ATLANTA — Most of the Democrats who say they are running for governor appeared in a forum televised from a Savannah church Thursday night, where they worked to differentiate themselves before a primary election just four months away.
All seven of them passed two key litmus tests for the Democratic base, including Geoff Duncan, a former Republican state leader.
They all said they would expand Medicaid if they reached the governor’s office, and they all would fight back against President Donald Trump.
Duncan, as lieutenant governor, famously rebuked Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election was stolen, and he defied Trump’s efforts to overturn the results. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms also could point to experience pushing back against the president during his first term.
The other five candidates said they would use the courts or other means to foil Trump when they disagreed with him. As Olujimi Wesley Brown, a reverend and architect put it, he “will build a firewall that protects us from Donald Trump, his antics and his chaos.”
Despite some nuance on other issues, such as affordable housing and the economy, they revealed similar beliefs and approaches to policy.
Most, for instance, focused on requiring more from corporations in exchange for the billions in tax breaks that they enjoy.
Former DeKalb County CEO and state labor commissioner, Michael Thurmond, said he would require recipients to hire local labor rather than foreigners, an apparent jab at the subsidies handed to South Korean company Hyundai under the watch of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Federal agents raided the company’s electric vehicle battery plant west of Savannah in September, detaining 475 workers, most of them Korean nationals. The Trump administration said the action followed a monthslong investigation into the company’s employment practices.
State Rep. Ruwa Romman, D-Duluth, said Georgia should invest the money in people instead. If she were governor, she said, she would subsidize access to health care to make Georgia’s relatively young workforce even more attractive to employers.
She and Jason Esteves, a former state senator and Atlanta school board chairman, sounded a defiant tone about corporations, both blaming them for the rising cost of housing and both offering a similar solution.
“I’m going to stop private equity funds from buying up all of our single-family homes,” Esteves said, eliciting applause from the audience at Jonesville Baptist Church in Savannah.
State Rep. Derrick Lamarr Jackson, D-Tyrone, like Romman, said low wages were a core issue. Both would work to raise pay.
Bottoms, Esteves and Thurmond would offer free adult education to address a mismatch between job skills and employer needs. Brown would insert more technical education into high school classrooms while Duncan would help cover the cost of child care, freeing up more parents to work.
Thurmond, the oldest candidate at 73, touted his experience in government leadership, saying Georgia needs a governor who will not require training wheels.
Duncan had the most unique selling point: he said he could draw independents and disaffected Republicans to land a Democrat in the governor’s mansion for the first time in nearly three decades.
But he will have to convince Democrats that he has truly abandoned GOP orthodoxy after supporting policies that are anathema to many liberals, such as gun ownership and banning abortion.
Duncan said he is relieved that he no longer must “make excuses” for Trump. “I don’t have to watch that school shooting on TV and be expected to make an excuse,” he said. “This is a heartfelt move.”
The event was televised by WJCL 22, an ABC affiliate that said a similar forum for Republican gubernatorial candidates would occur in the spring, ahead of the May 19 primary election.
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, reveals legislative priorities, including affordability, health care and literacy, as his wife, Dayle (seated), a retired educator and literacy advocate, watches him speak at the Capitol in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ty Tagami / Capitol Beat)
ATLANTA — When lawmakers return to the Georgia Capitol next week, they will focus on affordability.
While President Donald Trump tries to address complaints about the cost of living, Georgia Republicans see the risk of a voter backlash.
They worry that the landslide defeat in November of two Republican incumbents on the state Public Service Commission could be a harbinger for the November general elections.
So, members of the state Senate and House say they will be pushing pocketbook proposals this year.
“We’re laser focused on pursuing an agenda — when we start back next Monday — that makes life affordable,” said House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican from Newington.
In a briefing Wednesday, he said he and his chamber would focus on local property taxes, which he blamed for undermining the American dream of homeownership.
“For many of the families in our state, because of those property taxes, that dream appears to be unattainable,” he said. “We need to do something about it. And we’re going to do something about it.”
Senate Republicans are concerned about taxes, too. But they are targeting the state income tax.
On Wednesday, a Senate study committee recommended eliminating it on the first $50,000 earned by individuals and $100,000 for couples.
The committee, led by Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, also recommended abolishing the $16 billion tax entirely by 2032.
But first, he said, lawmakers must help those struggling most with rising costs by exempting them from the 5.19% income tax.
“Georgia families are feeling the burden of affordability,” said Tillery, who, as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, will have significant say over the state budget. “They’re talking about how high their power bill is. They’re talking about how much child care costs, how much their grocery bill is.”
Last spring and summer, legislators held hearings to study rising medical costs, a topic that could lead to legislation, as well. The House heard about a resulting lack of access to cancer care and about the impact of federal funding policy on the state public health system.
The end of COVID-19 era subsidies for people who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act is expected to make coverage unaffordable for hundreds of thousands in Georgia. The Congressional fighting over the issue could spill into state politics.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, taunted Georgia’s Republican delegation to the U.S. House over the issue, targeting those who want to unseat him in November.
“They support throwing half a million Georgians off their health insurance. They support more than a million Georgians seeing their health insurance premiums double,” he said Thursday. Republicans should break with Trump and extend the tax credits, he said. It is a line he will surely repeat during this election season.
Health care was the second issue Burns said the state House would tackle this year. His concern centered on recruiting and retaining doctors. His plan is to establish more opportunities for future doctors to complete their residency in Georgia, since they tend to settle where they do that training.
