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With Election Day coming up in a few weeks on Nov. 5, the candidates for Georgia Senate District 29 faced off on Tuesday in an election forum at the LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce.

Incumbent Randy Robertson (R) faced off against Ellen Wright during the multi-candidate forum organized by the LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce and live-streamed by The LaGrange Daily News. Videos of the forum, including other races, are available on both the Chamber and LDN Facebook pages.

Robertson is a native of Cataula, Georgia, and currently serves as the majority whip of the Republican Party of Georgia State Senate.

Wright is a retired medical technology laboratory manager and owns a farm in Meriwether County. She is originally from Red Oak, Georgia.

Each candidate was given 90 seconds for each question, with two minutes for an opening and closing statement.

Some of the questions covered in Tuesday’s forum include:

 

Senate Bill 368 attempted to prohibit non-US citizens from contributing to state elections, but the bill was vetoed due to overlaps with existing federal laws and unintended consequences. How would you approach regulating campaign contributions to prevent foreign influence in state elections?

“To my knowledge, state rules are superseded by all federal regulations,” Wright said. “Federal laws should take care of all the big problems with foreign interests investing in any elections. I don’t see that there is any need for any state laws.”

Robertson said he remembered the bill and noted that it was vetoed because of its impact on economic development.

“I was one of the individuals who reached out to the governor’s office, his staff, with some concerns about this legislation probably had, possibly having some negative impact on economic development, especially bringing in business from outside the United States,” Robertson said. “The state is responsible for state elections, the federal government, through the Voter Rights Act and other things, do have oversight over certain things, but a lot of the rules that we use to manage our state elections are left up to the Georgia General Assembly, which I think everyone who pays attention realizes over the past several years that we’ve worked extremely hard on election integrity and other issues.”

 

Senate Bill 203, which aimed to provide free CDL training for veterans, was vetoed because it lacked funding. How would you prioritize funding for our veteran workforce development programs, and are there specific funding sources or partnerships you would explore to sustain such programs?

“I absolutely support the legislation. I voted for the legislation. Where I would find the funding is in our current budget. Currently, I think there are many things in our current budget, and I’m proud to say that that is the primary responsibility of a state senator and a representative from the House to pass the state budget because the one requirement that we have when we show up in Atlanta, but as we pass a balanced budget, which keeps us from falling into the debt that our friends in Washington, DC tend to do,” Robertson said.

“I support funding for veterans to get the support that they need to find jobs of any sort. They have done their service to our country and Georgia. I want them to be able to find positions that suit their abilities, particularly if they have already been trained to drive heavy trucks in the military that should be recognized. I’m not sure about why this particular bill was vetoed. I would like to be able to look into that before I answer definitively on this particular bill,” Wright said.

 

Senate Bill 63 mandates cash bail for certain offenses and restricts the number of bonds a person or organization can post annually. What is your position on expanding cash bail requirements? How would you balance public safety concerns with ensuring equitable treatment for those awaiting trial?

 

“Cash bail is a problem, particularly for poor families. They frequently have to go around and do extended family to raise bail because they simply do not have the money. I see a lot of this in my work. I’ve seen fathers and mothers come in that have been sitting in jail waiting for trial for close to a year before they ever even see the judge to get charged. It’s a problem. I don’t know if they’re guilty or not, but I do know that they sit there because cash bail has not been raised,” Wright said.

“The purpose of Senate Bill 63 was to stop the revolving door in any of our county jails, especially in the metro area where individuals were committing violent crimes against Georgia citizens and committing crimes of theft and other crimes against Georgia citizens that were depriving them of the life, liberty and safety that every Georgia citizen is should be allowed to have each and every day,” Robertson said. “It took some discretion away from judges, judges that chose to use their bench in their gavel for political purposes, instead of using it for the criminal justice system.”

“We realized that thousands of individuals who were committing crimes were being released without bonds. Then we went in and addressed it in Senate Bill 63 one of the things that we did do that gave the judges much more discretion is we did not set the amounts of the bonds. The judge could set the bonds for $1 up to whatever they needed to be. Many of these problems were created within the criminal industry themselves, where individuals were setting up what they call bail funds, where they were getting environmental and domestic terrorists who were setting fire to construction equipment and other things in the metro Atlanta area, and they had these funds set up so they could come and bail them out each and every time.”