Latest news with #Bottoms
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Keisha Lance Bottoms officially launches bid for Govenor
The post Keisha Lance Bottoms officially launches bid for Govenor appeared first on ClutchPoints. Former Atlanta Mayor and White House advisor Keisha Lance Bottoms has officially announced her run for Georgia governor in 2026, after weeks of speculation. Bottoms stated in an interview with FOX 5's Angelique Proctor at the Georgia State Capitol that her background as Atlanta's mayor and her most recent position as a top adviser in the Biden administration have equipped her to govern the state. 'As mayor, I led Atlanta through difficult times, supported small businesses, raised pay for first responders, and expanded affordable housing … Georgia families deserve far better than what Donald Trump and Republicans are giving us right now—I will be a governor for all Georgians,' Bottoms said in her announcement. Among her main priorities, she stated, will be extending Medicaid to the 300,000 Georgians who do not already have insurance, assisting small companies, and removing the income tax for educators. She also intends to alleviate Georgia's teacher shortage. Eliminating teacher state income taxes is also one of her main initiatives. 'I am a fighter. People are looking for somebody to fight against the chaos that's coming out of Washington,' she told Proctor. 'The chaos is being created by the Donald Trump administration, and I am ready to lead, and I am ready to fight on behalf of the community across Georgia. 'We still have a teacher shortage in the state, and we know it's impacting what's happening in our classrooms,' Bottoms said. Bottoms has worked in politics and law for a long time. She earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Florida A&M University. She attended Georgia State University College of Law in 1994 to earn her Juris Doctor after graduating from Florida A&M. She practiced juvenile law prior to being appointed a magistrate judge in Atlanta in 2002. After winning a seat on the Atlanta City Council in 2009, Bottoms made her political debut. She was re-elected in 2013. Up until 2017, she was the executive director of Atlanta's Fulton County Recreation Authority. From 2018 to 2022, Bottoms served as mayor of Atlanta from 2018 until 2022. In 2022, she succeeded Cedric Richmond as head of the Office of Public Liaison. The governor's race is anticipated to attract a lot of interest. Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, is not eligible to run again due to term limits. Last year, Republican Chris Carr, Georgia's attorney general, formally began his bid to succeed Kemp. State Senator Jason Esteves declared his intention to run in April on the Democratic side. In August 2024, Olu Brown, the former pastor of Impact United Methodist Church, made his campaign public. According to reports, Stacey Abrams, the Democratic contender for governor in 2018 and 2022, is thinking about running for office again. In addition to her long political and legal resume, Bottoms can now add executive producer to that list. She serves as an executive producer on Tyler Perry's new show She The People on Netflix. The political comedy stars Terri J. Vaughn as Lt. Gov. Antoinette Dunkerson, the first Black woman to hold the office, who 'runs a successful campaign and now must figure out how to thrive under a sexist and condescending governor while attempting to keep her family in line now that they're all in the public eye.' Bottoms feels the state is prepared for the historic moment if she is elected, becoming the first Black woman governor in Georgia's history.
