Campaign finances
Many challengers for the two districts have little to no money. Most have taken out loans to fund their campaigns. The figures as of March 31 (unless noted):
Georgia House District 80
Taylor Bennett (Democratic incumbent): $20,613 cash on hand.
Catherine Bernard (GOP): $4,649 on hand; loans of $3,839.
Alan Cole (GOP): $6,200 on hand; loaned his campaign $6,000.
Meagan Hanson (GOP): $35,900 on hand; has $11,033 in loans.
Georgia House District 81
Jim Duffie (GOP): $4,810 on hand; $5,000 in loans.
Lane Flynn (GOP): $3,463 on hand; $3,500 in loans
Scott Holcomb (Democratic incumbent): $28,439 on hand
Alexa Mendez Rourk (GOP): $3,592 on hand; $13,400 in loans.
~ Compiled by James Salzer
Charlene Johnson, a 68-year-old retired educator, is mostly worried about quality-of-life issues in this year’s local elections: She has been shocked at the number of classroom trailers at nearby Pleasantdale Elementary School and at the condition of local streets.
Unlike in many places in Georgia, she will have a true choice this year when it comes to deciding who can help address her concerns in the state Legislature. Johnson, who lives off Chamblee-Tucker Road on the northern end of DeKalb County, sits in a transitional area in metro Atlanta that remains one of the few places left in Georgia where Republicans and Democrats still battle for control.
That is significant because the state's majority party typically draws political voting boundaries every decade to ensure that voters in most districts elect candidates from its party. Democrats did it for decades, and Republicans have been no different since taking full control of the General Assembly in 2005. Districts are drawn to elect a Republican or a Democrat.
In other words, the party primaries — which take place this year on May 24 — are often where the action usually is. But in these cases, two legislative House districts in and around Brookhaven, Chamblee and Doraville — including Johnson’s district — could be a case study on how delicately some candidates must treat changing political demographics and hot-button social issues such as Georgia’s roiling “religious liberty” debate.
In these two districts alone, six Republicans will compete to challenge rising-star Democrats Taylor Bennett and Scott Holcomb in the fall. A lot is at stake: Bennett’s victory in a special election last year gave Democrats more than one-third of the seats in the state House, blocking Republicans from passing proposals to amend the state constitution without help from the minority party.
“We are an independent district,” said Catherine Bernard, a 34-year-old attorney in the GOP primary making her third run at Georgia House District 80.
The district, dominated by upscale and trendy Brookhaven, also includes a large section of eastern Sandy Springs and part of Chamblee. It leans Republican, but last year it elected Bennett, a Democratic attorney.
Most GOP candidates do well in the district — Bennett succeeded Republican Mike Jacobs, who was first elected to the House in 2004 as a Democrat before switching parties. But there are no guarantees. Social issues are not the drivers here as they are in other Republican-held districts in the state, where evangelicals power much of the GOP’s base.
Four years ago in the 2012 GOP presidential primary, only 10 percent of Republican voters in District 80 picked Rick Santorum — that year's evangelical standard-bearer. That same year, 82 percent of District 80's voters approved the Sunday sales of beer, wine and liquor in retail establishments.
Bennett ran against “religious liberty” legislation pushed by opponents of gay marriage — Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed the bill in April — and backed allowing MARTA to expand, which passed the General Assembly this year. Bernard is focused on being a government watchdog in office, curtailing abuse in the justice system and pushing for better development and planning controls on the local level.
Her two opponents, longtime resident Alan Cole and attorney Meagan Hanson, did not respond to requests for comment. But their campaigns have also stressed issues related to the area’s growth and business climate.
Similar local issues dominate the House district next door, which like, District 80, has a mixed, but highly educated, makeup.
For instance, Latinos in Georgia House District 81 make up nearly 36 percent of the population in the majority-minority district, where whites are only 41 percent of the population. District 80 is majority white, but minorities make up more than one-third of its residents.
Residents are also, on average, more highly educated than counterparts in many in Georgia districts. In District 80 alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 63 percent of adults have college degrees: only 28 percent do statewide.
“The truth is my district is very diverse,” said Alexa Mendez Rourk, a 22-year-old business owner and college student running in the Republican primary for District 81, which includes unincorporated north DeKalb County, Chamblee, Doraville, part of Brookhaven, a small slice of Tucker and one precinct in south Gwinnett County.
“When I go out in the district, you always encounter a little bit of everything: Republicans, Democrats, Hispanics, whites,” said Mendez Rourk, who wants to overhaul the state’s tax system, backs more school choice, and thinks the state’s process for starting cities needs broader community input.
“I’m all for having that conversation with people thinking differently than me,” she added. “We need that balance.”
Holcomb, the district's Democratic incumbent, was first elected to the House in 2010. He won a major legislative battle this year to require Georgia law enforcement to find and count untested sexual assault evidence. But while his district leans Democratic, Republicans still see an opening to take his state House seat given what they see as a split district: Two years ago, Georgia's Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue pulled in 46 percent of the district's vote.
Besides Mendez Rourk, two GOP challengers, Jim Duffie and Lane Flynn, have jumped into the race — both stressing the need for conservative fiscal policy but largely steering clear of social issues such as religious liberty.
“That tends not to be as big a concern for people who are closer to metro Atlanta,” said Flynn, a 33-year-old pilot and business owner who stresses a classic fiscal conservative platform of fewer regulations, lower taxes and more efficient local government. “Voters are mainly concerned with making sure this remains a great place to live.”
Duffie, 75, a longtime real estate broker and state director for Georgians for Fair Taxation, wants to eliminate the state’s income tax and charge more in sales taxes. He also wants to ease regulations for businesses and boost the local school system.
“The biggest thing is job stability and economic creation,” Duffie said. Local residents, he said, are mostly “worried about making a living.”
“There are other things out there,” Duffie said, “but they’re not as important as paying the bills.”
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