by Ty Tagami | Jun 10, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Democrat running for the Georgia Public Service Commission failed Tuesday to convince a judge to let him stay on the ballot after Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ruled that he did not live in the district where he was running.
Daniel Blackman was among four Democrats running in the June 17 primary for the District 3 PSC seat currently held by Republican Fitz Johnson. But late last month, Raffensperger kicked Blackman off the ballot after declaring that he had failed to prove he had established residency in the district in time to satisfy the legal requirements for candidacy.
Blackman had said he moved last fall to Fulton County, which is in the 3rd District, but Raffensperger observed that his wife had remained in Forsyth County, which is not.
Raffensperger considered that and other evidence in disqualifying Blackman, who then appealed to Fulton County Superior Court.
Fulton Judge Ural Glanville quickly issued a stay on Raffensperger’s decision. But at the conclusion of a follow-up hearing Tuesday that lasted for more than an hour, the judge said he had decided to rule against Blackman’s petition.
“The secretary’s decision did in fact properly apply Georgia law,” Glanville said.
PSC District 3 includes Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton counties. The decision leaves three Democrats on the primary ballot for that seat: Keisha Sean Waites, who has served in the state House of Representatives and on Atlanta City Council; Peter Hubbard, a clean energy advocate; and Robert Jones, who has worked in energy and telecommunications.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
DALTON – By the time nearly 1,700 Republican delegates were driving away from their annual state convention, a vigorous storm had descended on Dalton, rocking cars, dislodging a glass door at the convention center entry and tearing a flag off one of the poles outside.
Party stalwarts fear another kind of storm could tear at GOP unity as a momentous election year approaches.
But despite some discontent, the delegates voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Josh McKoon as their chairman. Otherwise, nothing earth-shaking happened. A resolution to bar Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger running as a Republican did pass, but McKoon later said it was probably not legally enforceable.
And no one unexpectedly declared their candidacy for the U.S. Senate or for the smorgasbord of other seats that have opened up, or appear to possibly be open, as the incumbents either launch or consider a run for higher office.
Up for grabs next year are the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, and probably the office of lieutenant governor. The national Republican Party is also targeting the Senate seat now occupied by Democrat Jon Ossoff.
In Ossoff, the delegates found a unifying cause, with leaders labeling him a liberal extremist and, in the words of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, a “spoiled brat.”
Greene was allotted more time than anyone else, talking for about 40 minutes to close out the speeches Saturday before candidates for party office took the stage.
Greene has ruled out a run for Ossoff’s seat but when asked in an interview if she was considering a run for governor next year, the final year for term-limited Republican Brian Kemp, Greene said she is “always keeping my options open.” She said she needs to consult with family, friends and supporters, “so I don’t have a time frame, but it is something I will think through.”
Others said to be considering higher office, including Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the Republican who presides over the state Senate, and members of Congress besides Greene, also spoke without revealing their plans.
This election year is the quiet one before next year’s storm. The only major race is for two seats on the state Public Service Commission (PSC), Georgia’s Republican-led utility regulator.
Both Tim Echols, one of the GOP incumbents, and Republican challenger Lee Muns fretted over turnout during this early voting period before the June 17 primary.
“I don’t want to start this convention off being a Debbie Downer, but I’m having trouble getting my own relatives to go to the polls,” Echols said to a small crowd as the convention got underway Friday afternoon.
Ideological purity was a through-line of the convention, with assertions of loyalty to President Donald Trump, opposition to everything transgender (God made only two genders), support for Israel, opposition to the state income tax and a commitment to energy dominance.
“The very first words that God spoke to us in his word is, ‘Let there be light,'” said Tricia Pridemore, who serves on the PSC. “Think about that.”
John King, the elected state insurance and safety fire commissioner who is running in the GOP primary for Ossoff’s Senate seat, said on Friday that Trump had sent him to secure the border with Mexico when he was a major general in the U.S. Army National Guard, a role he retired from two years ago.
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons, the first elected official to announce for Ossoff’s seat, praised Trump and his energy policy while criticizing Ossoff for his positions on immigration, transgender policy and Israel.
Another potential candidate for that Senate seat, U.S. Rep. Michael Collins, R-Jackson, said in an interview that he was not close to deciding on a run. But his speech on stage Saturday was preceded by a recording of hip hop music overlaid with Trump’s voice, and he wore a white ball cap that said, “Gulf of America.”
“Like God, we’ve got Donald Trump’s back, and we are going to continue to make America great,” Collins said. He asserted Georgia is a “red” state, adding, “We’re going to send that trust fund boy Ossoff home, and we’re going to put us a solid conservative in that seat.”
