Bottoms, Keisha Lance, 1970-

Keisha Lance Bottoms (born January 18, 1970) is an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the 60th and current mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. She is the sixth African American and second woman to hold the position.

Born and raised in Atlanta, she attended Atlanta Public Schools, graduating from Frederick Douglass High School before earning a B.A. in communications from Florida A&M University and a J.D. from Georgia State University College of Law. Bottoms was a prosecutor and also represented children in juvenile court. In 2002, she became a magistrate judge in Atlanta. In 2008, she ran unsuccessfully for a judgeship on the Fulton Superior Court. Bottoms was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 2009 and 2013, representing District 11 in southwest Atlanta. Bottoms was elected mayor in 2017, after receiving a plurality of votes (26%) in a crowded field of candidates on Election Day, then defeating fellow City Council member Mary Norwood in the runoff election.

Among Mayor Bottoms’ notable accomplishments to date include the establishment of the City’s first fully- staffed Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, the appointments of the first Director of LGBTQ Affairs and a Human Trafficking Fellow, the citywide elimination of cash bail bond, the closure of the Atlanta City Detention Center to ICE detainees, and the rollout of the most far- reaching financial transparency platform in the City’s history – Atlanta’s Open Checkbook. In August of 2021, Mayor Bottoms opened Westside Park—which eclipsed Piedmont Park and Chastain Park as Atlanta’s largest greenspace. Westside Park includes a 2.4 billion gallon water reservoir that increases Atlanta’s emergency water supply from three days to up to 90 days.

In June 2019, Bottoms endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. After Biden's election, Bottoms was mentioned as a possible candidate for United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In January 2021, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris nominated Bottoms for a four-year term as the Vice Chair of Civic Engagement and Voter Participation at the Democratic National Committee, a role focused on protecting voting rights and expanding voter participation. On May 6, 2021, Bottoms announced that she would not seek reelection as mayor of Atlanta.