ATLANTA — We’ve learned more about how Gov. Brian Kemp’s name got on some gift cards the state of Georgia distributed two years ago. The cards went out shortly before early voting started in Kemp’s re-election effort.
In late summer 2022, Kemp’s re-election campaign was on the ground and in the air -- well-funded and efficient. Yet Kemp’s administration was about to add another potential boost, with some help from US taxpayers.
A billion dollars had become available to Georgia under the American Rescue Plan. State records show the state department of human services requested and got detailed pitches from three companies to create and distribute virtual gift cards worth $350 each to recipients of Medicaid, Snap and TANF government benefits programs.
The state criteria said they had to make the cards available by Sept. 15. That date was about a month before early voting was scheduled to start in the governor’s race, as the pandemic emergency was winding down.
"Politicians, of course, want to hand out the money before the election, so that may have been the true nature of the emergency," said Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota School of Law professor and a White House ethicist in the George W. Bush administration.
New records obtained by 11Alive show the state insisted that the winning vendor “must provide an option for the State to design virtual and physical (cash) cards” distributed to Georgians.
Three companies responded. One of them, Rellevate, rolled out some potential card designs. One had Kemp’s face on it. Another had his signature. Another had both. Rellevate won the contract.
Yet the other two bidders – one called Stralton and the other called Conduent, previously had contracts with the Georgia state government. Rellevate boasted of gift cards it made for Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza shopping malls but not business with state government.
Rellevate ended up producing cards with Kemp’s name prominently displayed on each card distributed -- weeks before voters started heading to the polls. At the time, Kemp was in a bitter rematch with Democrat Stacey Abrams.
The state Department of Human Services chose Rellevate. Before leading DHS, its commissioner Candace Broce had been a top Kemp adviser and communications director.
A document the state produced says “there was no conflict of interest during the process.” When a state audit said the program failed to follow state law for competitive bidding, the Department of Human Services did not dispute the finding.
In the initial weeks after Kemp announced the program, some recipients of the cards complained publicly that they didn’t work. But the state now says most of the billion dollars has been successfully distributed.
Democrats have called for a criminal investigation. That hasn’t happened.