Fresh off a historic Nov. 3 win that saw Democrats take control of the state House and the governor’s mansion for the first time in more than two decades, Mathewos Samson and his fellow Democratic Socialists have hit the ground running.
“Since election night, me and my team have been pretty active internally thinking about what we can do legislative wise,” Samson told Capital B Atlanta. “Having a Democratic governor, Democratic majority in the state House, means a lot.”
Samson is the 27-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America who last week became the progressive group’s first Black member to be elected to the Georgia General Assembly.
He joins fellow Democrat Gabriel Sanchez, D-Smyrna, as the DSA’s only two state lawmakers in Georgia. Both men spent Friday at the Gold Dome with other Democrats discussing the caucus’s priorities for next year’s 40-day legislative session now that the party has gained control of the state House and Keisha Lance Bottoms won the race for governor.
Samson says the “blue tsunami” gives Democrats a mandate to enact sweeping changes, not just incremental ones. He said Democrats at Friday’s meetings made it clear that full Medicaid expansion and repealing Georgia’s abortion restriction law are two of their main goals for 2027.
Those are goals shared by Samson and other DSA leaders as well as the incoming governor, who has vowed to do everything in her power to restore abortion rights in Georgia that were established under Roe v. Wade.
“I feel confident that is something we can take on this session,” Samson said of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban. “I think that has definitely been one of the most egregious, harmful, horrific laws in the state.”
But Samson worries some Democrats may already be getting cold feet when it comes to pushing a more progressive agenda on behalf of voters. He and others criticized Bottoms for putting so many wealthy and corporate people on her transition team, which includes Delta Air Lines executive Richard Cox Jr., former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Rosalind Brewer, Home Depot founder Arthur Blank, and movie mogul Tyler Perry.
Bottoms’ campaign team noted that Blank and Perry are honorary co-chairs on the transition team, which includes people from all walks of life. Among them are the team’s chief operating officer, John King, who previously worked for Bottoms during her time as Atlanta’s mayor, and former state Sen. Jason Carter, grandson of the late President Jimmy Carter, who now serves as chair of the board of trustees at The Carter Center.
Other members are Carmen Chubb, president at Columbia Residential, a property management company, who previously served as Mayor Bottoms’ chief of staff; former Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Jane Kidd; and Georgia civic nonprofit leader Michelle Nunn.
Perry and Blank are both billionaires who have done a lot of philanthropic work in metro Atlanta’s Black community, but Samson said cozying up to the wealthy and corporate America doesn’t bode well for a progressive agenda to help the working class.
“To me, that is kind of like the warning sign of a neoliberal governance that is not going to fully embrace the solutions that we believe are necessary,” Samson said.
He acknowledged the critical role he may play as the only Black member of the DSA in the state legislature. The largely white progressive group has faced accusations of racism in the past for criticizing Black Democratic leadership, including U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the New York congressman expected to become the first Black speaker of the House in U.S. history next year.
Over the weekend, DSA Atlanta City Council member Kelsea Bond, who is white, faced some backlash for their criticism of Bottoms’ transition team.
“Keisha Lance Bottoms is ushering in a new era… of corporate and billionaire leadership from the likes of Home Depot, Delta, Walgreens and more,” Bond wrote on X. “Yeah she’s not doing shit for labor unions.”
Fellow Black DSA member Devin Barrington-Ward acknowledged Monday that having a white person attacking the first Black woman governor in U.S. history before she’s even taken office probably wasn’t the best move.
“Part of my role as a member of DSA and being a Black man is sharing when I think the optics might be off,” Ward said. “I did speak with council member Bond and shared a slightly different take and she was receptive to that.”
Samson and Sanchez say getting a law passed that limits the role of money in Georgia politics, penalizing corporate landlords for owning too many single family homes, and repealing the statewide ban on rent regulation are three top legislative priorities for the DSA next year.
Sanchez also wants to raise Georgia’s minimum wage from $5.15 to at least $20 an hour. The two-term DSA member defeated scandal-plagued Republican challenger Andre Stafford in a landslide on Nov. 3.
“We’re doing everything in our power to make sure the government is actually centering working people and not just the people at the top,” Sanchez told Capital B Atlanta on Monday.
Samson also wants to create a tenants’ bill of rights to bolster renters’ ability to organize against bad landlords, and to enact an eviction moratorium to stem the tide of Black displacement and rising homelessness in metro Atlanta.
“It’s clearly a massive crisis, especially for Black people across Georgia, but especially metro Atlanta,” Samson said of the region leading the nation eviction filings last year and this year. “I would really hope a lot of Democrats could be won over to support an eviction moratorium.”
Some Black voters in metro Atlanta are counting on Samson to deliver policies that help working families. Campaign volunteer Trenton Ingram expressed faith in Samson after his win on election night.
“I feel really happy that somebody is supporting the working class,” Ingram said. “Things are turning to the worst for this country, but it’s good to contribute to a campaign … that is truly for the working class, truly for marginalized people.”
Fellow DSA volunteer Melanie Gibson expressed excitement about Samson serving in the General Assembly.
“I think he is a great candidate to stand up for our rights as Black people,” she said. “He really stands for what he means.”
Staff writer Alyssa Johnson contributed to this report.
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