US activists who helped flip Georgia call for more progressive state policies

On Wednesday, 6 January, Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock clinched two Senate seats, bringing the US Senate to a 50-50 split with a Democratic majority once the Biden administration begins. This historic win was due in large part to the work of Black and brown organizers across the state, who spent weeks canvassing Georgia and helping people register to vote, which was often complicated due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The election of Jon Ossoff and Rafael Warnock to Congress has a huge potential for new and progressive federal policy that would affect the country as a whole. However, this win has less sway on local laws. This is where many organizers in Georgia see their work turning to in the coming years.

“We will have an uphill battle to get policy changes on a state level, but federally it will mean policy changes that will benefit our communities can be implemented based upon elected officials with shared policy visions,” said Helen Butler, the executive director of the Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda in Georgia. “I’m looking for an immediate passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the George Floyd Criminal Justice Reform Act, and affordable healthcare passed on the federal level. We will continue to fight for voting rights, criminal justice reform, healthcare and economic justice on a state and local level.”

On a national level, many progressive organizers across the country have been advocating for radical measures such as prison abolition, defunding the police, and the Green New Deal. Black progressives in particular have been pushing hard for these demands. Recent data from FiveThirtyEight notes that while the “defund the police” demand is unpopular with Americans as a whole, the story changes when you break beliefs down by demographic. While white respondents opposed defunding the police by up to 61%, Black respondents supported the demand by an average of 45%. Butler says that organizers in Georgia are pushing for the same on a local level.

“In Georgia, public schools have been defunded over time through legislation enabling voucher programs to funnel dollars to private education – a measure that essentially perpetuates inequity and segregation at the earliest phases of life,” Butler said. “Advocates pushing for defunding the police and climate justice are merely asking for our budgets to reflect our morals, which center the marginalized and overlooked.”