No declared candidate for governor spoke, although Jones talked about state Senate passage of conservative legislation under his watch, and he shared an anecdote about Trump answering his phone calls within a ring or two.
Attorney General Chris Carr, who has announced he is running for governor, did not speak, though he did hold a rally at a nearby pizza spot Friday.
There were also candidates up on stage, both announced and presumed, for the seats currently held by Jones and Carr.
John F. Kennedy, a Republican state senator from Macon, said he was running for Jones’ lieutenant governor seat even though Jones has not yet announced he’s leaving it to run for governor. Kennedy, the Senate president pro tempore, had tipped his hand a couple of weeks ago by registering to raise money to campaign for the office, as had Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia. Tillery spoke about his unsuccessful bill that targeted “debanking” but didn’t openly declare he was running for lieutenant governor.
Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, who declared for Jones’ seat in mid-May, claimed credit for creating an “America First” car tag for Georgia. “We need to defend the America-First agenda that President Trump ignited,” the Senate majority leader said. (Both Kennedy and Tillery co-sponsored the bill, which Kemp signed into law).
Gooch also said it is time to eliminate Georgia’s state income tax.
Greene said Georgia should eliminate the income tax, too, and she said the state should deal with homelessness by reopening mental hospitals.
Greene also acknowledged “a little bit of a quarrel going on,” which would later manifest in booing when party leaders announced that the voting to select the chairman and other party leadership positions would be conducted with electronic “clickers” rather than the paper ballots prepared by a contingent in orange vests.
“This convention has been rigged,” said Norine Cantor, a candidate for second vice chair, who said the party lacked morals and values.
When Kylie Kremer, a candidate for another leadership post, said the way the party was being run was a “disgrace,” many in the crowd roared their approval. “You guys have no idea what a functioning party looks like because this is all you know,” she added.
Neither won a place in party leadership.
McKoon handily won re-election, taking nearly 64% of the 1,666 votes clicked for the chairmanship.
After the convention, he said paper ballots would have been too slow, though he said the state has the resources to pull off an election with paper.
McKoon shrugged off the controversy.
“I really appreciate the confidence of the delegates here in Dalton,” he said. “To win by a two-to-one margin is really pretty humbling.”
by Ty Tagami | Jun 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Another football celebrity with ties to the University of Georgia could be headed for the state’s political big leagues, as former University of Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley weighs a run for U.S. Senate.
The son of legendary Bulldogs coach Vince Dooley is considering an effort to take down Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff next year.
Dooley said Friday he may run in the Republican primary, in news first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Georgia deserves stronger, common-sense leadership in the US Senate that represents all Georgians and focuses on results—not headlines,” Dooley said in a statement his spokesman shared with Capitol Beat News Service. “I believe our state needs a political outsider in Washington—not another career politician—to cut through the noise and partisanship and get back to real problem-solving.”
Dooley was the head coach for the University of Tennessee until he was fired over a decade ago after a losing streak. He continued coaching college and NFL football over the next decade.
He wouldn’t be the first football name to pursue a political career in Georgia, particularly in the U.S. Senate. In 2022, Donald Trump backed former Bulldog Herschel Walker’s bid for the Senate, leading to a sound defeat by Democrat Raphael Warnock.
The GOP lane to the Senate seat is wide open after Gov. Brian Kemp, who had been considering a run against Warnock, backed off last month.
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons, was the first major political figure to jump into the race, followed a month later by John King, the elected state insurance and safety fire commissioner.
“This is going to be the most watched, most expensive race in the United States,” King said Friday of the contest against Ossoff, while speaking at the state Republican party convention in Dalton.
Dooley will decide whether to enter the race soon. “My family and I are continuing conversations,” he said, “and will make a decision in the coming weeks.”
by Ty Tagami | Jun 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
DALTON — John King, a Georgia Republican who hopes for the opportunity to try to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff next year, predicted that it will be the highest priority election in the nation.
King, Georgia’s insurance and safety fire commissioner, was among the speakers Friday as the state Republican Convention rumbled to a start in Dalton. Speaking to a crowd of several hundred in the local convention center, King said the stakes in the race are high, clearly implying to the delegates that that’s why they should back him during the primary.
“This is going to be the most watched, most expensive race in the United States,” said King, a former law enforcement officer and retired major general of the U.S. Army National Guard. “We can’t get this one wrong.”
