North GA Blue: Getting into Good Trouble

Stacey Abrams, Democratic Candidate for Georgia Governor

August 17, 2022 Fannin Co. GA Democratic Party Season 2 Episode 33
North GA Blue: Getting into Good Trouble
Stacey Abrams, Democratic Candidate for Georgia Governor
Show Notes Transcript

The North GA Blue: Getting into Good Trouble podcast covers democratic politics in North GA, the 9th Congressional District, and across the state of Georgia. The podcast is in Q&A/Interview format with various democratic politicos including county chairs, democratic operatives, politicians, and more. It is our mission to deliver crucial information to our listeners in a timely manner as we fight for community values and principles in the 3rd most Conservative district in the state. Our website is: https://www.fcdpga.com/podcasts

Our guests highlight democratic activities and actions to work toward a Blue Georgia. The 9th Congressional District spans 20 counties across the region and covers a good deal of northern GA including Blue Ridge, Morganton, Fannin, Union, Banks, Athens/Clarke, Dawson, Elbert, Forsyth, Franklin, Gilmer, Habersham, Hall, Hart, Jackson, Lumpkin, Madison, Pickens, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, and White counties. 

Our democratic party podcast also disseminates information and interviews powerful Democrats across the state of GA working to overthrow the suppression tactics of the GOP and ensure democracy and our values, grassroots efforts, and goals remain intact. 

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Meral Clarke:

Hello, and welcome back to the North Georgia Blue Podcast. I'm your host Meral Clarke. And we're getting into very good trouble today with our special VIP guests who needs no introduction, but I'm going to introduce her anyway, please welcome National Democratic leader in our state's next great governor Stacey Abrams. Thanks for having me. Welcome to the show leader Abrams, we are deeply honored and humbled to have you here. And thank you for taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to chat with us. Your time is valuable. So let's dive right in. We all know the last time you ran against Brian Kemp in 2018, the margin was razor thin between you and he. As an accomplished attorney, national voting rights activist and New York Times best selling author, why did you decide to run again, and why now?

Stacey Abrams:

Before I published my very first book, I was a policy wonk. I did my master's degree in public policy, my law degree focuses on tax policy and tax law. And I grew up believing in the importance of effective government. While I have been privileged to have multiple operations in my life, what it always comes back to for me is how do we make life better for those around us? How do we ensure that people have access to the services they need? And how do we hold government accountable for doing what's right for the people, it should serve? As much as I've been able to be in these different facets, I always come back to how do we leverage the power of state government to help people access safety and justice and opportunity. We have had four years of watching, Brian Kemp fail on each of those metrics. Crime has risen under his leadership, Justice has fallen and opportunity exists only for some. For me, that meant that standing for office again, in particular, standing for the most powerful office in Georgia again, was the next step I had to take.

Meral Clarke:

That makes complete sense to me. And we're personally very happy that you're running. So next I'd like to touch on some of the most pressing issues facing Georgians today, including rampant inflation, which we know is a huge problem, lack of access to affordable housing, health care, reproductive justice, especially now and restrictions on voting access in the ballot box, especially as it pertains to your organization, Fair Fight.

Stacey Abrams:

I didn't realize we're gonna be here for four days.

Meral Clarke:

You know, what, four days works for me?

Stacey Abrams:

Please continue.

Meral Clarke:

Thank you. Your thoughts on these matters that are critical to all Georgians, there's so much to cover.

