ATLANTA — Jason Dickerson, the Cherokee County businessman who won a special election last month to fill a vacate state Senate seat, swore his oath of office Tuesday.
The lifelong Cherokee County resident took over Senate District 21 during a ceremony at the county courthouse.
Dickerson, a Republican who co-founded a trucking company and leads a private investment firm, succeeds Brandon Beach.
Beach, also a Republican, vacated the position in May after President Donald Trump appointed him U.S. Treasurer.
“I will work to eliminate unnecessary tax burdens, secure our border and elections, and fight for veterans and seniors across the state,” Dickerson said in a statement
Dickerson, who is from Canton, soundly defeated Democrat Debra Shigley in the low turnout special election runoff on Sept. 23. Democrats had hoped Shigley would turn the north metro Atlanta area blue after a strong showing in the Aug. 26 special election that winnowed several GOP candidates. But Dickerson’s final victory secured Republicans’ 33-23 majority in the state Senate.
One of Dickerson’s first official acts was to issue a press release through the Senate press office about the recent death of Mandi Ballinger. She was a fellow Republican from Canton who represented the area in the state House.
“This weekend, I was saddened to learn that Rep. Mandi Ballinger had passed away after a long fight with cancer,” Dickerson said, calling her a devoted public servant, loving wife and caring mother.
Ballinger chaired the House Committee on Judiciary Juvenile. Dickerson said she used that platform to champion a better path for Georgia youths.
No election has been scheduled yet to fill Ballinger’s vacant House seat.
ATLANTA — The Republican primary to select Georgia’s next Secretary of State just gained another challenger as former Democrat-turned-Republican Vernon Jones entered the race.
Jones, who has served in local and state elective office, announced Monday that he is running to succeed Brad Raffensperger as head of the agency that oversees elections and business licensing.
“Georgia deserves a Secretary of State who will protect every legal vote and restore trust in our elections,” Jones said in a statement circulated on X.
Jones served as a Democrat in the Georgia state House twice, the first time in the 1990s and then in the 2010s.
In between, he won election twice as the leader of DeKalb County government, serving CEO for eight years in the 2000s.
After leaving that role, Jones ran an unsuccessful campaign for DeKalb sheriff. He then won a seat in the state House, still as a Democrat. He switched to the Republican party as his final term expired in 2021, after endorsing Donald Trump’s unsuccessful presidential bid against Joe Biden.
Jones then ran against Gov. Brian Kemp during the primary before Kemp’s second term as governor, dropping out of that race to run for the 10th Congressional seat, losing to current U.S. Rep. Mike Collins despite an endorsement from Trump.
Jones will be contesting the GOP primary against Raffensperger’s former top lieutenant, Gabriel Sterling, who announced his candidacy in the GOP primary last month just before Raffensperger announced he was running for governor.
Also in the race is state Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, whom House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican, tapped to lead an ongoing election procedures study committee. Fleming is a longtime ally and advisor to Gov. Brian Kemp, having served as his chief of staff in both the governor’s office and when Kemp was Secretary of State before Raffensperger.
And Kelvin King is running as a Republican in the Secretary of State primary, too. King lost to Herschel Walker in the 2022 GOP primary for U.S. Senate, the seat ultimately won by Democrat Raphael Warnock. King is married to Janelle King, an appointed member of the State Election Board.
Two Democrats have filed with the state to raise campaign funds for their Secretary of State campaigns — Adrian Consonery, Jr. and Penny Brown Reynolds, a former Fulton County State Court judge.
ATLANTA — An initiative by insurance companies to reduce high-cost doctor visits could cause physicians to abandon private practice and work for big hospital chains, independent practitioners are warning.
They say the trend could drive up patient costs.
Cigna implemented a policy last week to flag bills that appear to be too high. The insurance company may reduce payouts by one billing level “when the encounter criteria on the claim does not support the higher-level” payment code, the new policy says.
Dr. David Eagle, vice president of the American Independent Medical Practice Association (AIMPA), expects the new cost containment approach to erode income for private doctors, with long-term consequences for their patients.
Providers will be able to appeal downgraded billing claims by sending detailed medical records, but it is a labor-intensive process, said Eagle, a blood and cancer specialist in New York. He suspects such “downcoding” decisions will be made using algorithms that rapidly assess claim forms containing few details. Small doctors’ offices won’t be able to keep pace, he said. “Basically, they’re going to be underpaying the doctors based on information on the claim form.”
Cigna said only about 1% of providers in its network will be affected by the new policy, which “aims to reduce overbilling.” A one-level claim downcode will result in an average $50 reduction in payment, the company said in a written statement.
But $50 per visit adds up for a practice that runs on thin margins, said Dr. Bradley Sumrall, a blood and cancer specialist in Macon.
“I see 25, 30 patients a day. If you take out fifty bucks a patient, that’s $1,500 a day. That’s several employees,” he said. “We run on thin margins. We need money coming back to us in a timely manner, and anything that erodes that or slows it down puts more pressure on us to stay afloat.”
Aetna has had a similar downcoding policy for at least a couple of years. A spokesperson responded in writing that the company is obliged to monitor payment claims for its clients and members and to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse of Medicare and Medicaid.
Independent providers worry that such cost-saving policies will erode their income and drive more of them to work under the umbrella of big businesses with robust billing departments. Independent doctors’ billing offices typically lack the firepower to push back as effectively as a hospital’s or a health system’s, Eagle said.
The proportion of physicians who left independent practice for employment under hospitals and health systems doubled over the past dozen years, rising to 55% in 2024, according to a study by the Physicians Advocacy Institute.
Independent doctors say downcoding policies could accelerate that trend, with long-term consequences for patient costs.
Dr. Elizabeth Burns, an Atlanta dermatologist, said she understands the motivation of the insurance companies, adding that it conflicts with a provider’s mission.
