亚特兰大——亚特兰大市长凯莎·兰斯·波顿周五表示，自上任第一年以来，她一直在考虑是否寻求连任，本周，她做出了最后决定，退出竞选，尽管她坚称自己不知道接下来会做什么。
“领导能力有时是关于传递接力棒，”在发布了一个选举宣布她今年不会竞选连任的20年惊喜公函和视频。
对于这位51岁的政治家来说，这是一个惊人的消息，她是第二位领导亚特兰大的黑人女性，不到一年前还是女总统之一乔·拜登被认为是可能的竞选伙伴。
巴斯称这是一个植根于她的信仰的决定，并驳斥了任何她害怕激烈竞选的想法。她指出，在拜登的帮助下，她建立了一个同花顺的竞选账户，并在选民中保持着强大的地位，尽管她与市议会以及她曾经的盟友和政治恩人、前市长卡西姆·里德(Kasim Reed)的关系有时会很不稳定。
“我们每个人内心都有一个神圣的声音...这对其他任何人来说都没有意义....但当你知道你所知道的，其他人怎么想就变得越来越不重要了，”博茨说，并补充道，早在她执政的头几个月，她就考虑过这个问题。
博茨是二战以来第一位不寻求连任的亚特兰大市长，此后只有一位市长竞选连任失败。她周五承认了这一历史，说“这是不寻常的事情。”
市长强调她将完成她的任期，到一月初结束。
她不排除拜登政府未来的职位。
“我们走着瞧。“我可以告诉你，和拜登总统一起在白宫当市长已经改变了世界，”在拥挤的民主党初选中，拜登最早的代言人之一巴斯说。
在白宫，新闻秘书珍·普萨基(Jen Psaki)没有表示即将为塔底斯(Batts)任命一个职位，称市长已经表示她将进入私营部门。“她当然仍然是总统喜欢的人，”普萨基说。
波顿说，她的连任账户的捐赠者将会收到一封信，要求退还他们的捐款。虽然巴斯说她没有计划“任命继任者”，但她说她会“在适当的时候让人们知道我会投谁的票。”
市议会主席菲利西亚·摩尔宣布参选。一些政治观察家认为，里德在2017年的竞选中支持底部，在他执政期间受到联邦政府对城市合同和财政的调查后，正在寻求回归。
作为与里德闹翻的信号，布茨保证不会干涉她的继任者。“不幸的是，在我的任期内，情况并非总是如此，”她说。
市长也对联邦调查表示遗憾，称它有时“吞噬了市政厅的生活”
对她来说，布茨的任期是混乱的市政厅政治和日益明亮的国家聚光灯的混合体。
她经常旅行，并出现在国家电视台上为拜登竞选。他后来考虑让她担任副总统，尽管他最终选择了卡玛拉•哈里斯，她现在是第一位担任国家职务的女性。
在冠状病毒大流行期间，随着乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)去年春天被明尼阿波利斯(Minneapolis)的一名白人军官杀害后警方的关注，博茨的形象有所上升。
她在一次全国电视新闻发布会上赢得了喝彩，在新闻发布会上，她斥责抗议者“回家”，同时分享了她作为黑人儿子的母亲的经历，以同情因警察暴力而悲痛欲绝的公民。她保证审查警方的程序。
然而，几周后，当亚特兰大一名警察开枪打死了雷夏德·布鲁克斯时，布茨本人也遭到了批评。这位名叫加勒特·罗尔夫的警官去年6月被解雇，一天前他在一家快餐店的停车场开枪打死了那个黑人。罗尔夫后来被指控谋杀。
亚特兰大公务员委员会周三撤销了解雇，发现该市未能给予罗尔夫适当的程序。巴斯说，罗尔夫将继续休行政假，直到对他的刑事指控得到解决。
市长在她的公告信中没有提到弗洛伊德或布鲁克斯，而是重点提到了给该市的警察和消防队员加薪，并暗示“一场社会正义运动(接管了我们的街道……我们坚持了下来。”
在她任期的早期，底部消除了亚特兰大的现金保释，并结束了该市监狱与联邦移民执法机构的关系，与全国各大城市的市长一起批评当时总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的强硬移民政策。在她任职初期，她的政府应对了一场针对该市计算机系统的网络攻击。
她帮助重新谈判“峡谷”的长期重建，这是该市旧铁路在市中心的足迹的一部分。但这座城市并没有获得该地区最大的潜在奖项:第二个亚马逊总部正在华盛顿特区外的北弗吉尼亚建造
作为亚特兰大本地人和佛罗里达A&M大学的毕业生，巴特是第二位领导这座城市的黑人女性。她加入了雪莉·富兰克林，后者在2002年至2010年间连任两届。巴斯注意到她家与这座城市的深厚联系。
她在周四的公开信中写道:“我的祖先是曾经被奴役的人的直系后裔，他们乘坐马车从东佐治亚州的棉田出发，为自己和他们在亚特兰大的孩子寻找更好的生活。”“我把他们对更美好明天的信念铭记于心，他们对我的职业道德的认真态度，以及他们对子孙后代的希望还没有在我的脑海中产生，我有幸为他们服务的每一天。”
In surprise, Atlanta Mayor Bottoms won't seek a second term
ATLANTA -- Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Friday she has wrestled since her first year in office with whether to seek a second term, and this week she made a final decision to step aside even as she insisted she doesn't know what she'll do next.
