GA House Dem leader Beverly to step down
Gold Dome Dems to begin next session with new leadership
The Democratic leader of the Georgia House will not be returning to the Gold Dome next year, joining a growing list of longtime lawmakers in hanging up their cleats after this session.
State Rep. James Beverly was first elected to his Macon-area House seat in 2011 and has been serving as minority leader since 2020. As leader, the bowtie-donning optometrist has led his party through sweeping changes to election laws, an overhaul of the citizen’s arrest statute and not one but two rounds of redistricting.
He has also been leading the charge on some of his party’s biggest priorities, particularly Medicaid expansion.
But Rep. Beverly did not qualify to run for re-election this week, telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his leadership duties have shifted his attention away from improving lives back home in Macon.
“The amount of time it takes to make sure that my members are good takes away from the time I can make sure my communities are good,” he said. “So you don’t have the ability to just go back home, because now your constituency is the members that you have.”
Beverly’s retirement will leave both of the top Democratic posts at the Gold Dome up for grabs as Senate minority leader Gloria Butler also plans to step down at the end of the year.
Several of Beverly’s deputies could run to succeed him, including minority whip Sam Park of Lawrenceville and caucus chair Billy Mitchell of Stone Mountain. State Rep. Carolyn Hugley of Columbus, who in the past has made several unsuccessful bids for leader, could give it another shot.
The next leader, like Beverly, will be the face of the opposition in a Republican-controlled chamber. While he doesn’t plan on coronating a successor, the outgoing leader says that he will not leave office without helping his party gain seats in the November election.
“I hope for the future that the caucus has really learned what it means to be a team and focus on the work that’s in front of us,” he said. “What I will do during the summer interim is to make sure that I pull together people I think are very much interested in teamwork and saying ‘you guys have an opportunity to create how we move forward.’ ”