Issues
I’m running because Southwest Georgia has been forgotten for too long.
I grew up on the same family farm my grandparents bought here in the 1940s. After 30 years in the Air Force and serving all over the world, I came home. I came back because this farm and this community have always been my safe place and my steady place. But too many of our kids can’t come home even if they want to—because the jobs left first.
For years, we’ve watched Atlanta boom while counties below I-16 lose people and opportunity. We’re losing about 1% of our population every year. That’s not just a number; that’s our children and grandchildren leaving because they don’t see a future here. My policy plan is to build a three-legged stool: Jobs, Housing, and Schools. If any leg is missing, the stool tips over. When we recruit new employers, we also have to support workforce housing people can actually afford on local wages and strong public schools that can handle growth.
Bring good jobs to southwest Georgia, not just Atlanta.
If the state of Georgia is going to give tax breaks, they should go where jobs are needed most, not where they already are.
I’ll fight to redirect economic incentives to rural counties that are losing jobs and people, with strings attached: hire local workers, pay decent wages, and commit to staying.
Fix school funding so rural schools aren’t left behind.
I’m the son of a Georgia public school teacher. I’ve experienced both private and public schools, but the place that shaped me most was Americus High School, “America’s High School.” Those were the best years of my life because teachers stayed, they loved teaching, and they knew us. Those relationships are what we’re losing when we underfund schools and push teachers out.
Our current formula leans too heavily on local property taxes. That works fine if you’re a wealthy metro county. It doesn’t work in places like ours, where property values are lower and the need is higher. I’ll push to update Georgia’s education formula so rural and low-wealth districts get the resources they need without constantly raising local property taxes.
Expand Medicaid
I’ve seen our healthcare system from a lot of angles: through the military’s Tricare system, through the VA as a veteran, and through my own family’s struggles. My father spent three and a half weeks in the hospital with sepsis in the 1990s and walked out with a bill of around $150,000. I remember wondering how he’d ever pay it. No family should go through that alone.
I will fight to fully expand Medicaid in Georgia, closing the coverage gap that has left rural families across District 151 — and communities like ours statewide — without access to affordable healthcare. Expansion isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s a fiscally responsible one, bringing billions in federal dollars back to our state while keeping rural hospitals open and within reach.
Tackle the rising cost of living.
You shouldn’t need a second job to buy groceries. Living in Americus, I see the same prices you do: five bags of groceries for over a hundred dollars, a 12-pack of soda tripling in price.
As your representative, I'll support targeted state action on prices, including common-sense gas tax holidays during real hardship and relief on essentials like groceries and household basics.
Housing
Too many of our kids leave southwest Georgia because there's nowhere here they can afford to put down roots, and too many veterans who served this country come home to find the same problem waiting for them. I grew up on a family farm that's been ours since the 1940s. I know what it means to have a place here that's really yours. Not enough people in this district have that anymore.
My priority is simple: affordable, workforce housing that people who live and work here can actually afford on local wages, not housing built for someone commuting in from Atlanta. That means making it realistic for teachers, veterans, and young families to buy or rent a home in the same community they serve, instead of driving farther out every year because nothing here is within reach. When people can afford to stay, they stay. And when they stay, this community gets stronger.
