Senate Chamber

With the Baltimore coach, and he will wear spats. And if you don't know what spats are, they tape your ankle and the shoe together. And you look mighty spodily when you're running the ball and you score and touchdown. Well, when I went to Tuskegee, I called myself going to play quarterback. The trainer for the football team was my homeboy.

And he told me, he said, man, don't do that. The coach told me to pick up your stuff after practice. I went to the coach and say, coach, I can't go back home. He said, what you mean? I said, I can't go back.

He said, well, what you gonna do? I said, let me play defensive back. We had a star running back by the name of Ralph Jenkins, all SIC. He had a pulling guard by the name of Chuck Robinson from Mississippi, weighed about two sixty, ran a four seven forty. That day at practice, they ran a sweep.

I hit the guy that was weighing two sixty, spin the round, and hit the running back, and drove him over to the bleachers. We used to practice on the baseball field, saying Coach jumped up in the air blowing the whistle and said, Man, you're about to kill my running back. I said, Coach, you finna cut me. He said, Come up in my office after practice. I went up to his office, and he gave me a full ride to play football.

And he gave and he gave me a full ride to play football. While I was in school in 1969, I had a professor by the name of Ninjaka. He was African. Conner, you fall in Alabama. And while I was down there.

And while I was down there. And while I was down there. And while I was down there. And while I was down there. And while I And while I was down there, trying to get folks to sign up and register to be voters, somebody shot a gun.

They were in a pickup truck. Almost got loot. The book shots and stuff hit the side of the house while I was standing up there on the porch. Got back to Tuskegee. And we were having elections in Alabama.

There was a guy by the name of Fred Gray who was a lawyer, and there was a guy by the name of Thomas Reed who owned what we call the chicken coop. We used to go in the middle of the night to get some chicken and come back to the dome. We used to go in the middle of the night night to get some chicken and come back to the dome. Grey one and read laws. I took the book, put it up under my coat and went back to Tuskegee.

And we had them to look at it. And so they had a special election. And Reed ran as an independent one. So they became the first two black state legislators in Alabama. Now, I say all of that to tell most of you.

The thought of my little finger will bust your head wide open. You come to Atlanta, Georgia. FBI. Take all the voters list. Because the president said he won the election in Georgia.

That a lot of you in here support. You don't see it out loud. But you supporting him because he couldn't do what he's doing unless he had your support. And so what I said to many of you, get some intestinal fortitude. You don't have to be a democrat.

You work.

His money don't affect you. You send him money. That's how he win the election and pay all the lawyers that he's got defending him. Epstein files, he's smart now. He do everything and start something way in the news every day about something else except the Epstein file.

Now, most of us in here assume, Now, most of us in here assume what Trump already know. Messing with them young girls. And many of you in here got daughters. Had it been your daughter, I know what you would have done. You'd have had his head.

Here's a criminal being convicted and ran as president to stay out of jail. To stay out of jail does not follow the law. Ice agents everywhere. That is to intimidate folks and keep them from voting and change the narrative of the Epstein files to something else. But here's a man that cares nothing about the law.

The justice department does what Trump tell him to do. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm a democrat. Ain't no question about it. But I do have some dignity. And as I said before, Donald Trump gets into the pants the same way David Lucas getting his.

One leg at a time. But yet it's still you come and bring this because he's trying to prove at the last election that he lost was a farce. Secretary of State. I give the governor credit. They said there was nothing wrong with Georgia elections.

Then Trump talked about the governor and his wife. He talked about them. But what we've got to do in this body, in this body that I serve in with you, He take you out. Y'all remember they got it. What we're about to do is allow Donald Trump to be Putin.

When you talk about ice agents, killing folks, that's what Putin does when he has our position. He He take you out. Y'all remember the guy that was going toward Russia, and Putin stopped him. And the next thing you know, he got blew up in the airplane. Being a dictator is what dictators do.

Evidently, many of y'all forgot about January 6. I saw it on television. And you're I saw it on television, and you trying to tell me I didn't see what I saw. And then when he becomes president, he pardoned all the thugs because they did his bidding. And yet y'all bring this to this body about give him all the information.

For what? So they could come and intimidate folks, get their names, because that's what they do. You're scared. Stop being scared. If you're scared, y'all not to run for office.

We need folks who will stand up. That's why you got protests all across the country about this president. He's a criminal. That's what he is, amongst other things that they keep talking about. And he's in it.

They just redacting everything where his name come up because he's the head of the party. Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me say this to you. Get some guts. Get some guts. Do the right thing.

That's how you get elected. Many of y'all are worried about the coming up elections and how folks gonna vote. But most of them thinking like me. I don't care who it is as long as it's a democrat. You find that out in the public service commission election.

You know, we went to court on that and the judge ruled against us because we tried to draw districts on that. We're tired. And we gonna fight. We are tired, and we gonna fight for what's right. And so to all of you and all my colleagues in here, get some instant get some pull up in you.

Don't let Donald Trump call you and tell you to do something and you ask him how high. Get some intestinal fortitude. Represent the people that you are elected by. They are concerned about the grocery bill. How they gonna pay the house load?

How they gonna pay the car load? How they gonna see about the children? And here we are in the Georgia senate playing partisan politics and acquiesce to a tyrant, a dictator, a A person who doesn't even care about the law. He's trying to see how far he can go. And what you're gonna do about it.

And that's the reason you see all these protests across the country. Across the country. Not in little small rural counties but in big cities. Little cities. Folks who stay on the ocean.

Folks who stay at the great lakes. Don't Don't come up and tell the folks what you did. When Trump said jump, you jump. Be men and women with some intestinal fortitude to do the right thing.

Alright. Senator's yielded. We're gonna have a senator from the second.

Thank you, mister president. This morning, colleagues, we've got senate resolution five sixty three, which is an urging resolution. And I would like to highlight that that's all it does is it urges. But I want to talk for a few moments about what it's actually urging. It's urging the secretary of state to comply with the quest of the United States Department of Justice to securely produce Georgia's voter registration list in compliance with Georgia's obligations under the National Voting Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1916 for other purposes.

But the problem is, what it's urging and saying in one part of this resolution is a juxtaposition because the resolution is asking the secretary of state to violate the law. Why? Because in OCGA 21 dash two dash two two five and OCGA 21 dash two dash two one nine, it restricts how voter data and information is to be shared. And I've sat in ethics committee meetings and been at 7AM. They've been at five.

They've been at 7PM. In fact, mister president, I got promoted on the committee and showed up to be the secretary. And I've been in these hearings and understanding that Eric and how we maintain lists. And one of the reasons we don't maintain our list with the state of Florida is because they've got a full sunshine law. And that they transmit their voter information by not obscuring the Social Security numbers, but by displaying those social security numbers.

However, Georgia law does not allow us to share information in that manner. And so since we can't share information, that's why we don't use the state of Florida to maintain our voter rolls and compare our data to theirs, because of how we protect folks information. Now when we talk about this resolution asking the secretary of state to comply, well, we'd have to change state law in order for that compliance to occur. We'd have to allow for the unredacted version of folks personal sensitive information to be made public. And I don't know about you, but I've got information that's online, but I don't want my social security number to be online.

I don't want my information in the wrong hands because it's your personal information. Somebody can buy a house. They can take out a loan. They can do whatever if they got your social security number. But when we talk about how we access this information and how we should share, then maybe this body should have prescribed the man in which we would determine how we would do that.