Stacey Abrams:

But the litany that you just read out is exactly why I run. I bucket it in three places. safety, justice, opportunity. Under safety, safety is more than law enforcement. We focus there because we live in a state that has a rising crime rate where gun violence is rampant, where guns are the number one killer of our children. We have to understand that violence went up under the current governor. It didn't start when President Biden took over it started under Governor Kemp and President Trump. And so it is important for us to recognize that the man who was in charge when violent crime went up has done nothing to bring it back down. Instead, he has weakened gun laws and made it easier for dangerous people to carry weapons on our streets to carry weapons into our grocery stores. He's made us less safe. My response is that I will work to fix those gun laws. I was in the legislature the first time this concealed carry the notion of taking away that permit was raised and I watched year after year as Republicans rejected it. It only passed this time because Brian Kemp needed to win this primary. And I believe that given the effect it is having on our state we will be able to repeal it. But we also have to recognize that law enforcement needs help in the State of Georgia. 90% of law enforcement is performed by local law enforcement, but the rest is performed by the state and the state law enforcement is not only the arrest power and investigatory power, it's also our correctional officers. It's what happens when people are released and returning to community. I'm the only candidate actually advocating for pay raises to bring them all to a living wage of $50,000. So that we can close the shortage that we have in law enforcement, but you cannot say you support law enforcement without also acknowledging the necessity of accountability. We just today had a story from Hancock County of a young woman whose parents are concerned that she died in police custody. Across the state racial violence, police violence is real. It is not an anomaly, but it is also not so constant that we can either ignore it or pretend that it is the core of how law enforcement works. I believe you support law enforcement, but you hold them accountable. But I also know that safety is about housing. We have a housing crisis in the State of Georgia. My website goes through a very strong litany of what we can do to address affordability, inventory, gentrification and homelessness. But the core of it is Georgia needs to invest. Right now our Housing Trust Fund has $3 million in it. And Brian Kemp is sitting on $450 million to save people from losing their homes and he refuses to use that money. We also have to think about safety in terms of health care. We can expand Medicaid in the State of Georgia increased the number of doctors and nurses and health care workers save rural hospitals, but also create 64,000 jobs so that's safety. Justice is about our ability to vote. SB 202 is an abomination that was a law of voter suppression, Brian Kemp admitted he passed the law because he didn't like the results of the 2020 and 2021 elections. As he said the federal results, the only reason you would pass a law like that is to stop the people who made change possible. I intend to win this election and start to reverse the trend of voter suppression in the State of Georgia. But I think the most salient and critical and lethal issue is the stripping away from women of our right to an abortion and our right to reproductive care. Georgia has 82 counties with no OBGYN. We have 18 counties that don't have a doctor practice and family medicine. nine counties with no doctor at all, this law is lethal. It will allow sheriffs and others to investigate women for miscarriages. It will hold health care providers from your EMT to your doctor to your nurse, it will prevent them from providing you with care for fear that they will go to prison for 10 years. And lest we think this is hyperbole, we've already seen this happen in Texas, in the Midwest when a woman was forced to go into a ruptured ectopic pregnancy because the doctor couldn't treat her until her life was actually in danger. Brian Kemp is a hard right extremist and he does not believe in justice. He doesn't believe in justice for those who are returning citizens. So that's a litany of things that are wrong. But let me talk about what's right. Okay. In Georgia, we have the opportunity for the first time in a generation to spend a surplus of more than $5 billion. solving the problems of Georgia. We can expand Medicaid, we can raise teacher salaries to$50,000 Starting salary and averaging $11,000 pay raise across the board. We can increase pay to law enforcement, we can actually put money into small businesses put money into family farm initiatives, we can do all of this and not raise a dime in taxes. And hear me clearly this is after we put money into the rainy day fund. After we've met all of the obligations of the state, we still have more money left over. Brian Kemp intends to return that money to the wealthy and the powerful, which is what he just did. When you hear about the tax cut, let's be clear, most of us get an average of $1 a day 50,000 of the wealthiest people in Georgia are going to share $500 million from his last tax cut. I'm the only one purporting and requesting that we do a tax rebate that's capped at $250,000 in income so that the average person actually gets the money. These are real things we can do to tackle inflation to tackle rising costs. This is a global phenomenon. It is not endemic to the United States. But it is real, it is painful. And I'm the only candidate with a plan. And so what I say to anyone listening is that we have the chance in Georgia to really seize opportunity to invest in the places where we're broken to solve the problems that we have. And to imagine a better future to think about how we deal with climate action. All of these things are possible. But they are not possible if we keep the same person who was responsible for breaking the state and expect him to fix the state.

