Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is a generational wealth engine for Black Metro Atlanta. Mayor Maynard Jackson built it that way on purpose, creating contracting pipelines, opening doors to Black-owned businesses, and proving that when Black leadership has power and vision, entire communities rise. Thousands of families across Metro Atlanta, including in Georgia’s 13th District, have built their livelihoods through airport contracts, concessions, construction, transportation, and the businesses that feed that ecosystem.

But today, that engine is under threat. Federal contracting standards are being weakened. Diversity requirements in procurement are being rolled back. This administration treats the airport’s legacy of inclusion as a problem to be solved instead of a model to be expanded. And the leadership that is supposed to be fighting to protect those pipelines has gone quiet.

• Defend and expand minority contracting pipelines at Hartsfield-Jackson and across all federal procurement.

• Fight any federal effort to weaken or eliminate diversity requirements in government contracts.

• Push for transparency and accountability in how airport-related contracts are awarded, ensuring Black-owned businesses retain meaningful access.

• Advocate for the Maynard Jackson model to be replicated at major infrastructure projects across the country.

• Protect the concession and vendor ecosystem that supports Black entrepreneurs and small businesses tied to the airport economy.

Hartsfield-Jackson sits on land in Clayton County, but the City of Atlanta has annexed the airport, meaning that over $30 million in annual local tax revenue from aviation fuel sales bypasses Clayton County and its public schools entirely. FAA regulations created in 2014 restrict Clayton County from collecting revenue from local general sales taxes on aviation fuel, even though the county levied those taxes long before the rule existed. Clayton County bears the environmental costs of hosting the world’s busiest airport (noise, traffic, air pollution) without receiving its fair share of the economic benefit.

• Support legislation modeled on the Airport Revenue Clarity Act to restore local tax revenue to Clayton County and the Clayton County Public Schools.

• Fight to ensure that communities bearing the environmental burden of major infrastructure also receive their fair share of the economic benefits.

• Push for greater federal transparency in how airport-related tax revenue is allocated across jurisdictions.

Black families in GA-13’s suburban communities are locked out of economic opportunities because regional infrastructure has not kept pace with suburban growth. Residents in Stockbridge, Conyers, Lithonia, and across Clayton, Henry, and Rockdale counties sit in traffic on I-20, I-75, and I-285 while jobs and transit investments concentrate inside the city of Atlanta. The decline of metro regional planning has left suburban Black communities without the connectivity they need to access employment, education, and services.

• Push for the expansion of heavy rail and MARTA service into GA-13’s suburban communities, connecting residents to jobs and economic opportunity across the region.

• Advocate for federal investment in suburban transit infrastructure, not just downtown business districts, so that economic development reaches the communities where Black families live.

• Support regional transportation planning that prioritizes equity and suburban connectivity, reducing commute times and improving quality of life.

• Invest in electric vehicle infrastructure and sustainable transportation options for suburban neighborhoods.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act gutted Medicaid by over $930 billion, the largest cut in the program’s history, stripping coverage from an estimated eight million Americans by 2034. In Georgia, where the state has only recently expanded Medicaid, these cuts threaten to reverse hard-won progress. Meanwhile, prescription drug costs, insurance premiums, and out-of-pocket expenses continue to rise faster than wages, forcing families to choose between paying for care and paying for groceries.

• Fight for Medicare for All, because health care is a right and no family should be one diagnosis away from financial ruin.

• Reverse the Medicaid cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill and protect coverage for the eight million Americans at risk of losing their insurance.

• Lower prescription drug costs by empowering Medicare to negotiate prices across all covered drugs and capping out-of-pocket expenses for seniors and working families.

• Expand access to mental health care, maternal health services, and community health centers across the district.

• Address the affordability crisis head-on: health care, housing, childcare, and groceries are all consuming a larger share of family budgets than at any point in a generation. This agenda treats affordability as an economic justice issue, not a line item.

No sector of our population has been hit harder by the intersecting crises of health care costs, housing instability, and isolation than seniors, particularly Black seniors in suburban communities who have spent a lifetime building families and contributing to their neighborhoods. Our elders deserve to age with respect, independence, and health.

• Expand Medicaid to include home health care, so seniors can stay in the homes they love and age in place rather than being forced into institutional settings.

