia]

Robert Pease (host) 

…and current Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger:

[Archival clip – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger talking about the 2020 election in Georgia]

Robert Pease (host) 

Georgia on our polarized minds today on the Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of polarization nationally and at the state level. I’m Robert Pease. Georgia may be our nation’s most purple state in terms of contested elections, but it’s still deeply divided, thanks to gerrymandering, the urban-rural divide, and racial issues, to name a few factors.  We’ll talk with three experts on this episode. Ken Lawler, of Fair Districts GA, on the role of gerrymandering. University of Georgia’s Dr. Charles Bullock, he’ll explain how pivotal the Peach State primaries may be for Trumpian efforts to dominate the GOP this election and onto 2024.

But we’ll kick things off with Dr. Adrienne Jones, assistant professor of politics & legal studies at Morehouse College. She’s an authority on the Voting Rights Act that prohibited racial discrimination in voting, and also the 2013 Supreme Court decision that weakened federal authority over state election laws, opening doors to the recently passed Georgia law, SB 202. 

Before tackling that issue, let’s hear about Dr. Jones on the Georgia primaries, and which side of which races are the most important to take note of in 2022.

[Enter Interview]

Dr. Adrienne Jones

Uh, I can think right now the GOP primary, and the gubernatorial one, is obviously the most important one. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate is already identified so, you know, right now, who’s gonna run against Stacy Abrams? You know, according to the former president, that needs to be David Perdue.

He’s definitely more aggressive, he’s given Kemp a hard time in these debates that I’ve seen over the last couple of weeks. But I think ultimately that division is probably a benefit to the Democratic Party. 

Robert Pease (host)

And what about the Secretary of State races? Is that getting a lot of attention there?

Dr. Adrienne Jones

I think so, and in terms of my belief that, for example my students and I think the citizenry, Black people especially, I want people to become more knowledgeable about the various offices. And I think that, you know, Secretary of State has been a sleeper until the last couple of years, until 2018 when Kemp refused to step down and then this drama with the former president and Raffensperger in the last election. And I also think having these high stakes races at the top of the ballot is important, right? Because it brings people out, gets them interested. But I still think that as Americans, we have a lot more work to do in terms of learning our down ballot races. Like, who is running for judge, who is running for public service commissioner, who is running for some of these offices that have a large impact on people’s everyday lives?

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah, well we also wonder about discussions there regarding the Herschel Walker Senate candidacy. On the one hand, it is a positive thing to have more African American candidates for Senate. On the other hand, here’s someone who doesn’t seem terribly well qualified and is supported by Trump.

Dr. Adrienne Jones

You know, Herschel Walker is beloved here, and he’s getting quite a bit of traction in the polls. So I would imagine that if I were to talk to students who were members of the GOP from my own institution, that they would be pro-Herschel Walker. And yes, some diversity in the electorate I think is important. In the state of Georgia there are, you know, maybe one or two at max Black legislators who have ever been members of the GOP. Every single person who’s Black and legislating here in the state is a Democrat. And I’m sure that some diversity in that regard would be excellent. And I think it would provide some balance, in terms of the research that I’ve done.

Robert Pease (host)

So tell us, over the last decade or so, some of the precursors to what we’re seeing now, in terms of these really important races.

Dr. Adrienne Jones

As early as 2010, Stacey Abrams in particular was clear that the state had a much larger Democratic leaning than it was given credit for. That the national party wasn’t paying attention to the state in the way that it probably should. And so I think she can be attributed with mobilizing voters in a new way, identifying voters who were obviously untapped , so that we can actually see in the electorate, in elections now, 2020 being a great example, that the demographics here have changed, right? It’s not solidly red anymore, as it has been for a very long time. There is a more diverse electorate and it has resulted in a more purple hue to the state.

Robert Pease (host)

So when you think about these primaries, is it kind of like an even playing field between the two parties in terms of their resources?

Dr. Adrienne Jones

I think so. I think especially this year, for example, and in 2020 especially over the senatorial runoff election. In terms of the ground game, the ground game of both parties has expanded and is well resourced. You know, I can’t quote you the numbers, but these races are allowing these candidates to raise huge money. You know, Warnock, Stacey Abrams, even Herschel Walker, Brian Kemp, I mean these folks’ fundraising records right now, even those who aren’t officially on the tickets yet because we’re not through their primaries, there’s a lot of money. And it’s no longer just local or state money, it’s nationwide money, because the state is in play.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. So what is it like teaching law and politics classes at this time, with so much going on in Georgia politics? Are students more engaged? Are the classes more popular?

