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Tag: Georgia House of Representatives

  • Georgia State Rep. Tanya Miller: Black History Should be Embraced

    Georgia State Rep. Tanya Miller: Black History Should be Embraced

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    Photo courtesy: Georgia House of Representatives

    Georgia is in the national spotlight as one of two must-win states that will determine who ascends to the presidency. You would expect that under such scrutiny, our public officials might want to present the state and its voters as educated, informed, involved citizens. 

    Why then, do Georgia’s leaders so often speak and act in ways that deliberately inflame and perpetuate our state’s long-held racial and political divisions? 

    Georgia’s growing population spans all ages, races, faiths, cultures, ethnicities, and educational and economic levels. Our statewide public school system is “majority minority,” meaning the majority of students in our school demographics are Black students, Asian students, Hispanic students, Native American students, and a delightful array of multiracial students. We also have students who live in rural, urban and suburban areas. All across Georgia, our inclusive public schools strive to offer each student an outstanding learning experience and access to the same opportunities. That’s how we build an educated, informed and involved citizenry.

    But, no. Instead of encouraging understanding and respect among students, Georgia’s leaders are strangely focused on what they insist are “divisive concepts.” Specifically, Georgia’s leaders are denying state funding for a course in Advanced Placement African American Studies.

    Let’s be clear. This is nothing less than an attempt to erase and devalue African American history and heritage. Denying funding for AP African American Studies – an obviously racist, politically-motivated decision – simply demonstrates to children of color that their story matters less, or not at all. That is wholly unacceptable.

    For reference, the Georgia Department of Education calls AP courses “college-level courses offered by trained high school teachers in the regular high school setting. Since 2008, over one-third of the seniors in Georgia public high schools were enrolled in AP courses. AP courses guarantee rigor in our classrooms.” It continues, “AP courses are challenging and require significant study time on a daily basis. Assessments in these classes require sophisticated critical thinking skills.” AP courses also allow high-scoring students the opportunity to earn college credit while in high school.

    Georgia currently provides state funding for AP courses in European History, Art History, World History, American Politics, and nearly three dozen other content areas. Yet, AP African American Studies alone is singled out as offensive, controversial, and even illegal for teaching so-called divisive concepts. 

    As of late July, Georgia School Superintendent Richard Woods planned on blocking the teaching of Advanced Placement African American Studies based on what he calls “areas of concern,” and he opines that, “If the Advanced Placement course had presented a comparative narrative with opposing views,” it would not violate Georgia law.

    There are no comparable “both sides” requirements for other AP courses.

    Georgia State Representative Tanya F. Miller, Esq. listens during Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s annual State of the State Address inside the Georgia State Capitol on Thursday, January 11, 2024. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    The fact is, understanding African American history is crucial for everyone. This country was built on the backs of Black Americans — literally— in many cases. AP African American Studies offers comprehensive, objective insights into American history, fostering a deeper understanding of our nation’s past and present. 

    All-encompassing knowledge equips students with critical thinking skills and a broader perspective, preparing them to be informed and engaged citizens who can better address the systemic issues that continue to divide our nation today. Instead, this course of study, which will enlighten and challenge all Georgia’s students, is effectively now banned.

    Much of the public outrage has been directed at Superintendent Woods, and while he certainly has earned the backlash he’s getting, it’s Georgia Governor Brian Kemp who intentionally created this manufactured controversy. Just two years ago, Mr. Kemp signed a law banning schools from teaching “divisive academic concepts about racism,” a law he championed by saying: “Here in Georgia, our classrooms will not be pawns to those who indoctrinate our kids with their partisan political agendas.” 

    Except, that is precisely what Governor Kemp and his fellow GOP state leaders are doing now. They act not to protect our children, but to boost their own political power. 

    So far, their proposed “solution” is to allow districts to choose to teach a non-AP African American studies class, which would not provide the full content or credit, the opportunity to earn college credit, or the academic recognition of the advanced placement course. Without state funding, only wealthier districts can afford to offer the AP course, thus deepening the educational inequalities and perpetuating urban and rural divisions in our state. 

    The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

    I am outraged by leaders who create divisive laws nobody asked for, then use them as cover for racism, all the while claiming to be neutral. One letter, asking for a few clarifications while taking no position on the issue, does not absolve Governor Kemp of responsibility. This is not a moment for equivocation. It is a time for leadership. 

    I am determined to stand up against this bigotry and for every child who deserves to have our nation’s full culture and history valued, shared and treated as significant. 

    That is why in the coming legislative session, I and other Democratic legislators will sponsor legislation to remove any barriers, real or perceived, to full state funding of AP African American Studies. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us to ensure that all Georgia students have access to a comprehensive, inclusive education and to all the opportunities they deserve, regardless of where they live. Moreover, Governor Kemp’s “divisive concepts” law must be repealed.

    I also urge Governor Kemp, Superintendent Woods and the State Board of Education to fully fund AP African American Studies– just like any other AP course – so that students all across the state have access to a comprehensive, inclusive education. 

