New lawmakers talk values, plans for ’23
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Sen. Colton Moore and Rep. Mitchell Horner of Northwest Georgia joined their colleagues in the Georgia General Assembly as its 2023 legislative session convened this past week.
As members of the seven-person conservative Georgia Freedom Caucus, both men said they are committed to defending fiscal responsibility and their districts’ conservative values under the Gold Dome.
“I think our values have always been the same here in Northwest Georgia,” Moore said at a recent event to raise money for staff and supplies for his Senate office. “The problem is our politics in other places — Atlanta, Washington, D.C. — their encroachment of policy has started to come in and effect us a bit more.”
Moore, R-trenton, serves Senate District 53, which includes Catoosa, Dade, Walker and Chattooga counties and a portion of Floyd County. Horner, R-ringgold, serves House District 3, which includes most of Catoosa County.
Moore replaced Jeff Mullis, who served as state senator for 22 years and retired as chairman of Senate’s powerful Rules Committee. Horner replaced Dewayne Hill, who retired after five years in the state House and eight years on the Catoosa County Board of Commissioners.
Moore’s fundraiser featured an array of firearms attendees could shoot and cheeseburgers made with locallysourced beef, including cattle from his land. As gunshots echoed through the rolling terrain of rural Dade County, Moore described some of his legislative priorities.
He said he wants to end Georgia’s tax credits for the film industry, split the state’s omnibus budget to allow more fiscal scrutiny and end certificates of need, a permitting system that requires new health care facilities to prove they are needed to receive state approval.
Moore said politicking for freedom has lost popularity, but he said his values are the same as those of his grandfather who fought in World War II. Northwest Georgians are freedomloving conservatives who just want the government off their backs and out of their pockets, Moore said.
Also at the fundraiser, Horner said education is his legislative focus. He said providing tax credits for parents who home-school or send their students to private schools is a priority, but he also wants make sure the public school system has the budget it needs and isn’t burdened with unfunded mandates from the state.
“People just want Atlanta and bigger government to get out of their pockets,” Horner said.
Fewer taxes means more money for Georgians’ businesses and families, he said, speaking from his experience as a small business owner, husband and father of two girls.
Horner said he thinks conservative values are under attack. Republicans hold a majority in both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office, but he said deep-blue Atlanta is growing and is becoming even more of an influence on statewide politics.
Moore agreed that some Republican leaders in Georgia are unwilling to take on social issues because they don’t want to be labeled as antiwoman or anti-lgbt. Despite that, Moore said he is still against abortion and announced previously that he wants to ban transsexual surgeries for minors — coordinating with U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-rome, who’s proposing similar legislation on the federal level.
The left was the first group to talk about being woke, or waking up to what’s going on in the world, Moore said.
“Both sides have woken up to what their values are, and that’s where we are right now,” he said.
But being an elected official isn’t always about making laws, Moore said. Sometimes, it’s just as important to simply block bad legislation, he said.