• Increase federal investment in affordable senior housing, including low-income senior housing developments that meet modern energy and accessibility standards.

• Protect, strengthen, and expand Social Security and Medicare, and fight to ensure that wealthy individuals pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as middle-class and working families.

• Lower prescription drug costs for seniors by ending price-gouging and monopoly practices by pharmaceutical companies.

• Invest in community-based senior services: nutrition programs, transportation access, adult day programs, and caregiver support.

• Strengthen oversight and accountability for nursing homes and long-term care facilities, where residents, disproportionately Black and low-income, too often face neglect and unsafe conditions.

Affordable, quality child care is not a luxury. It is economic infrastructure. When parents cannot access or afford child care, they cannot work, and when child care workers are underpaid, the entire system strains under the weight.

• Expand federal childcare subsidies so that no working family pays more than seven percent of their income on child care.

• Invest in universal Pre-K and early childhood education to give every child a strong start and every parent the freedom to work.

• Raise wages for child care workers, who are overwhelmingly women of color, to reflect the essential nature of the work they do.

• Expand paid family and medical leave so that parents can care for a newborn, a sick child, or an aging parent without losing their job or their income.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut nearly $200 billion from SNAP over the next decade, threatening food assistance for an estimated 22 million families. Georgia is among the states hardest hit by new work requirements and cost-sharing mandates.

• Fight to reverse SNAP cuts and restore the program’s ability to respond to economic downturns.

• Oppose work requirements that penalize people who recently lost their jobs or can only find part-time work.

• Protect school meal programs and summer EBT benefits for children.

• Restore funding for SNAP Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention programs.

• Restore and strengthen the Department of Education to fully support students, teachers, and schools.

• Raise teacher pay and invest in educators and school staff.

• Expand universal Pre-K and early childhood education.

• Grow career and technical education, apprenticeships, and job training programs for high-wage careers, with or without a four-year degree.

The tradition of excellence established by HBCUs, institutions that have produced generations of Black leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals, reminds us of what is possible when we invest in education as an engine of upward mobility. That same commitment must extend to the public schools, community colleges, and career programs that serve our district’s families every day.

• Bring good-paying jobs into GA-13 through federal investment in infrastructure, clean energy, transportation, and public service.

• Raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage that reflects today’s cost of living.

• Fight wage theft, worker misclassification, and unfair labor practices.

• Ensure job growth reaches suburban Black communities, not just downtown business districts.

• Create federally funded workforce retraining programs in partnership with community colleges and local training providers.

• Invest in digital infrastructure and broadband access so every community can participate in the AI economy.

• Establish worker protections against algorithmic discrimination in hiring, lending, and housing.

• Support legislation requiring corporations to disclose AI’s impact on their workforce and to invest in transition programs.

Despite making up roughly 14 percent of the population, Black Americans own just 2 percent of employer businesses. Black-owned firms are often undercapitalized, concentrated in lower-growth sectors, and more vulnerable to economic shocks. If ownership matched population share, GA-13 could see significant growth in local enterprises, jobs, and revenue.

Expand Access to Capital

• Expand nontraditional financing options: revenue-based financing, contract financing, evergreen community funds, and employee ownership.

• Modernize credit underwriting to include rental, utility, and transaction history.

• Increase availability of smaller-dollar loans to align with local business needs.

• Encourage Special Purpose Credit Programs (SPCPs) for banks serving GA-13.

• Support community and regional banks and expand access to patient equity capital.

Strengthen Community-Based Financial Institutions

• Increase federal support for CDFIs and MDIs serving Metro Atlanta.

• Reduce burdensome matching requirements for smaller and Black-led CDFIs.

• Backstop equity-like investments in local institutions and expand investor tax credits.

• Fund technology upgrades so CDFIs and MDIs can compete with fintech lenders.

Build Local Entrepreneurial Infrastructure

• Invest in mentorship programs, business incubators, and local entrepreneurial hubs.

• Fund outreach to ensure awareness of crowdfunding and alternative financing.

• Support civic infrastructure that connects Black entrepreneurs to networks and resources.

• Allow "catch-up" retirement contributions for entrepreneurs who delayed savings to start a business.