Dr. Adrienne Jones

I would hope so. I teach at a school that has a social justice mission. So we are already talking about these kinds of issues. I also teach at a historically Black college. And so I teach, and my subject matter is, Black Americans and their legal and political development. And it’s private. So I am allowed to teach about such topics. And it’s not always obvious with students, but I think they are becoming more energized. 

You know, I never tire. I am fortunate, sometimes I think that’s a bad thing (laughs), to be living and working on a topic when it is so important, because it gives me an opportunity for my work to, you know, make a difference, have an impact, help people to understand the kind of things that are going on. And, you know, I can be an academic all day, but I hope that I am a benefit to other people who aren’t so steeped. So that they can get a clear understanding about what’s going on, what we’re doing, and what they need to be thinking about.

Robert Pease (host)

Well, let’s talk about your recent article on the historical context of the Voting Rights Act and the undermining of it under the guise of colorblind conservatism. How would you characterize this undermining the process right now in Georgia?

Dr. Adrienne Jones

The Voting Rights Act is not doing the work that it used to do, because starting importantly with, well, starting in 1965, which if we talk about my dissertation, sort of shows very slow pushback against the Voting Rights Act that culminated in 2013 in the Shelby v. Holder decision. And the Shelby v. Holder decision essentially disengages Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. Now Section Five of the Voting Rights Act required what were called “covered states” to submit new voting laws and legislation to the federal government, to be assessed for whether or not it discriminated in particular, starting with Black voters, but with minority voters and language minorities, to determine whether or not the laws would be discriminatory. And because the Voting Rights Act has been undermined, it no longer prevented the passage of legislation like SB 202.

Dr. Adrienne Jones

People complain that bills like SB 202 are called Jim Crow laws, Jim Crow, 2.0. But the fact of the matter is that slavery and Jim Crow in the United States was maintained because of the ability of states to exercise their police powers and make singular decisions.

Robert Pease (host)

And these efforts by the GOP to make voting more difficult in cities, easier in rural areas, does this affect race relations? 

Dr. Adrienne Jones

I would say absolutely, right? And, I would also say that Georgia has a history of the same. Now I’m watching the debates this week, between the governor candidates and the secretary of state, and the whole down the line. And people on the stage are basically saying ‘the election was stolen’ and, you know, Governor Kemp, for example, ‘didn’t do his job by holding this special session.’ I mean, it would simply be a blatant violation of the electoral turnout, but that’s not odd for Georgia!

Georgia had many elections, particularly early on in its days when, you know, if we can’t beat Black voters by keeping them away from the polls, well, you know, we can count better. We can fraud better. We can change the rules more easily because, you know, people in power would prefer to stay in power. And this is a state with a racial divide. And so has that improved? Absolutely. Is Atlanta a great place to live? Yes. But it doesn’t mean that Atlanta, Georgia, or the United States has solved its race problem. 

[Exit Interview]

[Ad break]

Robert Pease (host)

We’ve just heard from Dr. Adrienne Jones of Morehouse College, an expert on how the weakening of the Voting Rights Act paved the way for restrictive GOP voting legislation in the aftermath of the 2020 elections. “Stop the Steal” kinda morphed into “Start Making Voting Difficult,” especially in urban areas. 

Over the same short period since the 2020 elections there’s been a lot of partisan map drawing going on by the GOP-controlled legislature. That tends to mean a larger number of deep red districts, for both federal and Georgia state elections. But also a deeper blue hue in those  remaining Democratic districts. Will the new maps benefit more extreme candidates in both parties during these primaries?

Let’s hear from Ken Lawler on that important question, and how we got these new maps in the first place. He’s the Chair of Fair Districts GA, a nonpartisan group working to combat partisan gerrymandering in the Peach State. In partnership with the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, they gave the Georgia GOP some very low grades for the fairness of maps redrawn right after  the 2020 census. Those grades were a ‘C’ for the new US congressional districts, a ‘B’ for the Georgia House, and an ‘F’ for the Georgia Senate.

[Enter Interview]

Ken Lawler

The math works like this, you take your census data and your election data, and you figure out based on the political geography of the state, how many districts ought there to be? For let’s say Republicans versus Democrats. That’s the partisan number. We also look at the minority number, but let’s take the partisan number, ‘cause that’s what the grade is based on, right?

Because of the way people live in Georgia, Democrats cluster in cities, Republicans are spread out, there’s a natural advantage to having your voters more distributed. So you’re going to see a Republican lean anyway in the map, and that’s just natural. There’s nothing wrong with it. The Republican lean in the Senate map should have been anywhere between even, or almost zero, and +4. The map proposed by the Senate was a +5. And so, because it was so far out of bounds of the statistical range, that map got an F. 