Meral Clarke:

That makes complete sense to me. And why do you suppose that the Republican base oftentimes will vote against their own self interest? Why is that?

Stacey Abrams:

I frame it differently, we prioritize interest differently. So Republicans give a different priority to the interests that they want to see served. And so often, when we say self interest, what we mean is economic interest. That may not be what they prioritize, and my job is not to tell someone their belief system is wrong. My job is to meet the belief systems and say, here's what's possible. Anyway, one of the reasons I was successful working with one of your neighbors speaker David Ralston was because I never tried to change who he was, I simply tried to find moments of alignment. My values are strong, they are solid, and they guide me, I don't need you to agree with what I believe to do what I need you to do. And that's why I know that with a Republican legislature, we can expand Medicaid with a Republican legislature, we can increase the pay to our teachers, we can do what we must for childcare in the State of Georgia, because these are family people. I don't want to make people change their belief systems. I want to change our behaviors and the behaviors that we can change are the behaviors at the state level we can make our state government actually responsive to our people. And I think the more Republicans see that when they see the real consequences of having a leader who will invest in them whether they agree with me or not, we will start to see more Republicans actually aligning their sense of values and their sense of interest with our own

Meral Clarke:

And this is part of your concept for One Georgia, the bipartisanship that you demonstrated so beautifully in the House of Representatives as minority leader. And of course, as you will, as governor. As you're aware, we reside in the ninth congressional district, it's overwhelmingly conservative. And we have to work very hard to communicate our messages. What would you say to our rural voters who don't really understand who you are and what your message is? How would you communicate that?

Stacey Abrams:

I would begin by reminding folks that counties don't vote People do. Yes. And what we've seen happen throughout North Georgia is that more and more people realize their voice does matter, because they're yoking their voices to those in metro Atlanta, but also folks in South Georgia, who also feel left out folks in Middle Georgia. But I come back to the basics. Every single Georgian and I have met regardless of whether they want to vote for me or not, they want three things. They want safety, they want justice, and they want opportunity. I am the only candidate with a plan for all three, but I'm also the only candidate who has proven my worth in all three. If you look at my work for 11 years in the legislature, I worked with the Georgia Sheriffs Association, I worked with the Chamber of Commerce, but I also worked with labor unions. I'm the only person I know of who got an A rating from the Georgia Chamber and the friend of labor awards in the same year.

Meral Clarke:

Shocking. I don't think it's ever been done. I probably said it private.

Stacey Abrams:

And it confused all of them that they were like, what did we miss. But what I think it's emblematic of is that I can talk about issues because no one lives a one dimensional life, at least I don't think they do. And yet our current governor behaves as though everyone has the same story. I know we all have different stories. I'm a second of six kids. And what my parents raised us to believe is you go to church, you go to school, you take care of each other. But they also raised us to understand that we would have different lives, different stories, different paths. But we always came back together as one family, that when we got in trouble, we looked out for each other when my younger brother fell into trouble with drugs and with crime. We didn't abandon him, we rallied around him. But we also held them accountable. When my sisters change their jobs and change their ideas. We work with them. When my brother, the social worker decided he wanted to go into entertainment, we were there, I've had more jobs. Because my parents believe that opportunity should be real. And that's the kind of leadership I want to bring. But I want people to understand I have the skills to do it. If you look at my 11 years in the legislature, my success as a small business owner, my leadership of fair fight, fair count, seven Economic Advancement Project, I know how to do this job. And even when I didn't get the job that didn't stop me from doing the work I said I wanted to do.

