Fair Fight, group started by Stacey Abrams, lays off staff

Fair Fight, a political action committee founded by former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D), has laid off 19 members of its staff as lawsuits have left the group strapped.

A source familiar with the matter said Tuesday the group is continuing its “core operations of voter protection, communication, and operations.” 

The staff reduction amounts to about three-quarters of its employees, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Abrams started the group in 2018 after losing a race to become the Peach State’s governor. By 2021, Fair Fight was one of the top-raising political groups in the nation. In about its first two years, it raised more than $103 million, according to filings with Georgia’s Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.

“We have waged critical legal battles and built a statewide and national infrastructure to support our mission,” Fair Fight Action Board Chair Salena Jegede said in an emailed statement to The Hill. “Key to our efforts have been two landmark lawsuits that highlighted the sustained attacks on voting rights and engagement fomented here in Georgia, but with national implications.”

“These vital lawsuits were elongated by multiple national crises and complicated by a changing legal landscape,” Jegede continued. “This included devastating Supreme Court decisions and intervening new state voter suppression laws that together have stripped judges of the authority to adequately protect voting rights.”

Jegede said the organization had the “moral obligation” to field the suits for voters, but because of the “complex nature of litigation, the organization unfortunately faces a serious funding deficit that makes our current trajectory unsustainable.”

“While we are disappointed by these realities, we are not discouraged,” Jegede said. “We will adapt to this new phase of the fight for democracy by restructuring the organization to focus on how we serve Georgia and American voters for the 2024 cycle and beyond.”