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. And I believe the redistricting map for the U.S. House was, was a C, (laughs) a C! Not a great grade. So, is the aftermath of that even fewer competitive districts in the U.S. House?

Ken Lawler

Yes, absolutely. We have none (laughs), we have none. And that map is a very interesting story. We have 14 Congressional districts. The Democrats proposed a map, which was 7-7 . So an even split saying, well, we’re a 50-50 state. It ought to be 7-7. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project said the fairest map would’ve been an 8-6 (Republicans to Democrats).

The proposed one from the legislature was 9-5, so nine Republican versus five (Democrats). And so the Democratic map scored a B, the Republican map scored a C. And I was the one who personally testified in the committee to this point. And I said, “look, I don’t like either one of these maps, I want an A map. The A map is 8-6.” 

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. And all of this is taking place in a state that seems to have been changing dramatically over the past 10 or 20 years. I mean, in terms of population growth, the growth of Atlanta as such a major business hub, higher education level. So how, how does all of this either work against that change, or try to manipulate it? (laughs)

Ken Lawler

I think that perspective is really important, if you go back, we’ve studied redistricting all the way back to 2004. In 2000, our state was dominated by Democrats. They drew, they drew the maps following the 2000 census, right? And it was at a time when the state’s voting preferences were changing rapidly from what had been a long time, conservative Democrat, traditional Southern conservative state where Democrats were in charge. But the trends were changing rapidly. So they executed a very bad gerrymander of the map in 2001. That gerrymander was so bad that the maps were thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004.

Robert Pease (host)

Did that have the infamous ‘cat map’ on it?

Ken Lawler

The dead cat district? Yes, the dead cat in the freeway district was one of the districts. I don’t remember which one it was. But back in those days, without sophisticated computers, you had the gerrymander districts by eyeballing ’em on a map and you could, you could look at the districts and go, ‘what is that shape? That is clearly not a fair district, right?’ And that’s what we saw in the 2000 maps, and they were thrown off by the U.S. Supreme Court.

And during that time, so what happened was right after that Republican vote share became very dominant. Republican vote share peaked probably around 2006 in our statewide races, up to around 55%. So we’re a very Republican state all of a sudden. And what happened since then is the Republicans had been in charge of the state House, the state Senate, and the governor’s mansion, uh, and they have taken advantage of redistricting.

But since then, the pendulum has swung back. And so now, if you look at the 2018 governor’s race and the 2020 presidential race, they’ve been tossups. So you have this demographic wave that’s hitting Georgia. And it’s largely because of the growth of metro Atlanta as a major business hub. People come to Atlanta, like I did, from all over the country. It’s no longer a traditional Southern state, if you will, when you look at the Metro areas, right? 

And so now we’ve gotten to this really interesting point where we’re a swing state now over the last two elections. And the maps that were drawn were an attempt to hold off that demographic wave and that voting preference wave. So the Republicans have executed a gerrymander on all three maps. Some are worse than others, to your point, some get an ‘F’ grade, some get a ‘B’, but they all favor the party in power, which is natural and legal, unfortunately. 

Robert Pease (host)

So Ken, what else is important for our listeners to know, uh, regarding gerrymandering and polarization and the Georgia primaries, with potential run offs coming up as well?

Ken Lawler

I’m really anxious to see what the effects of these new maps are on the election in November. As I said, the maps were designed to be less competitive. If you look back at our 2020 election, um, only 50% of our state legislative districts were even contested. Compare that nationally, 65% of state legislative districts nationally were even contested. And I wanna see what those numbers look like this year, because I suspect that we have fewer competitive districts. I’m gonna find out how the election really turns out. We may see some relief from the court cases. Trends indicate that maybe one of the state chambers will flip in 2024. It’s hard to say, it’s really hard to predict that kind of stuff.

But that point in time is really interesting to us, because when you have one chamber controlled by one party and the other chamber controlled by the other, now you have a way to talk turkey about a fair process. Because the party that’s on its way out says, we better get a fair process now. It’s a very interesting inflection point in your representation. And so our view is we’re in this for the long term, trying to get to that point. So that by the time we get to 2030, this is a very different game in Georgia.

[Exit Interview]

Robert Pease (host)

A really interesting, if counter-intuitive, point there from Ken Lawler, Chair of Fair Districts GA. They see potential advantages to divided government in the State of Georgia. Hasn’t happened yet. But when one legislative chamber is red, one blue, there could be some real negotiation and thus some real progress on important structural issues, like fairly drawn voting districts.

For now, though, Georgia remains all red at the state level, if surprisingly blue at the federal level. But with such tight elections, we wondered if those seats could flip again? 

