Who is Brad Owens?
A social media influencer as administrator of the Facebook group Augusta Today, Owens has gone to bat against institutions such as the Savannah Riverkeeper, Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau and the 2021 sales tax referendum. He’s live-streamed conservative events such as the “Trump Train” when it passed through Evans and led Second Amendment rallies.
Owens, 51, is running for House District 129 seat as a Democrat. It’s the only party option in the Dec. 20 special primary after the October death of Democratic Rep. Henry “Wayne” Howard, who was the sole nominee on the ballot. Owens, who has held local party leadership roles, is one of four candidates in the primary.
“I was a great admirer of Zell Miller,” Owens said. “Sam Nunn. Those are the guys that for me represented what the Democratic Party was and can be again.”
The statewide elected officials were elected time and again until Republicans gained control of state government in the mid-2000s. Their party has “drifted away from its blue-collar roots,” Owens said.
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When the House seat unexpectedly came open, Owens saw an opportunity to run in an election that’s “not so much about party machinery,” so he jumped in the race.
“What really got me interested in it was I had a few ideas that could be done at the state level,” he said. “I thought I had a shot.”
Owens is a U.S. Army veteran of nine years and reservist who founded the Augusta Film Office. Last year he opened Old Warrenton Studios in Warrenton, but the project was shuttered after an accidental shooting. He has owned a security company which specialized in private military security in Africa.
Owens, who has served on the Urban Redevelopment Agency and Downtown Advisory Panel, has a list of priorities that include suspending Georgia’s gas tax indefinitely — “obviously, we don’t need it” — and expanding the state crime lab.
The lab, which performs autopsies and analyzes other evidence in criminal investigations, has a backlog that hampers prosecutions, such as in numerous Richmond County homicide cases, Owens said.
“We have all this great technology to do all this forensic investigation, but we haven’t really focused on expanding it,” he said. “It will speed up the court process.”
Owens supports more funding for “force-multipliers” such as cameras and drones to compensate for staffing shortages that plague law enforcement. He’d also like to see funding restored to Gracewood State Hospital, the campus for people with developmental disabilities being slowly dismantled by the state.
On the immediate horizon, Owens said he’d like to see a binding referendum on the ballot to give Augusta’s mayor a full vote on any item. The Consolidation Act limits the mayor to voting in ties, and commissioners routinely circumvent that ability by abstaining from voting.
The simple change would afford the only commission member elected by all voters — the mayor — a greater voice, he said. Owens said he’d also like to give a quorum of commissioners the ability to pass a measure by a simple majority and give the city administrator power to hire and fire department heads, with a super majority of commissioners able to override the administrator.
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A fixture on the Augusta political scene for many years, Owens is no stranger to controversy. Thirty years ago, he appeared in an Augusta newspaper photo locked in arms with former Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. The photo has resurfaced when Owens pursues office, such as in 1998, when he ran in the Republican primary for House District 115. The Richmond County GOP voted to “disassociate itself” from Owens, citing the photo.
“I would hope that people would look at my lifetime of public service and not judge me for that lapse of judgement 30 years ago,” Owens said. “I had my reasons to be there, and they were honorable.”
Owens said he holds a TS/SCI — top secret or sensitive compartmented information — clearance that proves his character. “You can’t be affiliated with a hate group to have it,” he said.
Georgia House District 129 by augustapress on Scribd
Susan McCord is a staff writer with The Augusta Press. Reach her at susan@theaugustapress.com
