Gov. Brian Kemp touts track record of diverse appointments
ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has drawn praise from his political foes by carving out a record of tapping women and diverse candidates to coveted jobs in the state’s judiciary and other important positions that for decades overwhelmingly went to white men.
About one-third of the Republican’s judicial appointments are people of color and more than half are women, according to an analysis of records. Each of his three selections to statewide political posts have been first-of-their-kind decisions. And he’s stocked several key state boards with members who better reflect Georgia’s diversity.
The governor said in an interview that he’s seeking talented candidates who have long been overlooked while also trying to broaden a GOP base dominated by older white voters. It’s a strategy that played out last week with a string of headlinegrabbing announcements.
He appointed Verda Colvin, a Black jurist praised by a bipartisan group of leaders, to the state Supreme Court. He named Fitz Johnson to the Public Service Commission, making him the first Black member of the utility-regulating agency since 2006. And he tapped three other Black women to judicial posts.
“I’ve had a track record, despite what some have said, of making diverse appointments for well over a decade, back to when I was secretary of state,” said Kemp. “We’ve made historic picks that better reflect the state, but they’re also wellrespected conservatives.” The effort to diversify state boards and courtroom benches long dominated by white men drew applause across party lines. But critics stressed that the record won’t distract left-leaning voters from his conservative political agenda, such as his support for an elections rewrite that Democrats say targets Black voters, when he faces re-election in 2022.
“It’s always a positive when the governor names people to leadership positions who are more
representative of the state,” said state Sen. Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta. “But there are other issues that voters will see as much more important: the new election restrictions, the refusal to expand Medicaid and the state’s lagging vaccination rate.”
She added: “Just because he’s tapping diverse people to these posts doesn’t mean it will translate to votes.”
The governor and other Republicans are on the defensive after Democrats flipped Georgia in the November presidential election and swept the January U.S. Senate runoffs.
White voters made up over half, 53%, of all registered voters in Georgia in 2020, while roughly 30% were Black. But as Georgia’s voting population climbs, the bulk of new voters — nearly two-thirds — are people of color.
Even as Kemp stresses his conservative stances to protect his mostly white right flank in a primary, the governor is also eager to tout the appointments to a broader electorate in a likely 2022 rematch against Stacey Abrams, who has yet to enter the race but is expected to do so.
“Qualified picks like these make it harder for Democrats to go to the proverbial ‘identity politics’ route to criticize his record,” said Chip Lake, a veteran Republican strategist who doesn’t consult for Kemp. “They will go there anyways, but it helps inoculate him from criticism that he’s racist or discriminatory.”
His highest-profile picks have earned the lion’s share of attention.
When he named financial executive Kelly Loeffler to a vacant U.S. Senate seat, choosing her over then-Rep. Doug Collins and a raft of other white men jockeying for the post, she became the first Georgia woman to cast a vote in the U.S. Senate.
His other two picks for statewide positions also have established new records. Kemp made John King the first Latino statewide official in Georgia history when he tapped him as the interim insurance commissioner. And Johnson, a retired businessman, is the first Black Republican on the regulatory agency.
Though many of his senior aides and administration deputies are white men, the governor can point to first-of-theirkind picks. Caylee Noggle was the first woman to be a chief of staff to the Georgia governor. In June, he selected Black women to lead the state revenue department and the Georgia Technology Authority.
Of the roughly 1,200 appointments he’s made to state boards, agencies or authorities, about 650 of them were first-time selections. About 46% of those were either women or minorities, according to a tally by Kemp’s office.
Most of those fly under the radar, though some are more dramatic, such as an overhaul of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association that for the first time put a Black man in charge of what happens to the world’s largest Confederate monument.