Georgia state troopers arrested Democratic state Rep. Park Cannon on Thursday after she knocked on Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s statehouse office door as he was signing a controversial elections bill into law in a closed-door ceremony. Georgia legislator arrested, pulled out of state Capitol as governor signs voting law:
Video of the incident shows Cannon, who as a lawmaker also works at the statehouse, being handcuffed after she knocked on Kemp’s door, arguing for transparency of the bill signing. She was then forcibly removed from the state Capitol by two officers and surrounded by more while repeatedly identifying herself as a legislator, and was placed into a police car.
Cannon, who is Black, was charged with two misdemeanors under state law: obstruction of law enforcement and preventing or disrupting General Assembly, according to police.
She was taken to the Fulton County Jail. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., arrived there a short time later to support the state lawmaker and was greeted by a small cheering crowd.
Cannon was released from the jail on a $6,000 signature bond Thursday evening, said her attorney Gerald Griggs, the vice president of the NAACP’s Atlanta branch.
“I am not the first Georgian to be arrested for fighting voter suppression. I’d love to say I’m the last, but we know that isn’t true,” Cannon tweeted after her release. “But someday soon that last person will step out of jail for the last time and breathe a first breath knowing that no one will be jailed again for fighting for the right to vote.”
But someday soon that last person will step out of jail for the last time and breathe a first breath knowing that no one will be jailed again for fighting for the right to vote. #SB202
— Representative Park Cannon (@Cannonfor58) March 26, 2021
In a tweet thanking her supporters on Friday, Cannon vowed to continue to fight for voting rights in the state, saying she would “not stand by” while those rights are threatened.
Thank you all for the your love and support. My family, team and I are going to take some time to rest and refuel so that we may continue this fight, as this is just the beginning. pic.twitter.com/i6IiKa8Vkd
— Representative Park Cannon (@Cannonfor58) March 26, 2021
Lt. W. Mark Riley, spokesman for the Georgia State Patrol, said in a statement Thursday evening that Cannon was warned to stop knocking on the door because the area reserved was for the governor’s staff.
“She was advised that she was disturbing what was going on inside and if she did not stop, she would be placed under arrest. Rep. Cannon stepped back for a moment and then stepped back up to the door and started knocking on the door again,” Riley said. “She was again advised if she did not stop, she would be arrested for obstruction and disturbing the press conference.”
What was going on inside was the death of democracy in Georgia, at the hands of one of the worst GQP voter suppressors in the nation. This cop should have arrested the governor instead.
Cannon was among several people who were protesting Thursday at the statehouse after passage of stricter limits on voting, which followed weeks of debate in the Georgia Legislature. The new law adds a host of restrictions, including changes in identification requirements for mail voting and making it illegal to bring food or water to voters in line to cast a ballot.
Kemp signed the bill into law immediately, calling it “common sense” legislation while aligning himself with former President Donald Trump in remarks touting the bill.
Trump baselessly claimed the Georgia election was stolen from him, pressured Republican election officials to investigate, and dismissed their assertions that the election had been secure and that the results were accurate. Kemp said he and state lawmakers set out to make it “easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, the founder of voting rights group Fair Fight, said in a statement that the law was “blatantly unconstitutional” and “nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0.”
Newly elected U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., tweeted support for Cannon, saying, “I stand with Rep. Park Cannon… who was arrested and CHARGED WITH A FELONY for … for what?”
I stand with Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon (@Cannonfor58), who was arrested and CHARGED WITH A FELONY for … for what?
For *knocking on Gov. Kemp’s office door* as she tried to observe the cowardly closed-door signing ceremony for the voter suppression law. pic.twitter.com/hpp6ZQxo2r
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) March 26, 2021
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” – Rep. John Lewis (2018).
UPDATE: Lawsuit already filed:
https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1375276793603760133
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The 91st MLB All-Star game is scheduled for the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park on July 13. MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark said players are ready to discuss moving the summer’s All-Star game out of Atlanta after the state legislature passed an election reform bill restricting voter access, the Boston Globe reported.