Miami Herald
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
FAMU alum running for Governor in Georgia
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has officially entered the 2026 Georgia gubernatorial race, bringing her extensive leadership experience and a renewed focus on unity to the forefront of state politics. A proud alumna of Florida A&M University (FAMU), Bottoms aims to become Georgia's first Black female governor, following in the footsteps of fellow HBCU graduate Stacey Abrams, who previously ran for the position in 2018 and 2022. Bottoms, 55, highlighted her 'battle-tested executive leadership' from her tenure as Atlanta's mayor, during which she managed significant public safety issues and supported police and firefighter pay raises. She also served as a senior advisor in the Biden administration, focusing on public engagement and voter protection. Her campaign emphasizes expanding Medicaid, supporting small businesses, and workforce training as key priorities for Georgia's future. In contrast, Stacey Abrams, a Spelman College alumna, made history as the first Black woman to be a major-party gubernatorial nominee in the U.S. Despite her groundbreaking campaigns, Abrams faced defeats in both the 2018 and 2022 elections against Republican Brian Kemp. Her efforts, however, significantly increased voter turnout and brought national attention to voter suppression issues in Georgia. Bottoms' entry into the race underscores the continued influence of HBCU graduates in shaping Georgia's political landscape. FAMU alumni has a strong HBCU community in the Atlanta Metro area which could be a galvanizing cornerstone for her campaign. Her candidacy not only represents a potential historic milestone but also reflects a commitment to addressing systemic issues affecting all Georgians, regardless of race or political affiliation. The post FAMU alum running for Governor in Georgia appeared first on HBCU Gameday. Copyright HBCU Gameday 2012-2025
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Keisha Lance Bottoms Interview: ‘I'm Standing Up and I'm Fighting Back'
When Keisha Lance Bottoms first ran for mayor of Atlanta in 2018, part of her campaign's appeal was that she was deeply rooted in Black Atlanta. Supporters loved to wear T-shirts emblazoned with 'My mayor's name is Keisha' from the barbershop to the neighborhood BBQ. Proudly repping the city's southwest side, she declared victory after a heated run-off against a feisty white opponent whose campaign threatened to end Atlanta's 44-year run of Black mayors. With promises to address an affordable housing crisis and public safety, and to clean up city government after several employees from the previous administration were indicted in a federal bribery investigation of City Hall, Bottoms confidently took the helm as Atlanta's 60th mayor. But the honeymoon didn't last long. Bottoms, only the second Black female mayor in Atlanta's history, was soon facing headwinds under the overreach of the first Trump administration, a crushing pandemic, and protests over the police murder of George Floyd. For many, their lasting image of Bottoms — and one that thrust her onto the national scene — was as an impassioned and frustrated politician denouncing vandalism and violence in the city's streets. Pleading for calm during a press conference, she called out protesters for tearing up their beloved city during demonstrations over the death of Floyd. 'What I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta,' Bottoms said. 'This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. This is chaos.' After her remarks went viral, she was soon being name-checked as a potential 2020 running mate for Joe Biden. The woman who was the only Atlanta mayor to serve in all three branches of government was quickly branded a rising star within the Democratic Party. Which is why supporters and critics alike were puzzled when Bottoms issued an open letter online announcing her decision to no longer seek a second term in 2021. Titled 'Dear Atlanta,' the message was clear that her time in office had taken a toll. 'The last three years have not been at all what I would've scripted for our city,' Bottoms said at her final press conference, where she referenced managing a debilitating cyberattack on City Hall records and additional racial unrest after the Atlanta police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in 2020, and referred to President Donald Trump as 'a madman in the White House.' But the former prosecutor and married mother of four, who also spent eight years on the Atlanta City Council and logged two years as a Fulton County Superior Court judge, wasn't completely finished with politics. Bottoms headed to Washington to serve in the White House as director of the Office of Public Engagement and as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden from 2022 to 2023. And now, as the country grapples with the whipsaw nature of Trump's second term, Bottoms, 55, told Capital B Atlanta she launched her gubernatorial campaign because she felt a renewed call to elected service. 'November was a turning point for me.' Bottoms said in a telephone interview on the morning of her gubernatorial announcement. 'Like so many people, I woke up after the election wondering what could I do in this moment.' Bottoms reenters the political spotlight in the Peach State looking to focus on expanding Medicaid, eliminating income tax for teachers, taking on corporate landlords to create more access to affordable housing, and supporting small-business owners. She would become just the second Black woman in state history to run for governor on a major party ticket if she wins her party's nomination next May. Stacey Abrams became the first in 2018 when she launched her first of two historic bids. Abrams has expressed interest in a third attempt next year, but so far hasn't made it official. Other prominent Georgians who have expressed an interest in running for governor, but have not made an official declaration, include Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, both Republicans, and former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond and state Rep. Derrick Jackson, from Tyrone, who are both Democrats. Fellow Democrat Jason Esteves, a state senator representing Atlanta, and Republican Attorney General Chris Carr are the only other declared candidates in the 2026 gubernatorial race so far. Carr threw his hat in the race in late November. Esteves entered the contest on April 21. The Bottoms campaign released a video entitled 'For Georgia' to announce her gubernatorial run after weeks of speculation she would enter the race. She pulled no punches as she criticized Trump's impact on Georgia residents. 