But then I also read in this resolution where we talked about the NVRA and the HAVA, and that it states the responsibilities. I wanna be clear colleagues, the NVRA and the HAVA do not give the Department of Justice an unlimited right to demand full voter files in any format at any time. And so now we say the Georgia secretary has refused to comply with multiple requests for this information in full and that is absolutely correct because he is abiding by Georgia law. And so refusal to comply is not because somebody doesn't want to comply. It's because we have laws that say you can't do that.

Now, when we talk about how folks break laws and how things go and if they were so corrupt, well, we spent a lot of time investigating Fonnie Willis, but we didn't spend any time investigating Brad Raffensperger. We could have done a special subpoena the same way you did there if it was serious enough. We've had time to do this since 2020 if we were serious about it. But this is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to make a political point that does not need to be made, but it's about protecting folks' information. And I wanna be clear, the federal government does not run run election administrations, neither does the president.

States run elections. And if we were serious about how elections would be run-in the security, then we wouldn't have an unelected, unaccountable board making decisions about elections. We don't put people on the pension board that can't count. So why do we have people on the election board that don't know anything about elections and how to administer them? How the process should work.

If anything, we should have registrars and county boards of elections to be on the board to go through the technical intricacies of our voting system if we were serious about it. Not political appointees or hack jobs, but this unelected unaccountable board. And if we were serious about it, we would put them on the ballot then. We would make a constitutional amendment to empower them because right now, in that little small book on my desk, elections and the manner in which the information is tabulated and process comes to the secretary of state, that's a constitutional officer. And I read in that same small rectangular book that said the secretary of state was a constitutional officer.

Not under the jurisdiction of this body, but this urgent resolution is just theater and performance at best. And so while we may want to, urge the Secretary of State, so I ask you the question, if you vote yes on this, are you urging the Secretary of State to violate Georgia law? Because that is the question that I'll leave you with and that's the juxtaposition of what is absolutely fundamentally right and what is fundamentally wrong. And miss president, I yield the well. I'm concerned about the soul of America and the soul of our democracy, but I will say this, what a tangled web we weave when we seek to deceive.

And with that, mister president, I yield the web. Alright.

From the second, I don't worry about your soul. I can tell you that. Finally, you went you almost went to preaching on this right there. I like it. Right now, it's from the six.

Well, mister president, ladies and gentlemen, I ain't no preacher, and I don't have help to write speeches. So I pulled out my little AI app, and I put in write me a two minute speech on accountability versus hypocrisy. And it was interesting what I what came out. Very interesting. I'm gonna read it to you.

It's so interesting. It starts with ladies and gentlemen, Today, I want to discuss the crucial contrast between accountability and hypocrisy. Two concepts that influence our personal lives, our workplaces, and society as a whole. Accountability is the foundation of trust and integrity. It means acknowledging our responsibilities and being answerable for our actions.

When we hold ourselves accountable, we foster an environment of honesty and growth. For instance, a leader who openly admits a project fail contribute to success. In contrast, hypocrisy, it undermines trust. It erodes relationships. It's the act of claiming to uphold certain values while failing to live by them.

Think of a public figure. Now I ad libbed a little bit of this. I'm a admit to that. Think of a public figure advocating for law enforcement while engaging in harmful rhetoric over previous weeks, months, and years toward law enforcement, or telling my party we should be holding our party accountable, yet not word one word from them about three house members from their party being investigated and charged with pandemic unemployment fraud. And here we are today, Republicans holding our party accountable.

We're doing what you've asked us to do, but that's still not good enough. This misalignment of ideas leads to disillusionment and cynicism, damaging credibility and discouraging those who looked up to them. The impact of accountability versus hypocrisy extends beyond individuals. In our communities, accountability can drive social progress while hypocrisy perpetuates injustice. Political leaders who promise reforms but fail to deliver create a disconnect that breeds distrust among citizens.

So how can we navigate between these two? Self reflect. Regularly assess our actions against our values. Two, encourage open dialogue. Create environments where people feel safe expressing their thoughts like we are today.

Lead by example. Model accountability in your own actions. And number four, demand integrity. Advocate for ethical practices and challenge hypocrisy. In conclusion, embracing accountability and cultivates a culture of trust and connection, while hypocrisy leads to disconnection.

Together, let's commit to being accountable and making a meaningful impact in our lives and in our communities. Now that was all done, probably stored in a data center that may or may not get a tax credit. Ladies and gentlemen, today's about accountability. Is it a statement? Yes.

It's last week. There was nothing wrong with it the week before, and there's nothing wrong with it the week before. And there's nothing wrong with it the week before. There was nothing wrong with it the week before, and there's nothing wrong with it today. Thank you, mister president.

I yield well.

Alright. Thank you, senator. Reagan has fourteenth. You have the minority report. Correct?

Soon from thirty ninth.

Thank you, mister president, and good afternoon again, colleagues. So I rise to speak in opposition to SR five sixty three, and I do so with seriousness because this resolution is being offered at a moment of real uncertainty and heightened concern. This resolution is presented as a review of voter rolls and election records, and let me say from the start that maintaining accurate voter rolls is important. Confidence in our elections depends on clear, transparent, and lawful processes for list maintenance, and Georgia already has those processes. Our state has existing laws that govern how voter roles are updated, how inactive voters are handled, how challenges are reviewed, and how local election officials manage those responsibilities.

Those systems operate every day under state law, under federal law, and under established procedures. SR five sixty three does not improve those systems. It does not propose new standards. It does not add resources or clarity to the work local election officials are already required to do. Instead, it layers on an additional political exercise that duplicates processes already in place and ignores allowing current questions to proceed through the courts.

And colleagues, we cannot ignore the context of last week. Not only am I a resident of Fulton County, but I serve as the chair of the Fulton County delegation in this body. Reports of the FBI activity connected to the Fulton County Elections Hub and offices have raised serious procedural questions, particularly when materials are removed from local custody and taken out of the control and state of the officials responsible for administering our elections to who knows where. When records, equipment, or voter files are seized in bulk, 700 boxes at a time, issues of chain of custody, handling, and access are not minor details. They go directly to transparency, public confidence, and the reliability of any conclusions that may later be drawn.

And I wanna pause here so we can remember that Georgia has dedicated professionals whose job it is to maintain accurate voter lists, Republicans and Democrats, lawyers and administrators, career civil servants who do this work quietly every day. The processes aren't glamorous and they don't make headlines, but they are how elections actually function. And those professionals need stability and clarity, not additional political crossfire. In that context, this resolution is simply not the right tool for this moment. It asked this body to conduct a parallel review of voter rolls at the very time new uncertainties have been introduced through

the actions of the DOJ

through the FBI, not by evidence DOJ through the FBI, not by evidence presented to us, but by the manner in which those materials were removed from local control. Oversight has a role, but it must be practical and forward looking. This resolution does not clarify what happened last week. It does not resolve the questions created by those actions, and it does not strengthen confidence in how voter lists will be maintained going forward. Instead, it adds additional political heat to an already unsettled situation without improving transparency, accountability, or election administration.

And I'll add this, It also does nothing to address the issues people are dealing with right now. While we debate processes that already exist, the people we represent are living in the present. They are facing higher grocery prices, rising rents and mortgages, escalating insurance costs, health care that's harder to access, child care that feels out of reach. They are asking us plainly to focus on affordability and stability in their everyday lives. SR five sixty three does not help address those concerns.

