A longtime aide of Gov. Nathan Deal is plunging into electoral politics for the first time.
Rhonda Barnes, the governor’s executive legal assistant, qualified this week to run for Clerk of Superior Court in Spalding County.
She’s seeking a post vacated by Marcia Norris, who was suspended by Deal after a state probe found she was “willfully not fulfilling her duties.”
Barnes is a familiar figure under the Gold Dome. She’s been an executive legal assistant for the governor’s office since 2005, and has been the go-to for organizing and processing executive orders and coordinating key records in the office for all of Deal’s tenure.
She kept a tally of the paperwork she’s handled in 13 years in the office: More than 200 judicial appointments, nearly 6,000 executive orders and nearly 1,000 Open Records Act requests handled expeditiously.
Barnes said she’ll bring those skills to the clerk’s office, with plans to clear lengthy backlogs and modernize the county’s outdated computer systems.
“I truly believe that the experience I have gained while working in the Office of the Governor has prepared me to operate the clerk’s office in a manner that will make my friends, family and the citizens of Spalding County proud,” she said in a statement.
Before she worked in the governor’s office, Barnes was an aide to the Georgia Technology Authority, the Department of Human Resources and the Department of Community Health. She was also appointed by Deal to the Georgia Film Commission and the state Historical Records Advisory Committee.
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