Battleground Dem accused of using vulnerable children for campaign credit

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is being accused by Georgia’s top child welfare official of using vulnerable children and the state’s embattled foster care system as campaign credit after he released a new ad promoting his work on the state’s troubled system.

Georgia Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS) Director Candice Broce criticized the new foster care-focused ad released last week as the Georgia Democrat seeks re-election in one of the nation’s most closely watched races. In advertising, Titled “Our Children” Ossoff on Georgia foster care system with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. along with highlighting a “stern report” and a “bipartisan year-long investigation.”

Ossoff touts his investigation and new legislation as part of his record of protecting children and holding the system accountable. But Broce says the Democrat is exaggerating his role and turning a serious child welfare issue into a political victory lap.

“For five years, I have been fighting in the trenches alongside thousands of DFCS workers for vulnerable children and for foster care reform,” Broce said in a post on X. “Trust us when we say Jon Ossoff is nowhere to be found.” “Ossoff did not get more funding for DFCS after calling us incompetent and under-resourced. He did not provide more federal support for child advocacy centers despite state requests.”

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“It didn’t fix the federal law that disabled group homes,” he continued. “He did not facilitate the adoption of children placed with loving families. Jon’s ad sounds good, but his words are meaningless to the men and women in the arena.”

But Ossoff’s team fired back, calling Broce an “unqualified partisan political hack” and accusing him of “dangerous incompetence.” They noted Ossoff’s surveillance work highlighted in the ad that Broce criticized; The spokesperson said it found that children in Georgia’s foster care system were likely sex trafficked while in state care, among other issues.

“A year-long investigation by the Office of the Child Advocate, juvenile court judges, former foster children, nonpartisan advocates, investigative journalism, and Senator Ossoff has exposed deep and dangerous dysfunction at DFCS,” an Ossoff campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The campaign also included testimony from juvenile court judges who accused Broce of recommending that children with special needs be held in juvenile detention while seeking DFCS placements. Broce dismissed the allegations as politically motivated and argued they distort a broader debate about how to keep foster youth safe amid complex behavioral problems, runaway backgrounds and trafficking risks, as well as placement shortages.

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Candice L. Broce (left) is the Director of the Georgia Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS). It is pictured next to a picture of a baby stroller in an office. (Georgia DFCS/Getty Images)

“Candice Broce is a partisan political hack who has been irresponsibly tasked with the care of the state’s most vulnerable children,” Ossoff’s spokesperson said. “Instead of whining that his dangerous incompetence has been made public, he should fix his broken agency.”

Broce rejected attacks on his qualifications, pointing to his background as a health care attorney, former deputy chief executive counsel and Gov. Brian Kemp’s chief operating officer, and said nearly 40 state agencies, including DFCS, report to him in that role.

He also did not dispute that Georgia’s foster care system faces serious challenges but argued that Ossoff exploited those problems for hearings, reports and campaign messages without offering meaningful help to fix them.

“If you’re going to beat us, come up with something that will make it better,” Broce said. “He didn’t do that.”

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Broce said Ossoff could use his federal role to pursue resources related to Medicaid, behavioral health access and placement capacity rather than simply highlighting DFCS failures.

“What is essentially bipartisan is over $100 million in state funding that we have received from Republican and Democratic legislators who support the issues we address and believe we deserve more resources,” Broce said. “If he decides today that he really wants to help us and vulnerable Georgia children, we will welcome him with open arms.”

Georgia Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., (R) and Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., (left) waves to students before speaking at the Dawgs for Warnock rally at the University of Georgia on December 4, 2022 in Athens, Georgia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

But Ossoff’s team counters that it’s not even “Senator Ossoff’s job to fix the agency.” [Broce] He said Broce whined that “it’s Senator Ossoff’s job to fix the government agency he runs.”

“While Senator Ossoff is leading oversight, passing anti-trafficking legislation, and helping save foster care funding that President Trump cut, Broce, the unskilled partisan hack, complains that it is Senator Ossoff’s job to fix the government agency he leads,” Ossoff’s representatives told Fox News Digital.

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Broce’s criticism of Ossoff included a contrast between his record and that of Georgia’s other U.S. Senator, Democrat Raphael Warnock. Broce called the difference “stark,” pointing to Warnock’s community events for vulnerable mothers and children and adoption-related measures as examples of practical support that he said Ossoff did not provide.

“Compare his child welfare record to Warnock’s. It’s clear which US Senator from Georgia cares about vulnerable families and children, and it’s not Jon,” Broce said in the X post.

Ossoff, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination, is running for a second term in November against Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., who won the Republican nomination after defeating former football coach Derek Dooley in mid-June GOP runoffs. Warnock won’t be re-elected until 2028.