Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who’s expected to become the next chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he wants Georgia Gov.-elect Brian Kemp (R) to testify before Congress about allegations that he suppressed minority voters during his tenure as Georgia’s secretary of state. “I want to be able to bring people in, like the new governor-to-be of Georgia, to explain … why is it fair for wanting to be secretary of state and be running [for governor],” Cummings told HuffPost in an article published Monday. Kemp’s heated race against Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams was marked by calls for him to resign from his post overseeing the state’s elections while he simultaneously ran for governor.
Shortly after the Nov. 6 election, an Abrams-backed group filed a lawsuit in Georgia seeking to overhaul the state’s electoral process, claiming it was discriminatory. Abrams said during her campaign and in its aftermath that elections in Georgia are stacked against Democrats and minorities.
A news report a few months before Election Day found that a disproportionate number of the state’s thousands of stalled voter applications were from black residents.
Cummings told HuffPost that he hopes to address the issue of voter suppression when Democrats are the majority in the 116th Congress.
“One of the things about my committee, you know, it’s called Oversight and Government Reform,” he told HuffPost. “Oversight, you know, you gotta research and find out what the hell is going on and then, if it is appropriate, to do those things to reform the system.”
Cummings said he also wants to call on election officials from Kansas and North Carolina accused of suppressing Latino and African-American votes.
Full Article: Cummings: Kemp should testify about voter suppression allegations | TheHill.