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Meet Chris Carr: Georgia’s Attorney General Eyeing Reelection
Credit: Office of Gov. Brian Kemp
Key Points
- Playmaker: Chris Carr
- Role: Georgia Attorney General
- Tenure: November 2016 to present
As his mother tells it, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr – when he was four years-old – cried over former Republican President Gerald Ford’s loss to Democratic then-challenger Jimmy Carter.
A few years later, Carr went against the grain from his classmates by choosing the role of Republican candidate Ronald Reagan during a fourth-grade mock presidential debate. Most everyone else wanted to be Carter.
From his youth in a staunchly Republican family, to serving as the late U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s chief of staff, to becoming one of Georgia’s top elected officials, Carr has had no shortage of political influences in his life. He’s also represented the state government in a series of controversial lawsuits dealing with abortion restrictions, election integrity and federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
This year, Carr aims to fend off a challenge from Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan (D-Atlanta) to keep the attorney-general post he’s held since 2016. He takes a tough-on-crime approach against gang activities and human trafficking, while letting a faith in the rule of law guide him through the recent public storm of fraud claims from the 2020 presidential election.
State Affairs sat down with Carr this week for a conversation about his political career, accomplishments in office and what he hopes to achieve if elected to another four-year term. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What was the professional path that led to your current role?
“A lot of my colleagues were in private practice or (were) prosecutors,” Carr said. “But I’ve had this legislative, economic development and legal background, which is just a little bit different.”
Carr’s first brushes with politics came early in life, starting when he met Johnny Isakson’s son, Kevin, at the University of Georgia. After volunteering for Isakson’s failed 1996 U.S. Senate campaign, Carr earned a law degree and soon joined the Georgia Public Policy Foundation as general counsel under then-president T. Rogers Wade, who served as former U.S. Sen. Herman Talmadge’s chief of staff in the 1970s.
“I’d go into Rogers’ office at like four o’clock in the afternoon and he’d just tell me stories about Georgia politics,” Carr said. “I love history and I love politics.”
Back on the campaign trail, Carr rose to become Isakson’s chief of staff in 2007 after helping him win a seat in Congress, then in the U.S. Senate. “Wherever Johnny was, that’s where I was,” Carr said. Over the next few years, Carr got to know Isakson’s fellow then-U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, who as Georgia governor appointed Carr first as the state’s economic-development commissioner in 2015, then as attorney general the following year. Carr won a full term by a narrow margin in 2018.
“I think we’ve all been fortunate to have people who looked out for us and maybe gave us a chance when we weren’t quite ready, but they saw something in us,” Carr said. “I think I’ve been fortunate to really be able to be the beneficiary of that.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (right) served as former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson's (left) chief of staff. (Credit: Chris Carr via Facebook)
What is a defining moment in your life or career that helped guide you to this role?
“I don’t have a defining moment,” Carr said. “I have defining individuals.”
Isakson, who died in December 2021 at age 76, still looms large in Carr’s career and life. Famed for working across the aisle in the Senate, Isakson offered Carr a front-row seat on how form lasting relationships in government.
“This philosophy he had (was that) there’s only two types of people in the world: friends and future friends,” Carr said of Isakson. “He knew how to bring people together.”
Carr also counts a mentor in Deal, who was Georgia’s governor from 2011 to 2019. A hallmark of Deal’s administration was passage of several criminal-justice reform measures including the creation of alternative-sentencing courts, which Carr supports even as the current Gov. Brian Kemp focuses more on toughening penalties for criminal offenders.
“(Deal) had a great philosophical point that he always made,” Carr said. “He said, look, we’ve got to separate those that we’re scared of from those that we’re mad at, and get help for those we’re mad at. Accountability courts came from that.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (right) stands with former Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (left) in 2015. (Credit: Georgia Department of Economic Development)
What are your most major accomplishments throughout your career?
Carr credits several policing initiatives set up during his tenure as high points of his time in office. These include recently created task forces to prosecute gang members and human traffickers and to curb opioid abuse in Georgia.
“It’s the paramount duty of government to protect person and property,” Carr said. “Everything flows from safety. Everybody deserves to be safe. Every single Georgian.” Another watershed moment for Carr came when his office stepped in to assist prosecuting two men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick. The case garnered national attention after video surfaced showing the two men, Travis and Gregory McMichael, confront and gun down Arbery while he was jogging in February 2020.