Meral Clarke:

And you've never stopped. And I want to mention that after the election, the very close election in 2018, against Brian Kemp that instead of going back home and licking your wounds, you know you did you got right back up, you started Fair Fight, you got fair fight going on a national level and your servant leadership has been a boon to all of us across the state and the nation. So I want to personally thank you for that. I wanted to also ask you about your parents, you know, you came from a working class family. And you know, your mother was a librarian. And your father was a shipyard worker, a shipyard worker. And eventually they felt called to the church and they both became Methodist ministers, indeed. And so the servant leadership in your family runs deep. And you know, I have to say that the way they've raised you is incredible. How has that upbringing affected your desire to make lives better for Georgians across the state?

Stacey Abrams:

Well, when both of your parents are pastors, whenever you feel the spirit, you get really afraid that you're being called to the opposite, right? I became a tax attorney just like I'm Zacchaeus. Okay, but what I did realize the first time I ran for office, I thought about how that melded with my faith, and with my upbringing, and I believe that my ministry, we all have ministries, we are all called into a ministry of some sort. There are those who are called by the Lord to lead people through the pastoral. My ministry is government because government is it's an extraordinary thing. When we take a step back when we recognize that the whole point is about people coming together to pool their resources, their time for people they will never meet for things they may never benefit from, because we know it's the right thing to do. I pay my taxes, I pay education, taxes, I don't have children, but I know that there's a child whose life is made better and whose opportunities are made more real, because I participated. I know that I may not always need the resources I have. But because I put a small portion in more people who never thought that they would have a chance to do so. And those who are successful, they owe their success to those of us who helped lift them up as well. There's no such thing as a self made person. We might do better with what we get. But we all benefit from everyone pouring in. And so what my parents raised me to understand and what I try to live every day is My faith is a shield to protect, it is not a sword to strike people down. And that it is not enough to say you want to see different you have to live it as the passage from James. Faith without works is dead. If you want people to know who you are, show them. And everyday My responsibility is to show who I am. And to show that I'm Robert and Carolyn's daughter,

Meral Clarke:

And you are, you are doing that definitely with every passing day. So let's talk about empathy for a moment. Why do you suppose the Republican leadership is lacking in so much empathy sitting on literally billions of dollars instead of spending it to make Georgians lives better? And what is the disconnect, I guess, is what I'm asking.

Stacey Abrams:

There's a poverty of thinking and imagination. And that has always been the most disturbing part of working in state government. When I joined the legislature in 2006, we were completely under Republican control. And I tell the story of one of the most heart wrenching days when I watched Republicans one after another go to the well to strip a tax credit from poor people, because essentially, the argument was, if they don't have it, they don't deserve it. This is the same legislature that hours earlier had passed a tax cut for wealthy retirees. We might have a difference of opinion about why people find themselves where they are. What confounds me is that it is economically inefficient. So let's put aside empathy. If your mission is economic success, poverty is economically inefficient. It is morally repugnant. But it also costs us it costs us in terms of crime, in terms of the social safety net, how dense it has to be. And when people fall through the corollary challenges that we face. I don't know why their hearts are hardened, because it's not a lack of understanding. And I've seen more than once Republicans work together with Democrats to do good. And one of my proudest moments was working on kinship care, helping children who were being raised by grandparents and others. And I worked with Tommy Benton from North Georgia to get that done, because he had that experience. And so I think part of it is at the core of empathy is actually having the experience. And sometimes in our legislative in elected leaders, their experiences don't give them access to empathy, because they've never had to think about it. Public safety is one of those perfect examples. I doubt the governor understands what it feels like to have one brother who has been arrested for crimes he did commit, and having another brother who gets pulled over simply because of what he looks like. And a brother in law, who served 27 years in prison, falsely accused and wrongly convicted. Brian Kemp doesn't know what that feels like. And thus, his language and his behavior rejects the reality of millions of Georgians, I am privileged to have grown up in want into need, because I never forget what that feels like. But I also know what success feels like, and what opportunity feels like. And so my empathy, I think, is built of a broader and denser experience set. And I don't begrudge those who've never had to struggle, but your lack of struggle should not mean that you deny others an opportunity to rise, right?

