Georgia House District 125 candidates C.J. Pearson and Gary Richardson went head to head in a town hall meeting, Thursday night, at the Greater Augusta Apostolic Church in Grovetown.
WJBF anchor Brad Means presided over the public debate, hosted by the Columbia County Republican Party, in which the two general assembly seat hopefuls fielded questions collected from attendees beforehand.
Regarding economics, both contenders claimed intent to move Georgia toward removing state income tax, with Richardson saying he would take a more gradual approach, reducing the tax through cuts “in smaller bits and pieces.”
Referencing the recent murder of Augusta University nursing student Laken Riley in Athens, Means asked both runners about their take on illegal immigration, and their response to Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz, who defended the city’s 2019 resolution supporting undocumented immigrants and denouncing white supremacists in a press conference Wednesday.
“If you want to call yourself a sanctuary city, and open for anybody to be in there, you need to accept what comes along with it,” Richardson said. “I’ll be glad to call the mayor of Athens out and tell him that I think he’s 100% totally wrong.”
Pearson said that Girtz “has blood on his hands, alongside Joe Biden,” and told attendees he would propose legislation holding leaders of sanctuary cities liable for murderers committed in those cities attributed to undocumented migrants.
Later during the meeting, Richardson said that while he was against illegal immigration, he thought it was primarily a “national issue” and that there was little the Georgia legislature could do to address.
Pearson rebutted by doubling down, saying that General Assembly could ban sanctuary cities. “It’s all about policy, and in our city, we’re going to come after you,” he said. “You will be held personally responsible for what occurs in your city, as should already be the norm in this community.”
Pearson then asked Richardson, who owns the Sparkle Express Car Wash chain, if Richardson used the E-Verify system to confirm the legal eligibility of his employees. When Richardson replied that he did use E-Verify, Pearson claimed this was not true.
Richardson would counter when responding to a later question about whether either candidate trusted the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Richardson said he believed problems with that election were due to the precariousness of absentee ballots and voter rolls, while Pearson denounced the use of Dominion voting machines. Richardson used this opportunity to claim that Pearson was registered to vote in both Alabama and Georgia.
Pearson, who attended the University of Alabama before dropping out as a junior, admitted that he had registered to vote in Alabama while living there, but had only voted while registered in Georgia.
When Means asked Richardson why he chose not to recuse himself when the Columbia County Board of Commissioners voted down a rezoning request from Ray Ray’s Car Wash in May of last year, Richardson replied that his “constituents did not elect me to go out there and not vote,” and that the rezoning would not have passed even if he had not voted due to county ordinances.
“I think everyone told Gary to recuse himself ,and he chose to disregard their counsel and their advice,” Pearson said. “[That] should have made it even easier for you recuse yourself if you had such an objection to it, but he didn’t do that for some odd reason.”
Regarding public school vouchers, Pearson said that he was an “unequivocal supporter of school choice,” and objected to restriction on vouchers. Richardson stated that he supported school vouchers for failing schools, but also stressed that under-performing schools systems indicate a “larger problem.”
The special election runoff for the District 125 seat will be on March 12. Early voting for the runoff starts Saturday, March 2.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