And given the unresolved questions raised by recent actions of the FBI, it does not provide a constructive or responsible path for oversight at this time. Let the courts who are already working through these decisions figure it out and do their work. For those reasons, mister president, I do not believe this resolution moves the state forward, and I cannot support it. Thank you. I yield the well.

Thanks, senator. Reagan on the senators from 37th.

Thank you, mister president. Legislative summit, rise today in support of senate resolution five sixty three. And I wanna echo the words of the senator from the twenty second, who said that context matters. Context does in fact matter. And what this resolution is about is about transparency.

When the author of this resolution stood here about a half hour ago and talked about how important it is to share everything, he shared a personal example of how under investigation, with a broad number of people, he handed over everything, even personal messages. He has nothing to hide. Ladies

and gentlemen,

the senate, I proposed to you that Georgia should have nothing to hide. And with this resolution, we're making sure Georgia hides nothing from full public transparency. I personally, stand in a place, and I'd like to thank vice president Mike Pence for his bold and stand on January 6 certifying the two thousand twenty election. That's where I stand. I stand with with vice president Mike Pence because given the information they had at the time, the timelines they had to certify election, that was the bold, high integrity move.

I stand there with many Republicans in in making that statement. That's where I am today, with integrity and transparency. But I stand in support of senate resolution five sixty three because this is a resolution truly about transparency. Now those who are watching this online or here present with us in the senate chamber have heard some attacks on this. You know, these senators can bring their own perspective, and they would avert their conscience as they see it.

But if you read the words, the words on the page of senate senate resolution five sixty three, this is a resolution of transparency. Now there may be an effort to twist and contort what that all means. There may be an effort to try to reframe this through some other words. Don't be deceived by that, though. Read the words on the page.

And read the efforts of this senate in asking our secretary of state to share information with federal investigators. He should do that because I asked the question, if we have only valid voters in our system, what's there to hide? It's very important. As a state, if we have voters in our system that are not valid, who wouldn't want to know that? Would interests not wanna know what interest would not wanna know if there were voters they're invalidly registered to vote in voting in our state, who would wanna who would wanna hide that?

Who would stand to gain from that? This resolution makes it clear for everybody that Georgia has nothing to hide. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the most important principles of our election system from our perspective is the state control of elections. State control of elections. I reject the premise that the federal government ought to have to come in and take over our elections.

It's an important part of our compound republic. Why is this why is this resolution so important to that? Because if we can't share openly what we do here, if we can't share our voted data openly for anyone in the nation to inspect that has access to this information. As as the as the author said, this is not being shared to the public. This is gonna be law enforcement people who will guy who will guard personal information, social security numbers.

There's there's not a concern about that. They've already got that information. But if we can't share openly our voter data, I fear that someday, some real tyrant, some true tyrant's gonna come in and try to nationalize our election system, saying the states can't be trusted. The states can't maintain their local lists. And somehow, someday, the federal government might come in and in a true active tyranny, try to take elections away from our states.

In my opinion, in my belief, to maintain the integrity of state control of elections, having transparency of who who are registered voters are is paramount to maintaining that state level independence. And that is paramount to me, and that's paramount to the voters from Senate District 37. Ladies and gentlemen, this is an issue of integrity of voter data. List maintenance is in question, and I think Georgia has nothing to hide. I stand I ask every member of this body to stand with transparency, to stand with the perspective where we should share our voter lists with valid government entities to make sure there's nothing wrong with the data because we have nothing to hide.

Share the voter list. We have nothing to hide. Share the Epstein list. We have nothing to hide. Then we can stand together.

This legislature ought to be about sharing information publicly. Because if we care about the voters back in our district, they wanna see transparency. They don't wanna have people trying to hide the ball, trying to hide behind their positions and point fingers about things. They want transparency of public voter data because if voters are rushing to vote in Georgia, they're not valid. Their vote is undermined.

Their vote is compromised. Friends, this is a voting rights state. This is a state we've cared deeply about the integrity of our elections we've had. We've had a lot of attention over the years. I'm proud that this senate stands with openness and integrity, not trying to hide the ball from anybody, not trying to play games.

And I think the secretary of state, should follow federal law. This is not a federal takeover. In my opinion, transparency protects the long term integrity of state control of our elections, and that's why senate resolution five sixty three stands with transparency and integrity. That's what I stand for. That's the context in which I support this, not the bogus narratives that you've heard from some some of our members.

That may be why they're opposing it, but the only reason I support it is for transparency so that all voters can see that the work Georgia's been doing and that we're committed to an open, fair election system for all no matter where you come from, no matter what you look like, no matter what your ZIP code is, or no matter who you vote for. With that, mister president, yield the will.

Alright. Thank you, senator. Senator from the second, what purpose do you rise?

State your inquiry. Mister president, did the heating bill suffer laps in appropriations for anything the senator of the nineteenth may or May not have done, in this icebox in the chamber?

So you're saying you're a little cold,

Frostbitten as president.

Well, the senator from the '19 is is known for being a cold hearted individual. So he he might he might just turned him turned on the temperature thermostat. Senator from the ninth. And Senator from the ninth, and then we'll have the minority report. And then, hopefully, we'll finish up here.

Oh, we might make me out of here. Eat lunch. Right? Thank you, mister president. I rise today in opposition of SR five sixty three and echoing some of the sentiments of my colleagues have already brought forward to this body.

Here we are on legislative day 10, and this is where my Republican colleagues wanna waste time. While Georgians are waiting for us to prioritize things that really matter. While their needs lay by the wayside, this is day 10 of what we're dealing with. Not any real legislation. An urging resolution which is non binding by the way.

No legislation to move the needle on any of the priorities that Georgians care about. I know this wasn't on any top of the list that my constituents set up to interfere with our elections here is George in Georgia. As we know, Georgia, all eyes are already on always on us. Clearly, we run rent free in Trump's mind. But let's follow this path.

It was to first, Trump asking our secretary of state to release those voter that voter data. Was that last month? Then this week, we had the raid I mean, last week, we had the raid on the Fulton County election office. Prior to that in 2021, we had a bill, a voter registration I mean, a voter bill. I call it an anti voting bill that gave power to an election board of a majority of Republicans to basically go after unperforming counties, county elections, county election boards.

So it's no coincidence that now we have a raid last week on Fulton County. We don't know we know it the bunch of data was taken, but why was it taken? It wasn't about transparency. Caught everybody off guard. So why?

So I want y'all to follow here what's happening. Here's the set up to start interfering in Georgia elections and republicans in this body should be concerned. They wanna sit up here and talk about transparency. And we need to trust, you know, our election process. But right happening in in our faces, the Trump administration is setting up to interfere with our twenty twenty six elections.

Don't get it don't get swayed by that. So we have this petty resolution that we're dealing with today. And I wanna be clear, the secretary of state is doing his job. He's protecting our data. He said no.

He's an elected official that is given the authority to protect our data and run our elections. And he's remained clear that that is exactly what he's doing. And it's funny how the alleged winner of 2024 wants to look back to 2020. It's absurd. He can't accept that losing 2020 like he did he can't accept the loss.

And now we keep relitigating it. And voters are paying attention. And I think the more this stays out here, people are gonna start waking up and Trump is gonna be responsible for some republican losses in this next election because Georgians aren't happy with these policies. They see what's happening. So I I I I find it interesting that Republicans in this body are cosigning on the possible interference.