'This is a defining moment for Georgia and for our country,' Bottoms said in the video, which features an homage to her late grandmother and her five-generation lineage that hails back to a Georgia plantation. 'With chaos in Washington, Georgians need a leader who will stand up for them. I'm running for governor to fight for Georgia families and deliver the leadership they deserve.' In a wide-ranging interview with Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday, Bottoms explained her decision to run for governor, her plans to take on Trump's DEI ban and ICE raids, abortion rights, and what she's prepared to do in order to reenergize Black voters to send her to the Gold Dome. Here are highlights from our conversation with Keisha Lance Bottoms. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. Keisha Lance Bottoms: I served as mayor of Atlanta for three years under Donald Trump as president, and although I didn't vote for Trump, I don't think that'll be a surprise to anybody. I did hope that this Trump 2.0 term would be different, and in so many ways, it's been worse. So my service as mayor, my decision not to seek reelection, was about that season in my life, and we are all in a different season. I'm standing up and I'm fighting back. And for me, fighting back means that I am presenting myself as a candidate for governor. My family goes back five generations, at least in this state, we are able to trace our family to a plantation in Crawfordville, Georgia. So I know this state well. I know the opportunities that it's offered to my family. I know what's possible when you have leaders fighting for you. That's why I'm running for governor. As mayor of Atlanta, expanding our affordable housing stock was a cornerstone of our administration, even in the midst of the pandemic and all the challenges that presented, we were able to add 7,000 affordable and workforce housing units to our stock in Atlanta. And when it comes to corporate landlords, I've been paying very close attention to a bill that was presented in Virginia, and it sought to put a cap on the type of companies that could make these investments in communities. We're not trying to restrict people from being able to buy property and to use their money, but what we are particularly focusing on are corporate landlords who are buying up entire communities. They're buying up entire neighborhoods. It's making it difficult for people to be able to afford houses. For those who are renting homes, it's often difficult for them to get somebody on the telephone to respond to the challenges that they are having if they need a repair in their home. … We're going to look across the country and see what's working best to help manage corporate homeownership … in the state of Georgia. So, I have to remind people, it wasn't just 2020 that we were able to turn Georgia blue. We also sent Sen. [Raphael] Warnock back to the Senate in '22, and we saw that there was a split ticket. The state went red for the governor's race, and it went blue in the Senate race. So we know that it's possible, and we will continue to remind people just how significant one election can be for their livelihoods. If you think about what Donald Trump has done to employees across Georgia, from gutting the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] to laying people off and moving government offices, all of this is the result of one election. … We're the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, and being able to remind people in the same way that John Lewis reminded us, our vote is [the] most powerful tool we have, and we can't ever afford to sit out elections. So it's going to be about visiting communities across Georgia, earning the vote, the respect and the support of people across the state. I'm going to talk directly to Black men … listening to them directly about why they have been discouraged [and] what has maybe made them say, 'I don't know that anybody is listening to me.' We can't take anybody for granted, and I think Black men are getting a bad rap. Our democracy doesn't hang in the balance because one group has said that they are frustrated and they don't feel heard. It's about all of us. So I'm going to talk directly to Black men — I've got a lot of them in my house, so I hear a lot — but listening to [Black men] directly about why they have been discouraged [and] what maybe made them say, 'I don't know that anybody is listening to me.' What I did as mayor, we were not directly responsible for public health, that's the responsibility of the county. But it didn't stop me from putting a leader in place to make sure that we were seamlessly coordinated with the county and the state on our health-related issues. I had no idea that we would face a pandemic. But I knew we needed coordination on things like our HIV/AIDS rates and other chronic diseases that were plaguing people in Atlanta. So in the same way, as governor, I'll make sure that we have people in place who are serious about public health. It won't be a situation like we've seen with the [Georgia Maternal Mortality Review] committee that was charged with examining issues with women who died in childbirth, and when the governor didn't like the results they came up with, they abolished the committee. We want to rely on science. We want to rely on data. We want to have solutions because in Georgia, we have some of the highest rates in the nation, whether it's chronic diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure to the challenges we've seen with