Bottoms assembles transition team ahead of January takeover
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Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms said her team would evaluate how the state's shrinking budget reserves could affect her legislative priorities. Photo: Thomas Wheatley/Axios
Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms is tapping some of the same leaders who helped her find her footing at City Hall to do the same at the Georgia Capitol.
Why it matters: Over the next eight weeks, Bottoms must simultaneously learn the government she's inheriting, build the government she wants and keep the existing government humming along.
- When she takes office in January, Bottoms will become Georgia's first Democratic governor in more than 20 years. She has a team of familiar faces and big names to help.
Zoom in: Named Georgia's Promise, the transition initiative is a mix of public and private sector leaders. It includes:
- Rashad Taylor, a former state lawmaker and former Bottoms senior adviser
- Jon Keen, Bottoms' former chief operating officer for Atlanta who now works in clean energy
- Richard Cox, a longtime Delta Air Lines senior executive and another former City Hall COO
- Carmen Chubb, Bottoms' former chief of staff and a 25-year veteran of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs
- Vicki Palmer, a retired Coca-Cola Enterprises executive who chaired Bottoms' 2017-18 mayoral transition
Carter Center board chair and former state Sen. Jason Carter, Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, filmmaker Tyler Perry and former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO and interim Spelman College president Rosalind Brewer are also on the team, along with many more honorary leaders.
State of play: The team will spend the next eight weeks recruiting state agency heads and top staffers, coordinating with outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp's team, and developing a policy agenda to make Bottoms' campaign promises of Medicaid expansion and affordability a reality.
- At a Friday press conference announcing the team, Bottoms said she will prioritize personnel, saying that "the decisions that we make over the next few weeks about who will lead our [agencies] will shape how we will deliver for all of Georgia over the next four years."
- They'll also pore over Georgia's budget and gauge how the state's shrinking budget reserves could affect priorities.
The intrigue: Democrats swept all statewide contests on the ballot but Bottoms' agenda will likely face opposition in the Georgia Senate, the only place where Republicans maintain majority control.
- The governor-elect told reporters she planned to look to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and other states' chief executives about how they worked with Republican-controlled legislatures.
What's next: Bottoms said she would expand the team in the coming weeks. Kemp has offered her team staff support and resources to ensure a smooth transition, the governor-elect said.
- "It may surprise you all, but Gov. Kemp and I actually have a very cordial, friendly, personal relationship," she said.
- "Our politics don't always align, and that often spills over into the public discourse, [and] I respectfully disagree with some of his policy positions. But as a person, I take him at his word. He's always been true to his word in our conversations."