by Ty Tagami | Aug 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
FLOVILLA — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones held his first gubernatorial campaign event Tuesday at a state park south of Atlanta, touting his endorsement by President Donald Trump, his record in the Senate of promoting conservative legislation and his background as a businessman.
The evening event at Indian Springs State Park in Butts County featured several Republican state senators, and a former senator — Brandon Beach. Trump plucked him from Georgia earlier this year and made him U.S. Treasurer.
Beach made it abundantly clear that Trump had endorsed Jones, whom he described as a job creator.
Jones “loves Georgia, he loves his family, he loves and respects law enforcement, but what he really loves is capitalism,” Beach said, which elicited whoops and cheering. “He wants you, your kids and your grandkids to pursue the American dream.”
Jones, who lives in Jackson with his wife Jan and their two teenaged children, said state government would have a business-oriented “Chick-fil-A type” service mentality under his leadership.
He said he started businesses inside his family’s Jones Petroleum company after college, before entering politics. He used that background to knock his competition, saying he was the only candidate who had risked money to make money and who had signed employee paychecks.
“They have all been at the government trough their entire careers,” he said.
Jones is campaigning for the GOP nomination against Chris Carr, the state attorney general, who is running on a tough-on-crime agenda.
Carr has aligned himself with Trump’s MAGA base and with traditional GOP orthodoxy, threatening the administration of then-President Joe Biden against any COVID vaccine mandate, joining other attorneys general from Republican-led states in challenging a Biden administration rule governing coal and gas plant emissions and siding with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in a State Election Board dispute between Republicans and Democrats.
But Jones holds an ace card with the recent Trump endorsement, which seemed likely given Jones’ persistent support of the president and his assertions about election fraud. Jones was investigated for a possible criminal violation after he joined Beach and others as “alternate electors” after Trump’s 2020 loss, but a special investigator exonerated Jones.
Jones is also pursuing a traditional Republican line in vowing to eliminate Georgia’s income tax. He created a study committee that featured testimony this month from longtime GOP anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist.
Whoever wins the Republican primary next year will go on to face the Democratic nominee in the November election.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is running on a record of managing the city during the pandemic and is pitching Medicaid expansion. State Sen. Jason Esteves of Atlanta, a former Atlanta school board member, has made education, health care and housing top priorities. And former Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, the only Democrat in the race who has won statewide, is campaigning on his relationships with lawmakers from both parties as a former state representative, saying he also wants to expand Medicaid.
The Georgia Democratic Party issued a statement ahead of the event accusing Jones’ leadership of putting rural hospitals in financial jeopardy due to high insurance rates and a tax code “that rewards billionaires, big corporations, and whoever the latest lobbyist was to buy somebody a steak and a bourbon. … In Burt Jones’ Georgia, it’s Donald Trump and his billionaire friends first, Georgia families last.”
Jones countered at his event that bureaucratic rules make it difficult to open new hospitals, and he said he has worked against those rules as lieutenant governor.
Successful election campaigns cost money, and the Republicans came out of the gate with a major lead. Carr and Jones raised about $3 million apiece — three times what Bottoms and Esteves each raised as of the last reporting period in early July. (Thurmond had not entered the race yet.)
But Jones has a tremendous legal advantage that allows him to pull in unlimited funds, and he loaned himself another $10 million. Carr has made an issue of Jones’ use of his “leadership committee,” a special entity enjoyed by a handful of incumbents and primary winners under a 2021 state law.
As attorney general, Carr does not get a leadership committee, though he would if he were to win the Republican nomination. He recently sued Jones in federal court over the committee after losing a similar complaint to the State Ethics Commission.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — An Army captain faces up to a decade in prison after pleading guilty to the theft of expensive equipment from Fort Stewart.
Jacob Suenkel, 32, of Richmond Hill, admitted in court that he stole skid-steer loaders, trailers, generators, a tractor and other valuable equipment from late 2024 through May, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia said Monday.
Suenkel then marketed the items for sale on social media, prosecutors said. The Richmond Hill Police Department assisted with the investigation.
“Suenkel betrayed not only the U.S. Army, but also the trust placed in him by the American people,” said Ryan O’Connor, special agent in charge of the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division for the Southeast.
In addition to prison for theft and sale of government property, Suenkel’s sentence could include a quarter-million-dollar fine. He agreed to a discharge with an adverse characterization of service, which will result in a loss of veterans’ benefits.
Fort Stewart was the site of a mass shooting earlier this month, when Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, allegedly opened fire with a personal handgun. No one was killed but five were injured before nearby soldiers tackled and subdued him.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The list of candidates who want to be Georgia’s next attorney general keeps growing, with another Democrat entering the race.
State Rep. Tanya F. Miller of Atlanta announced her candidacy outside the Gold Dome Monday.