Meral Clarke:

Everyone should have equal opportunities and equity is so important. So I must ask you in this is purely on a personal basis for me bringing on what's your favorite iteration of Star Trek? Probably the most important question.

Stacey Abrams:

Okay, so I'm gonna say this. I love Star Trek Voyager. Because Janeway to me was the best of that iteration. I think that Captain Picard and Star Trek Next Generation rebooted the franchise beautifully, permanently and wonderfully. And I adore Star Trek Discovery, in part because I think that Michael Burnham is an amazing character. Also, they let me come on the show. So you know, but also to give how this two strange new worlds which I found really wonderful, and I've loved Picard. So it's like saying, which child do you like the best, I didn't read any of them. But I love all of the shows. I just, if I'm going to sit down and put one on for comfort and joy. It's going to probably either be an episode of Voyager, Discovery or Next Generation.

Meral Clarke:

Fabulous. And you're also a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan which was one of the first I believe one of the first iterations on television of a very strong leading female character. She was amazing. Yeah,

Stacey Abrams:

I will point out another strong leading woman Maud, which ah, who is incredibly relevant in this moment, because she was the first character to ever have an abortion on television.

Meral Clarke:

You're right. And I'd forgotten that. That was groundbreaking. It was I watched every iteration I watched Benson mod family and so on. She was a wonderful she Arthur was extraordinary. Yes, she was a wonderful actor. So I would urge all of our listeners to go to your website, StaceyAbrams.com. Your accomplishments on that website are too numerous to mention here because we wouldn't be here for four hours, but I would urge everyone to go there and learn more.

Stacey Abrams:

If I can point them to a particular page. Sure. So we've talked about a lot of things that I want to do now. When I talked about the surplus that we have everything I want us to do, we can do without raising $1 in taxes. The poverty of thinking that I mentioned earlier is that we've been convinced in Georgia we can't afford to do right. For 20 years, we've been told by Republican leaders, we can't afford to do this. We can't afford to fix that we can't afford to do right. We've reached an inflection point where we can't afford not to. And for the first time, because of Senator Raphael Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff, and the congressional delegation Democrats that we have, we have the resources in Georgia to do right, and we can do it without raising the single dollar in taxes. And so if people take nothing else from this conversation, know that all of the things I want us to do, we can do, because I'm a nerd, both a Trekkie and a tax attorney. My website has a spreadsheet, where actually lay out how we pay for every single thing. I use the governor's own numbers. I use the economic estimates he provided to build out our budget and to show that we can do everything I say without raising taxes, and we'll still have

Meral Clarke:

Well, how do we do that, though, without raising money leftover. taxes?

Stacey Abrams:

Because we have a$5 billion surplus. We look at the nine year average for the budget in Georgia. And so amortizing it across the upcoming years, we lay out the growth estimate and it also takes into account a recession. We are not in one yet. But presuming one is coming. It takes into account a recession as well. This is absolutely doable. We just need the right governor to get it done.

Meral Clarke:

Well, you're definitely the right governor and personally and speaking on behalf of Fannin County Democratic Party, we can't wait to vote for you and call you Governor Abrams

Stacey Abrams:

I look forward to answering Thank you.

Meral Clarke:

Thank you for being absolutely thank you for taking time out of your very, very busy and hectic schedule. And we are so honored to have you here with us. And I will call you madam governor. I've been calling you that for a year actually now.

Stacey Abrams:

I'm manifesting. It's been my honor. Thanks for

Meral Clarke:

Thank you. I'm Meral Clarke and on behalf of having me. our team, I'd like to thank everyone for listening to the North Georgia Blue Podcast. To learn more about us and the work that we're doing. Visit us online at Fannin County, Georgia democrats.com. Share the North Georgia Blue Podcast with your friends and family be sure to subscribe and follow and if you enjoy our podcasts be a founding patron and friend of the show at North Georgia blue podcast.com/patron with three different giving levels to choose from offering cool swag recognition on the show and website and valuable gift cards to help us continue getting into more good trouble.