The FBI raiding Fulton County election office is just one more alarming terrifying escalation from this failing administration of a wannabe king deflecting from his economic failures. People care about groceries prices going up right now. People care about housing. People care about being priced out of their health care. And yet, we have not dealt with one bill in this body to deal with any of those issues that people are asking us to to to make a priority.

State law is clear about what voter data can and cannot be disclosed. And there is no exception to that law because Donald Trump said so. If Donald Trump wants Georgia's Georgia voters personal information, that's too bad because presidents have to follow the law like everyone else. I'm asking everyone in this body, including my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, as I as you know, my senator colleague has said, find some courage. I know y'all are following orders.

But sometimes you have to think, what's really happening here? Would you be okay if they walked up in your county and start stealing your voter files without you knowing about it? Let's start looking at Coffee County. That might be where we really need to go and do some investigations because that's really the only alleged voter fraud that we know we have evidence that prob that happened. Why isn't that county getting raided?

But here we are, raiding Fulton County, as we all know is the largest one of our largest counties. And the move here is to delegitimize the authority of that county's board of elections to run their elections and find cause to interfere with 2026. Pay attention folks. What we should be doing is queuing up some lawsuits because it's happening right in front of our faces. The interference in our elections.

I'm urging no today not to protect any party and this shouldn't even be partisan, but it's to protect Georgia law. Georgia voters is to protect our Georgia voters and the integrity of our elections going forward. With that, mister president, I yield well.

Senator has yielded Right now, the center from thirty fifth.

Alright. Alright. Thank you, mister president. I stand in opposition to s r five sixty three. And in an effort to be clear eyed and principle based, it is my hope that a democratic president that if a democratic president, say, a president Obama or president Biden, if one of their administrations kinda leaned on our constitutional officers here in Georgia, leaned on them to find the votes, if a democratic president, say Obama or Biden, went around the country and around the world denying the election results from 2020.

If a president Obama or president Biden's administration raided one of our county's, voter ballots, I'd like to think that I'd have the courage to also say no in that circumstance. Integrity demands it. This is an exercise that I welcome all of you to, which I'm sure you have. We would just say it as simple as if the shoe was on the other foot. How would you vote?

And that can help us know how to vote in these type of situations. It is my hope that we aren't we are not blinded by power, echo chambers, and group think. It is my hope that we move with not the word integrity, but actual integrity. That also means that it's going to come back and be a challenge for us when a shoe is on the other foot. It is my hope that my fellow Democrats will see things the same way when we have to make a hard decision to vote that out of line with some heavy hitters in our

own

party, that's when we'll see what we're made of. That's when we'll see what we're made of. God is not mocked. I yield the will.

Alright. Senator from the fourteenth. Oh, Senator from the fifty fifth, you have your question light on. Are you wanting to speak in the well?

I want to speak in the well.

Alright. Come on. The well is yours.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Auguste Barre, mister president. I rise in opposition to five sixty three, hopefully as no surprise. I rise because I am troubled by our nation and where we are. If I have to stand, as many that look like me who have been kissed by the sun have become the conscience of this nation to do what is right, I welcome the opportunity to stand, and I wanna say that I rise simply because I did not really wanna get up here. But as I as I look, I don't want it to be said that I stood by when someone is quoting the Civil Rights Act of 1960 for the proposition of reversing history.

This is preposterous. If you look at what was happening in 1960 when I was walking down the street with my grandmother in Griffin, Georgia, when little when people on the back of a pickup truck screamed out and hurled some words that I didn't even understand as a little kid. And I said, who is this disrespecting my grandmother calling her an in? Get off the road. This is what was happening in 1960 right down the street right here.

I was not no one of my color was in here. And you were gonna quote the 1960 Civil Rights Act to take my Voting Rights Act away and me sit down and be comfortable with it? I'm telling you. This is nineteen eighty eighty four when you can when it rains down into when you're doing something called urine and calling it rain, that we can't stand by like that. So the in 1960, it was to strengthen voting rights acts, not to take voting away.

In 1960, we we were trying to help people vote. And here we are saying we are helping people vote by taking voting a right a way to intimidate people. There is a system to get data. Can you imagine is this I'm saying am I in Russia now? Does democracy stand for something?

You are gonna forcefully come and threaten people? That's where we are. We have people living in fear. My colleagues telling me they are afraid that someone's gonna primary them if they stand for what's right. That's what we have evolved to.

So I'm urging you to not obstruct, to facilitate America being great. Make America great means something. Means there are people fighting, dying in the water to get to this country because they see it as a beacon of fate, of hope for an American dream. Let that dream remain something. Rome did not die because of external forces.

It was internal forces. And this is too dangerously too dangerously like Nazi Germany when people refused to stand for what was right. As I quoted the other day, the pastor who said, when the socialist when they came for the socialist, I did not stand up. When they came for the unionists, I didn't stand up. When they came for the Jew, I did not stand up.

And then when I finally when they came for me, there was no one to to stand for me. And I'm saying to you, I'm pleading for you. Whether it means anything or not, I want you to think about where we are headed in this country. Doctor King said it. Are we gonna live together?

Are we go I mean, really, we are shooting holes in our own boat. We are no longer number one in in in literacy in America in the world. Our students are not being able to compete with people in places we can't even pronounce. Is this truly America? Yes.

I stand because we are quoting laws designed to make voting easier and manipulating it to make people afraid to vote, manipulating it to have an excuse to come in in 2026 and try to take over our elections. I never thought it could happen. I never thought that the federal government, which was to protect us, would now be the instigator of taking our rights away. Because in 2026, some people are afraid of the results. We are there now.

And there were some people that looked like me who didn't wanna vote for a woman who stayed at home. Look at the look at the numbers. And I'm a call out people that look like me, call black men. I I didn't stand up here to say this, but I'm a say it and you can get on me later. If black men had voted at the same level that they voted in 2020 when they put Biden in, when they elected the first person of Jewish descent to the senate, when they elected the first African American to the senate, Warnock, if they voted at the same level, just at the same level as the population grow in 2024, the election would not have been the same and we wouldn't Georgia would not have gone the way it went.

It would not have been him trying to convince someone to give him 11,790 votes. It would not. Why? Because young African men get this message, my men who are kissed by the sun, those 50 and under who did vote in 2020. If you wanna look at the numbers, they did vote in 2020, and we elected those people.

But in 2024, only 70% of men of African descent even voted again. Not talking about the ones that were not registered. Not talking about the one who were registered and did not vote. I'm telling you, only 70% of the ones who did vote in 2020 came back and voted in 2024 on an election decided by a 115,000 votes. Why is this all relevant?

2020, let's get it's six years later, and we're debating over and trying to justify taking an election in 2026 about what happened in 2020. Look at the numbers. If African American men came out last year, he wouldn't have won this time. So I stand because we can't call it civil rights and take away rights. We can't take it, help America vote, and help America not vote.

We can't double speech it. Thank you, mister president, because we need to strengthen voting rights. I hear there's something across the hall. First time I heard about it today. Again, trying to take my voting rights.

Why? Federal oversight was to protect voters. Now it's raiding voting voters. Of federal government that people are afraid of. That's what we've evolved to.

I'm calling on people of real faith who really believe to come and take your country back because we're in trouble. We're in trouble because some of you you will vote for this, but I urge you, go take a cup of coffee. Thank you. And yield the well.