“They’re trying to save money. That’s their main objective,” she said. “The majority of doctors, their main objective is for the patient to get the best care.”
Some “outlier” physicians might overbill and should be audited, Burns said. “But it shouldn’t affect all the other people who are correctly coding and whose medical visit notes justify the codes that they’re submitting.”
Eagle predicted that this money-saving maneuver will drive up costs for patients.
He said he was previously in an oncology group in North Carolina that joined a hospital system to cope with expanding administrative burdens and decreasing reimbursements. His patients then encountered new facility fees and increased co-pays, he said.
“So, I’ve lived it. This does have an impact when physicians move from the private setting to the independent setting,” Eagle said. “Everything else was the same. I was the same doctor, it was the same patient, they came to the same building, they got the same service. And many of them, because of the facility fees, paid a lot more for their co-pays. And some of my patients just said, ‘Look, I can’t keep seeing you anymore.’ So, it can have an impact, no doubt about it. All of a sudden, that doctor that you’re used to seeing is now in a health system.”
ATLANTA — The mother of a woman who blamed Georgia’s abortion law for the death of her daughter is backing former state Sen. Jason Esteves in next year’s primary campaign for governor.
Shanette Williams said Thursday that she trusts the Atlanta Democrat to overturn the law that bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
“We need a champion for women in the governor’s office now more than ever, and it’s clear that Jason is the right person for the job,” Williams said in a statement released by the Esteves campaign.
The Republican-led law passed in 2019. It took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion, reversing a decades-old precedent that said it did.
Pregnant women have subsequently been denied medical care in Georgia during miscarriages because of uncertainty among doctors about whether they could face prosecution for it.
Williams’ daughter, Amber Nicole Thurman, died after doctors delayed removing remnants of her fetus after she self-aborted with pills.
Williams said at a legislative hearing in June that her daughter died of sepsis, which she said could have been avoided with a 3-minute procedure that she said doctors withheld for 20 hours.
“She didn’t just die. She was murdered by the people who took the oath to do no harm,” Williams said at the hearing.
Democrats say the law is “vague” and creates an “air of criminality” around women who miscarry or need an abortion for a medical reason. Esteves said he would fight to overturn it if elected.
That is not an unusual position for a Democrat, but Esteves will be looking for any edge in what has become a free for all for governor.
Leading political figures in the Democratic primary include former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; former DeKalb County CEO and state labor commissioner Michael Thurmond; and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who recently switched from the Republican party.
Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican nomination, which includes Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Attorney General Chris Carr, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Peter Hubbard, the Democrat running for Public Service Commission District 3, speaks with reporters after an Atlanta Press Club debate at the WABE studios in Atlanta, where he was the only PSC candidate to attend, on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
ATLANTA — A solar power advocate who is running for a seat on Georgia’s energy regulation agency made his case without opposition Wednesday when his opponent declined to participate in a broadcasted debate.
“Why didn’t you have the courage to show up today and defend your six rate hikes in two years,” Peter Hubbard, the Democrat running to unseat Republican Fitz Johnson from the Public Service Commission, said at the Atlanta Press Club debate Wednesday. “And what will you do to lower power bills?”
The five-member PSC regulates the companies that provide consumers with electricity, natural gas and telecommunications. All five run statewide for six-year terms, but a series of events produced a race where Hubbard is competing with Johnson for an abbreviated term representing District 3 in metro Atlanta.
The odd-year election stems from an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit that argued statewide elections for seats that technically represent a portion of the state dilute the impact of Black voters.
The lawsuit postponed PSC elections last year and in 2022.
Johnson was appointed in 2021, so this is the first year he has had to stand for election to the post.
Two other candidates are vying for the District 2 seat, which represents eastern Georgia.
Republican Tim Echols was first elected in 2010 and reelected in 2016 and would have been up for reelection in 2022 if not for the lawsuit.
Democrat Alicia Johnson wants to unseat him. She and Echols also did not participate in Wednesday’s debate, which took place in the studios of Atlanta broadcaster WABE.
Hubbard said current PSC policy will further drive up consumer electricity bills as more data centers get built. The facilities, a necessity for the development and operation of artificial intelligence, consume massive amounts of power. And Hubbard said they pay less per unit of energy than other customers.
Both of the Republican incumbent candidates have refuted such claims, saying a resolution that the all-Republican PSC approved in January forbids Georgia Power from passing on the costs to ratepayers of serving new large-load customers — including data centers.
Fitz Johnson said at a Georgia Chamber of Commerce event this summer that the new policy “absolutely strengthens the grid, puts downward pressure on the rates … so we don’t have to be worried about large loads coming here and driving up your rates.”
Echols has said the state “is poised to become the artificial intelligence capital of America” and that data centers produce local tax revenue.
The incumbents were in office when the expansion of nuclear Plant Vogtle was completed last year, seven years behind schedule and with massive cost overruns.
Vogtle’s Units 3 and 4 were the first new nuclear reactors built in America in decades.
Hubbard said the cost makes nuclear power unaffordable. He said solar power and other innovations can meet future needs at a reasonable cost.
“There are things like unlocking the value of solar, and embracing newer technologies like virtual power plants, that can allow us to accommodate the load growth that we’re seeing from data centers while also putting downward pressure on rates,” Hubbard said at his solo debate, which is being broadcasted on radio and television. “The lowest cost resource is also the most sustainable and the most reliable. Solar and battery storage will increase the reliability and lower costs for consumers in the state. So, we can have our cake and eat it too.”
The election is Nov. 4. Turnout was low in the PSC primaries this year. No other statewide candidates are on the ballot, but local offices on November ballots may draw more to the polls for a race that could affect every resident’s pocketbook.
