Early-bird registration discount has been extended until the end of June! We are looking forward to having Congressman Matt Gaetz (Florida) join us at the NFRA Convention — along with many others!
Register at http://www.nfra2023.com/.
This past Memorial Day, GRA-member and founder of The Madison Forum Michael Optiz asked the GRA leadership to give a message entitled A Tale of Two GOPs, dealing with the recent growing schism within the Georgia Republican Party. NFRA Director Nathaniel Darnell and GRA 3rd Vice President Abigail Darnell provided the message Monday evening, explaining how the rift has a lot to do with two different outlooks and approaches within the GOP. You can now see the video The Madison Forum recorded of that talk on Rumble at this link. The message also included an explanation of the proposed Accountability Rule submitted to the GA GOP State Convention.
Later this week GRA President Alex Johnson will also be giving a town hall presentation before delegates on the Accountability Rule in Walker County in Northwest Georgia. Stay tuned for more town hall discussions in the days ahead leading up to the convention.
Last week our GRA-endorsed candidates for GA GOP Executive Committee were out in force campaigning around the state.
They broadcasted as a group on The John Fredricks Show Thursday, May 18th, and you can now watch the recording here.
If you’re serving as a delegate or alternate to the GA GOP State Convention in Columbus in June, be sure to support our GRA-endorsed candidates for GA GOP Executive Committee! You can see a list of them on this image here:
If you want to get in on the early-bird registration rate for the NFRA Presidential Preference Convention in Orlando, Florida in mid-October, be sure to register before June 1st!
Learn more at http://www.nfra2023.com/
We’re excited to welcome the new Etowah Republican Assembly chapter that officially chartered last week! This group met and was birthed in the heat of battle fighting for election integrity, protesting the Rome drag queen festival, opposing SPLOST, protesting mask mandates and more. They elected Brad Barnes the President of their chapter and Angela Rubino as their Vice President.
This chartering follows close on the heels of us opening another new chapter at the opposite corner of our state in coastal Georgia. This ocean-side chapter elected former State Rep. Jeff Jones as their local RA President, who is assisted by Ginny Hall.
This new Coastal Republican Assembly chapter has done a terrific job recruiting “America First” Patriots who have been disaffected and disillusioned by the GOP, and is preparing to turn the tide in that region.
Last week the Coastal RA chapter hosted Georgia Freedom Caucus Executive Director Mallory Staples at their regular meeting, and they have been exceeding their capacity for seating at their events.
Today, I’m excited to share with you the proposed rules changes (link) (link part 2: discourages lawsuits) submitted to the GAGOP for consideration by Delegates at the State GOP convention. If debated and voted on, these changes will empower you to demand that certain politicians uphold the GAGOP brand and the “Republican” title by standing for what they promised the voters.
Sadly, it’s clear that the GOP Establishment wants to keep you from taking part in leadership. They want you to blindly follow their orders and support whoever pays the media establishment and paid political industry to win a primary, regardless of actions or beliefs. They disdain your opinions and seek to undermine your involvement in the party.
To uncover this hidden agenda, look no further than the following (clickable links provided for more information):
1. The Georgia Republican Party platform closely mirrors the Georgia Republican Assembly’s principles.
2. These mainstream Republican principles are supported by the public and align with current and past National Republican Party platforms.
3. The RNC, led and run by many paid political industry members, re-elected Ronna McDaniel, despite almost uniform opposition from Republican voters and activists.
4. The AJC, New York Times, RedState, RawStory, The Daily Beast, and numerous other paid political industry friendly sites have published articles falsely claiming that the proposed rules changes are “radical,” “far-right,” or extreme, despite their mainstream status. These changes don’t focus at all on past elections, but simply demand that politicians be accountable to you in the future.
The paid political industry is afraid of you and your power to make a change, resorting to lies disseminated through their media machine and political industry operatives. They’ll falsely claim the change is exclusionary, despite its result of increased party involvement by empowering convention delegates and not allowing any subsets (such as the state or executive committees, which could be easily swayed with money, jobs, or favors) to have that responsibility. They’ll argue that you can’t prohibit candidates from identifying as Republican, even though other state parties have done so and there’s a U.S. Supreme Court case establishing the right of private organizations like political parties to choose their associates pursuant to the First Amendment.
Now is your chance to make a stand. If you’re content with the status quo, where there’s a 99% incumbent re-election rate and politicians repeatedly lie and fail to enact the Republican platform, let this opportunity slip away. If you want accountability from elected Republican politicians, get involved in the GAGOP, attend the state convention, elect GRA endorsed candidates, and ensure that the proposed rules changes are debated and passed. Demand explicit assurances from GAGOP officer candidates that they will vote for these rules changes to empower you to hold politicians accountable.