“Our goal is maximum justice for Ahmaud Arbery,” Carr said. “For his family, for the community, the state and the nation.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr honors local police officers at the Peace Officers Association of Georgia's annual training conference in August 2021. (Credit: Office of Gov. Brian Kemp)
What challenges and criticism have you faced during your time in leadership?
Since taking office, Carr has had a steady diet of high-profile, controversial lawsuits amid intense partisan divide in Georgia and across the U.S. He’s represented the state government in defending passage of a strict abortion bill in 2019; fought dozens of cases challenging the 2018 gubernatorial and 2020 presidential elections; and battled the federal government over COVID-19 vaccine mandates for big employers, federal contractors and health-care workers.
“I believe in the rule of law,” Carr said. “As an executive-branch officer, it’s my job to enforce the law. If you don’t like the law, if somebody doesn’t like what it is at the state level, you go across the street to the Capitol, join the legislature, make your case.”
Vaccines have been a particularly tough subject for Carr, who encourages Georgians to get COVID-19 shots and boosters while also opposing mandates brought by President Joe Biden’s administration.
“That’s an interesting case because I’m actually pro-vaccination,” Carr said. “It seems like to me, you look at the data, it’s very successful. But I don’t believe that the government – and particularly the president of the United States – has the authority to do what he did.”
Like many top Georgia Republicans, Carr has weathered a storm of unfounded election-fraud claims lobbed by former President Donald Trump’s supporters following the 2020 election. He draws a parallel to claims of voter suppression from gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ backers during her losing campaign against Kemp in 2018.
“I take the position (that) I’m anti-misinformation,” Carr said. “Whether it’s coming from the left or whether it’s coming from the right, the brand that is Georgia is being harmed when misinformation is out there.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr speaks at the Georgia Republican Party's annual convention at Jekyll Island in June 2021. (Credit: Beau Evans for State Affairs)
What are your plans for what you want to accomplish going forward?
Boosting support for Georgia’s gang-fighting task force is Carr’s top priority in the legislative session currently underway at the State Capitol. During this interview, Carr kept tabs on a bill that would give his office authority to prosecute gang-related crimes statewide. It advanced out of the Georgia House of Representatives by a nearly party-line vote on Feb. 14.
“We’ve got kids as young as the fourth grade that are getting recruited,” Carr said. “When you start looking at gang activity, you’ve got 50% or 60% of all violent crime is somehow gang-affiliated. And what communities are most often terrorized by gangs? Lower-income, racially diverse and immigrant populations.”
Carr also wants to tap a recent settlement with several pharmaceutical companies to provide treatment services for opioid abusers before they run afoul of police.
“We’re hearing from sheriffs who are arresting the same people over and over again because we just don’t have any treatment options,” Carr said. “What we’re trying to do (is) provide resources so there are treatment options particularly in exurban and rural parts of the state.”
Which Georgia elected officials and leaders should we profile next? Share your thoughts/tips by emailing: [email protected].
Header image: Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr attends a memorial ceremony for fallen police officers in May 2021. (Credit: Office of Gov. Brian Kemp)
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Senate study committee hears suggestions to improve Georgia foster care
The Gist
ATLANTA — College-bound Halle Mickel gave state lawmakers on Tuesday a compelling glimpse into Georgia’s foster care system.
The 19-year-old who has seven siblings in five different homes told the Senate Foster Care and Adoption Study Committee how her family’s life has been “turned upside down” ever since they were separated last April. She sees her siblings once a week. Sometimes, those visits are canceled because child welfare workers aren’t prepared, she said.
“The pain it caused not only my mom but me felt horrible,” she said. “Watching them cry as they have to leave my mom and go home to a stranger. Seeing my siblings not getting the proper hygiene care they need and so much more. Like many others, my family has been torn to pieces by the child welfare system due to struggling with poverty and being in need of immediate help. Parents aren’t always at fault when DFCS is involved.”
Mickel’s story was included among more than four hours of testimony from advocates and experts in the foster care, child welfare and family court fields. Tuesday’s session focused primarily on finding solutions for Georgia’s taxed foster care system.
