All-Star game still burns Georgia GOP
July 19, 2022
Also in today’s edition of Swing State Georgia for July 19, 2022:
U.S. Rep. Jody Hice fights a grand jury subpoena.
Guess where Jon Ossoff is going this month.
David Perdue talks about what’s next.
Baseball’s biggest names will square off tonight in Los Angeles for the annual All-Star game. For some Georgia Republicans, it’s also a reminder of what could have been.
The league yanked the showcase game from Truist Park last year in protest of Georgia’s new election law, triggering criticism that has hardly dissipated from Gov. Brian Kemp and other supporters of the legislation
On Monday, U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Barry Loudermilk sent a letter to baseball commissioner Rob Manfred asking how the league will “redress the harm” caused to metro Atlanta with the decision. Carter called it “liberal hypocrisy,” while Loudermilk demanded an apology.
They’re both following the lead of House Speaker David Ralston, who penned a letter last week that lamented how Manfred “unjustly deprived” Georgia of a premier event and demanded that the “mistake be corrected.”
“As such, I call on you to award a future MLB All-Star Game to be played at Truist Park in the coming years,” Ralston wrote. “The sooner this announcement is made, the quicker we can all put this unfortunate incident behind us.”
We’re guessing Manfred is in no rush to change course – but the baseball world needs no reminders that the Atlanta Braves got the last laugh by winning the World Series.
HICE SUBPOENAED. The AJC’s Tamar Hallerman reported Monday that U.S. Rep. Jody Hice was subpoenaed by the Fulton County grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 general election.
Hice became the second member of Congress to challenge a subpoena from the panel, but he took a different approach than South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.
A lawyer for Hice filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday seeking to move the matter to federal court, a request that was granted.
Hice supported former President Donald Trump’s “stop the steal” efforts and spread conspiracy theories and misinformation about the election. The Georgia Republican was later endorsed by Trump to challenge Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, only to get trounced in the May primary.
He was also among several members of Congress who attended a December 2020 meeting at the White House to discuss election strategies, including the fake electors scheme. This was what Hice tweeted the day of that meeting:
Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was also at that White House gathering. Her office did not respond to our inquiries about whether she had been contacted by the special grand jury.
A spokesperson for Hice said, “At this time, Mr. Hice is eager to return to Washington, D.C. to fulfill his duties as a member of Congress as the House of Representatives is in session this week.”
Swing State's paid subscribers receive text alerts from our reporting team. See below for how to sign up.SHE SAID IT. Some of U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s sharpest ads aim to make Republican rival Herschel Walker’s words come back to haunt him.
Your Insiders have noted that Gov. Brian Kemp is employing the same strategy against Stacey Abrams.
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