    Georgia State Representative Tanya Miller, Esq., D-Atlanta, makes comments during delibrations at a House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee meeting on Monday, January 22, 2024 inisde the Georgia State Capitol. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    We owe our students nothing less.

    Regardless of the law’s intent, shouldn’t it have occurred to our leaders to clarify the issue before imposing a statewide ban that forced districts to rework class schedules for hundreds of students before school started? 

    Now, assuming the funding is restored, those same districts will have to hurriedly rework all those schedules once more in order for the AP course to be taught this school year. It seems all too “clear” that Georgia’s students and educators are not a top priority in the machinations of our elected and appointed GOP officials.

    Finally, after weeks of public outrage, national negative publicity, and pushback from Georgia citizens and prominent elected officials, School Superintendent Richard Woods reversed course, announcing on August 7 that he will “follow the law,” adding that “the AP African American Studies course will be added to the state-funded course catalog effective immediately.”

    Isn’t it embarrassing that Georgia’s Republican leaders have to be shamed and humiliated in order to do the right thing for their constituents? 

    They should be ashamed.

    Georgia State Representative Tanya F. Miller, ESQ., is a Democrat representing the 62nd State House District which contains portions of Atlanta and East Point. Miller also serves as the lead counselor with the Georgia Federation of Public Service Employees. The views and opinions expressed are entirely her own.

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    Georgia State Representative Tanya F. Miller

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  • James Beverly steps down from Georgia House Minority Leader role after four years on the job

    James Beverly steps down from Georgia House Minority Leader role after four years on the job

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    Dr. James Beverly, the Minority Leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, has announced he’ll step down from his role at the end of 2024 Legislative Session, which ends on March 28. Additionally, Beverly, a Democrat from Macon, will not run for re-election. Beverly represented the 143rd District since his election in 2013. He also has been Minority Leader for the last four years. But, Beverly’s district entirely shrunk after the special session on redistricting in December 2023.

    “50% of my district is new within a new county, Houston County,” explained Beverly during an exclusive conversation with The Atlanta Voice. “Which means that I have to go down to Houston County to shake hands, have town hall meetings in order to be elected in a space where I don’t know anybody down there. Because there’s never been a Democrat to represent that district at all for the last sixty years.”

    Beverly led the House Democrats with a pragmatic approach. Being the party in the minority, he felt as though incremental progress is better than an outright aggressive approach. But, as the demographics in Georgia are currently shifting to a more progressive-minded electorate, the Georgia Democrats were able to pick up seats. As a response, Beverly says Georgia Republicans have been co-opting their agenda. 

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    Itoro N. Umontuen

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  • Democrats Keep Falling for ‘Superstar Losers’

    Democrats Keep Falling for ‘Superstar Losers’

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    In the early 2000s, the Japanese racehorse Haru Urara became something of an international celebrity. This was not because of her prowess on the track. Just the opposite: Haru Urara had never won a race. She was famous not for winning but for losing. And the longer her losing streak stretched, the more famous she grew. She finished her career with a perversely pristine record: zero wins, 113 losses.

    American politics doesn’t have anyone quite like Haru Urara. But it does have Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams. The two Democrats are among the country’s best known political figures, better known than almost any sitting governor or U.S. senator. And they have become so well known not by winning big elections but by losing them.

    Both Abrams and O’Rourke have won some elections, but their name recognition far surpasses their electoral accomplishments. After serving 10 years in the Georgia House of Representatives, Abrams rose to prominence in 2018, when she ran unsuccessfully for the governorship. O’Rourke served three terms as a Texas congressman before running unsuccessfully for the Senate, then the presidency. And they are both running again this year, Abrams for governor of Georgia, O’Rourke for governor of Texas. They are perhaps the two greatest exponents of a peculiar phenomenon in American politics: that of the superstar loser.

    The country’s electoral history is littered with superstar losers of one sort or another. Sarah Palin parlayed a vice-presidential nomination into a political-commentary gig, a book deal, and a series of short-lived reality-TV ventures. The landslide defeats that Barry Goldwater and George McGovern suffered made them into ideological icons. I’m talking about something a little more specific: candidates who become national stars in the course of losing a state-level race. There have been far fewer of these. There was William Jennings Bryan, who lost a race for the Senate in 1894, then ran unsuccessfully for the presidency three times. And there was the greatest of all the superstar losers, the one-term representative from Illinois whose unsuccessful Senate campaign nonetheless propelled him to the presidency two years later: Abraham Lincoln.

    But never before has such small-scale loserdom so often been sufficient to achieve such large-scale stardom. Apart from Abrams and O’Rourke, there have also been other examples in recent years. Jaime Harrison made an unsuccessful bid for the DNC chairmanship, then an unsuccessful bid to unseat Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, and then a second bid, this time successful, for the DNC chairmanship. MJ Hegar, a Texas Democrat, lost a close House race in 2018, then a not-so-close Texas Senate race in 2020. Amy McGrath likewise used a close loss for a House seat, hers in Kentucky, to launch a Senate campaign against Mitch McConnell that ended in a 20-point loss. This, it seems, is the golden age of the superstar loser.

