Kasim Reed

Mohammed Kasim Reed, known as Kasim Reed, (born June 10, 1969) is a Democratic politician and the 59th Mayor of Atlanta, who until recently represented the 35th District of the Georgia State Senate. He was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1998 to 2002. After serving as campaign manager for Shirley Franklin‘s successful 2001 Atlanta Mayoral campaign, he ran for the position in 2009 since Franklin was term limited. He was one of two candidates to advance from the November 3 general election to a December 1, 2009 runoff election, which he won and was officially inaugurated as Mayor of Atlanta on January 4, 2010.

In college, he instituted a student fee that has added millions of dollars to the Howard University endowment since its inception in 1991. In 2003, he was involved with the effort to prevent the Georgia State Senate from considering reinserting the battle emblem of the Confederate States of America in the official State Flag of Georgia.

Political career

State Representative

After graduation from Howard Law School, Reed worked for Atlanta Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. In 1998, Henrietta Canty (1975–80, 1990–98), resigned her Georgia House of Representatives 52nd district seat to run for Georgia State Insurance Commissioner. Seven candidates vied for her seat in the July 21, 1998 Democratic primary election. Reed was the leading vote-getter with 36.6% of the vote. This resulted in a head-to-head August 11 run-off election, which Reed won with 60.6% of the vote, against second place finisher, Horace Mann Bond II, who had received 19.1% of the vote in July. In the November 3 general election, he was unopposed.

In his 2000 re-election campaign, Clarence Canty, who is the son of Henrietta, contested the seat, and Reed won the July 18, 2000 Democratic Primary by a 77.0%–12.7% margin. In the November 7, 2000 general election, he was again unopposed. In the House of Representatives, he represented a predominately African-American constituency in south Atlanta. Reed served as a member of the House Judiciary, Education, and Congressional and Legislative Reapportionment Committees.

While in office, in 2001 Reed served as the campaign manager in Shirley Franklin‘s successful election campaign to become the 58th Mayor of Atlanta. As a campaign manager in an election occurring in the shadow of the September 11 attacks, he surveyed potential voters’ perceptions of the propriety of the campaign’s advertising broadcasts because at the time certain ads were thought to focus on sensitive topics. After winning the election, Franklin chose Reed as one of two co-chairs on her transition team. In this role he was charged with identifying and reviewing candidates for cabinet-level positions.

In the 2000 election the 52nd House district had been entirely contained in Fulton County. After the decennary redistricting, the district by this number was entirely within DeKalb County, Georgia in November 5, 2002 election, which was won by Fran Millar.

State Senator

In 2000, the 35th Georgia State Senate District was entirely contained in Fulton County and Donzella James was an uncontested Democrat the November 7 general election. In 2002, four-term incumbent State Senator James vacated the seat and contested David Scott and a field of other contenders for the Georgia’s 13th congressional district, which was created after the 2000 Census when Georgia added two new congressional districts. When Reed first ran for election in the 35 state senate district in 2002 Democratic Primary, it included 19 precincts in Douglas County, Georgia and 333 in Fulton County. The district includes the southern portion of Fulton County (Atlanta, Alpharetta, College Park, East Point, Fairburn, Hapeville, Mountain Park, Palmetto, Roswell, Sandy Springs, and Union City) and the northeast portion of Douglas County (Douglasville, and Lithia Springs). Reed won the district’s five-way August 20, 2002 primary with 65.8% of the vote, and then he was uncontested in the November 5, 2002 general election. In 2004, James contested Reed for the seat she had held before him, but he won the July 20, 2004 Democratic primary election by a 58.8%–41.2% margin. He was uncontested in the November 2, 2004 general election,and he has been uncontested in his 2006 and 2008 primary and general elections.

In January 2006, Reed introduced a bill to authorize scholastic teaching of the textbook The Bible and Its Influence by the non-partisan, ecumenical Bible Literacy Project. The bible curriculum bill, which came a few years after Democrats opposed Republican attempts to promote teaching a translation of the scriptures, was an attempt to preempt a Republican attempt to display the Ten Commandments in schools. Faith is an area where Georgia Democrats differ from the national party. The bill passed in the State Senate by a 50–1 margin on February 3, and it eventually became law.

Reed’s committee assignments are the following: Senate Judiciary Committee, Special Judiciary Committee, Ethics Committee, Transportation Committee and the State and Local Government Operations Committee. He also serves as vice-chairman of the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus. He has also served the Georgia Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as its chairman. In addition, he is a partner at Holland & Knight LLP.Previously, he worked in the music industry for Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, LLP.