King was a policeman in Atlanta, then worked his way up to police chief in Doraville. Gov. Brian Kemp ignited King’s political career by appointing him to fill a vacant seat as insurance commissioner in 2019, a post King later won by election in 2022.
King said he retired from the National Guard two years ago after 42 years of service. In a foreshadowing of the campaign he might employ if he wins the Republican primary, he told a story about what happened just before that, after President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021.
One of King’s Afghan sources contacted him, hoping for a way out of the country. So King said he tried to reach Ossoff’s office for help, but said he got none.
Finally, King said his Afghan source abandoned hope for himself and just asked to get his daughters out of the country.
“That still crushes me,” King said.
King accused Ossoff of being too “afraid” and “incompetent” to “take a stand” and help him and that “America paid a price for his weakness.”
King declared his candidacy after Kemp announced last month that he would not be running for Ossoff’s Senate seat. King’s announcement came days after U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter of St. Simons Island became the first high profile Republican to enter the race after Kemp said he was out.
Regan Box spoke too on Friday, saying she was the first Republican to declare for the race — two years ago. She said she’s driven over 100,000 miles to visit a hundred Georgia counties. She said she is against funding the war in Ukraine and she is for changes to Social Security and Medicaid. In the first quarter of this year, she raised over $10,000.
Others are expected to enter the race, too. Whoever emerges from the primary fight will have to face the most prolific fundraiser in the Senate.
Ossoff raised more than $11 million during the first quarter of the year, the most ever by a U.S. Senate incumbent in the first three months of an off-year.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s top elected school official announced plans to seek another four years in office Thursday, as others sign up to compete for the office against him.
If Richard Woods wins re-election to a fourth term next year, he will be sworn in in January 2027 to serve alongside a third governor.
Republican Gov. Nathan Deal was starting his second term when Woods, also a Republican, took the oath of office to lead the Georgia Department of Education in January 2015. Woods went on to serve during both of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s terms.
“As State School Superintendent, I have focused on transforming the Georgia Department of Education from a compliance-oriented agency to one centered on service and support for school districts,” Woods said in a statement issued by the education agency Thursday. “That vision will continue and, as I seek a fourth term, I am committed to expanding the resources and supports we provide directly to teachers.”
But at least two people so far are hoping to deprive Woods of that opportunity.
“He’s a nice guy, but I’ve got three children in the school system, my wife’s a schoolteacher,” said Randell E. Trammel, who lives in Cartersville and is planning to run against Woods in the GOP primary. “I don’t believe we’re offering excellence in education for every student across the state, and that comes with leadership.”
Trammell, CEO of the Center for Civic Engagement, registered on Monday to raise money for his own superintendent campaign.
Trammell is nearly a year behind Nelva M. Lee, a Locust Grove entrepreneur whom Kemp appointed to a two-year term on the state Board of Community Health in 2021. She filed to raise money last June for her run as a Republican in the superintendent’s race.
At the time, Lee was ending her run as CEO of a technical school for medical and court interpreters and translators. She said the Georgia Nonpublic Postsecondary Education Commission shut it down for no good reason last year, “and I really would like to get rid of them.”
Lee, who now runs a tokenized real estate investment business, said she also wants to be superintendent to promote charter schools and to improve Georgia education overall, which she said is at “the bottom of the barrel.”
“For a state that touts itself as business-friendly, we need to do a better job,” Lee said.
Woods’ news about his candidacy was tucked into a statement that was mainly about a different topic. The news release from the education department led with the announcement that former state Teacher of the Year Christy Todd would be taking over operational control of the education agency as Woods’ new chief of staff.
Matt Jones, who had been in that role since 2015 and had navigated the department through COVID-19 and other crises, is departing the position.
“Matt will continue to be a valued thought partner for me and for the agency, and I wish him the very best as he moves forward in his career – one I know will always be shaped by his deep commitment to Georgia’s public schools and students,” Woods said.
Among the crises Jones faced was the controversy around Woods’ decision last year to withhold recommending an Advanced Placement African American studies course last summer, which was seen as a retreat from curriculum involving diversity, equity and inclusion. Woods reversed himself after numerous critics, including Kemp and the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, questioned his decision.
The appointment of Georgia’s 2024 teacher of the year to succeed Jones was promising news for Tracey Nance, who was Georgia Teacher of the Year in 2020 and 2021.
“Georgia Teachers of the Year are excited for Christy and look forward to her bringing a nuanced perspective of what teaching looks like today,” said Nance, who directs a fellowship for the National Network of State Teachers of the Year. “And we look forward to her being a cheerleader for all educators and for the rights of all students.”
