Ally Action Project Week 22: Georgia Elections

As we look to the next four years under President-elect Biden and VP Harris, we are hopeful for the opportunity to reset the equality failures of the last four years. There are laws that will be repealed immediately via Executive Orders from the new president, and there will be laws that start in the House and Senate like the Voting Rights Act. For these laws to be passed, we will either need a Congress that is unified to push for equality, or we will require a majority party to control Congress. The Democratic party did retain a majority in the House of Representatives, but there are two runoff elections in Georgia that will decide the party control in the Senate. 50 of the current 100 senators are Republican, meaning that control of the Senate will be based GA elections. If either Republican candidate wins, the impact could be two more years of stalemate passing equality laws.

The Democratic candidates are Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Raphael Warnock is a pastor from Atlanta who has worked to expand Medicaid under the ACA and ran the New Georgia Project to register voters. He won the election with 33% vs 26%, but Georgia requires a 50% majority. Jon Ossoff is an investigative journalist from Atlanta who believes in a New Civil Rights Act and demilitarizing the police. He nearly won the election with 48% vs 49.7%, and hopes to win a majority.

Our action this week is to get involved with the Georgia elections by learning the platforms of the candidates and reach out to people you know in Georgia about the issues. We also recommend volunteering and donating to Fair Fight, the Stacy Abrams nonprofit to help defeat voter suppression.