maternal mortality rates. So I'll make sure that I have people who aren't afraid to tell me the truth to lead us in public health and also making sure we're getting ahead of the curve and coordinating and standing in the gap — especially for those programs that are being gutted by Donald Trump. So I will use everything in my power as governor to take us back to Roe v. Wade, the law of the land for 50 years that served this country well. I would use the power of the governor's office to put us back where we were with the parameters of Roe v. Wade. We now have a six-week abortion ban. And what people need to realize, especially when you're looking at the situation that the Smith family is facing, it's not just about women who are attempting to terminate pregnancies. You know, it's the South, people are still very conservative [with] their thoughts on abortion and what that means. I respect that, but it's also about women who are experiencing miscarriages. And now it's about a young woman who has been declared brain dead, and her family does not have the ability, in consultation with her doctor, to make a decision as to whether or not she'll remain on life support. I don't think any family, no matter what you think about abortions, wants to be faced with that dilemma. So I will use everything in my power as governor to take us back to Roe v. Wade, the law of the land for 50 years that served this country well. As it relates to Target, I certainly understand the sentiment. I had a great deal of respect for Target and what it did in terms of promoting Black vendors. So I respect and hold in high regard our ability to mobilize. I am concerned about how it will affect Black brands that are carried in Target. … I'm concerned about people who work at Target. In some communities, it's the only grocery store they have access to in their communities. So it really is a double-edged sword. I hope that not just Target, but all other companies looking at how they are handling DEI don't just swing the pendulum the other way because they're concerned about pressure. Sit down with leaders like Jamal Bryant and other leaders who are saying, 'We have ideas about how you can do things better and differently.' … As it relates to DEI in general, we're seeing the hands of time turn back. And what we don't need to do is allow people to define DEI as something negative. DEI is not just about Black people. It's about women. It's about communities that have not had a seat at a table, LGBTQ communities. It's about white women who are seeking to get contracts and entrée into industries that they otherwise may not have had an opportunity to have entrée into. We can't allow that to now be defined as something dirty and ugly. I'm deeply concerned about the administration's efforts to suspend due process and to eliminate habeas corpus. [Trump's] trying to gut the Constitution before our eyes. I'm deeply concerned about the administration's efforts to suspend due process and to eliminate habeas corpus. [Trump's] trying to gut the Constitution before our eyes. I don't think anybody wants dangerous criminals on our street, and that doesn't have anything do with an immigration status. … We need to be thoughtful about how we are pursuing our policies [and] not just do gimmicky things to say you are working on immigration. Be thoughtful about how you're going to address the immigration challenges that we have had in this country. The way to do that is not to eliminate positions for immigration judges. Add more people who can help process asylum applications. Look at what's working right and expand from there. Don't just jump off this cliff because you think it's politically expedient to do something that gets attention and doesn't solve any other real issues that we have. I supported the training center, and I think it would have been great if the petitions had been counted and that process had gone through as well. But I'm glad that the training center is open. We want well-trained police officers and firefighters in our communities. The police academy was in disrepair. The fire academy was even worse. But whether you agreed or disagreed, it was necessary. People have to remember, police are responding to everything. If it's someone who's having a domestic issue at their home, or somebody who's responding to a fender bender, we have to have police officers. They're necessary in our society. We want our firefighters to be trained to respond if, God forbid, we have a fire at our home, and we have to have somewhere to train them. I think ultimately, the way the funding was allocated was very different than what was initially negotiated by our administration. But each administration gets an opportunity to put its thumbprint on what moved forward and what was done. So I can't speak to decisions that the current administration had or decisions they made, but I still support the academy. I'll work with Trump where I can work with Trump. And those things he's doing to hurt Georgians — I'm going to fight for us. I served as mayor for three years while Trump was in office, so I'm no stranger to having to stand up to his administration and to push back on policies that are unfair to our cities. I won't hesitate to push back on policies that are harmful to people across Georgia. I've been in battle with him before, so I'm not afraid to do it again. My grandmother would be so tickled by this. I know it's nothing that she ever could have imagined. I remember when I was getting ready to go to law school, she kept saying, 'Can't you teach [at a school] like me? You had enough schooling.' [She was a] practical woman, but always cheering me on in every single thing I ever set my mind to do. I know she's smiling down from heaven, a great cloud of witnesses. I'm just very proud to have her featured in this ad. Additional reporting by Chauncey Alcorn The post Keisha Lance Bottoms Interview: 'I'm Standing Up and I'm Fighting Back' appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
Black America Web
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Black America Web
Could Georgia Get A Governor Named Keisha?