The third top issue Burns mentioned was education. He said the state must do more to improve literacy rates, so he wants to put a literacy coach in every elementary school. It has been a major concern of his wife, Dayle, a retired educator who has been helping with a state literacy campaign.
Speaker Burns also touched on another education topic that lawmakers in both the House and Senate have been discussing since the last legislative session: banning cellphones in high schools.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation into law in May that will ban personal devices in elementary and middle school starting next fall. Last month, a Senate committee co-led by Sen. Sally Harrell, D-Atlanta and Sen. Shawn Still, R-Johns Creek, the chamber’s majority caucus chair, recommended extending that ban to high schools.
Burns was on board with the idea, observing the popularity in schools that have banned phones on their own.
“You’ll see us move this session, I do believe, to ban cell phones in high schools because so many jurisdictions around the state have already done that,” he said. It is a hot topic, with school shootings leading to parent concerns about being able to contact their children.
Burns noted that authorities see phones as a distraction from safety protocols during emergencies, but he said he respects parents’ feelings on the issue: “that will be something we will certainly have a lively discussion about.”
ATLANTA — With affordability a top concern heading into the elections this year, Georgia’s Senate Republicans are proposing billions of dollars in cuts to the state income tax.
A study committee assigned by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican and advocate for abolishing the 5.19% tax, approved recommendations on Wednesday that would eliminate it for lower-income earners starting in January, eventually abolishing it altogether.
The committee voted to recommend eliminating the tax on the first $50,000 in annual income for individuals and the first $100,000 for couples.
The cut would take effect Jan. 1. That is midway through the next fiscal year, when it would divert $3 billion from the state budget. It would deduct $6 billion in the following full fiscal year.
The committee also called for increasing the cuts to higher income levels in the future, with abolishment of the $16 billion revenue stream by 2032.
Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, who led the committee, said the initial cuts need to help teachers, police officers and other workers who are struggling the most with the cost of living. He said two-thirds of Georgia workers would see their income tax eliminated at first.
“Let’s give breaks to families who are feeling the crunch the most first,” he said.
Affordability has become a top issue for Republicans in Georgia and nationally, leading to concerns about a voter backlash this year.
Jones is running for governor and Tillery, who also chairs the Senate’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee, is running to succeed him as the leader of the Senate. Also in contention for lieutenant governor are two other members of the study committee: Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, the former Senate majority leader; and Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, who is vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
John F. Kennedy, a Macon Republican who was Senate President Pro Tempore during the last legislative session, also served on the committee until he resigned last month to focus on his lieutenant governor primary campaign against those other three committee members.
The recommendations said the income tax would be eliminated without raising sales taxes or implementing a state property tax — and that no cuts to services would result.
The recommendations passed along party lines, with the three Democrats on the committee opposed.
Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, noted that the quarter of highest earners would benefit the most from full abolishment of the income tax in 2032, keeping more than $11 billion in their wallets.
Abolishing the income tax for all earners would also eliminate a revenue stream equal to more than 40% of the current $37.7 billion budget. The Democrats were dubious that this would not strain government services.
Orrock pointed to a dearth of health clinics in some counties.
“We have a lot of funding needs,” she said.
Tillery said the elimination of the tax on earnings up to $50,000 and $100,000 could be achieved with some simple steps.
He said the first $3 billion could be covered with a mix of surplus revenue — state income exceeded expenses by nearly $2 billion in the fiscal year that ended in July — and new financing. With interest rates high, the state has been paying cash for capital projects rather than borrowing money through bonds. By borrowing the money instead, it would have another $1 billion to put toward income tax reductions, he said.
To become law, the Senate would need cooperation from the House of Representatives.
Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican from Newington, said Wednesday that his chamber wanted to collaborate with the Senate on reducing the income tax rate, like it did last year when the General Assembly dropped it a fifth of a percentage point, from 5.39%. But he sounded a note of caution about altogether eliminating the revenue stream.
State government must be able to pay for services such as health care, public safety and education, he said. “We have to have the details, and it has to work.”
ATLANTA — Former state Rep. Karen Bennett, D-Stone Mountain, became the second Georgia lawmaker to be indicted in federal court in the past month over alleged fraud concerning COVID-19 federal assistance.
Bennett, who resigned her seat effective Dec. 31, pleaded not guilty Monday to allegations by federal prosecutors that she made false statements in writing to obtain $13,940 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits in 2020.
Bennett allegedly claimed she could not operate her physical therapy business while quarantined at home, but prosecutors allege her role was administrative and that she could work from home.
The U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Theodore S. Hertzberg, filed a false statements charge against Bennett Monday.
A judge released her on a $10,000 bond after she pleaded not guilty.
Rep. Sharon Henderson, D-Covington, pleaded not guilty Dec. 8 to theft of government funds in connection with COVID-19 relief, and was also released on a $10,000 bond.
Henderson was still listed as a state representative on the Georgia General Assembly website as of Tuesday.
ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday scheduled March 10 for the special election to select a successor to former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The Rome Republican resigned a year early after disagreeing with former ally President Donald Trump over numerous issues. Their differences included her support for preserving states’ rights to impose a moratorium on artificial intelligence and her opposition to military engagement overseas.
The main wedge between them was her insistence on the release of the investigative files concerning deceased sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, which Trump opposed. She was a key vote in forcing release of the documents.
Greene said Trump’s public criticism of her had led to a death threat against her son and a bomb threat against her home. She cited safety as one reason for her decision to step down, plus a growing divide between herself and Trump’s voting base. Her last day in Congress was Monday.