Thank you, senator. Senator's yielded. Recognize the senator from 34th. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, senator.

Recognize senator from the pro tem.

Thank you, mister president. It's been some vigorous debate here today. We've got a lot of committee meetings scheduled this afternoon, so I would respectfully call the question.

Yes, sir. I, I think this was the last speaker here. Senator, you wave. You wave. Okay.

Alright. So and we're about to call a previous question as it is. So, we'll call the previous question, then we'll hear the minority report, then we'll hear the the senator, the author of the bill, will fill close debate, and then we'll be ready to vote, senator. So thank you. You had the minority report closed closed debate.

Thank you, mister president. I appreciate the office of the secretary of the senate for helping me with this visual aid. On your desks this morning, you found this very rudimentary chart that I've provided for all the senators today. And I'll just in just in a second, I'll get into what this chart means. But the the first observation I have today is

that,

you know, we all would like to imagine what we would have done under certain circumstances, whether it's historical events or maybe it's the story, the emperor's new clothes. When we read that story in elementary school or middle school, we thought how ridiculous is it that there's a emperor who's naked and everybody in the royal court is pretending that the emperor has clothes. But I think when you live through modern times like this, you get a much better appreciation for the types of social pressures that could convince a group of very serious people with badges and pins and ties or formal attire, to to lie about what their own eyes are seeing right in front of them. So let's start with the truth, and let me be very blunt and blunt in a way that I don't think any speaker heretofore has been. The reason that senate resolution five sixty three is on the floor is because the president of this chamber, who is, standing about six feet behind me, is running in a primary against secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to be held on May 19 to determine the Republican nominee for governor of the state of Georgia.

And that's the only reason that this senate resolution is on the floor. Now that reason is complicated because it bears with it threads of other reasons that flow through it, such as Donald Trump is a narcissist who is still obsessed with the results of the twenty twenty election in Georgia. And his obsession runs so deep that it's 2026 and we haven't stopped talking about it. What that means for our state politics is that anybody who is a loyal Trump follower or acolyte is required to carry water for Donald Trump in every way that he sees fit. And in this election, that means continuing the baseless conspiracy theory claims that the twenty twenty election was somehow stolen or that Fulton County somehow had, quote, unquote, suitcases of ballots.

The FBI raid that we saw is an outcropping of this. This resolution is an outcropping of this. And it all it does is pit the senate Republicans in this chamber against Brad Raffensperger for purposes of primary politics. That's 100 all that it does. And I think that most people in here and the people in the anc room and who are checking their phone over on this side as well, are pretty tired of the normal political talking points on both sides of this issue.

Because we've heard them a million times, not just today, but we've been hearing them since 2020. We're very dug in in terms of the the political narratives that are being used to describe the situation. So I thought it would be best to go to psychology one zero one when it comes to narcissism. You're familiar with the DSM, which describes clinical conditions that you can be diagnosed with. Clinical really just meaning it interferes with your daily life.

Right? All of us are a little bit egotistical and narcissistic when push comes to shove, but if you have narcissistic personality disorder, NPD, it means that you are clinically diagnosable. Now, I do not have training, as a psychologist and I'm not qualified, from a distance to diagnose the president Donald Trump as a malignant narcissist. But let's

just assume, let's suspend your disbelief for a moment and pretend

that Donald Trump is narcissist with narcissistic personality disorder. In that case, I would humbly submit to you that Donald Trump functions somewhat like a parent to elected Republicans. I say somewhat because, obviously, you all have your own parents. You came from families loving or not. You've walked a long path professionally and personally to become members of the Georgia State Senate.

And so I'm not saying that Donald Trump is literally your daddy. What I am saying though is that for political hierarchical purposes, he functions much like your father. In the sense that if he says something and you don't comply with it, there's a risk that your basic needs as an elected will not be met. Think about that from the family context. Right?

If a parent says this is the way it goes and the child says no, I'm not okay with that, the risk always looming in the background is that the basic security and provision of needs that that parent provides will somehow be taken away. I think there's an easy analogy to be made that in the elected republican world, Donald Trump provides your basic needs at this point in history. Or at the very least, he could take them away. He could threaten you by targeting you like the eye of Sauron, like a laser to to put on truth social or on Twitter, you know, senator from the thirtieth. You've been very bad, and I'm gonna laser you and make sure that you get a primary opponent that is supported by Donald Trump.

We have seen this time and time again. The Republicans have been terrified to cross Trump because their basic needs might be undermined as elected officials. And I'll say more on that in a second because I think we need to unpack what your basic needs are as Republican elected officials and how Donald Trump actually is threatening them more than protecting them. But the literature is very clear. There are three basic types of adult children of narcissistic parents.

So what I'm talking about is in the family context, when you're raised with a narcissistic parent, there are three personality types that develop among the kids who have the unfortunate circumstance of being stuck in that environment. They are the golden child, the scapegoat, and the invisible child. I'll go ahead and cover the invisible child quickly because we should get them out of the way. They are invisible after all. The invisible child is the person who doesn't really fit the narcissist narrative about what's happening in the family.

They're not useful to the narcissist. Because, see, for the narcissist, everything's about them. Right? For the narcissist, they don't care about the needs of other people. All they care about is making sure that their very narrowly defined needs are met.

The NPD diagnosis has nine characteristics that float around quickly. Grandiose sense of self importance. Right? It's the best. It's gonna be the best you've ever seen.

Right? Frequent fantasies about having or deserving. I don't know. Greenland, for example. Belief in superiority.

Need for admiration. My inauguration crowd was the biggest of all time. Entitlement. I can shut down the Kennedy Center for two years. I can re, you know, destroy the East Wing of the White House and put up gold gilded BS all over the the the Oval Office.

Number six, willingness to exploit others. Every single business deal that Donald Trump did before he became president and all the ways his family has personally benefited, you know, see Jared Kushner, from his time in office. Seven, lack of empathy, saying that that places are s hole countries, and and, you know, saying that, you know, Baltimore is a is a crap hole or whatever. You know, just the absolute disregard for the human beings that live in cities of The United States. Frequent envy.

Greenland again. And also, why didn't I get the Nobel Peace Prize? I would like the Nobel Peace Prize. And nine is arrogance. Patronizing behavior, behaving the way that's snobby or disdainful.

I don't know. Like having cabinet level officials buy new shoes because their shoes weren't good enough. Do you hear JD Vance crow about this? He was gleeful. Right?

That Donald Trump forced his guys to buy new shoes because of the optics of their shoes. This is the president of The United States folks that we're talking about. So I would say, even without a psychology degree, I feel fairly comfortable diagnosing Donald Trump as a narcissist from a distance. So now let's talk about you. My favorite topic here, always talking about you, senate Republicans.

If you are smart politically, if you are in line with the president's plans for his own election to the office of governor, which I think almost all of you are I remember there were, like, three of you who didn't endorse the president for governor a few months ago, and I remember I texted somebody about that. I thought that was odd, and I was worried about the three of you. But all of you fit the category of golden child. Or at the very least, you're playing the role of golden child. Now you notice the little golden crown.

I did that for in honor of Donald Trump. Right? You know, that's he loves gold. Being the golden child means something child means something very specific relative to the emotional crisis that the narcissist face. The golden child is the reflection of the positive light filled self image that the narcissist has.