So we reached out to one of the most respected scholars of Southern politics, Dr. Charles Bullock of the University of Georgia. He’s going to help us define what’s at stake in these 2022 Georgia primaries, starting with the GOP primary to determine who will face Democrat Stacey Abrams come November for the Governor’s office.

[Enter Interview]

Dr. Charles Bullock

Yeah. David Perdue, who is the challenger, the former Senator, he’s Trump’s man in this contest. And so, he begins almost every statement he makes and his debates on television by reiterating the Trump lie, i.e. that Trump won the presidency, that Trump won Georgia. So, I mean, that’s what you get out of David Perdue. Now Brian Kemp, who is our sitting governor and seeking reelection, was very much a strong Republica, would’ve loved to have seen Donald Trump win and still be in the White House. But he is very much on the outs with the former president, because he did not do anything to try to stop the certification of the election. Now, as Kemp points out, he didn’t have the power to do that! But that’s not good enough, that doesn’t satisfy Donald Trump.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. And it also seems unique to our age that the Secretary of State’s office is now arguably as important as any other state office. 

Dr. Charles Bullock

Yeah. And, and, uh, you’re right. Brad Raffensperger, the incumbent Secretary of State, has been cussed by Trump just as Brian Kemp has. And again, Trump incorrectly challenges or charges Raffensperger with not maintaining safe elections, and allowing the election to be stolen. Indeed, some of your listeners may remember that, just the Sunday before the attack on the capitol on january 6th, there was an hour-long phone call that Trump put to Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked Raffensperger to quote “find” about 12,000 votes, which would’ve flipped Georgia.

And Raffensperger, honest man, he’s an engineer. So he says, I’m guided by the data. So he refused and, indeed you can go and listen to that transcript, which I’m sure is out there, you can read, Trump makes these various allegations. And each one of ’em Raffensperger is able to refute and say, no, no, Mr. President you’re wrong. The election in Georgia was fairly done. 

And so he’s now paying the price for this, and Trump has endorsed Jody Hice, who’s currently a member of Congress. He’s endorsed Hice to take on Raffensperger. So that’s gonna be another hot contest here. 

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. And it’s, it’s interesting that Stacey Abrams and her organization Fair Fight over the previous decade have increased turnout that a lot of people said wasn’t there.

[Archival clip – Stacey Abrams explaining her strategy since 2010.]

Robert Pease (host)

So, is it the case that there’s some lessons for other states to learn from what’s happened in Georgia?

Dr. Charles Bullock

Uh, yeah, I think it is. Particularly in states that have substantial minority populations. After all, the only ethnic group that votes overwhelmingly Republican are White voters. So in states where the White vote is less and less of the total, then there is that potential that Democrats could put together something akin to the “rainbow coalition” that Jesse Jackson talked about back in the 1980s.

So in Georgia, yeah. Whites make about 52%, 53% of the voters in Georgia. And Texas is another state, which in time is gonna see minorities outnumber Whites in terms of the registered voters. So there’s a real challenge, say, over the course of this decade I think, in Georgia and a number of other states for Republicans. If they’re gonna hold onto their majorities, maybe if they’re gonna remain competitive, they’re going to have to broaden their appeal and broaden their base.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah, well, uh, Georgia will be very interesting to watch. We’re also curious about a little more of a historical question, almost like a cultural question. It’s surprising to us and remains surprising, that Donald Trump, from his background, has this magnetic appeal among poor southerners. Is the North-South cultural divide not really operative anymore? Is it really just like populist vs. establishment?

Dr. Charles Bullock

That’s what it’s increasingly become, yeah.  And again, whether you’re looking at a Northern map, map of a Northern state or a Southern state, you know, you see that the urban areas, those are the blue dots, and then the vast expanse of the state, the rural areas, tend to be the Republican areas. So what Trump has done is to come in and give voice to the frustrations of folks who feel like change is taking place around them, change over which they have no control, change which they don’t wanna see. Maybe change involving sexual mores, change in terms of increasing diversion in the community in which they live, changes in their economic status. And Trump comes in, speaks to those frustrations, those fears, and says ‘elect me and I’m gonna take care of them.’ 

Now again, the voter who is caught up in that appeal, doesn’t, you know, keep close tabs on it and it doesn’t kind of take off, well, ‘gee, is Trump delivering on what he said he was gonna do? Is my life getting a whole lot better or not?’ So he may still be quite frustrated and unhappy with the situation, but rather than turning on Trump and saying, ‘well, I tried your brand and it didn’t work.’ It’s gonna be ‘well, Trump is still saying the things I want to hear.’

