The lieutenant governor is the second-highest office in the Georgia executive branch under the governor — they take over should anything happen to the governor. The lieutenant governor also serves as president of the Senate and is highly influential over the life cycle of bills and, thus, legislation.
When a bill is written, its first stop in the Senate is a committee where politicians debate, tweak and rewrite bills before voting to pass it on to the Senate as a whole. The lieutenant governor chooses what bills go to which committees, and also decides what politicians are chair of those committees.
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If a lieutenant governor doesn’t like a bill, they could assign it to a committee unlikely to pass the bill.
Once a committee votes on a bill, it goes to the Rules Committee which must pass the bill for it to go for a vote in front of the whole Senate. The lieutenant governor is also the one who gets to call the bill for a vote, meaning the lieutenant governor has a lot of say over which bills out of the hundreds jockeying to become laws each year do and do not progress to become laws.
Throughout the journey of a bill to become law, Georgia’s lieutenant governor has influence over major checkpoints and can shape and drive the policies coming out of the Gold Dome.
Both of the candidates this year for Georgia’s next lieutenant governor are current state senators: Republican Greg Dolezal and Democrat Josh McLaurin.
Who is Greg Dolezal?
Dolezal beat former state Sen. John F. Kennedy in the Republican primary.
He serves the district around Cumming, and in the Georgia General Assembly he’s a member, and the original chair, of the Georgia Freedom Caucus, a state chapter of a national organization focusing on promoting ultra-conservative policies at the state level. He also serves as the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and on the Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee.
His campaign has focused on big ticket conservative policies he’s successfully passed legislation on, like school choice legislation, the Riley Gaines Act, and what he refers to as “DEI mandates.”
In the Atlanta Press Club debate against McLaurin in October, both moderators and candidates largely focused on finances, budgets and kitchen table issues.
“Frankly, Republicans and Democrats, for years and for decades, have printed money, spent more than we have, ran up the deficits,” Dolezal said in the debate. “My focus is how we respond in Georgia. In just this year alone, Republicans took the lead to lower taxes across the board, not only property taxes but income taxes, increasing the standard deduction, and for the average Georgia family, that has resulted in a one-year reduction of your taxes of about $1,700.”
He argued in favor of cutting income and property taxes, school choice, and conservative leadership.
Dolezal also argued against tax incentives and breaks for data centers. He has stated several times he is in favor cutting tax breaks for data centers and is generally against tax carve-outs for big companies, a stance shared in part by some legislators and advocates on the left.
Dolezal’s faced criticism during the lieutenant governor race for an advertisement he released depicting Muslims terrorizing white Georgia residents, declaring he would “keep Georgia sharia free.” Legislators like Ruwa Romman said the commercial is Islamophobic.
Who is Josh McLaurin?
Democrat Josh McLaurin is an attorney from Sandy Springs, serving in the Senate district which includes portions of Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Roswell, Sandy Springs and a small part of northeast Atlanta.
In the Georgia Senate, he is secretary of the Veterans, Military and Homeland Security Committee and serves on the Economic Development and Tourism Committee as well as the Retirement and Transportation Committees.
He flipped a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives in 2018, then won his current Senate seat in 2022.
McLaurin points to his experience working broadly with Democrats and Republicans at the Georgia legislature as a sign he’d be an efficient leader as lieutenant governor, as well as his experience as a lawyer.
In the Atlanta Press Club debate against Dolezal, McLaurin said he’d look toward improving economic conditions through expanding housing and better market-based housing solutions and taxing wealthy individuals and businesses.
“We shouldn’t be taxing working people like we are, we shouldn’t be taxing legacy residents in communities; we should be taxing the oligarchs and the billionaires who can afford to pay, and that’s what he [Dolezal] has no vision or ambition to do,” McLaurin said.
McLaurin in several debates during this campaign cycle has pointed to his ability to work with Georgia Republicans to pass policies, and in the October Atlanta Press Club debate argued that Dolezal is a continuation of President Donald Trump’s politics and described him as divisive among his own party.
“He has committed to the most extreme MAGA impulses that Donald Trump has brought to Georgia, and the reason that other Georgia Republicans, including elected officials, some of whom will be voting for me this year, is because Greg is too dangerous even for their Republican politics,” McLaurin said.
McLaurin was criticized by his Democrat primary opponent Nabilah Parkes for having too close a relationship to Republicans, which she argued causes McLaurin to waiver on Democrat goals in the legislature. But McLaurin contends he criticizes Georgia Republicans, yet still maintains their respect.
This story is available through a news partnership with WABE, Atlanta’s National Public Radio affiliate.