I'll say that slightly differently. For the narcissist to cover up his bottomless insecurity, his bottomless sense of low self esteem and low self worth, he must concoct at all times a narrative that he is actually great, awesome. You could imagine like that SNL speech, you know, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me. Right? Your job as senate Republicans who vote for this resolution is to help Donald Trump with this quest.

It's to help him reinforce his positive self image. Now obviously, there's a bunch of leaps that have to happen before you get there. Right? He doesn't like that he lost Georgia. It's a red state.

Right? What a what a smear on his public image that he lost Georgia, of all places, in twenty twenty two cycles ago. Really, really embarrassing stuff. So for you guys, and as Georgia senate republicans, the the highest best use of your lives, your attention spans, your work is to help him fill that self esteem gap, is to make sure that he doesn't have to look in the mirror and see a loser. The scapegoat is Brad Raffensperger.

The scapegoat is the member of the family who was raised to take all the blame for all the things that go wrong in the family. So let's say, for example, that the narcissist in the family setting, you're all going out to to dinner. Right? You've got the parent driving, the kids in the car, and then all of a sudden while you're in the car, the president illegally deposes the leader of Venezuela and abducts him and takes him back to The United States for a trial. Right?

Or let's say while you're in the car on the way to the Olive Garden, the president, raises tariffs arbitrarily that crush small businesses and, you know, cause a lot of economic harm in the country. Now you guys as the golden child aren't a pickle. Right? Because you have to reinforce the positive self image that the narcissist has. But how do you do that when the facts are so bad?

How do you do that when ICE and border patrol are killing people in the streets or terrorists are crushing small businesses? And I go this is just me talking as as Josh now. I go to an event, for a group in Gwinnett County and and the leader of that group, which is you know, represents an immigrant minority community says we were with Kemp, but now we're with Democrats because the tariffs are crushing our small businesses. This is a challenge for you guys. What do you do to reinforce the positive self image of Donald Trump in these circumstances?

Well, on tariffs, it's hard. On ICE, it's hard. Right? I mean, you guys gave came up and gave some fairly circumspect speeches about the ICE or the CBP murder of Alex Petty. You acknowledge we should talk about it.

It's tough. That's because your second amendment folks are getting wedged on that. Right? So, like, that's much tougher. But elections?

You guys are ready to go on elections. That's been one of your favorite punching bags for the last few years. We passed s b two zero two. We secured elections. We made them more you know, have more integrity.

This is easy for you guys. So this is actually a layup. Right? A senate resolution that says, you bad Brad Raffensperger, you scapegoat. Why didn't you overturn the election?

Right? Well, I don't know because it was his job. Nobody in here had the job of certifying those elections. And I think if you guys were backed into a corner, many of you would not have taken the Jody Heiss route. I think many of you would have done the exact same thing.

You would have certified the election results because it's your job and you've got basic self respect. Right? When you look in the mirror and you do your job. Ah, but nobody in here had to do that job. So what did you do?

16 state senators signed a letter that the president of the chamber took to DC. Didn't give it to Mike Pence, did leave it in the Uber, But that letter was a golden child move to say, we've got your back, daddy. We've got your back. We're gonna pretend alongside you that the election was stolen, and we're gonna do tasteful, polite trims on Georgia election law, so that we can corroborate your narrative that something is wrong with these elections. And the scapegoat just gets beat up, man.

Why are you always doing stuff, Brad? You know, the back seat of the car. Right? Come on, Brad. Why aren't you going with the team on this one, Brad?

Right? And y'all hate it. I mean, some of you personally hate this, that Brad Raffensperger was on the cover of Time magazine with his hand up. Right? Like some defender of democracy.

And the fact that there are ladies who live in retirement communities in my district. I I saw them on no king's day. Guess what? They were holding no king signs because they vote democratic and they love Brad Raffensperger. And why?

Because there was a bipartisan consensus that at least at that minimum level, that Brad Raffensperger certified the elections the way he was supposed to because it was his job. And there are a lot of people who appreciate that. Now I'm I'm not endorsing in the primary. I'm not endorsing Brad. I'm not endorsing the president's chamber.

I will be endorsing a Democrat for that race, eventually. But I think it's clear that on the three steps here to freedom you can think of this like three steps to freedom. This is sort of the most trapped part of this cycle on the conveyor belt. Scapegoat is still kinda trapped. Right?

Brad is still stuck in the back seat of the toxic Republican family car. Brad still has to do messaging such as a constitutional amendment to make sure that people can't illegally vote even though that's redundant and it's already in statute. Or Brad Raffensperger supporting s b two zero two, which limited drop box hours and early voting access and created a right for the state to take over local elections because, as Brad determined, that's not that bad. I should just go ahead and sign on to that. It may not make me a full golden child, but at least I can stay within this toxic family and and not get completely kicked out.

Even then, I can maybe run as a Republican. Now, this is not of interest to you guys because you guys wanna keep staying in office. Some of you wanna go to higher offices, but you wanna keep being Republicans. I would humbly submit to you that the invisible child is happiest as a human being. The invisible child doesn't matter to the narcissist, and the narcissist doesn't matter to them.

Now granted, it's it's hard to grow up as the invisible child, Because the invisible child learns the lesson that these other two also learn, which is my needs don't matter. My voice doesn't matter. Only the narcissist matters. I'm gonna say something difficult, but I think it's true and I think you need to hear it. I think that you have told yourselves that you can continue being dignified Republican elected officials who can survive the Trump moment.

It you know, this too shall pass. And you can go back to representing your constituents the way that ideally you're supposed to. We hear a lot in this chamber and in the building about how Georgia's different. We're not DC. We're not caught up in all that partisan hand wringing.

You know, we we can represent our constituents on the ground level. To some extent, I think sometimes that's true. What I think you guys are chronically ignoring is that every day that this gets worse, that becomes less true. Every day that this gets worse, Donald Trump's narcissism becomes your main objective and it becomes the impetus for you to, as I said a few days ago, minimize, destroy your own voices. That is actually the real tragedy of this.

I'll say it again. The destruction of your own voices and your own public consciences is the biggest tragedy in all of this. Georgia's gonna be like, somebody will get elected. Somebody will be governor. The elections, I think, will happen this year.

Although, if Trump thinks he can raid a bunch more local and state offices with the FBI, then some of that will be in question. But assuming the elections happen this year, this too shall pass. We will move on. Donald Trump will will meet some kind of an end in terms of his time in office, and hopefully, we can go back to our normal lives. But the damage that you have done for these last ten years and on days like today to your own voices is gonna be very hard to recover from.

And I wanna name a couple arguments I've heard today that are golden child arguments. I was disappointed, senator from the 37th, to hear that the reason this resolution is harmless is because what do you have to hide? I was on a committee in the house with the senator from the 37th where we addressed sensitive constitutional rights such as the fourth amendment where feds, state government officials can't just knock down your door at your house and take whatever they want. The exact same arguments you heard from the senate from the thirty seventh today could be used to justify limitless search and seizure authority by the federal government to enter homes. Well, if you don't have anything to hide, then what's wrong?

What's the problem with that? So that's not really a robust argument, I think, that that's that gets out of this framework. I think that transparently shows itself to be a golden child argument that serves only one purpose. Or what about the senator from the sixth, the esteemed rules chairman, who ripped out his own voice box and threw it on the ground and replaced it with a machine? I mean, it was funny.