The former chief senior district attorney in Fulton County, now in private practice, said she will focus her campaign on crimes of exploitation, such as predatory lending and human trafficking.
“For too long, this office has prioritized Washington, D.C., politics over the wellbeing of Georgia’s 159 counties. As your attorney general, my priority will be putting you and your family first,” Miller said.
She is among a growing field of candidates vying for an open seat currently held by Republican Chris Carr, who is running for governor.
Miller’s speech targeted Carr and President Donald Trump more than her competitors — two Republican lawmakers and a former Democratic lawmaker.
Last month, former House Minority Leader Bob Trammell became the first Democrat to announce his candidacy. Miller must face him in next year’s primary election. If she wins, she will be up against a Republican in the general election.
Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, a lawyer who chairs the state Senate’s Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee, was the first to enter the race. He was followed by Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, a lawyer who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Cowsert had reported raising the most money as of the last campaign finance reporting deadline in early July, collecting $531,000 against Strickland’s $435,000. Both Miller and Trammell have registered their intent to raise money but neither has filed a contribution report yet.
Cowsert chairs a committee that has been investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The state Senate granted his committee authority to expand the scope to include groups founded by former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
Cowsert also sponsored legislation to give his committee subpoena powers. It passed the Senate and the House of Representatives after bitter partisan debate, with one leading Democrat labeling it “authoritarianism.” Gov. Brian Kemp then signed it into law.
Strickland was the chief co-sponsor of legislation that sought tax credits for parents of young children, but the legislation did not pass. Lawmakers instead approved a general tax credit of between $250 and $500, which Kemp also signed.
Trammell grew up in Luthersville in Meriwether County and served as county attorney there. He was also the top Democrat in the state House, as minority leader from 2017 until 2021.
Miller was sworn in to the state House in 2023 and was elected chair of the House Democratic Caucus last year. She said she has taken on child abusers, rapists, murders, insurance companies and “greedy” corporations and “slumlords.”
“I will be guided by law, not politics, by principle, not polls, and by the people, not the powerful few,” she said.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 22, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Next fall, every public elementary and middle school in Georgia will have to swim against the cultural tide by banishing cellphones.
It will be a major undertaking: nearly every teen in America has one, and they have grown up with addictive social media flashing across their screens.
Despite the size of the task, some schools have already checked it off their to-do list, and their experience can serve as an example for the rest of the state.
“It is going surprisingly better than we expected,” said John Pace, III, superintendent of the Henry County School District, which prohibited cellphone use in all schools when students returned from summer break a few weeks ago.
Pace’s district of 40,000 students south of Atlanta is a year ahead of the deadline set by a state law passed this year. Henry County also prohibited cellphone use in high schools even though the new law will not require it.
Pace said the only pushback he received was an email from a student who said she needed her phone to study even though the district gives students locked-down devices.
Henry County could have banned phones by fiat, but experts say that approach invites opposition, and Pace agrees, adding that his system is not even using the word “ban” to describe its new policy.
“Distraction-free learning environments. That’s what we like to call it,” he said.
Pace brought the community along through meetings with teachers, parents and students, where they discussed the consequences of cellphone distractions.
Last year, a teacher asked all students to turn on the notification sounds on their phones, then counted the rings, dings, beeps and buzzes. On average, there were 636 per 50-minute class period, the district reported in an online video.
At a forum on cellphones and teens at Emory University last week, public health professor Julie Gazmararian cited research that says it takes 23 minutes to refocus after disruptions like phone notifications.
“This is an issue that is considered a crisis in both health and educational arenas,” she said.
The lawmaker who introduced the cellphone legislation said he was inspired by observing his own family’s behavior.
“I have three children who are addicted to their cellphones,” state Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, said at the Emory conference. “And we need to change that.”
It will be a big task. There are more than 1.1 million students in Georgia’s public elementary and middle schools.
And, according to a 2023 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 95% of teenagers in the United States have a smartphone, almost all of them with daily internet access.
The report said social media is good and bad: it can foster connection, creative expression and learning while also encouraging unhealthy social comparisons and stealing time from exercise, sleep and study.
Older studies have measured the brain drain caused by phones, even when they are not in use. One published in 2017 found that university students who placed their smartphones on the desk in front of them performed worse on math and memory tests than peers who left their phones in a different room.
A year later, another study said participants who dined with friends or family enjoyed the interactions less when they put their phone on the table than when they stowed it.
Most districts have not yet implemented cellphone prohibitions.
In a collaboration with the Georgia Department of Education, Gazmararian surveyed superintendents across the state. Her preliminary results indicated 42% prohibit phones the entire day. The superintendents cited various barriers to implementation, with two-thirds saying their biggest challenge was parent resistance.
A high school in Brockton, Mass., overcame such resistance, in part because cellphones were being blamed for extreme violence.
