Statewide candidates hit Albany for forum ahead of Nov. 3 election

ALBANY – Southwest Georgia voters heard this week from six candidates who are on the ballot in races for state constitutional offices at a forum held at an Albany church.

The Tuesday forum at Greater Mt. Olive Baptist Church brought out an audience of about 65 to listen to candidates, or their representative, in races for state school superintendent, labor commissioner, insurance and fire safety commissioner and Public Service Commission.

Several local candidates running for state representative seats and other local races also spoke at the forum. 

Democratic candidate for Labor Commissioner Nikki Porcher, an Air Force veteran, former public school teacher and small-business owner, told the audience that one of her primary goals if elected would be making the office more responsive to individuals seeking services.

“When I am elected, there’s a lot of programs within our system that people just don’t know about,” she said. “Programs are ready and available to you. Being labor commissioner means letting employees know their rights.”

While the state’s definition of a small business includes any with 499 employees are less, the candidate said that she would like to take care of the smaller ones that are important in their communities.

“I want to make sure we’re talking about small businesses like Ms. Helen’s Barber Shop,” Porcher said “We want to make sure we’re doing a service for them. If you create workers that take care of the business, you create businesses that take care of the workers. I think we’ve been doing it the wrong way for a while.”

Keisha Waites, the Democratic candidate for insurance and fire safety commissioner, has served three terms in the House of Representatives and said she wants to bring that experience to the position she is seeking.

“I think it’s the perfect training because you have opportunities to work across the aisle,” she said.

Waites said that she has seen state residents struggle to be made whole by insurance companies in the wake of Hurricane Helene and having a hard time paying rapidly rising premium rates for car insurance. Homeowners’ insurance rates have doubled since 2018, she said, and care insurance premiums have also taken a bite out of Georgians’ wallets.

“I’ve seen insurance work, and I’ve seen some challenges with insurance,” she said. “I believe the role of the insurance commissioner is to protect and be an advocate. What the insurance commissioner has is a constitutional duty to approve or reject rate hikes. Georgians have the third-highest premiums in the United States. It (increase) has to be justified, and the data has to be made available.”

With the state’s Quality Basic Education formula, through which funds are distributed to schools, being unchanged since 1985, systems that need additional funding are being left out, Lydia Powell, the Democratic candidate for state school superintendent, said. The state has earmarked $70 million in spending for literacy coaches, the candidate said, while putting $100 million into private school vouchers.

“In this (Dougherty) county, only 28% of third-graders read at grade level,” she said. “There is no poverty weight (given) to the way we fund our schools.”

Data centers have created opposition locally and around the country, and for PSC District 5 Democratic candidate Sheila Edwards a pause is needed before adding more to the state’s power grid.

“You have Keisha Lance Bottoms who is running for governor, and she wants a one-year moratorium,” the District 5 incumbent said. “I think it should be longer. Everybody’s waking up. No one wants them in their community. They should have to pay their own way.”

If returned to the office with a four-year term, Edwards said that she would advocate for ratepayers and hold the utilities regulated by the PSC accountable. 

Speaking on behalf of Republican incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper, state Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Dawson, told the audience that having a southwest Georgian in a statewide office is a benefit to the region. 

“I cannot tell you about another elected official that works as hard as Tyler Harper,” she said. “Southwest Georgians as constitutional officers, he’s the only one. We haven’t had a lot of constitutional officers that come from this part of the state.”

Being a part of a multigenerational farm, Harper knows the needs of farmers and rural Georgians across the state, Sims said.

“We are very proud to support and endorse Tyler Harper to continue to hold that (position),” she said

Katherine Juhan-Arnold, the Democratic challenger to Harper, an Ocilla native, gained experience by working her way through college, her field director Deidre Brown said.

“She brings real-world experience,” Brown said. “She’s an average working citizen who had to go to a tech school to begin her education and worked her way through agricultural school.”

As a farmer and business owner, Juhan-Arnold “understands people in Georgia and (that) people in agriculture work in a system that must serve their efforts,” Brown added.

The candidate understands the office’s role in inspecting the state’s gasoline stations to ensure proper fuel measurement at pumps and its importance in ensuring the safety of food that residents purchase, she said.