#JEFF AMY - Attorney for Georgia lawmaker calls charges overreach

ATLANTA (AP) - An attorney for a Georgia lawmaker who was charged with two felonies after knocking on the door of the governor's private office said authorities overreached the case, which unfolded while the governor was speaking live. on television about a radical reform of the state elections. .

State police arrested State Representative Park Cannon, an Atlanta Democrat, on Thursday after she said she wanted Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to sign the law that imposes new restrictions on voting by mail and gives lawmakers more power to supervise the elections.

Cannon was charged with obstruction of law enforcement and disruption of the General Assembly. She was released from jail on Thursday night.

A state police spokesman said Cannon knocked on the governor's office public lobby door and then went on to knock on a private area door.

"She was informed that she was disturbing what was happening inside and that if she did not stop, she would be arrested," Lt. W. Mark Riley wrote in a statement.

Kemp signed the bill before speaking. He interrupted his televised comments while Cannon played and then resumed the speech.

"This was a police overreach on all charges, and I hope that after reviewing the record, the district attorney will dismiss the charges," Cannon's attorney, Gerald Griggs, said Friday. Griggs said he had already spoken with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The new law requires a photo ID to vote absentee by mail. It also shortens the time voters have to request an absentee ballot and limits where the ballot boxes can be placed and when they can be used. Republicans said Georgia needed to restore the trust of voters who believed President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud. They also noted that the law increases the number of early voting days in person on weekends.

"We are expanding the right to vote in Georgia," Kemp said Thursday.

Democrats say the law is a seizure of power by Republicans who are threatened by Joe Biden's presidential victory in Georgia in November and the two Democratic victories of US Senators Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff in January.

President Joe Biden again criticized the law on Friday, saying that its free tiktok were trying to "deny people the right to vote" and that the measure was "a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience."

Biden renewed his call for Congress to pass nationwide voting standards that would include automatic voter registration nationwide, allow ex-offenders to vote, and limit the ways states can remove registered voters from the rolls. . Such a bill was approved by the Democratic-controlled House earlier this month but faces opposition from Senate Republicans. 

Georgia's constitution says legislators "may not be arrested" during General Assembly meetings "except for treason, felony or violation of public order."

Griggs questioned whether the felony charges, with mandatory prison terms, were fair. A court order claims Cannon resisted arrest by stomping on the feet of an officer, but Griggs said he has not seen any video to support that accusation.

Griggs questioned whether the General Assembly disturbance felony charge could be applied because the first and second offenses are misdemeanors, while only the third and last offenses are felonies. Cannon has never been charged or convicted under that law before, Griggs said.

The law against disrupting a legislative meeting was challenged as unconstitutional in a lawsuit filed last year after people like Nikema Williams, then a state senator and now a U.S. representative, were arrested on Capitol Hill while protesting the results. elections in 2018; all charges were dismissed in 2019.