Students were getting into so many fights at Brockton High School that members of the school’s leadership committee called for intervention by the National Guard.
Students were using their phones to antagonize each other and to schedule fights, one news outlet reported. Some parents said their kids were afraid of going to school.
The National Guard never actually came, but Kevin McCaskill, the school’s principal, leveraged the discontent to push for a prohibition on cellphones.
At evening community meetings, he and his staff emphasized the academic toll from phone-related distractions. They also addressed parents’ biggest concern: how would they reach their kids during an emergency?
The school would send accurate and timely information, McCaskill promised. He told them that if they relied on calls or texts from students, they would be more likely to receive and spread misinformation, causing hysteria.
The school’s case was convincing enough, and as of last fall students were no longer allowed to use their phones at Brockton High. Staff at eight entry points ensured that all 3,800 students put their phones into pouches that only the staff could unlock. Students could carry their phones around in these pouches made by a company called Yondr, but they could not access them.
The number of violent incidents dropped, and students began to engage with each other more, McCaskill said.
Instead of brooding over something they saw on social media or in a text message, they were making eye contact and talking — in the cafeteria, in the hallways and in classroom discussions.
“We brought back the art of conversation,” McCaskill said.
He said more students have been passing their Advanced Placement courses and earning dual enrollment credits.
Marietta City Schools, a small district north of Atlanta, implemented a Yondr pouch policy in middle school the same semester as Brockton High.
The district compared the students’ year-to-year responses on the Georgia Department of Education’s Student Health Survey.
“The kids reported a 22% improvement in their ability to focus in class,” Grant Rivera, the superintendent, said at the Emory conference.
In Henry County, students leave their phones in their lockers or place them in storage units in each class, then stow them in their backpacks while walking between classes. They face disciplinary action if they use them.
Gazmararian’s research indicates that nearly two-thirds of her survey respondents who have prohibited phone use are doing so with lockers and backpacks.
McCaskill said the main tool is cultural. At Brockton High, some students have tried putting a fake phone in their Yondr pouch, but other teens turned them in when they pulled out their real phone, he said. “Phones have gone underground.”
Some schools in the Savannah-Chatham County system have had a similar experience. A longstanding policy that outlined how students could bring their own devices to school and use them in classrooms also allowed school leaders to prohibit them. About half the schools that were surveyed as part of the district’s preparation for the new law had already done so, including some high schools, said Derrick Butler, the district’s chief administrative officer.
The schools used various methods to control phones, including portable lockers purchased on Amazon.
The district has not yet studied the effectiveness of the various tactics. What is more important, Butler said, is the norm that gets established. Some kids might hide their phone so they don’t have to put it in the teacher’s locker, but during classroom observations and through interviews with school staff they didn’t see or hear about students using their phones where they were not allowed, he said. “And ultimately, that is the goal, right? It’s not so much that we want to collect your phone. We want you to be actively engaged and not distracted.”
Pace, the Henry County superintendent, said he included high schools in the phone prohibition because the students themselves acknowledged their phones were distracting them.
He decided he should lead by example. He used to tour schools with his phone in hand, taking notes. Now, he jots on paper, though he still transfers the information to his phone later.
Pace likened his own experience to withdrawal from an addiction.
“The first two days, it was hard for me,” he said. “By the time I got to day five, it was easy.”
by Ty Tagami | Aug 22, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The Republican National Committee elected Joe Gruters, a Florida state senator and long-time ally of President Donald Trump, as its new chairman Friday.
Gruters, who was the only candidate for the leadership post and was endorsed by Trump, stepped down as RNC treasurer, a spot then filled by Jennifer Saul-Rich of New York.
Gruters succeeds Michael Whatley, who is leaving the chairmanship to run for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, also with Trump’s support.
Whatley raised the specter of a repeat of the Trump impeachments under Democrats should Republicans fail to keep control of Congress after next year’s mid-term elections.
“We have a choice: Two more years of a golden age or two more years of impeachment,” he said at the party’s summer meeting, held in a ballroom at the Westin in downtown Atlanta.
Gruters is a former chairman of the Florida state GOP and now chairs two committees in the Florida Senate — Banking and Insurance, and Fiscal Policy. He said his party has a financial head start on the next elections, with an $84 million war chest, which he said is more than five times what Democrats have on hand.
He also said his party has many factions to unite, adding that his priority will be election integrity and voter registration.
“Together, we will expand our Republican majority and deliver sweeping victories that will shape America for generations to come,” he said, closing the meeting by saying the GOP is Trump’s party and “we’re going to do everything humanly possible to help him advance his agenda and make sure that he’s successful and he has a full, full four-year term.”
The Democratic National Committee also elected a new chairman this year. Ken Martin, who headed the Democratic Party in Minnesota, was chosen in February to lead the Democrats’ efforts to recapture at least one of the legislative chambers in Congress in 2026.
