Inside the Gold Dome of the state Capitol, on the interior walls high above Washington Street, are thousands of signatures written in permanent black Sharpie.

The names include members of the General Assembly, past and present. Those who made the precarious, 222-step climb to the top of the Capitol left proof for history that they were here. On one concrete wall is the clearly visible autograph, “Sen. Brian Kemp, 4/23/03.”

It was the first year of Kemp’s first term as a state senator from Athens. He was a builder then and a young father with three little girls at home.

On Thursday night, 23 years later and after two terms each as governor, secretary of state, and state senator, Kemp went back to the chamber where he started, to end his final legislative session at the Capitol.

“Here we go, together again for one last ride,” he said with a smile.

Kemp said that he had served with four different lieutenant governors and more senators than he could count since he won his first election in 2002. The state has grown by 3 million people and expanded from a struggling economy to a booming one.

Gov. Brian Kemp greets state representatives before making his final speech at the House of Representatives on Sine Die, the last day of the legislative session, at the Capitol in Atlanta on April 2, 2026. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

“It’s been a great run,” Kemp told reporters the day before as he reflected on his time at the Capitol. “We’ve had seven incredible years with a lot of really tough issues we have had to deal with. We think about civil unrest, pandemics, storms, the economics of a pandemic, and other things.”

The items Kemp ticked off were the unknowns t he could not have anticipated or controlled when he was sworn in as governor in 2019.

Along with the challenges he listed were the ones he did not — the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, the contested 2020 presidential election and its chaotic aftermath, and a reelection battle that pitted him against President Donald Trump’s hand-picked challenger, former Sen. David Perdue.

But every year, during the three-month legislative session, Kemp leaned on his early experience in the Senate to work the Capitol and move his own agenda forward, including one conservative priority after another.

Early in his first term, that meant passing Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, followed by an overhaul of Georgia’s voting laws.

By 2022, with his reelection looming, Kemp made good on a campaign promise to eliminate the need for a license to carry a concealed gun in Georgia. Once reelected, he pushed bills to keep transgender boys out of girls’ sports and to limit transgender surgeries.

Along with red meat bills for the GOP base, the governor also got behind measures with broad bipartisan support — the hate crimes act inspired by Arbery’s murder, a mental health expansion championed by the late House Speaker David Ralston, and tax cuts, tax rebates, and pay raises for teachers, state workers and police officers. In his second term, he also doubled down on his effort to bring EV manufacturing to the state.

Looking back on his two terms Thursday night, Kemp told senators, “We’ve kept our state a place where its people and its businesses know that they are safe.”

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Kemp, of course. A bizarre application process to replace the late U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson essentially blew up in his face. And the years of battles with Trump took their toll on Kemp and his family. Democrats continue to complain that his refusal to expand Medicaid has cost Georgians’ lives and livelihoods.

But Kemp is moving into his final chapter as governor the most popular elected official in the state of either party, and he’s still got enough good will and power that you get the sense he’s not done yet.

“Recalling the words of Nehemiah,” he said, “We must finish the great work that we started.”

Only two people at the state Capitol Thursday night had been there longer than Kemp himself. One was state Sen. Ed Harbison, D-Columbus, a three-decade senator who will retire at the end of this year, too. The other person was first lady Marty Kemp.

State Rep. Debra Bazemore, D-South Fulton, presents First Lady Marty Kemp with a resolution as Kemp is recognized for her human rights work in the House of Representatives on Sine Die, the last day of the legislative session, at the Capitol in Atlanta on April 2, 2026. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

“I’ve watched this chamber since I was probably 10-years-old,” she said in remarks to the state House, looking at the seat her father, the late state Rep. Bob Argo, once occupied. . “I ran up and down these halls like I thought I owned it.”