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Georgia State Democrat Park Cannon returned to the State Capitol on Monday, escorted by Martin Luther King III and a group of his supporters.
Cannon’s return comes after she was arrested and escorted out of the building by police on Thursday for knocking on the door of Gov. Brian Kemp’s office as he signed a controversial election bill, SB202.
Georgia State Patrol soldiers told FOX 5 Atlanta in a statement after Cannon’s arrest that she was “ordered not to be in the office and to stop knocking on the door.”
Cannon was booked for obstructing law enforcement and for preventing or disrupting General Assembly sessions or other meetings. The obstruction charge carries a potential sentence of one to five years in prison, FOX 5 reported.
Cannon was released shortly before 11:30 p.m. ET, and was greeted by protesters who demanded her release.
“I am not the first Georgian to be arrested for fighting the crackdown on voters. I would like to say that I am the last, but we know that is not true,” Cannon said in a statement on Twitter. “But one day, soon, this last person will be released for the last time and breathe a first breath knowing that no one will be jailed again for fighting for the right to vote.”
She also responded to a tweet from Governor Kemp in which he said he was “proud to sign SB 202 to ensure elections in Georgia are safe, fair and accessible.”
“We will not live in fear and we will not be controlled,” she said. “We have a right to our future and a right to our freedom. We will unite and continue to fight against white supremacy in all its forms.”
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The Georgia Democratic Caucus calls for the charges against Cannon to be dropped.
“We need to reform the way we deal with state lawmakers because passions are sure to mount while we’re here,” said parliamentary minority leader James Beverly. “We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again, because while we take charge of the bills that try to teach young black and brown boys how to handle the police, the police need to learn how to refrain from locking someone up. one because he hit. on a door. ”
Beverly stressed that the focus should be on the outcome of Bill 2020, not Representative Cannon.
“She responded as anyone would respond in a place where we are in this general neighborhood,” he added. “We don’t make our bills heard, they ignore our calls for justice, and where there is no justice there can be no peace.”
THE DEMOCRATES OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA ARRESTED AS GOP GOV. The KEMP signs the electoral revision bill
Prior to Kemp’s signing, SB202 was approved by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature.
He calls for changes to the rules and processes for applying for postal votes, including requiring voters to present valid photo ID. It also limits drop boxes and the early voting period for the second round.
The new law also allows the state to take charge of county elections or to remove local election officials if there is a definite need to intervene. In addition, it prevents outside groups from providing food and drink to voters who line up to vote.
According to FOX 5, this is not the first time Cannon has run into law enforcement over voting reform legislation in the state. A police officer reportedly grabbed Cannon’s arm to escort him during a protest in February against Bill 531, a sweeping bill that would make multiple changes to restrict voting. The altercation led to a two-hour sit-in on the steps of the rotunda.
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Georgia was one of the main states the Trump campaign focused on as it focused on unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud during and after the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden narrowly won the Georgia by around 12,000 votes, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the swing state since 1992.
Additionally, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won both Senate polls in January, which gave the party a majority in the chamber with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.
At President Biden’s first press conference on Thursday, he criticized what appeared to be attempts to restrict the right to vote as “anti-American” not only in Georgia, but in several states in the United States.
“What worries me is how anti-American this whole initiative is. It’s sick,” Biden said. “It makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. I mean, it’s gigantic what they’re trying to do and it can’t be sustained.”
Biden acknowledged that he could do more than just pass voting rights legislation to stop these initiatives, although he declined to go into details.
Governor Kemp defended the bill in an interview with FOX News on Sunday, arguing that the legislation expands the ability for people to vote early in Georgia and further secures the postal voting process. He urged his constituents to examine the bill for themselves rather than listen to “false accounts” that the bill is “racist” or an example of voter suppression.
Fox News’ Brittany DeLea contributed to this report
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