Georgia’s elected legislators will be returning to the Gold Dome in Atlanta as the 2024 session of the Georgia General Assembly gets underway this week.  Chattooga County is represented in the Georgia House by State Rep. Eddie Lumsden, a Republican from Armuchee and by State Sen. Colton Moore, a Republican from Dade County in the Georgia State Senate.

Lumsden, a veteran lawmaker who serves a chairman of the House Insurance Committee, was first elected in 2012 when he defeated Democratic State Representative Barbara Massey Reece of Menlo in the General Election.  Lumsden has risen through the ranks of the Republican leadership in the Georgia House and is often consulted on bills that deal with insurance and law enforcement.  His wife is an insurance agent in Armuchee and Lumsden is a retired Georgia State Trooper and also served as a Floyd County Commissioner before being elected to the Georgia House.

Moore, is entering the second-year of his first term.  Moore was elected after longtime State Senator Jeff Mullis announced he would not seek reelection.  Moore has been controversial since his election to the state senate.  His support for former President Donald Trump led to his calling for a special legislative session to impeach the elected prosecutor who is bringing charges against the former President for election tampering in Georgia.  His Republican colleagues suspended Senator Moore from the GOP Caucus in September of last year saying, “During his advocacy for his ill-conceived proposal, Sen. Moore has knowingly misled people across Georgia and our nation, causing unnecessary tension and hostility, while putting his caucus colleagues and their families at risk of personal harm”.

Today is the first day of the new legislative session and the session will end sometime in late March.  Georgia has one of the shortest legislative terms in the nation at just 40 days.