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Politico Airs Flimsy Case Against Abrams and Voting Rights Ari Paul ([link removed])


Election Focus 2022 The name Stacey Abrams, a Democrat running for governor of Georgia, is synonymous with the fight against voter suppression. Since her 2018 loss to current governor Brian Kemp, Abrams, a Black woman, has put a spotlight not only on voting suppression tactics used then, but on further legislation enacted this term (AP, 3/26/21 ([link removed]) ). For many Black Georgians and civil rights advocates generally, she is the latest leader against the systematic, decades-long effort to exclude Black people from political power.

And yet, for Politico, this association is the stuff of controversy. Its recent mammoth article (10/24/22 ([link removed]) )—more than 4,600 words—by Brittany Gibson focuses on how Abrams’s voting rights group, Fair Fight Action, paid $9.4 million to Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, an attorney who chaired the Abrams campaign in 2018. The payments were mostly in relation to a lawsuit that “began as a sweeping legal attack on voting issues ranging from long lines at polling places to problems with voter registration to poor training of poll workers,” but that Fair Fight Action believes also “served an important role in drawing attention to voting inequities.”
Politico: Abrams’ campaign chair collected millions in legal fees from voting rights organization

Politico (10/24/22 ([link removed]) ) tries to make a scandal out of Stacey Abrams working with an ally to fight voter suppression.

The lawsuit failed, largely: A federal judge found that “Georgia election practices challenged by a group associated with Democrat Stacey Abrams do not violate the constitutional rights of voters” (AP, 9/30/22 ([link removed]) ). Politico did note that Lawrence-Hardy believed that the lawsuit had positive effects, because in “the pre-trial phase of the case...the state reinstated 22,000 voters that it was planning to remove,” and because Georgia “also agreed to start using a federal database called SAVE to verify the citizenship of new voters as opposed to a statewide database.”

Fighting Georgia’s election laws has been tough, to say the least. In another case, a judge “declined to block a section of a Georgia election law that bans handing out food and water to voters waiting in line” (AP, 8/19/22 ([link removed]) ), a measure passed and enacted after Kemp took office.

Politico’s article voices shock at how much money was spent on the first case, and it highlights that Lawrence-Hardy and Abrams knew each other at Spelman College, an Atlanta women’s school that is historically Black, and that they knew each other further through Yale Law School and at a law firm.

Yet in all the article's words, it’s hard to find any kind of smoking gun. Some legal and ethics experts quoted in the piece thought the legal fees seemed high, while another did not see anything wrong with the relationship between Abrams and Lawrence-Hardy. Anyone who thinks it’s shocking that political candidates and activists have close working relationships with people they’ve known for a long time has simply not worked around politics.


** 'Normal and non-objectionable'
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Gibson wrote that “some ethics watchdogs say the closeness of their relationship, combined with Lawrence-Hardy’s leading roles in Abrams’ campaigns, raises questions about a possible conflict of interest,” quoting a Public Citizen staffer saying, “The outcome of that litigation can directly affect her campaign itself.”

This is one of those lines you have to read twice, prompting questions like, “Did someone just say, ‘Water is wet’?” Of course stopping racist voting suppression tactics would work to the advantage of Black candidates and Black voters. The entire campaign for voting rights in the South is premised on the idea that voter suppression has had the effect of limiting Black voters’ voice in electoral politics, including the ability to elect Black candidates and others who advance a civil rights agenda.

Public Citizen (10/25/22 ([link removed]) ) publicly retracted this statement, saying upon view of the whole Politico article:

It is Public Citizen’s organizational position that the contractual arrangement described in the story is normal and non-objectionable. It raises no legal or ethical concerns…. Based on the information in the story, our organizational conclusion is that there is no conflict of interest or any problem at all.

Washington Free Beacon: Report: Stacey Abrams Funnels Millions to Campaign Chair’s Law Firm

The word "funnels" is doing a lot of work in the Washington Free Beacon's headline (10/24/22 ([link removed]) ); "Abrams Campaign Chair Headed Multi-Million-Dollar Lawsuit Against Voter Suppression" wouldn't have the same impact.


** 'Turning out in force'
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Nevertheless, the right-wing press jumped on the Politico report as a way to sully Abrams as she runs to the electoral finish line. “Stacey Abrams Funnels Millions to Campaign Chair’s Law Firm,” read a headline at Washington Free Beacon (10/24/22 ([link removed]) ). The New York Post (10/24/22 ([link removed]) ) similarly played up the Politico story.

Politico's October surprise—whether it emanated from the Kemp campaign and its allies or not—comes as early voting is underway. Abrams has lagged in the polls behind Kemp (The Hill, 10/6/22 ([link removed]) ; New York Times, 9/7/22 ([link removed]) ), although Georgia Public Broadcasting (10/21/22 ([link removed]) ) noted that “turnout in the first three days of early voting approached presidential election level, with Black voters…especially turning out in force.”

Georgia Public Broadcasting summarized one Emory University political scientist’s observation that “the high Black voter turnout so far bodes well for Democrats, especially if it continues at the current rate.” One poll (The Hill, 10/25/22 ([link removed]) ) showed Kemp—a conservative Republican who has joined the campaign against teaching about racial injustice in schools (CNN, 4/28/22 ([link removed]) )—rating poorly with Black voters.

A well-publicized scandal is a good way to discourage a last-minute surge. And yet readers are left not really knowing what the scandal is supposed to be. Was money misspent? Did the campaign break any laws regarding disclosures? Is the piece insinuating that there was a wrongful crossover between the group’s legal activism and politicking? Or is the insinuation that the failure of the 2018 case to carry weight in court is a mark of some kind of legal ineptitude on the part of Abrams and Lawrence-Hardy? What is the crime here?
Politico: Brian Kemp fought Trump’s election lie. His likely No. 2 was a fake elector.

The same Politico's reporter's coverage (10/12/22 ([link removed]) ) of Abrams' rival is far more positive—but equally misleading.

Little of this is answered in the piece. But Politico gave an enormous amount of space to this article, and the impact is clear. It is meant to paint Abrams’ efforts against racist voting laws as disingenuous, conjuring up images of her and her friend counting contribution money while their legal efforts fail.

Meanwhile, Politico's recent coverage of Kemp—also by Gibson (10/12/22 ([link removed]) )—presented him as the foil to the election denier running alongside him for lieutenant governor: "Brian Kemp Fought Trump’s Election Lie. His Likely No. 2 Was a Fake Elector." It's a story that paints Kemp as a moderate, ethical candidate—"a xxxxxx as other Republicans buckled"—normalizing his long history of attacking voting rights in Georgia (FAIR.org, 5/26/22 ([link removed]) ).

In the near-term, Politico's coverage can help Kemp win reelection. In the longer term, it can discourage future efforts to fight against voter suppression—a tactic that seems to be doing quite well without any additional help from the media.
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ACTION ALERT: Messages to Politico can be sent here ([link removed]) (or via Twitter @Politico ([link removed]) ). Remember that respectful communication is the most effective.


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