Georgia Rep. Park Cannon (D) announced early Friday morning that she was no longer under police custody after she had been arrested for knocking on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) door at the state capitol building as he was signing GOP lawmakers’ notorious voter suppression bill.
“Hey everyone, thank you for your support,” Cannon tweeted. “I’ve been released from jail.”
“I am not the first Georgian to be arrested for fighting voter suppression. I’d love to say I’m the last, but we know that isn’t true. #SB202,” she continued. “But someday soon that last person will step out of jail for the last time and breathe a first breath knowing that no one will be jailed again for fighting for the right to vote.”
Cannon, who is Black, asserted that Kemp’s closed-door signing of the legislation, along with the deaths of six women of Asian descent in the shootings in the Atlanta area last week, “are both products of a white supremacist system. Different tactics, same goal.”
“We will not live in fear and we will not be controlled. We have a right to our future and a right to our freedom,” she tweeted. “We will come together and continue fighting white supremacy in all its forms.”
Critics of the Republicans’ new legislation, which establishes a variety of restrictions that make it harder to vote, sounded the alarm after Georgia State Troopers arrested the Democratic lawmaker at the capitol building on Friday evening. Video footage and photos of the incident went viral:
This is wild. Georgia Rep. Park Cannon was detained by police for knocking on Gov. Brian Kemp’s door.
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 25, 2021
Rep. @Cannonfor58 is arrested and lead out of the Georgia State Capitol building by GA State Troopers after being asked to stop knocking on a door that lead to Gov. Brian Kemp's office, while Gov. Kemp was signing #SB202 behind closed doors in #Atlanta #gapol pic.twitter.com/kw5FCrgqEm
— Alyssa Pointer ? (@AlyssaNo_L) March 26, 2021
Among other things, the new law imposes more voter ID requirements for mail-in voting, shrinks the state’s absentee voting period, and even makes it illegal for volunteers to give food or drinks to people standing in long lines at polling places.
Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams has likened the legislation to “a redux of Jim Crow, in a suit and tie.”