Together, we can reshape the political landscape. Thank you for your continued dedication and support!
This weekend Governor Brian Kemp appeared to heed the great public outcry from the grassroots against S.B. 23, as it was amended in the final days of the recent legislative session.
Although we have sometimes pointed out missteps from Governor Kemp’s administration, we have also publicly expressed our appreciation when he has taken bold and right stands — as when he signed the “Constitutional Carry” legislation and when he early re-opened the state in the midst of the COVID lockdowns. This is yet another example where we want to give credit where credit is due.
Many grassroots activists such as Hank Sullivan have pointed out the problems with S.B. 23, which was amended late into the legislative session to include some of the bad provisions from H.B. 520 relating to data collection on citizens. The amendment was so bad that State Senator Greg Dolezal (R-Forsyth), who was the second sponsor of the original version of the bill, voted against his own bill. In fact, in a sign of solidarity, all of the members of the Georgia Freedom Caucus in the previous legislative session opposed the amended S.B. 23.
We wish to thank and commend Governor Kemp for vetoing this awful legislation. Thanks also to all of those who called and messaged the Governor’s office, urging him to make this veto!
In a recent newsletter we reported about how multiple GOP Congressional District Conventions passed resolutions reprimanding those “Republican” legislators who voted in favor of the awful “Mental Health” H.B. 520 while commending the few Republicans who voted against it.
Several state legislators present at the 14th District GOP Convention reportedly walked out after learning about the resolution. State Rep. Mike Cameron (R-Walker) turned to the airwaves to belly-ache about the resolution on a local podcast show from Floyd County. He claimed the characterization of H.B. 520 was erroneous and complained about not being treated with more respect as a legislator at the convention. Meanwhile, elected representatives who took strong stands for Republican principles such as State Senator Colton Moore (R-Dade) and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green (CD-14) were greeted by the convention as rockstars.
Cameron said he is so offended by the grassroots in northwest Georgia that he intends to boycott the GA GOP State Convention.
In response to the show, the Georgia Freedom Caucus‘ Executive Director Mallory Staples responded to these complaints and mischaracterizations of the legislation, taking to the John Fredricks Show and other programs to defend the resolution and affirm the problems with H.B. 520.
In particular, one thing Mallory pointed out was that the first “Mental Health Parity Bill” H.B. 1013 from the previous legislative session cost the state an estimated $1 billon in taxpayer funding, and now its follow-up H.B. 520 would cost another estimated $80 million to the taxpayer, if passed. (H.B. 520 is presently sitting dormant in the State Senate until next year’s legislative session.)
During the legislative session, we heard many people from the political industry in the Atlanta Establishment say that we didn’t need to pass anymore Election Integrity legislation this year because Georgia had just passed S.B. 202 in 2021. They said that we didn’t need to pass Senator Colton Moore’s Second Amendment Preservation Act (S.B. 67) because Georgia had just passed the “Constitutional Carry” bill in 2022. They said we didn’t need to pass the pro-life Prenatal Equal Protection Act because Georgia had just passed the “Heartbeat Bill” in 2019.
However, these same political industry types had no objection to the legislature trying to pass another omnibus Mental Health bill only one year after H.B. 1013 was adopted!
Some point to reports of recent mass shootings as as an illustration of the need for the state to pad the wallets of Big Pharma, take away people’s liberties, and steal more of the taxpayer’s money through such programs as Medicaid expansions. (Remember how folks voted against Democrat Stacey Abrams because she wanted to expand Medicaid in Georgia?) Yet this is actually an example of the civil government trying to fix a problem that the government has created.
When the state prohibits children from learning the Bible or having prayer in our schools, and indoctrinates them that they evolved by random chance due to no divine purpose or design, and are just chemicals and atoms bouncing off of each other, and there is no transcendent morality; when it tells them from an early age to be worried about global warming and how the earth could become uninhabitable and lead to everyone’s death, and then tries to suppress their resulting anxiety by prescribing these children with drugs until they are dependent; when it tries to pit “white people” against people with other colors of skin; when the state engages in these kinds of practices, it is no wonder that our youth are experiencing mental health issues. It is a problem the state created, and it is a problem the state will only make worse.
The solution is less statism, not more. The solution involves looking to our Creator God and not the false-god of the state.
Early-bird rates for the NFRA Convention in mid-October are now available!
Join over one thousand constitutional conservative activists and leaders from all over the nation in what will be one of the most important conventions just prior to the 2024 elections.
The convention will be held at the prestigious Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, FL. Come and equip yourself to make a difference! Space is limited, so reserve your spot soon!
