Georgia GOP Shake-Up: Leadership Fights and Tort Reform Turmoil

Today, we exam­ine the shift­ing land­scape of Georgia’s Repub­li­can Par­ty and leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties. Josh McK­oon, the cur­rent GA GOP chair, faces a chal­lenge from 2nd Vice Chair David Cross, who’s active­ly cam­paign­ing and open to ques­tions about his bid. Mean­while, State Sen­a­tor Steve Gooch rein­tro­duces his “Amer­i­ca First” license plate bill after last year’s fail­ure. Spec­u­la­tion about Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp’s poten­tial Sen­ate run against Ossoff per­sists, but his silence until the leg­isla­tive ses­sion ends under­scores his role as the session’s sta­bi­liz­ing force—any announce­ment could derail bills. Agri­cul­ture Com­mis­sion­er Tyler Harp­er emerges as a Sen­ate prospect, lever­ag­ing his Trump loy­al­ty and a notable NRSC vis­it in D.C., unlike anoth­er Geor­gian whose recent NRSC trip fiz­zled with­out Trump agen­da buzz.

Then zeroes in on Kemp’s tort reform bill, a high-stakes gam­ble stir­ring con­tro­ver­sy among tri­al attor­neys and judges. Labeled cor­rupt and lob­by­ist-craft­ed, the vague, 60+ page bill faced a staged Sen­ate push­back: Bo Hatchett’s amend­ment, like­ly prepped by Kemp’s office, passed to soft­en resis­tance. Now in the House, Speak­er Jon Burns diverts it from Judi­cia­ry Chair Stan Gunter—a judge Kemp wants sidelined—to a sub­com­mit­tee under Rob Lev­erett, a real estate attor­ney, to sti­fle North Georgia’s influ­ence. Pow­er­ful lit­i­ga­tors in red dis­tricts threat­en pri­ma­ry chal­lenges, pres­sur­ing law­mak­ers like Gunter, who’s faced pri­maries before. Kemp’s team, includ­ing Cody Hall, dou­bles down, vow­ing spe­cial ses­sions or pri­ma­ry fund­ing to enforce sup­port, paint­ing a pic­ture of inter­nal GOP strife and leg­isla­tive maneu­ver­ing.

• Josh McK­oon is the chair of the GA GOP. David Cross is the cur­rent 2nd Vice chair and is run­ning against Josh McK­oon for the chair posi­tion. David Cross is open for ques­tions on why he should be chair. 
• Last year state sen­a­tor Steve Gooch attempt­ed to pass an Amer­i­ca First license plate. It did not pass. This year he has resub­mit­ted the bill this year. 
• Peo­ple are say­ing that Kemp will not run for sen­ate against Ossoff and there are peo­ple that Kemp is ready to announce. So why so much empha­sis on the ques­tion will he run for sen­ate and the delay. Whether you like Kemp or not he is the glue that is hold­ing the leg­isla­tive ses­sion. And if he would announce there would be announce­ments and bills get tanked. You will not hear from Kemp until after the ses­sion is over. 
• What is Tyler Harp­er, our AG com­mis­sion­er doing? He has a lot of pos­i­tives if he wants to run for sen­ate. He made sure that he stood close to Trump when he was in Geor­gia. He has nev­er waivered on his sup­port for Trump. It is unsure how he would vote when push came to shove. He goes to DC, he is a farmer and has been a state sen­a­tor. If you want to run for sen­a­tor you have to go to DC and stop by the NRSC and meet up with Tim Scott and a few oth­er sen­a­tors. Is Tyler Harp­er inter­est­ed in being the next sen­a­tor? You do not stop by the NRSC just to say hel­lo. 
• Anoth­er per­son in GA stopped by the NRSC about three weeks ago. It did­n’t go so well. It was so luke­warm that they did not post about pres­i­dent Trump’s agen­da. 
• Tort reform – some of the report­ing on this touch­es on accu­ra­cy but is not accu­rate. Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp is stak­ing his whole career on his tort reform bill. It has caused a lot of prob­lems in cer­tain sec­tors in the state espe­cial­ly with tri­al attor­neys and judges. The oth­er night in the sen­ate there was a fren­zy, the media knows how it works but they report­ed it a cer­tain way. And it was direct­ed to watch for cer­tain sen­a­tors and it was report­ed a cer­tain way. Remem­ber the arti­cle a cou­ple of days ago that Bri­an Kemp said that he would put mon­ey behind a pri­ma­ry chal­lenger if sup­port was not put behind the tort reform bill. Even if amend­ments were put on the bill, Kemp would call a spe­cial ses­sion. Even Cody Hall went on the AJC pod­cast to reit­er­ate the points. 
• The tort reform bill is a very cor­rupt bill. There are legalese in the bill and changes things and makes things very vague. Lob­by­ists write the bills. Do you think these law­mak­ers are that bright? And have amaz­ing assis­tants that can write the bills. A law­mak­er might write those 3 page bills to cre­ate a stunt and wave a flag… but not these 60+ page bills. The lob­by­ists sub­mit to a leg­isla­tive team. So you have to cre­ate push­back, and they do. So it goes to the Sen­ate floor and Bo Hatch­ett gives a pas­sion­ate speech about pro­tect­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of his con­stituents and then sub­mits an amend­ment to be vot­ed on and attached to the bill and it pass­es the sen­ate. Odds are that it was all set up and the amend­ment was writ­ten by the gov­er­nor’s office and they knew they would need an attor­ney to push back with an amend­ment and if Bo Hatch­ett sup­port­ed it with an amend­ment so could you. Now the bill has gone to the house. 
• House speak­er Jon Burns is tak­ing more con­trol to send the bill through the sub­com­mit­tee and took it away from the Judi­cial com­mit­tee and it will be chaired by Rob Lev­er­rett who is a real estate attor­ney. It was moved away from Stan Gunter, the chair of Judi­cia­ry. Stan is a judge. The gov­er­nor’s office does not want Stan Gunter chair­ing it. Kemp doesn’t want North Geor­gia to have a say in the bill. Burns has been told to get this away from Stan Gunter and through Judi­cia­ry. We don’t want any more noise on this bill. In some very red dis­tricts in Geor­gia there are some lit­i­ga­tors with a lot of pow­er that are telling these law­mak­ers that if you push this bill mon­ey will be spent on pri­ma­ry chal­lengers. Stan Gunter has been pri­ma­ry before but nev­er with the per­son with the mon­ey behind him. 
• It is not unheard of for a politi­cian to change spots. AG Chris Carr has filed a legal brief­ing back­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s exec­u­tive order on trans­gen­der surgery. 
• His­to­ry between BKP and John Fred­er­icks. BKP reached out to Fred­er­icks to arrange inter­views for David Cross and anoth­er can­di­date for first vice chair.  Fred­er­icks is a friend of McK­oon. This is a prob­lem. He needs to stay out of GA pol­i­tics. 
• Kan­diss Tay­lor is going to be a prob­lem for repub­li­cans. She has gone from against Kemp to hug­ging Kemp and say­ing she sup­ports him. All the media is going to pull her to put her as cen­ter of the repub­li­can par­ty in GA.