    Read: Why Beto O’Rourke argues he has a new case to make to voters

    Superstar loserdom has not been historically tracked, so it’s hard to say with certainty whether it’s really on the rise. But the general sense among the experts I spoke with was that it is. “I do think it is something that we’ve seen more of,” John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, told me. Why, exactly, is a complicated question, the answer to which involves various conspiring forces, some technological, some political, some demographic.

    Let’s start with Lincoln. His 1858 Senate race against Stephen Douglas produced some of the most celebrated rhetoric in American political history, but without the advent of shorthand, stenographers could not have taken down the hours-long Lincoln-Douglas debates word-for-word. Without the country’s new railroad and telegraph networks, those transcripts could not have been transmitted all across the country.

    “Earlier in the century, Lincoln couldn’t possibly have become a national figure,” Pitney told me. “He might have made the same brilliant arguments, but nobody outside of Illinois would have ever heard them.” In that sense, his superstar loserdom—and his eventual ascent to the presidency—must be credited as much to the technological advances of the preceding decades as to the power of his speeches.

    The same might be said of today’s superstar losers. Online fundraising platforms such as ActBlue and WinRed give even state-level candidates the ability to draw support from—and build a following among—donors all across the country, a phenomenon that David Karpf, a political scientist at George Washington University, told me has nationalized local and state races.

    Candidates also have other tools to thrust themselves into the spotlight in a way they never have before—cable TV, podcasts, social media. Both Abrams and O’Rourke are skilled at using social media, and he in particular is a master of the viral moment (see his interruption of a press conference that Governor Greg Abbott held after the Uvalde shooting or his recent outburst at a heckler). Even when the campaign ends, no one can stop you from posting. Unlike a generation ago, “there are lots of avenues in the media today for former candidates to keep having their views known and to continue to be a spokesperson,” Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, told me. (Neither the Abrams campaign nor the O’Rourke campaign agreed to an interview for this story.)

    It would be wrong, though, to chalk up the staying power of superstar losers entirely to their social-media dexterity or telegenic appeal. In the end, “politics is a lot of What have you done for me lately?” Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University, told me. And both Abrams and O’Rourke are also top-notch party builders. O’Rourke may not have secured a Senate seat in 2018, Azari said, but he has been credited with helping Democrats pick up seats in the Texas statehouse. Abrams, meanwhile, has founded an organization to protect voting rights and raised millions of dollars to organize and register voters. Largely as a result, she has been hailed as the driving force behind Democrats’ 2020 success in Georgia. “Anyone can tweet,” Azari said. “But the two of them behind the scenes, I think, have actually walked the walk and helped other people win, helped other people develop their campaign apparatus.”

    Read: The art of giving a damn

    Even though Abrams and O’Rourke have been helpful to their party, the golden age of superstar loserdom is closely tied to our current era of what Azari has called “weak parties and strong partisanship.” For one thing, vilification of the opposition allows challengers to especially despised candidates to quickly become household names. Even in extreme-long-shot races, donors have shown a willingness to pour vast amounts of money into these boondoggles. McGrath burned $90 million on the way to her 20-point loss. Harrison raised $130 million in his Senate race and fared only slightly better. In his contest against Ted Cruz, O’Rourke raised $80 million, including $38 million in a single quarter, the most of any Senate candidate in history—all to no avail.

    Whether because they outperform expectations or because of what they’re up against, these candidates and their supporters are then able to frame the losses as moral victories. Sometimes, as for Abrams supporters, that means framing a defeat as the outcome of an unjust system. Other times, as for O’Rourke supporters, that means framing an unexpectedly good performance in an unfavorable state as a sign of things to come. This, perhaps, is one reason superstar loserdom has so far skewed Democratic, political scientists told me: Democrats desperately want to take advantage of some red states that have been trending purple. Or perhaps the disparity is a product of our post-Trumpian moment. Or perhaps something else entirely.

    For now, polls suggest that things are not looking great for either O’Rourke or Abrams. Superstar-loser status, it seems, does not convert easily into electoral wins. Still, this is likely far from the end of superstar loserdom. Both Abrams and O’Rourke emerged during the 2018 midterms cycle, when Democratic voters energized by opposition to Donald Trump turned out in large numbers to break Republicans’ stranglehold on Congress. This year, Republican voters energized by opposition to Joe Biden will probably turn out in large numbers to break Democrats’ majority in Congress. This election could produce Republicans’ answer to Abrams and O’Rourke. But John James, the Michigan conservative who has made two failed bids for the Senate and was the one contemporary Republican superstar loser political scientists mentioned to me, seems poised to win his congressional race this year.

    A meaningful defeat may be the most Abrams and O’Rourke can hope for: not so much superstar losers as losers with legacies. But losers have a special utility. Winners have to deal with the unglamorous minutiae of actual governance. They have to figure out how to translate campaign promises into concrete policies. They make mistakes, and people get disillusioned, and approval ratings decline. Losers are spared these indignities. Politically speaking, they don’t survive long enough to let anyone down. Unsullied by compromise, losers can be made into lodestars. Look at Goldwater or McGovern. Everyone, it turns out, can get behind a lost cause.

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    Jacob Stern

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