GA Lawmaker Fired Over Kemp Bill Clash: Election Security, GOP Infighting, 2026 Stakes

Unpack the fall­out as State Rep. Vance Smith los­es his Har­ris Coun­ty Cham­ber of Com­merce CEO role hours after oppos­ing Gov. Bri­an Kemp’s key bill, spot­light­ing Georgia’s GOP pow­er strug­gles. We dive into Bran­don Beach’s puz­zling rise as Trump’s trea­sur­er, hint­ing at a tight-knit GA polit­i­cal club, while Jon Ossoff’s ral­ly kicks off his 2026 Sen­ate defense—Republicans eye a flip with par­ty chair Josh McK­oon vow­ing uni­ty amid sparked divi­sion. With 6 days left in the GA leg­isla­tive ses­sion, bills like SB144 (the roundup bill) face veto calls—urging Kemp to act as it risks auto-pass­ing. The GOP’s 9th Dis­trict takeover brews ten­sion; will estab­lish­ment pick Stephen Aaron derail MAGA hopes? Plus, elec­tion secu­ri­ty heats up: join the Repub­li­can Women of Hall Coun­ty Thurs­day for Gar­land Favorito’s update, and pack tomorrow’s 1 PM Room 307 hear­ing under the Gold Dome for SB303’s paper bal­lot push—don’t miss this crit­i­cal fight to ditch ERIC and reform vot­er rolls!

• GA Law­mak­er los­es job hours after he opposed Bri­an Kemp’s pri­or­i­ty bill. State Rep Vance Smith vot­ed against a bill pushed by Gov Bri­an Kemp. Soon after he lost his job as pres­i­dent and CEO of the Har­ris Coun­ty Cham­ber of Com­merce. 
• Not sure why Bran­don Beach is the Trump admin­is­tra­tion trea­sur­er. This is a clear indi­ca­tion that there is a club in GA, it is not a polit­i­cal par­ty. Every­one putting up the pic­tures con­grat­u­lat­ing Bran­don Beach. 
• Jon Ossoff kicked off his ral­ly this week­end. This is our next oppor­tu­ni­ty to right a wrong and put a repub­li­can back in DC for the GA US Sen­ate seat. There is some­thing wrong that there is a cer­tain group that wants to divide the base for 2026. Josh McK­oon the chair­man of the GOP will tell you that he wants to uni­fy the GOP but he will lead the way in the fight­ing. 
• The GA leg­isla­tive ses­sion has 6 days left. Today is com­mit­tee hear­ing day. There are a lot of peo­ple that are pay­ing atten­tion to the bills.
• We are only a cou­ple of weeks from the log jam in the announce­ments in the repub­li­can par­ty. 
• SB144 upset a lot of peo­ple. The roundup bill. The only thing we can do is ask Gov­er­nor Kemp to veto this. He may not sign it and if he leaves it on his desk after a cer­tain amount of time it auto­mat­i­cal­ly becomes law. You should let lead­er­ship know that we are ask­ing Gov­er­nor Kemp to veto the bill. They need to see the pow­er of the peo­ple. This is not a hill that Kemp will die on. This is not a bill that he was 100% behind. 
• The GOP is going every­thing to get the estab­lish­ment to take over the 9th dis­trict. Bri­an Park­er is the past chair of the Banks Coun­ty GOP. Stephen Aaron is a polit­i­cal groupie, and has always had a polit­i­cal job. In the 9th dis­trict the estab­lish­ment is try­ing to take over the dis­trict. IF Stephen Aaron is not MAGA, not Amer­i­ca First and it may be the last hope for con­ser­v­a­tive 9th dis­trict. Ask Stephen Aaron if he vot­ed for Nik­ki Haley in the pri­ma­ry? Watch for his facial expres­sions. And if thought that uni­fy­ing the par­ty would be that Trump would have Haley as VP. 
• Go to the repub­li­can women of Hall coun­ty meet­ing this com­ing thurs­day to hear the update from Gar­land Favorito on where we are at in elec­tion secu­ri­ty in GA. In GA we are hop­ing to remove GA from the ERIC sys­tem and hope­ful­ly this will clean up our vot­er rolls sys­tems. There are many that have been work­ing on elec­tion secu­ri­ty in GA. We are hop­ing to move some of the elec­tion pow­er from the sec­re­tary of state office and into the State Elec­tion Board. Third we could have paper bal­lots, we had SB303 and it did not make crossover. It is under­stood that por­tions of SB303 could be attached to a bill and we could get paper bal­lots in GA. There is a com­mit­tee hear­ing tomor­row at room 307 at 1pm under the Gold Dome. Tomor­row is not the day to go to the SOS office with your phone and post all the things you dis­like about Kemp or Raf­fensperg­er. Tomor­row is the day to go to the com­mit­tee hear­ing. We do not want an emp­ty seat in the meet­ing.