“Leadership sometimes is about passing off the baton,” Bottoms told reporters at City Hall, the morning after releasing anelection-year surprise public letter and video announcing that she wouldn't run for re-election this year.
It was a stunning announcement for the 51-year-old politician who is just the second Black woman to lead Atlanta and who less than a year ago was among the women PresidentJoe Bidenconsidered as a possible running mate.
Bottoms called it a decision rooted in her faith, and pushed back at any notion that she is afraid of a bruising campaign. She noted she's built a flush campaign account — with Biden's help — and maintains a strong standing with the electorate, even as she navigates a sometimes rocky relationship with the City Council and with her one-time ally and political benefactor, former Mayor Kasim Reed.
“There is a divine voice that lives inside each of us ... that may not make sense to anyone else.... But when you know what you know, it becomes less and less important what other people think,” Bottoms said, adding that she considered the matter as early as the opening months of her administration.
Bottoms is the first Atlanta mayor since World War II not to seek a second term, and only one mayor since then has been defeated for reelection. She acknowledged that history Friday, saying “this is something that’s not ordinary.”
The mayor emphasized she will finish out her term, which runs through early January.
She did not rule out a future post in Biden's administration.
“We’ll see. I can tell you being mayor with President Biden in the White House has made a world of difference,” said Bottoms, one of Biden's earliest endorsers in a crowded Democratic primary campaign.
At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki gave no indication a post for Bottoms is imminent, saying the mayor has indicated she’ll be entering the private sector. “She remains of course someone who the president has a fondness for,” Psaki said.
Bottoms said donors to her reelection account will receive a letter offering to refund their contributions. While Bottoms said she has no plans to “anoint a successor,” she said she'll “make it known at the appropriate time who I will cast my vote for.”
The City Council president, Felicia Moore, has announced her candidacy. Some political observers believe Reed, who endorsed Bottoms in her 2017 bid, is angling for a return, after being dogged by a federal investigation into city contracts and finances during his administration.
Signaling a falling-out with Reed, Bottoms pledged not to interfere with her successor. “Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case, always, during my term,” she said.
The mayor also lamented the federal investigation, saying it sometimes “sucked the life out of City Hall.”
Bottoms' tenure has been a mix of rough-and-tumble City Hall politics and an ever-brightening national spotlight for her.
She frequently traveled and appeared on national television to campaign for Biden. He later considered her for the vice presidency, though he eventually chose Kamala Harris, now the first woman to hold the national office.
Bottoms' profile rose during the coronavirus pandemic and with attention on policing after George Floyd’s killing by a white Minneapolis officer last spring.
She drew plaudits for a nationally televised news conference in which she chided protesters to “go home” while sharing her own experiences as a mother of Black sons to empathize with citizens distraught over police violence. She pledged to review police procedures.
Yet Bottoms met criticism herself weeks later when an Atlanta police officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks. The officer, Garrett Rolfe, was fired last June, a day after he shot the Black man in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. Rolfe was later charged with murder.
The Atlanta Civil Service Board on Wednesday reversed the firing, finding the city failed to grant Rolfe due process. Bottoms said Rolfe would remain on administrative leave while criminal charges against him are resolved.
The mayor didn't mention Floyd or Brooks in her announcement letter, focusing instead on having given the city's police and firefighters raises and alluding to a “social justice movement (that) took over our streets … and we persisted.”
Early in her term, Bottoms eliminated cash bail in Atlanta and ended the city jail’s relationship with federal immigration enforcement agencies, joining big-city mayors around the country in criticizing then-President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policies. Her administration navigated a cyberattack on the city's computer systems early in her tenure.
She helped renegotiate the long-term redevelopment of “The Gulch,” part of the city's old railroad footprint downtown. But the city did not score the biggest potential prize for the location: the second Amazon headquarters that instead is being built in northern Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.
An Atlanta native and graduate of Florida A&M University, Bottoms is the second Black woman to lead the city. She joined Shirley Franklin, who served two terms from 2002-2010. Bottoms noted her family’s deep ties to the city.
“My ancestors, direct descendants of the once enslaved, traveled by horse and buggy from the cotton fields of east Georgia in search of a better life for themselves and their children in Atlanta,” she wrote in her open letter Thursday. “I have carried their belief for a better tomorrow in my heart, their earnest work ethic in my being, and their hopes for generations not yet born on my mind, each day that I have been privileged to serve.”