Funny in a quaint or cute sort of way, but not necessarily funny to his constituents who want him to have a spine. To his constituents who want all of us who are elected to come here and actually stand up for what's true and what's real. I thought it was one of the most deeply ironic presentations I've ever seen as a legislator in eight years that he read a chat GPT speech about honesty and accountability. I mean, he literally said, we need to self reflect. I was like, thank you for setting up my therapy talking points, Senator from the six.

We do need to self reflect and be honest. And the machine spat out words like match our actions to our values or have open dialogue or an environment where people feel safe. So if you think this is too snowflake, just consider the the senator from the six robot, which said that we need an environment to genuinely and honestly reflect and that that's the way to serve our constituents the best. Or let's go to the author's comments, senator from the twenty ninth. Going back to that mirror speech, the self affirmations.

I am not a MAGA. I am a conservative Georgia state senator. It has the flavor of protesting too much. If you have to look in the mirror and remind yourself that you're something other than a tool in a narcissist toolbox. So I I genuinely have been impressed over the years with some of the presentations that I've seen by the Republican majority to to alter or distort the real purpose of a bill for public consumption.

But you should read the internet comment section if you haven't been recently. Nobody out there is buying it. Not a single Georgian is gonna buy. That this this resolution has anything to do with anything except for that guy. And as reality starts to close in from all sides electorally, morally, practically, on the failed arguments trying to prop up a narcissist.

You will hear your own voices, the ones you're destroying, ring more hollow. You will hear yourself say things like, your social security number came from the federal government. It's already in the federal government's possession. And let me tell you, if I wanted to white page search you and put sick a private investigator on you, your driver's license, your your date of birth, all that stuff is in the public domain, so sit down and shut up, Georgians. All the constituent emails we got over the last few days about our voter, our sensitive voter information, not wanting it to fall in the hands of the federal government.

All those people, apparently, according to the majority, can sit down and shut up. And there are Republicans who are worried about data privacy too. But the message from Senate Republicans loud and clear today in this chamber is your data privacy doesn't exist. Doesn't exist at all. Because it's already out there, it's already all shot, so why not tickle the narcissist?

You can almost imagine at the back of the car nudging Brad. Come on, Brad. Brad, what what's the deal, man? Get with the program. They already have all this data.

Can you just can you just make the narcissist parent happy so that we can all live in peace? Brad is doing some good messaging today. Y'all see his Groundhog Day messaging? Pretty strong. I genuinely can't believe y'all brought this on Groundhog Day.

I genuinely can't believe it. Because in that movie is it Bill Murray? Good actor. Funny guy. He wakes up and lives the same day over and over and over again on February 2.

And Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog, keeps getting trotted out. You know? Six weeks more weeks of whatever. And and it's a it's a hero's journey. Right?

A Bildungsroman. You know? Bill Murray has to learn how to laugh, love, and live in harmony with his community. And until he does that, he keeps repeating the same day over and over and over again. It gets so miserable for him that he throws himself in front of a train.

He drives a car off a cliff. He'd rather die a million times than live this day again. Some of you may feel that way. Some of you might feel like that nothing is worth continually tickling this man's ego. Biggest vote of all time.

Right? Like, it can't be worth it at some point. But anyway, Bill Murray escapes the trap. Because once he realizes that the power is not worth it, that the humanity, the basic humanity of the people in that community that he looked down on, that that's the most important thing, whatever powers, you know, held him hostage set him free. So I guess the message from senate Republicans here on Groundhog Day is we are gonna live the twenty twenty election day in and day out, over and over and over again until we finally learn the lesson that if we really wanna represent our constituents as well as they deserve, if we really wanna be the people we look in the mirror and tell ourselves we are, then we have to cut this BS out.

Thank you guys for your time today. I know it was a

You you do have a question, senator.

I'm happy to answer questions.

Stay in the well a little longer.

I'm happy to answer Recognize

the majority leader for a question.

Hey, mister president. Is this senator yield?

I do.

Senator, is what you presented the minority report?

It is. It is the report of a minority as to a lot of things.

Senator, will you further yield?

Probably as long as you'd like me to.

That's up to you. Senator, are you running for lieutenant governor?

Well, I wasn't gonna bring that up, but as a matter of fact, I am.

Senator, will you further yield?

I would.

Is this mockery of a presentation that you presented today a tryout to earn the support of George Soros or Stacey Abrams?

I don't know if if I owned a processing plant that had a canning ing line that I could can a more canned talking point than the one that you just used. What I will say is that voters want honesty. They want authenticity. This is something I actually care about. You know, twenty percent of Americans, it's estimated, have a narcissistic parent.

The likelihood is that up to let's divide it by five. Over 10 senators in here probably dealt with a difficult childhood environment for which a lot of this hits personally. Right? And it just so happens that there is this template that exists in a lot of our personal lives that is also extremely useful for understanding what the country is going through right now laid bare. So if you think this is a mockery of a performance or whatever it is you just said, I would invite you to consider the possibility that this is the truest thing that you've heard in a long time about Donald Trump and about your work on election issues in the Georgia General Assembly.

So I'll defend this stuff till my grave, and it's really up to you whether you wanna really process this. And as the six robots said, create a safe space for self reflection.

Does the senator further you?

All day.

Senator, I don't use AI, and I write my own stuff. So thank you. As going back to your, your interesting comments, do you believe George Soros represents Main Street, Georgia?

What I think is that somebody's calling me. Hold on. I should've turned

It's probably George.

Yeah. It's probably actually, it was a journalist. So, what I think the George Soros or Stacey Abrams or any names that we heard today like the, well, I haven't heard a thing about the people across the hall. I haven't heard a thing about you know, almost all of those hypotheticals you guys pose, there's a process in place. There's a process that resolves it.

There's a ethics board that assesses a fine. There's a criminal process that leads to a conviction and and a sentence. That's why we have institutions to process raise their voices in opposition to a would be tyrant, we currently don't have the institutional strength to check this threat as it currently exists. And so you guys are playing with live ammunition. You've been playing with live ammunition for ten years, telling yourself as the walls have been closing in, that it's never gonna be that bad.

But the second amendment groups, I think, are giving you guys a canary in the coal mine. Right? Which I didn't know how the second amendment groups would go. But after we saw the murder of Alex Prutty and we see that the second amendment groups are starting to say, hey. Wait a minute.

Kristi Noem, Cash Patel, we don't want you guys to be saying that you can't bring a a gun lawfully to a protest. That should be a little bit of a hint for you that some of this whataboutism, the like, well, what about George Soros? That people are gonna see through that transparently as a deflection, a a move of whataboutism to distract from what you're really doing, which is what it's really all

about. Senator, will you further yield?

I'm happy to.

Senator, do you believe Stacey Abrams was elected governor?

No. I don't think she was. I think she lost in a free and fair election. I think she knows that. I think we've all been saying that.

So, again, it's like like like, you know, I hope Georgians I don't know. There are no cameras. If if Georgians are watching this, I hope that you are listening to the fixation of the senate Republican majority. I hope that you're hearing that as the walls are closing in and Trump is, you know, annexing Grain and deposing other, you know, heads of state and doing tariffs and sending ICE and CBP to terrorize people, I hope you hear that Georgia senate Republicans, all they've got in the box is George Soros and Stacey Abrams. Like, that's all they got.

And so if you guys have a better way to meet this moment than to rehash five, 10 year old talking points, I will yield for as long as you wanna try.

