Georgia’s Legislative Deadline and the 2026 Election Countdown

As Geor­gia nears Crossover Day, bills like the con­tro­ver­sial HB268—pushed mis­lead­ing­ly as a stu­dent safe­ty measure—face a final push before mov­ing between leg­isla­tive cham­bers by April 4, 2025. Rep. David Clark’s sup­port shocks crit­ics, who demand it be stopped. Mean­while, the 2026 elec­tion looms: Gov. Bri­an Kemp’s poten­tial U.S. Sen­ate run against Jon Ossoff holds the GOP field in lim­bo, with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones ready to announce a guber­na­to­r­i­al bid and Sen. Steve Gooch eye­ing Lt. Gov. once the ses­sion ends. Rep. Rich McCormick, rat­tled by a tense town hall and AJC scruti­ny, floats cau­tious bud­get cuts, hint­ing at Sen­ate ambi­tions. Burt Jones, a Trump ally, is urged to mir­ror MAGA poli­cies, but the “DOGE” red tape bill is called a shal­low stunt.The 2026 race promis­es chaos depend­ing on Kemp’s next move.

• We are com­ing up on crossover day. The bills will move to the oppo­site cham­ber to reach an agree­ment. IF they can’t reach an agree­ment they can cre­ate a com­mit­tee to find a res­o­lu­tion, and once the lan­guage is final­ized the house and sen­ate vote on the leg­is­la­tion. This is the last week­end to stop chang­ing and amend bills before cross­ing cham­bers. 
• HB268 the false head­ing is the safe­ty and well being of stu­dents in com­mu­ni­ties it has to be stopped com­plete­ly. It is shock­ing that David Clark is on this com­mit­tee and is sup­port­ing this bill. It is a NO on this bill. 
• There will be some announce­ments this week. There is sup­posed to be an announce­ment today. In GA we have one US Sen­ate seat and then all the con­sti­tu­tion­al offices. For the US Sen­ate seat every­one is on hold for Bri­an Kemp to make a deci­sion. As soon as the gav­el goes down on the ses­sion end­ing, you will see Burt Jones announce he is run­ning for gov­er­nor of GA. You will prob­a­bly see Steve Gooch run­ning for Lt Gov­er­nor. But every­one is going to jug­gle their cam­paigns depend­ing on Kemp’s run for the US Sen­ate seat. If Kemp runs he box­es things out. 
• Rich McCormick doesn’t han­dle pres­sure well or when you push on him. He gets a heat­ed exchange at town hall. Why is the AJC going after him? Rumors are that he may want to run for US Sen­ate. The AJC will not cross Jon Ossoff. McCormick runs to the AJC pod­cast and what he does… he thinks that bud­get cuts are imper­a­tive but he’d like to see more cau­tion in the way they are being han­dled. He wants to have impact stud­ies on each depart­ment… he wants more bureau­cra­cy. This is the guy that endorsed Ron DeSan­tis. McCormick goes to the AJC to try to recov­er from the dis­as­trous town hall. 
• The GOP field to chal­lenge demo­c­rat Jon Ossoff is frozen until Kemp announces his next step. A deci­sion he’’ makes some­time after the leg­isla­tive ses­sion that ends on April 4.  
• The 2026 elec­tion will get very inter­est­ing. 
• Burt Jones is the Lt Gov of GA. He is the top MAGA of GA. Any­time Trump comes to GA, Burt Jones greets him. NOw will all the out­reach and shout outs that Trump gives to Burt JOnes. Burt should be look­ing at every­thing that Trump is releas­ing and should copy it. The GA red tape bill rebrand­ed as DOGE wins new sup­port and crit­ics. This is a stunt, they are not look­ing at cut­ting the bureau­cra­cy. They will grab DOGE and look as though they are imple­ment­ing MAGA until it gets time for elec­tions. SB189 removed the QR codes, and just 2 weeks ago Raf­fensperg­er said we don’t need to buy the scan­ners when the con­tract is up in a cou­ple of years. Then they want to throw you the bone that we are get­ting out of ERIC… will we? And when Trump brings Kemp to DC for the gov­er­nors meet­ing and tells all the gov­er­nors that we need to go to paper bal­lots and one day vot­ing… it doesn’t come to GA.