Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams spoke to an overflow crowd Thursday during a campaign stop at Little Japan Restaurant in Royston.
“My name is Stacey Abrams and I intend to be the next governor of the great state of Georgia,” she said to raucous applause.
Abrams told supporters of her background and laid out her plans for the state if elected governor.
Born in Wisconsin, Abrams’ family moved to Mississippi when she was 3 years old and later to Atlanta and Decatur.
Abrams said education was very important to her parents, both ministers and the only ones in their family to go to college. Her father overcame dyslexia by “memorizing his way through school.”
Abrams and her five siblings all went to college.
“I talk about that because there’s so many people who think because of where you start you can’t get anywhere. I am a testament to what my parents understood about education,” she said. “that if we give it to our young, it will give them a passport to the future. And that is one of the reasons I’m running for governor.”
Abrams said that in her family, Saturdays were days of service.
“My parents would take us to soup kitchens and homeless shelters even though we had no running water sometimes at our house and sometimes the lights would got cut off. They would take us to juvenile justice facilities so we could spend time and communion with children who had been thrown away. They would take us to nursing homes and we would never forget to take care of those who took care of us. My parents raised me with an ethic of service and they showed me every day and that is why I want to be the next governor of Georgia.”
Abrams said that she is running in a time when people don’t feel safe. Safety “is not just about your physical safety,” she said.
It’s about having a place to live, food on the table and access to health care.
Abrams said statements that she doesn’t support law enforcement are not true.
“I believe in law enforcement,” she said. “I like knowing there’s someone I can call when I’m in trouble, but you can’t say that you support law enforcement without also supporting accountability.”
Abrams said she wants to invest in law enforcement by increasing the salaries for state law enforcement to a minimum of $50,000.
For rural governments, she said she wants to create a $25 billion public safety incentive bank.
Abrams said that law enforcement should be held accountable. She told stories about her brother, a social worker, being pulled over for “driving while black.”
“Accountability says that my brother shouldn’t be afraid to go and serve others and worry about making it home,” she said.
Abrams said another brother has bipolar disorder that has led him to make mistakes and chose to break the law.
She said she was glad law enforcement was there to hold him accountable.
“We have to know the safety and accountability go together and that we can support law enforcement and tell them to do the right thing,” she said.
Others have been caught up because they are poor, she said.
“We know too many people who’ve been caught up, not because they’ve made mistakes, they just had the misfortune of not having enough and I intend to be the governor for those folks as well.”
She said she supports raising the salaries of correctional officers as well as community supervision officers who help people transition from jail back into the community.
Abrams said that access to medical insurance is another big issue in the state and that Medicaid should be expanded in Georgia.
“Georgia has the second highest uninsured rate in the nation, 1.5 million people without health care,” the candidate said. “If we expand Medicaid, we create access to health insurance for half a million Georgians.”
Many of those are young people who have no dependence but don’t have a job that pays enough to pay for insurance, she said.
“These young people are going to have to go elsewhere if they ever want to be able to take care of themselves,” she said.
Medicaid expansion is also important to make sure Georgians have access to mental health care, she said.
“As governor, I will expand Medicaid on day one to make sure our society takes care of the people who are here and they are being treated right,” she said.
Medicaid expansion will save urban, suburban and rural hospitals, she said.
Abrams said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is a “hard-right religious extremist” who has banned the right of women to take care of themselves with access to abortion.
“Abortion is medical care,” she said.
Georgia has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation, she said.
Eighty-two counties have no OB/GYN, Abrams said, 18 more have no doctor practicing family medicine and nine counties have no doctor at all.
“We are telling women that we do not believe they are full citizens,” Abrams said. “If we want our citizenship back, women, we’ve got to get rid of the man in the office.”
Abrams said the state has “made it harder and harder for people to cast their ballots.”
“Justice means that we have to have the right to vote and the right to be heard in the state of Georgia. And I’ve been fighting for that and I will keep fighting for it,” she said.
Abrams advocated raising starter teacher pay to $50,000 and current teachers to receive an $11,000 raise.
“When I proposed this increase, Brian Kemp said, we can’t afford it. I’m telling you right now. We can’t afford not to, we are losing teachers in our classrooms. Those class sizes are getting larger and our children are losing access to learning,” she said.
Georgia needs rural education investment, she said.
Abrams said her ideas sound expensive but the state is sitting on a $6 billion surplus that will pay for her programs without raising taxes.
“We’ve got the ability to invest in the needs of the state,” she said.
Kemp has failed to take money for youth internships, has not spent money to keep people in their housing and turned down money to pay for summer school lunch programs, Abrams said.
“If you want more of what you’ve gotten, vote the way they did last time, but if you want more of what’s available, vote for me to be the next governor,” she said.
After her speech, Abrams took a few questions from those in attendance before heading to her next campaign stop in Clayton.
Abrams said she was asked why she was going to counties where she can’t possibly win.
“Counties don’t vote. They can’t register. People vote. You have proven today that I can win the state of Georgia, because if you go back and find all the folks who didn’t know they could be here, didn’t think they should be here or were afraid to tell anyone they wanted to be here, that’s how we win. Right now, the polls are showing the race is tied or close, but I’m on the rise.”