By Jill Nolin | Editor
Happy Saturday! I hope you all had a great Juneteenth.
We’ll be back at the state Capitol this morning as the Legislature takes up a proposed fix for Georgia’s ballot QR code quandary. Most of the action on this rare weekend gathering of lawmakers will be in the Senate, where a bill is teed up for a vote after it advanced out of committee Thursday with a party-line vote.
Democrats say the bill does more than just address the looming deadline that the state is on track to miss to stop using QR codes to count votes. The bill also creates a process for choosing Georgia’s next election system, and Democrats are pressing for guarantees that they will have a seat at the table for those discussions.
This bill — and a raft of local property tax measures — are the main focus of the special session now that Republican lawmakers have rejected the governor’s call to redraw congressional and legislative maps for 2028. The prospect of redistricting drew a large crowd of protesters to the Capitol for the first day of the session, but GOP leaders defused those tensions — for now — when they announced an hour before they gaveled in that redistricting was off the table for the special session.
This week, voters also finished choosing their nominees for races up and down the ballot. Most notably, right-leaning voters handed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones an upset when they backed his rival Rick Jackson instead in the race to be Georgia’s next governor.
Here’s a look back at the week’s biggest stories.
Senate President Pro Tempore Larry Walker joined by House Speaker Jon Burns for a press conference where Burns announced Republicans would not pursue redistricting efforts during the special session on June 17, 2026, in the state Capitol in Atlanta. Alander Rocha/Georgia Recorder
REDISTRICTING
By Maya Homan and Alander Rocha
Georgia Republicans abruptly changed course on redistricting Wednesday, retreating from their plans to redraw congressional and state district lines for the 2028 election less than an hour before lawmakers gaveled in for the special session.
In a joint press conference Wednesday, House Speaker Jon Burns, a Newington Republican, and Senate President Pro Tem Larry Walker III, a Perry Republican, told a boisterous crowd that they planned to focus on securing property tax relief and ratifying last month’s gas tax suspension rather than redistricting.
“As we convene today, the Georgia House Republicans are focused on Georgia’s future and the issues that really matter to our neighbors across this state, not partisan gain,” Burns said.
Senate President Pro Tem Larry Walker (left) and House Speaker Jon Burns announce that new district maps are off the table for this month’s special session. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
EXPLAINER
By Jeff Amy
Georgia Republicans were confronted with a fundamental mismatch when it comes to redistricting.
They weren’t going to reap the benefits of new maps until 2028, but they were going to face the risk of a political backlash this November.
Add the general discomfort that redistricting always creates, and by the time a special session began Wednesday, talk had been circulating for days that rank-and-file Republican lawmakers were balking. Those qualms led to House Speaker Jon Burns and Senate President Pro Tem Larry Walker III announcing, as they were drowned out by the chants of voting rights activists in the state Capitol, that Republicans would skip drawing congressional and legislative maps for now.
Wealthy businessman Rick Jackson, a candidate for governor seeking the Republican nomination, waves to a crowd of supporters at a rally where he was joined by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in Alpharetta on June 15, 2026. Alander Rocha/Georgia Recorder
2026 ELECTION
By Alander Rocha
An expensive slugfest between two Republican candidates for governor fighting for the party’s nomination came to an end Tuesday night.
The Associated Press called the race for wealthy businessman Rick Jackson at around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday. As of late Tuesday night, Jackson had about 53% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
Jackson defeated Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones to advance to November’s general election, when he will face former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who won the Democratic nomination in May with over 50% of the vote.
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ICYMI FROM THE RECORDER
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