Visit the event web site at nfra2023.com.
Smyrna, GA — Last Saturday GRA members from across the state gathered at a convention to hear speeches from candidates running for GA GOP officer positions, and then to vote on whether to endorse any of those candidates. The GRA always requires a minimum of a 2/3rds majority from the participating membership in a vote to earn the endorsement, and an option of “no endorsement” is always an option.
Our GRA President Alex Johnsonkicked off the meeting with an excellent “State of the GRA” message, delineating the many accomplishments of the movement so far this GA GOP convention cycle, and the video of that message is now available for you to see on our YouTube channel here:
These GRA accomplishments have gained so much attention even nation-wide that they managed to attract the ire of the ultra uber-liberal New York Times in this article today. We wear the Times‘ attacks as a badge of honor.
Our Vetting Committee reached out to each of the state party candidates in advance and compiled a Vetting Committee report, which is available on our web site here. The participating GRA members voted to hold most of the endorsement votes by secret ballot and to allow for multiple ballots, eliminating the last-place finisher in each round.
We want to thank two of the candidates for Georgia Republican Party State Chairman, Josh McKoon and Rebecca Yardley, for coming in person to the Georgia Republican Assembly Endorsement Convention and asking for the GRA endorsement. Rebecca Yardley’s commitment to use her chairmanship to pressure the General Assembly to get rid of the Dominion machines was very well received. However, the endorsement vote was 123 to 14 in favor of Josh McKoon.
It’s been a good week for former State Senator Josh McKoon’s campaign for Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. On last Monday, he also won a straw poll of participants at the Cobb GOP Chairman’s Forum, 64%-35% over Rebecca Yardley.
We had many candidates travel from far and wide to participate in our Endorsement Convention, and we appreciate every one of them for coming and giving our members the chance and hear from them. Incumbent GA GOP Secretary Mike Welsh, for example, came with his wife all the way from Augusta, Georgia. Conservative Talk-Show host Brian Prichard from north Georgia also personally came and spoke, as did Brad Barnes from Rome.
Every single candidate who shared helped our members make a more informed decision on who to support in the up-coming GA GOP State Convention, and we thank them one and all.
We were also honored to have a surprise visit from the current GA GOP Chairman David Shaferfrom Gwinnett. Both he and our GRA-endorsed State Senator Colton Moore (Dade) shared messages with our members, which you can watch here:
In some of the races, multiple ballots had to be taken before the convention could settle on a winner. Three people are running for GA GOP 1st Vice Chair. So on the third ballot in that race, DeKalb GOP Chairwoman Marci McCarthy received the two-thirds necessary to win the endorsement. She is challenging incumbent B.J. Van Gundy.
In the race for 2nd Vice Chair of the GA GOP, the results were more decisive early on. Even though four candidates are running for that position, incumbent Brant Frost Vwon the endorsement by a ratio of more than 4-to-1 on the first ballot.
When it was all said and done, the GRA members voted for a full slate of endorsed candidates for every GA GOP Executive Committee position and even for the Over 80K and Under 80K Chairs. You can see the full list of our endorsed candidate below:
We hope that each of these candidates will be successful at bringing the reform so needed in our party: Returning to the principles, making the GOP an organization that opposes socialism in our camp, that confronts bad public policy, and confronts corrupt politicians even if they wear an “R” label. We need the Republican Party to stand up for election integrity, for medical freedom, for the vulnerable lives of the pre-born in the womb, for shielding our citizens from government stealing of our money and liberties, and for many other American principles.
The delegates who will vote on these races to determine if these candidates win election were already chosen at the Georgia Republican county conventions in early March of this year. Many of them are GRA members. They will gather in Columbus, Georgia for the GA GOP State Convention on Friday and Saturday, June 9th & 10th. Early registration for this state convention will be $110 per person. If you are a delegate or alternate to the GA GOP State Convention, and you have not yet pre-registered for the event, you can register at this link.
Beyond these Endorsement Convention results, today the GRA released the first public poll of delegates and alternates to the 2023 GAGOP convention, suggesting that our endorsed candidates have a strong chance of winning. The poll showed McKoon at 43% to 27% for Rebecca Yardley and 4% for Dennis Futch with 26% undecided.
GRA endorsed GAGOP Second Vice Chairman Brant Frost leads in the poll with 46% to 18% for Ken Carroll and 36% undecided.
GRA-endorsed candidates Marci McCarthy, Vikki Consiglio, Suzi Voyles, Alton Russell also lead in their races.
GRA Member Mike Welsh leads fellow GRA Member Caroline Jeffords by 29-18% with a massive 43% undecided.