Reduce Barriers to Entry

• Streamline licensing and permitting, reduce fees, and simplify processes.

• Support regional and interstate licensing compacts for Metro Atlanta workers.

• Remove blanket bans, "good character" clauses, and unrelated fines that block formerly incarcerated individuals from obtaining or renewing licenses.

Georgia’s 13th District sits at the intersection of rapid industrial expansion and decades of environmental neglect. Across Clayton, Rockdale, DeKalb, Henry, and Newton counties, Black suburban communities are bearing the costs of development (pollution, noise, water contamination, and health risks) without receiving the benefits. Warehouses, data centers, and industrial facilities are being sited in our neighborhoods while jobs, tax revenue, and infrastructure investments flow elsewhere.

Data Centers and Industrial Accountability

Georgia has become the fastest-growing data center hub in the country, with dozens of facilities under construction or planned across GA-13’s counties. These massive facilities consume enormous amounts of energy and water, generate noise and light pollution, strain electrical grids, and create very few permanent jobs, often as few as 30 full-time positions. Meanwhile, communities in Clayton, DeKalb, and Rockdale counties have been forced to impose moratoriums just to study the health and environmental impacts that state regulators failed to assess before approving construction.

• Require comprehensive environmental and community impact assessments before approving data centers and large-scale industrial facilities in residential areas.

• Oppose tax abatements and incentive packages for data centers that produce minimal employment while consuming disproportionate public resources.

• Support federal legislation to hold "bad actor" companies accountable for their pollution track records when applying for permits in new communities.

• Ensure that communities hosting data centers and industrial facilities receive their fair share of tax revenue and infrastructure investment.

The BioLab Disaster and Chemical Safety

In September 2024, a chemical fire at the BioLab facility in Conyers, in Rockdale County, released toxic chlorine plumes across Metro Atlanta. Over 90,000 households were told to shelter in place. Seventeen thousand residents were evacuated. Schools closed for three weeks. Interstate 20 was shut down. Residents reported blurry vision, chronic headaches, and respiratory problems months later. This was the fourth major incident at the same facility since 2004, a pattern of corporate negligence that state and federal regulators failed to stop.

• Support federal legislation to strengthen chemical safety oversight and enforcement, including mandatory shutdown authority for facilities with repeated safety violations.

• Fight for full health monitoring and compensation for communities exposed to industrial chemical disasters.

• Push for "bad actor" laws at the federal level that consider a company’s full safety and environmental record when granting operating permits.

• Ensure that environmental enforcement is not rolled back under any administration, and that EPA maintains the resources to protect frontline communities.

Pollution, Public Health, and Environmental Equity

Black Georgians are disproportionately exposed to hazardous air pollutants, contaminated water, and industrial waste. Highways were intentionally built through Black neighborhoods. Aging infrastructure exposes families to lead, radon, and asbestos. Warehouse and logistics facilities generate heavy truck traffic, diesel emissions, and noise in residential communities while providing few quality jobs for local residents. And the residents of Clayton County absorb the environmental burden of the world’s busiest airport (jet fuel emissions, noise, and traffic) while the economic benefits flow to the City of Atlanta.

• Invest in air quality monitoring and enforcement in communities surrounding airports, highways, and industrial facilities.

• Support federal funding for lead and asbestos remediation in aging housing stock and public buildings.

• Require environmental impact assessments for warehouse and logistics developments in residential areas, including truck traffic and diesel emissions.

• Fight for federal environmental justice legislation that ensures communities of color are no longer treated as dumping grounds for the costs of economic development.

• Push for clean water infrastructure investment, including replacement of aging water lines and monitoring for PFAS and other forever chemicals.

• Advocate for Georgia to pass and enforce state-level environmental justice laws, including "bad actor" permitting requirements and mandatory community impact reporting.

• Co-sponsor and fight for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.

• Defend marriage equality and oppose any legislative or judicial effort to roll back Obergefell.

• Protect reproductive freedom and oppose federal restrictions on access to care.&

• Champion criminal justice reform, including prioritizing the prosecution of hate crimes and ending mass incarceration practices that devastate Black communities.

• Defend and restore diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the federal government, federal contracting, and higher education, because we Definitely Earned It, and we will not allow those doors to be closed again.