U.S. House Republicans sent a letter to Georgia’s secretary of state expressing concern about a recent report on a voter-education initiative led by Stacey Abrams that teaches Atlanta Public Schools students that the state’s new election laws restrict people from voting.
Reps. Rodney Davis of Illinois and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, respectively the ranking Republican on the Administration and on the Education and Labor committees, sent a letter to Brad Raffensperger asking about how he plans to prevent or counteract Ms. Abrams’ program.
Ms. Abrams’ lesson plans, coordinated for high-school students with Rock the Vote, “taught students that voter identification laws are ’restrictive’ and make voting ’more difficult,’ and that policies limiting ’flexible voting options’ like mail-in voting restrict people’s ’freedom to vote,’” the lawmakers wrote.
They added that “further, Nse Ufot, the CEO of Abrams’ New Georgia Project, which has the stated purpose of ’flip[ping] Georgia blue,’ has made her low opinion of Republicans clear by stating in a recent article, ’I’m not in the business of pretending like [Republicans] are anything but a criminal enterprise that is intent on attacking our democracy and our country and our government from the inside.’”
The GOP lawmakers also sent the letter to members of the Georgia State Elections Board and the chair and vice-chair of the Fulton County Elections Board.
Georgia was one of the first GOP-controlled states to pass election laws rolling back pandemic-era election measures implemented as an emergency measure during the 2020 presidential cycle.
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This included limiting ballot drop boxes, prohibiting third-party funding to municipal election operations and eliminating absentee ballots to voters who did not request them.
The new laws caused a firestorm in Democratic circles causing liberal activists and lawmakers to cry foul, but other Republican-led states followed suit and passed their own voter election laws within months.
Atlanta public high school students were first asked to attend a democracy class hosted by the New Georgia Project last month, Fox News first reported.
The public schools partnered with the New Georgia Project and Rock the Vote at the beginning of the school year last August to launch a voting rights-focused lesson plan for around 2,000 high school students titled “Democracy Class Atlanta.”
The New Georgia Project, was founded in 2013 by Ms. Abrams, a failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate, when she served as state House minority leader.
Future Sen. Raphael Warnock, Georgia Democrat, was the organization’s chairman between 2017 and 2020.
Ms. Abrams revealed in March 2018 that left-wing billionaire financier George Soros and his son, Alexander, funded the New Georgia Project early on.
“George Soros and the Soros family have demonstrated nothing but deep investment and commitment to social justice,” she told the Atlanta Jewish Times.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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