GA Elections: GOP Sens. Back $2K Stimulus, Voter Purge Blocked

GEORGIA — Both of Georgia’s GOP U.S. senators announced Tuesday that they would support $2,000 pandemic stimulus checks, joining a growing number of Republicans siding with President Donald Trump on the issue.

“President @realdonaldtrump is right — I support this push for $2,000 in direct relief for the American people,” U.S. Senator David Perdue tweeted late Tuesday morning. U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler told Fox News she also supported the bigger relief checks.

Their stand is a sharp turn from before Christmas, when Perdue and Loeffler praised a bill that included only $600 stimulus checks. Then, the two blamed Democrats for blocking even that.

“Together, we are delivering nearly $1 trillion in additional aid to the American people on top of the $3 billion already disbursed,” read a Dec. 22 statement from the two GOP senators, as reported by WXIA-TV in Atlanta. “Republicans have been voting to pass this relief since September — but for Democrats, it’s all politics all of the time and they voted it down until after the November election.” The statement made no mention of $600 stimulus checks, which were only half of what the Democrats wanted.

“Look, I would have voted for the bill because people need help right now. But the bottom line is that $600 is a joke,” said Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff to an MSNBC reporter at the time. Ossoff is challenging Perdue for his seat, while Democrat Raphael Warnock is fighting Loeffler for hers.

The politics changed radically when Trump unexpectedly threatened to veto the relief bill as it stood, demanding that stimulus payments be increased to $2,000 — more than even Democrats had hoped for.

Trump eventually signed the bill Sunday but added in a statement that the U.S. House would “vote to increase payments to individuals from $600 to $2,000.” On Monday, the House did just that, with bipartisan support and a 275-134 vote.

Monday’s House vote put both Perdue and Loeffler in an awkward position: having to choose between supporting their previous position and leaving themselves vulnerable during the runoff, or supporting Trump.

"The people have needed help this whole year and David Perdue has opposed all direct relief," Ossoff tweeted Tuesday. "The man hasn't had a change of heart, he's just scared."

The Senate may vote on the bill as soon as Wednesday.

President @realdonaldtrump is right — I support this push for $2,000 in direct relief for the American people. https://t.co/Al3USM7zPr
— David Perdue (@Perduesenate) December 29, 2020

The people have needed help this whole year and David Perdue has opposed all direct relief.

This man hasn’t had a change a heart, he’s just scared. https://t.co/1cDfEt35IR
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) December 29, 2020

Judge Rules Against Voter Purge

A federal judge on Monday blocked voter purges in two Georgia counties — one county that favored Trump, and another that supported President-elect Joe Biden.

Muscogee and Ben Hill counties had disqualified more than 4,000 voters ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election “simply because their registrations appeared to match U.S. Postal Service change-of-address records,” according to Politico.

After a lawsuit by left-leaning Majority Forward, Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner — sister of voter-rights activist and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams — ordered the two counties to restore the voters to their rolls.

National Democratic Party attorney Mark Elias, who represented Majority Forward, called the decision a “blow to GOP voter suppression.”

Most of the voters were in predominantly Democratic Muscogee County, home to Columbus and the Fort Benning U.S. Army base. Another 150 were from solidly Republican Ben Hill County, a south Georgia district named after a Confederate senator.

You can read the complete Politico article here.

Sterling Became Independent Contractor For Georgia Election

Why did Gabriel Sterling — who previously had been Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s chief operating officer — become an independent contractor for the duration of this election cycle?

The short answer is that it was easier to replace him as an employee than it was to find a project manager who could manage Dominion Voting System’s Georgia contract within budget, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Sterling, who’s drawn national attention for pushing back publicly on Trump’s claims of voter fraud, was paid $114,000 annually as the secretary of state’s chief operating officer through November 2019. As a contractor, Sterling is paid $200,000, but without benefits.

The Atlanta newspaper reported that the state had considered hiring engineering consultants or military logistics experts to roll out the new voting systems, but they couldn’t find any willing to take on the work for what Georgia wanted to pay.

“From my point of view, they did get a good deal with me for the taxpayers,” Sterling said to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We got the whole thing rolled out in the middle of a pandemic and had a record turnout at the same time.”

Sterling will return to his state job as an employee when the election is over. The complete AJC story can be found here.