Until recently, House Speaker Jon Burns seemed to be No. 3 on the totem pole of power at the state Capitol behind Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who had statewide campaigns and priorities of their own.
But with Jones losing his GOP runoff for governor last week and Kemp nearing the end of his two terms in office, Burns has emerged as not just the speaker, but the leader of Republicans at the Capitol.
The new reality was on full display last week as the General Assembly gathered in Atlanta for a special legislative session. Kemp had called the midsummer meeting the day after Georgia’s runoff elections to address a looming statutory deadline requiring the state to stop using QR codes to count votes. But the session was engulfed in controversy before it began when Kemp added redistricting to the agenda following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in May gutting key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
With a thousand voting rights activists packed into the Capitol and ready to fight Republicans on the issue, Burns announced in a news conference that the House would not move forward with redrawing political maps after all, or at least not “at this time.”
“We believe that it’s important to do things the ‘Georgia way,’ responsibly, transparently and with ample opportunity for public input,” he said. “Changes to our district maps have the potential to impact every voter in Georgia, and they deserve the same thoughtful, fact-driven process that has always guided the House.”
The activists gathered at the Capitol cheered Burns’ announcement and Democrats quickly declared victory. But Democratic lawmakers also warned that Republicans would redraw maps eventually.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
“It doesn’t mean much to me, because what they’re not saying is that they won’t turn around and do this in December of 2026 if Keisha Lance Bottoms is elected governor,” said state Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta. “You’ve got to look at what they’re not saying as well as what they’re saying.”
One of the most important things that Burns was not saying was that he was delivering exactly what his GOP House members had privately asked for — a reprieve from the public battle that Kemp had enabled but none of them wanted to fight ahead of the November elections, if at all.
Unlike the state Senate, where Republicans sit mostly in safe seats, Burns’ House caucus includes members in suburban swing districts with plenty of diverse, independent voters. Multiple conversations with anxious GOP lawmakers, including a caucus meeting that morning, had convinced Burns that the backlash to redrawing maps could hurt his members as much as any new district lines could help. And they backed up Burns when he made his move.
“The speaker took the time to solicit feedback from every member and then make the hard decision on how to move forward,” said state Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners. “To me that was leadership.”
In response to the speaker’s redistricting announcement Wednesday morning, the governor countered he saw no reason to delay the process, “especially with the legislature already convening.” But the decision wasn’t up to the governor at that point. It was up to Burns.
With redistricting temporarily off the table, other fights remained, including the issue of the July 1 deadline to stop using QR codes to count ballots in elections.
Eliminating the codes from ballots and replacing Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines had become a rallying cry for conservative election activists. And the lieutenant governor had been a prominent supporter of the 2024 bill that set the July deadline requiring the state to stop using them for ballot counting.
But when Jones lost his race for governor, his push to eliminate QR codes for November went with him. Instead, state Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, (no relation to the speaker) moved to delay the change until January of 2028. Jon Burns agreed.
The special session didn’t end there. Democrats won a rare victory when they defeated dozens of Republican-backed bills to let county voters decide whether to raise sales taxes to lower property taxes.
Although House Republicans didn’t get the two-thirds votes required to pass the bills, the proposals shifted the focus to property taxes, which Burns wanted. It also put Democrats on the record opposing the effort. Democrats argued the maneuver was really a tax increase dressed up as a tax cut. But it gave Republicans an election-year issue nonetheless.
By the end of the week, Georgia’s Future, the nonprofit associated with the Speaker, had launched a digital ad blaming Democrats for keeping property tax bills higher this year.
Power at the Capitol isn’t static, and the dynamics are sure to change after November when a new governor and lieutenant governor are elected. Democrats could pick up one or both seats and scramble the politics in the state even more.
But for this round in this session in Atlanta, the Speaker became the leader.
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