-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks to supporters at the Georgia Giants Dinners in Rome in August.
Democrats swept all of Georgia’s constitutional offices during the November 3 General Election, from governor, Lt. governor, secretary of state, and attorney general to commissioner of agriculture, insurance commissioner, and labor secretary.
As you can imagine, transition teams will be extremely busy from now until the first of the year.
“You have kind of a sea change underway in state government,” said Political analyst Bill Crane. “The newly elected House majority caucus has met. The Senate minority has met. The governor has named a transition team that has some well-known names on it, like filmmaker and entrepreneur Tyler Perry and Arthur Blank. She also has a lot of government aficionados and key advisors who worked with her when she was a mayor of the City of Atlanta. The same process is in place down the line of constitutional the new labor commissioner Thurman served three terms state labor commissioning transition committee.”
The governor-elect has indicated Medicaid expansion in Georgia will be one of her top priorities.
“It is one of the largest state agencies—the Department of Health and Human Services is currently held by Candice Broce, who is an appointee of Governor Brian Kemp,” Crane added. “She served him previously as press secretary. All that falls under the Department of Behavioral Health and Human Services, which is probably the second largest agency in state government, behind the Department of Corrections in terms of manpower, but again, the benefits of being governor is all of those appointments are subject to change.”
Keisha Lance Bottoms is Georgia’s and the nation’s first-ever female, African-American governor.
She is the state’s first Democrat governor since Roy Barnes, who was elected in 1998, but lost re-election in 2002.
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