2022 GA Governor's race: on Government Reform


Kandiss Taylor: Demands "audit" of 2020 Georgia election results

Taylor has launched her own effort to force an audit of the vote in Fulton and Chatham counties, which govern Atlanta and Savannah. She mailed Georgia state representatives an affidavit demanding that one of two candidates conduct a similar operation in Georgia. Taylor told The Daily Beast that she's been taking advice from Arizona activists who helped launch the state's election audit, including Republican congressional candidate Josh Barnett.
Source: The Daily Beast on 2022 Georgia Gubernatorial race May 21, 2021

Kandiss Taylor: It's time for politicians to be term limited, then come home

Taylor says she's the youngest person in the race and says young people are passionate, excited, and "want to be represented by someone like them." Taylor tells us that since April, she's put 42,000 miles on her car traveling across Georgia as she gears up for the election. She says the average age of a lawmaker in Congress is 65-years-old, adding that it's time to get "people to go in and get some term limits, and then come home."
Source: Albany Herald on 2022 Georgia Gubernatorial race Aug 8, 2020

Stacey Abrams: Fair Fight Georgia helped Biden and Democratic Senate

Stacey Abrams' political future is the subject of intense speculation after she helped turn Georgia blue for President-elect Joe Biden. A gubernatorial primary will take place to unseat Republican Gov. Brian Kemp; Abrams is considered to be the presumed frontrunner for the nomination.

Since her first governor run in 2018, Abrams has since escalated her organizing and mobilizing efforts with Fair Fight, the group she founded in the aftermath of that election, and offered a strong closing pitch to voters to "make a plan to vote early" leading up to Nov. 3.

"One of the ways we were able to flip Georgia was because I have been working on it for ten years," Abrams went on. "I know the work we did across this country through Fair Fight 2020 made certain we had enough states that flipped back that we could work together to make certain Joe Biden became president, and now I'm focused on getting the last piece across the finish line, and that is the U.S. Senate race on January 5th in Georgia."

Source: The Daily Beast blog on 2022 Georgia Gubernatorial race Nov 12, 2020

Stacey Abrams: Ensure everyone trusts the system, and it's worthy of that

ABRAMS: I think it's always dangerous to undermine the integrity of elections without evidence. When we challenged voter suppression, we were able to prove it, we were able to correct for it in many ways, and that's why we saw a dramatic increase in turnout from 2018 to 2020 where more voters were able to cast their ballots and have those ballots counted. my mission is to ensure that everyone trusts the system and that we make certain that it's a system that's worthy of that trust.
Source: ABC This Week interview for 2022 Georgia gubernatorial race Jan 3, 2021

Stacey Abrams: Only obligation we have is make sure every vote is counted

It's important for us to recognize that no one is entitled to victory. The only obligation we have is to ensure that every voter has the right to have their voice heard. I never challenged the outcome of the election. I challenged the system that denied access to the right to vote. I find it very troubling that, instead of fighting to make certain that every voter can have their vote counted, that they're challenging in an attempt to declare victory for someone who clearly lost the election.
Source: CNN State of the Union on 2022 Georgia Gubernatorial race Jan 3, 2021

Stacey Abrams: You don't win county by county; you win person by person

What I remind people of is that in the statewide election, you don't win county by county. You win person by person. And that's what we've been doing. Fair Fight has been willing to invest millions of dollars into organizations, smaller groups, that have been doing the grassroots organizing and mobilizing that it's going to take to win. And we are very hopeful and very determined to do so.
Source: Meet the Press interview on 2022 Georgia gubernatorial race Jan 3, 2021

Stacey Abrams: Lawsuit of 80,000 complaints against 2018 Governor election

A debate moderator reminded Abrams that she had rejected the outcome of the 2018 election, which she lost by more than 50,000 votes. She was asked to confirm whether she'd concede the race in the event her opponent wins.

"I will always acknowledge outcomes to elections but will never deny access to every voter," she said. Abrams assured the audience that she eventually recognized that Kemp won the election in 2018, after she first said it was "rigged."

"In 2018, I began my speech on Nov. 16 acknowledging that Gov. Kemp had won the election. I then proceeded to lay out in grave detail the challenges faced by voters under his leadership as secretary of state--80,000 complaints, and it took four years of federal investigation in a lawsuit," she said. "We didn't win every single claim, but we forced massive changes to the election laws." Earlier this month, an Obama-appointed federal judge dismissed major contentions in Abrams's legal case that her defeat to Kemp in 2018 was illegitimate.

Source: National Review on 2022 Georgia Gubernatorial race Jul 19, 2022

Stacey Abrams: 2020 election integrity law is the "new Jim Crow"

Abrams [in her debate with Republican Governor Brian Kemp] alleged that the Kemp administration, including the governor and secretary of state Brian Raffensperger, has since undermined those reforms [instituted after the 2018 election] and has made voter suppression the "hallmark" of its leadership. "He has assiduously denied access to the right to vote," she said of her rival.

Kemp retorted that Abrams joined the Democratic bandwagon that claimed S.B. 202, the election-integrity law passed in

Source: Yahoo News on 2022 Georgia Gubernatorial race Oct 9, 2022

  • The above quotations are from 2022 Georgia Gubernatorial race: debates and news coverage.
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  • Click here for more quotes by Brian Kemp on Government Reform.
Candidates and political leaders on Government Reform:

Retired Senate as of Jan. 2015:
GA:Chambliss(R)
IA:Harkin(D)
MI:Levin(D)
MT:Baucus(D)
NE:Johanns(R)
OK:Coburn(R)
SD:Johnson(D)
WV:Rockefeller(D)

Resigned from 113th House:
AL-1:Jo Bonner(R)
FL-19:Trey Radel(R)
LA-5:Rod Alexander(R)
MA-5:Ed Markey(D)
MO-9:Jo Ann Emerson(R)
NC-12:Melvin Watt(D)
SC-1:Tim Scott(R)
Retired House to run for Senate or Governor:
AR-4:Tom Cotton(R)
GA-1:Jack Kingston(R)
GA-10:Paul Broun(R)
GA-11:Phil Gingrey(R)
HI-1:Colleen Hanabusa(D)
IA-1:Bruce Braley(D)
LA-6:Bill Cassidy(R)
ME-2:Mike Michaud(D)
MI-14:Gary Peters(D)
MT-0:Steve Daines(R)
OK-5:James Lankford(R)
PA-13:Allyson Schwartz(D)
TX-36:Steve Stockman(R)
WV-2:Shelley Capito(R)
Retired House as of Jan. 2015:
AL-6:Spencer Bachus(R)
AR-2:Tim Griffin(R)
CA-11:George Miller(D)
CA-25:Howard McKeon(R)
CA-33:Henry Waxman(D)
CA-45:John Campbell(R)
IA-3:Tom Latham(R)
MN-6:Michele Bachmann(R)
NC-6:Howard Coble(R)
NC-7:Mike McIntyre(D)
NJ-3:Jon Runyan(R)
NY-4:Carolyn McCarthy(D)
NY-21:Bill Owens(D)
PA-6:Jim Gerlach(R)
UT-4:Jim Matheson(D)
VA-8:Jim Moran(D)
VA-10:Frank Wolf(R)
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Page last updated: Feb 14, 2023