Last week, we celebrated a Georgia State Senate committee’s vote to allow the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta to file for divorce and form its own city in response to a soaring crime rate and collapsing public services.

Our optimism was premature. When the bill came up for a vote before the full Senate, ten out of 33 Republicans voted against it and killed the measure. The “nail in the coffin” was a leaked memo from GOP Governor Brian Kemp’s legal counsel that warned of confusion in the transfer of public properties and deciding where children in the new city would go to school. (Full school choice in Georgia would make that problem go away).

We’re profoundly disappointed in Brian Kemp – who is considering a run for president – and Republicans in the legislature for conspiring against self-determination for the residents of Buckhead.

“If we jerk the heart out of the city of Atlanta, which is Buckhead, I know our capital city will die,” said Republican Senator Frank Ginn. Hello? Central Atlanta has been dying for years because of bad woke liberal policies. Why allow those anti-growth policies to spread like a virus to other cities?

The best way to incentivize our once-great cities to reform themselves is by letting surrounding areas out of the clutches of their dysfunctional policies. This means getting rid of crime, fixing schools, and lowering taxes.