Source: The Washington Post / Getty Keisha Lance Bottoms, the charismatic former Atlanta mayor who took on Donald Trump before joining former President Joe Biden's White House, is running for governor of Georgia. Bottoms made the announcement in a video released Tuesday to social media, in which she recounted her upbringing and willingness to take on Trump. 'These days, most Georgians are right to wonder: Who's looking out for us? Donald Trump is a disaster for our economy and our country. From his failure to address rising prices to giving an unelected billionaire the power to cut Medicare and Social Security — it's one terrible thing after another,' Bottoms says in the video. Bottoms also calls on the need to expand Medicaid and her support for '…first responders like firefighters and police officers, as well as teachers; promises to 'crack down on corporate landlords raising prices;' and says her administration would help young people get 'better pathways to college or career training,' NBC News reports. During an interview with NBC News, Monday–a day before she would make her announcement–Bottoms said that 'Trump 2.0 has been even more catastrophic for our state.' 'From the 600,000 people across our state who have jobs that are directly impacted by what's happening in our Port of Savannah and Trump's tariff policies to people being laid off at the CDC, Trump has directly impacted this state, and not in a positive way,' she said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose headquarters is in Atlanta. 'Everything that Trump does is impacting us, whether you're looking at your retirement account or you are a CEO who's looking at stock prices fluctuate. He has not been a great president for Georgia,' she said. But before Bottoms can set her eyes on the Thanos of the American government, she's got to fight the uphill battle in her own backyard. Bottoms won't just be running against the Republican candidate, assuming that she wins the Democratic bid, she'll be running against a rigged system that helped current governor Brian Kemp in office for eight years. That's because… how shall I say this … Kemp has a history of playing fast and loose with Georgia's votes. Editor: Don't be shy now, Stephen. Me: Fine, Brian Kemp is a professional Black vote suppresser. In 2018, as then Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp was running for governor against Ga. darling Stacey Abrams, he was sued for '…suppressing minority votes after an Associated Press investigation revealed a month before November's midterm election that his office has not approved 53,000 voter registrations – most of them filed by African-Americans,' PBS reports. Just a year before he would run for governor, Kemp and his cronies enacted a law that a voter's registration information had to match data from the Department of Motor Vehicles or Social Security Administration. This law disproportionately affected black and Latino voters and thus legally allowed for their votes not to be counted. Here's how Michael Harriot explained all the ways Brian Kemp has worked to suppress the Black Vote in a piece aptly titled: 'The Wizard of Voter Suppression: Brian Kemp's Long History of Making Black Votes Disappear.' Between 2008 until 2012, the state of Georgia struck 750,000 voters from its rolls, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, an unusually high rate of purging, but still within reason. However, after Kemp got his hands on the state's voting apparatus, he has purged twice as many voters. Kemp has nixed nearly 1.4 million voters from Georgia's books for inane reasons such as missing hyphens, rumors that voters have moved and even misspelled street names. And since he became the Republican nominee for governor, he has doubled down. One of his biggest weapons is his 'exact match' policy. If a voter's registration doesn't match their DMV records (which often has flawed data), Kemp has mandated that the registration be invalidated. There are reports of voters with hyphenated names being removed from rolls because their registration didn't have the hyphen. Others have been deleted because their addresses were misspelled. To be fair, when voters sued the state of Georgia about this policy in 2013, noting that it was arbitrary and not a legal standard, Kemp did stop doing it. Then he simply had the Republican-led state legislature pass a law codifying the exact match system, and continued his purge. Kemp also uses other