“Union president says MLB players ready to discuss moving All-Star Game from Georgia in wake of voter-restriction laws”, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/26/sports/union-boss-says-baseball-players-ready-discuss-possibility-moving-all-star-game-out-georgia/
Super Bowl LVII is scheduled for State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Arizona on February 5, 2023. The NFL and NFLPA should be discussing plans to move the Super Bowl in response to Arizona’s voter suppression laws.
There must be consequences for Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression laws.
CNN reports, “White House “deeply concerned” about arrest of Georgia state lawmaker”, https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/georgia-voting-restrictions-bill-03-25-21/h_7a563652ee371afb14d0e3c055f5d87e
The White House is “deeply concerned by the actions that were taken by law enforcement” to arrest a Georgia state lawmaker late Thursday, press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a briefing Friday.
Asked if the President would be calling Georgia state Rep. Park Cannon, Psaki said she didn’t have “any calls to preview.”
-Make the call, Mr. President. Then call Governor Kemp to express your displeasure with his Gestapo police tactics.
It was Democratic nominee for president John F. Kennedy’s calls to another Georgia Governor, Ernest Vandiver, in October 1960 after the arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to his wife Coretta that changed the course of history of the Civil Rights Movement. “John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Phone Call That Changed History”, https://time.com/4817240/martin-luther-king-john-kennedy-phone-call/
Talking Points Memo reports, “Biden Calls New GA Voting Law ‘Jim Crow in the 21st Century’”, https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/biden-georgia-voting-law-jim-crow
Statement by President Biden on the Attack on the Right to Vote in Georgia
More Americans voted in the 2020 elections than any election in our nation’s history. In Georgia we saw this most historic demonstration of the power of the vote twice – in November and then again in the runoff election for the U.S. Senate seats in January. Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process.
Yet instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience. Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over. It adds rigid restrictions on casting absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters. And it makes it a crime to provide water to voters while they wait in line – lines Republican officials themselves have created by reducing the number of polling sites across the state, disproportionately in Black neighborhoods.
This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act. I once again urge Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to make it easier for all eligible Americans access the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred right to vote.
And I will take my case to the American people – including Republicans who joined the broadest coalition of voters ever in this past election to put country before party.
If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let the people vote.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports, “Voting rights advocates plan economic boycott to pressure Georgia firms”, https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/voting-rights-advocates-plan-economic-boycott-to-pressure-georgia-firms/XNVL4QSSRBCMNA5BR6Y6M2F2YU/
Critics of Republican-backed efforts to overhaul Georgia’s voting laws launched a new phase in their efforts to derail the legislation on Thursday with plans to boycott one of Atlanta’s most famous corporations.
The leaders of the AME Sixth Episcopal District on Thursday told the AJC they will call for a statewide boycott of Coca-Cola until the Atlanta-based firm opposes measures that would impose new ID requirements for mail-in ballots, drop box rules and mandatory weekend voting hours.
Bishop Reginald Jackson said he wants to send the message that if “Coca-Cola wants Black and brown people to drink their product, then they must speak up when our rights, our lives and our very democracy as we know it is under attack.”
“We will speak with our wallets,” said Jackson, who led a noon “Souls to the Capitol” rally outside the Capitol on Thursday. “This past summer, Coke and other corporations said they needed to speak out against racism. But they’ve been mighty quiet about this.”
It’s part of a broader campaign to exert pressure on Georgia’s biggest businesses to intervene in the fraught political debate.
The state’s leading corporations have mostly taken a guarded approach toward the various elections proposals, using phrasing calling for “fairness” and “security” while largely shying away from outright opposition to specific provisions in the pending proposals.
-Why just a statewide boycott? It should be a nationwide boycott. It’s time for corporate accountability for what corporate campaign contributions to anti-democratic seditious Republicans have done to our democracy.