Just watched the Georgia gubernatorial candidate debate. Following Southern manners and etiquette, I will address the lady first and her opponent next week. So, let me proceed to share my thoughts on the candidate, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
I first met then-Mayor Bottoms shortly after her election. Federal investigations into contracts and bid-rigging at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport were again in the news. Grand juries were being impaneled, and potential indictments of members of the prior mayoral administration were being discussed and considered.
Talks renewed at the State Capitol during the Georgia General Assembly as bills for a state takeover of Atlanta’s airport were drafted and considered by the State Senate.
Mayor Bottoms had called and requested a meeting with David Ralston, Georgia’s powerful and venerable State House Speaker. Ralston immediately agreed and invited her to his offices at the Capitol. I was at the capitol that weekday morning, too,just after clearing the security entrance.
A few people behind me in that security line was Atlanta’s new mayor, who appeared to have just walked the few blocks from Atlanta City Hall on Mitchell Street. The mayor appeared somewhat out of her element, attired in a sharp red suit, carrying a small valise, and accompanied by one Atlanta Police officer in plain clothes, versus a security detail and cluster of staff and/or handlers.
It became clear to me as they entered the ground floor – where there is no building directory or information desk – that Bottoms was unsure of exactly where to go or how to find the speaker’s office, which, though well located on the third floor, is in no way readily apparent to visitors.
I stepped over, introduced myself, and asked if I could help the mayor make her appointment and take her to the speaker’s office. A smile formed, the mayor thanked me, and off we went.
She was there to build relationships and allies for the city as well as deflate arguments about the viability or any rationale for a state takeover of the city. The meeting with Ralston apparently went well, and the speaker made a commitment. He had not yet heard a compelling case for a state takeover, and until he did, he said he would not support nor entertain the notion for such legislation originating in the State House.
State Senate efforts did not die that day, but let’s just say they didn’t gain much ground afterward.
After reading Bottoms’ memoir, The Rough Side of the Mountain, it became quite evident to me that the arrest and later incarceration of her father – legendary entertainer, singer, and globally known artist Major Lance – on drug charges during her early childhood deeply impacted Bottoms and her family for life.
Though this better explains some of her later criminal justice and public safety policy thinking, it does not justify the consequences of eliminating cash bail, closing the City of Atlanta Jail (renamed the Atlanta Municipal Pre-Trial Detention Center), or severallater decisions made during the aftermath of the Summer of Civil Rights Protests in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, or the city’s response and public media battles with the state and Governor Brian Kemp over the pandemic shutdown and later re-opening of the city and the state.
And as the pandemic wore on, Bottoms’ memoir discloses that her husband, Derek Bottoms, contracted long Covid and her entire family was exposed. Still, only the mayor, her husband, and oldest son Lance later tested positive. I don’t recall this disclosure in real time and have been unable to locate news coverage of it from those days.
This gubernatorial race will be closer than expected. Democrats are more energized, and the out-of-power party almost always does well in mid-term election cycles. But Mayor Bottoms is not Stacey Abrams, and she does not have those same campaign financial resources nor the voter turnout machine that particularly benefited the re-election of U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock.
If you watched the WANF-TV Gray Media debate, a central premise was questions from across the state came from supposedly undecided voters. A significant percentage of those questions were from undecided Black women, less than a full month from Election Day.
Did this debate inadvertently identify an unexpected Achilles’ heel for the articulate former mayor? Will it be Bottoms up, or thumbs down?
Next week, my thoughts on Rick “ Action” Jackson.