methods to get rid of voters. He tosses out the names of people suspected of not being citizens. He purges inactive voters. He kicks out people who didn't serve on jury duty. He uses every imaginable method, and somehow the voters left out are always black. Let's just say that for the sake of journalism and the excitement of a Black woman running for governor––if elected Bottoms would become the first Black female governor in the history of the United States––that Kemp has a lobotomy and somehow stops throwing away Black votes, which he could easily do from outside the office––Bottoms would also be required to pull all of the votes that Abrams received and during her two failed attempts at governorship, and well, I don't know if that's possible. I'm not thoroughly entrenched in Ga. politics, but I have eyes and know that I can't remember these two powerful Black Southern women ever being sistergirls. Meaning, I don't know if Abrams, a kingmaker and powerhouse in Ga. politics, will stump for Bottoms. And if Bottoms can't pull Abrams voters (Abrams fell only 54,723 votes short in 2018 and close to 300,000 votes in her 2022 bid), then she doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. But what do I know? I once thought America was smart enough not to elect Orange Stalin into office and look how well that turned out. And, Bottoms was a beloved mayor. During her time in Atlanta she '…presided over the city's response to the Covid pandemic and amid the protests (some of which turned violent) in the aftermath of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody, as well as a fatal police shooting in Atlanta around the same time,' NBC News reports. She also publicly pushed back against Kemp's decision to lift COVID restrictions in the state, even battling him in court over city mask mandates. Bottoms is currently the highest-profile candidate to enter the race. SEE ALSO: Georgia Prosecutor Declines Criminal Charges Against Deputy Who Killed Exonerated Black Man Georgia Woman Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter After Black Boyfriend Found Shot Dead SEE ALSO Could Georgia Get A Governor Named Keisha? was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
We now have 4 candidates running to be Georgia's next governor
We're about a year away from the Republican and Democratic primaries here in Georgia in the race for the state's next governor, and the race got a little bigger on Tuesday with the announcement that former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is now officially a candidate. She said she plans to go across the state, even the red sections, to convince voters to vote for her. 'I'm going out to communities across this state. I'm going to knock on doors. I'm going to talk to people in these community centers and basements of their churches. I'm going to go to their football stadiums and try and earn each and every vote,' Bottoms said. Bottoms will face off against Atlanta state Sen. Jason Esteves in the Democratic primary. RELATED STORIES State Sen. Jason Esteves running for Georgia governor Jason Carter rules out running for GA governor as wife Kate battles brain cancer Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr running for governor Esteves announced his candidacy last month and has been crisscrossing the state talking about what he says are kitchen table issues, and not just against President Donald Trump's agenda. 'I want to make sure we're focused on those issues, and that's what ultimately, what's going to win us an election. If we run this election against Donald Trump, we're not going to be talking about the right things, and we're not doing to be connecting with the voters we connect with,' Esteves said. The Rev. Olu Brown is the third Democratic candidate vying for the nomination. Brown is a pastor at Impact United Methodist Church and a newcomer to politics. He told Channel 2's Richard Elliot how he plans to overcome the underdog label. 'Georgia is more than metro. Two, don't forget about us, and three, come back. That's how we're going to win over and that's how we're going to cross the aisle and that's how we're going to win,' Brown said. Elliot did reach out to the lone Republican who's announced he's running for governor – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr – for his comment on this story. His campaign said the attorney general was driving through the state and was not able to talk to Elliot about the race.