And maybe it’s even that (this) person has so little else to hope for, that they say ‘well, even if Trump isn’t delivering, at least he’s saying something that makes me feel better.’

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. Well, the emotional or psychological component is certainly important. We had a previous guest, Thomas Edsall of the New York Times, talk about polarization in terms of the temperature of the country or the blood pressure of the country, and how we could possibly lower it. Do you feel that there’s some responsibility of Democrats to try and turn the temperature down as Thomas Edsall suggests?

Dr. Charles Bullock

Well, strategically, it probably makes sense for Democrats, you know, they want to be able to win across the country broadly. Then things are not gonna play that well, uh, in Georgia and Texas, a number of other states. It may very well play well in New England, New York, California, but in the heartland it isn’t gonna play well. And so Democrats would probably be advised to back off on some of that.

One of the interesting things is Raphael Warnock, the senator up for re-election here in Georgia, is critical of the Administration’s intention to get rid of (Title) 42, uh, the health care provision, which has been keeping immigrants in Mexico rather than letting them into the country.  So again, the left very much wants to get rid of that Trump-era provision, but here Raphael Warnock, who by anybody’s standards would be a liberal, is saying, yeah, probably not a good idea. And yeah, that’s not gonna play well in a place like Georgia and lots of other parts of the country. So, uh, Democrats can do better and much of the country if they take a more moderate course.

And of course that then creates a challenge for the Democratic Party leadership, how do you keep the progressives who say the problem is that the Democrats are not, you know, going far enough, in tune with the more moderates, who are saying, if progressives take over the party, then it’s going to do us in. So someone like representative Abigail Spanberger, represents a very marginal district in Virginia, chided her more liberal colleagues right after the 2020 election. When yeah, Joe Biden won the presidency, but Democrats ended up losing about a dozen seats in the House.

[Archival clip – Abigail Spanberger on a conference call with Democrats]

Dr. Charles Bullock

So that’s the challenge for Democrats, to try to keep both components of that party working together, and be willing perhaps for each side to accept half a loaf, rather than demanding the full loaf.

Robert Pease (host)

Well, what have we missed here? What should we have in mind as we watch the Georgia primaries and possibly a runoff in June? What are some of the major kind of pressure points?

Dr. Charles Bullock

Well, maybe the most interesting thing to watch in Georgia is going to be how the Trump team does. Now Trump has endorsed seven individuals running in Georgia. He’s got candidates for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, U.S. Senator, Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner. So, what’s his batting average after this? And if Trump fares poorly overall, then that may be what results in the Republican Party, or the leadership of the Republican Party, moving away from the former president, Trump. You know, if his candidates win, if he has a very high batting average, everything that just solidifies his position as leader of the party. And probably also solidifies him as the Republican nominee for 2024.

[Exit Interview]

Robert Pease (host)

That’s a lot on one state’s plate this primary season. It may seem Georgia’s just one state out of 50. But it has become the bellwether, the battleground, the quintessential purple swing state on our red vs blue electoral map. 

Thanks to all three guests in this episode for illuminating some of the hills, valleys, and fault lines on that map. Georgia will remain on our minds as we continue this series on state level polarization, which started in seemingly deep red Texas, where 3 to 4% of GOP primary voters play an outsized role

What about deep blue California, cultural rival to Texas, a trifecta of the Democratic variety, one of the most highly taxed and regulated states in the country which may be experiencing some population decline? As in Texas, do hyper-partisan, Democratic primary voters and candidates play an outsized role there? 

In our California mini-series, we’ll speak with a variety of experts including an 8-term Democratic  California congressman, who became not only a White House Chief of Staff under Clinton, but Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA under Obama. That’s Leon Panetta, one of the most uniquely experienced political observers in the nation.

And we’ll meet the noted author, geographer and longtime California resident, Joel Kotkin. He  has some thoughts changes in California in recent time, but also on the California-Texas rivalry:  

[Look ahead audio to Joel Kotkin]

Joel Kotkin

The California that I went to was a California where, particularly in Los Angeles, nobody gave a damn where you went to college. Nobody. It wasn’t a heavily credentialed place. People started grassroots businesses. Some of them did really well. Some of them didn’t. That is now what I see in Houston and Dallas, in Austin, in San Antonio, that kind of spirit.

Robert Pease (host)

We hope you’ll join us for these California episodes and for some other great upcoming guests  such as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and broadcaster Maria Hinojosa and the noted author and Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua. This Robert Pease for the Purple Principle team, wishing you and yours a less than polarizing primary election season, if possible. Original music here is composed and created by Ryan Adair Rooney. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production.