What’s Happening
Georgia has about 11,000 children in foster care, committee chair Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick told State Affairs in a post-hearing interview Tuesday. Many are in the system due to abuse, neglect, family drug addiction, violence and other hardships.
Georgia’s foster care system is stretched so thin that children in foster care in Georgia spend about two years in the system — nearly three months longer than the national average of 21.7 months, according to The Council of State Governments Southern Office.
Often there aren’t enough families to take in children so many end up in hotels or offices as a result, Candice Broce, head of Georgia Family and Children Services, recently told the committee.
Broce was back before the committee Tuesday with good news. The foster care system reached a milestone on Sept. 8, when no foster children were reported staying in hotels or offices, she said. Since then, the agency has only used hoteling in a few emergency cases, she noted.
Still, Tuesday’s testimonies showed Georgia is spending more money troubleshooting and intervening rather than preventing children from having to go into the foster care system.
About $538 million in state and federal money is spent on Georgia’s foster care system. The bulk of that — $498.5 million — goes to intervention and late intervention programs, according to Voices for Georgia’s Children, a nonprofit child policy and advocacy group.
“In Georgia, we allocate around 20% of Title IV funding towards prevention while the majority of resources are funneled into the foster care and adoption industry,” said Sarah Winograd of Together With Families, an advocacy group for families in the child welfare system.
“While the majority of the resources are funneled into the foster care and adoption industry,” Winograd told the committee. “It’s an industry. Consider the numbers: a staggering $32,000 per year to keep one child separated from their family and in foster care.”
It costs her organization “a mere $500 to $1,500 per child in assistance and resources at Together with Families to prevent foster care and help families improve their own lives,”she said.
Why It Matters
The committee heard suggestions to help Georgia focus more on prevention rather than intervention. Among the suggestions:
- Issue state identification cards to foster children. Often kids are removed from their homes during chaotic situations leaving birth certificates and other import documents unavailable to them. Children would be issued a state ID within 90 days of entering the foster care system, displaying information such as the child’s Medicaid number. It would enable older children in the system to get jobs and perform other vital daily tasks. The cost would run about $5 a child. “That should be something that’s not too difficult to achieve,” Kirkpatrick said.
- Use the Safe Babies approach in Georgia courts. Between 2011 and 2018, Georgia saw a 44% increase in infants and toddlers entering foster care, more than any other Southern state. As a result, it needs a more collaborative, family-based approach to dealing with the youngest children in foster care, such as the Safe Babies approach used in Iowa. Iowa’s infant courts are adorned with quilts, diapers, toys and books, to help alleviate the trauma experienced by toddlers and infants in the court system. In a recent visit, Georgia officials saw how one Iowa judge, his court staff and attorneys dealt with a mother who became distraught during the hearing. The judge stopped the hearing, allowing attorneys and other staff to embrace the woman. The DFCS case manager and defense attorney told the woman they were there to help her figure out ways to keep her baby. “That’s super important. It’s been successful in other states,” Kirkpatrick said.
- Use opioid settlement money to finance foster care needs. Kirkpatrick called it a good idea but “it might not be that easy to accomplish. It’s not really under the legislature’s control.”
What’s Next?
Kirkpatrick, a Republican and retired orthopedic surgeon who practiced in metro Atlanta for over 30 years, called Tuesday’s hearing extremely productive.
“I thought it was another great meeting,” she said. “We work pretty hard to get input from all the different groups. We won’t make our decisions about which things to tackle until we finish [all of] our meetings. We have one more where we’ll be getting some testimony.”
The senate committee’s next meeting is in Columbus on Oct. 26. It will focus on adoption.
“After that, we’ll get together and figure out what our legislative priorities are going to be,” Kirkpatrick said.
Want to know how many foster children have been placed in foster homes outside of your county? Go to seetheneed.org to find out. See The Need was created by Alpharetta-based FaithBridge Foster Care to raise awareness about foster care in America.
Have questions, comments or tips? Contact Tammy Joyner on X @lvjoyner or at [email protected].
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Header image: The Senate Study Committee on Foster Care and Adoption held their second meeting at the Capitol to hear testimony from citizens, nonprofits and state agency representatives. (Credit: Georgia Senate)
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