Senator, I I appreciate you being cute with your answers. But at the same time, that is the reality of what's going on in the state and your party, and you can continue to to deny it. But we know where your talking points are coming from, and I hope that does help you on your road to lieutenant governor. I think you've President, I yield

the world. I think you've carried water extremely well for your daddy. Anybody else?

Bringing out a senator from '56.

Thank you, mister president. Would the senator yield?

I do yield to my colleague from the 56th.

Senator, are you familiar with the awful effects of Alzheimer's?

I am.

Senator, are you further yield?

I do.

Are you also familiar with the terrible effects of dementia?

I am familiar with that.

Senator, are you further aware of the, effects adult children can have when their parents have dementia or Alzheimer's?

Yes. In fact, my my uncle is suffering from some of that, so some of this is affecting me personally as well.

Me as well. Thank you for being, so genuine, your answer. Knowing that the prior administration was suffering from both of those things clearly and most of the time couldn't put two complete sentences together, I didn't see this same board up during that time frame when you served in the senate where we probably would have seen someone as the caring child that wanted to just be there for mom or dad or dad in that case. And I didn't see the one that said, let's just hide and pretend that dad really is okay. So, senator, isn't it a little bit disingenuous that you are now focusing on the current president, yet for four years when the other one wasn't capable mentally or physically to be in office, You didn't point that out?

Do you

know the meme of the dog that's in the room where everything's on fire and the dog says this is fine? You familiar with that? This is like a millennial Gen Z thing, so I apologize if it doesn't. Make the

questions go the other way, but

keep talking. So imagine a room's on fire, and we're in that room. And I'm saying, guys, we should get out. The room is on fire. This is the equivalent, what you're asking me, of saying, you know, last week somebody farted in the room, and it was very uncomfortable.

But you didn't wanna leave the room then. So I think it's pretty hypocritical that you wanna leave this burning building now. That's what I think of your question.

Appreciate the analogy, Senator. I'm afraid something smells, and it's coming from the well. Thank you.

Alright. Alright. Thanks very much. Listen. I know that this has gotten rancorous, but we didn't want this.

We really didn't want this. But you guys are insisting on it. Thank you, mister president.

Thank you, senators. Senators yield to the well. Reganize, senators are on twenty ninth, finally closed debate.

Thank you, colleagues. I appreciate the attention y'all have given to this resolution. Dare I say, I'm somewhat surprised. Not my intent. Maybe it's because, I carry a DSM five and the DSM five TR in my office.

And I realized that, sadly to the assumptions of many, I'm not a toxic narcissist. But I have witnessed at least one here today. Saw a lot of distractions and I mentioned when we first spoke that we would see these distractions. What the FBI raids in Fulton County have to do with the surrender of, records during a law enforcement investigation? Don't quite understand.

I heard a rant about partisan politics. The last time I checked, the secretary of state and the senator from the '20 9th are members of the same party. People saying that people do things to wanna get elected. Rallies, whether it's about election integrity or other issues that are not popular. But I said this the other day, the senator from the thirtieth and the senator from the twenty ninth, the only unforgivable sin in our profession is to tell a lie.

You stand up and you take it like a man or a woman, whether you made a bad choice or whether you made a mistake. Somebody brought up the fact that here we are day 10 and no real legislation. I think it was day two, I stood outside and talked about a wheelbarrow dump of legislation attacking federal law enforcement officers. Day two. Not day 10.

Day two. People want to come out in the state to take actions regulating the policies, procedures, and requirements of federal law enforcement officers. Trust me when I say civics matter. I heard somebody say that the current president is the alleged winner of the twenty twenty four election. Alleged winner.

Let's talk hypocrisy. The 1960 Civil Rights Act, news flash. It is applicable to every American. Every single American. My six year old daughter included.

Heard people come up here, recklessly throw out Nazi Germany, Russia. Throw out what you will. I'm a proud American citizen. And that last word matters. Because today, we're being encouraged not to be proud American citizens.

If we tell somebody we're a proud American citizen, then we're disparaging those individuals who may not be yet, but are working toward that. Or that maybe I'm not open enough. Or maybe I'm separating myself. And heaven forbid, I bring up the fact that I'm a proud American Christian citizen. The same thing.

So the rhetoric I heard coming didn't surprise me too much. And I always hear people run down here talking about get spines and get guts. Well, let me tell you. I've been in here for eight years and I think the first person that ever stood in this well and talked about the the lack of spines inside this building was a senator from the twenty ninth. And I'm and I still speak of it today.

Because I'm gonna tell you, my daddy left this world 1999. And I don't carry anybody's water, but the people I represent. Faith and facts are what drive me in that order. And then, for somebody to come up here and talk about somebody looking in the mirror, I know theater when I see it. And when you do theater, you're there to entertain an audience.

You're there for applause. You're there to be recognized. You're there to be grandiose. You're there to fulfill your fantasies. And those are the first two identifiers of a narcissist.

So let's be clear. This simple resolution is to urge Secretary of State to cooperate. The DA of Fulton County got into due process and I got to give her credit there at the end with a subpoena from the Senator from the 46, she showed up. The Secretary of State has been given multiple opportunities to testify in front of our ethics committee. And our chairman, the esteemed senator from the eleventh, has been over backwards to accommodate and he is yet to show up.

And the last time I checked, he was elected by the same people that elected us. And you know what it takes to show up when you're right, when you're wrong, when you're scared, when you're not sure? It takes a backbone and it takes guts. And so, I'm gonna ask you to support this resolution. Don't be afraid of your party.

You're certainly not gonna be afraid of me. If you remember, I'm the guy that carried the Buckhead bill. So it ain't about winning and losing to me. It's about doing what's right. And with that, mister president, I yield the will.

Is there objection to agreeing to the report of the committee, which is favorable to adoption of the resolution? Chair hears none. The report of the committee has agreed to. Is there objection to the main question being ordered? Chair hears none.

The main question is ordered. Senator from the thirty seventh, what purpose do you rise? Is there objection to the main question being ordered? Chair here is none. The main question is ordered.

The question is on the adoption resolution. All those in favor of the resolution will vote yay. Opposed nay. Secretary will unlock the machine.

Hey, Burns.

You

got voted.

On the passage of adoption of the resolution, the a's are 31, the nays are 22, and this resolution is adopted. Recognize the majority leader.

Hey, mister president. I move that senate stand adjourn until 10AM, Tuesday, 02/03/2026.

Majority leader has moved. Secretary, read the announcements.

The rules committee will meet upon adjournment in Room 450 Of The Capitol. The public safety committee will meet at 02:30PM in Room 450 Of The Capitol. The health and human services committee will meet at 03:30PM at in Room 450 Of The Capitol. The finance committee will meet at 4PM in Mezzanine 1. The judiciary subcommittee will meet at 5PM in 03:07 of The CLOB.

The ethics committee will meet at 6PM at In Room 310 Of The CLOB. Thank you, mister president. That completes the order.

Alright. Any other announcements? No other announcements. Recognize the pro tem for our announcement.

Thank you, mister president. Friday, February 6 is gonna be John Bullock day. Wear your, nice blue jeans if you'd like to. Your nice, pressed blue jeans. John Bullock day, Friday.

Thank you.

Alright. Majority leader has moved. All those of in favor of his motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, no.

No. Eyes clearly have it. Y'all have a good day.