Live from Virginia Friday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia; WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 p.m.) Hampton Roads; WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and weekdays 6-10 a.m. and 24/7 stream – host Fredericks welcomed Georgia State Senator Butch Miller (R-Clermont) defends his last-minute discharge of voter integrity bill SB89.
Fredericks: Joining me now, Butch Miller, head of the Republican Senate in Georgia running for lieutenant governor. That will be decided. There’s only two people there’s also. Jeannie Rice, the race. I’m sorry, Jeannie, I always forget.
My bad. Jeannie Rice was in the race. It’s going to be decided in a primary on May 24. Polls have it tied right now. Money raised, about equal. So this is a complete dead heat as we go into the next four weeks. Senator Miller, great to have you with us.
Miller: Excuse me, John, I apologize. I was texting Godzilla and expressing my disappointment in the gas prices and the food prices. But go ahead. (Laughs)
Fredericks: Listen, inflation is incredible. It’s only going to continue to go up.
Miller: You’re absolutely right. And by the way, you mentioned money raised. I raised $3.4 million from outside sources, and that is a record amount. No one in the state of Georgia has ever raised $3.4 million for a lieutenant governor’s race.
And my opponent that you mentioned, raised $1.7 million. But then at the 11th hour, I think his family kicked in $2 million for him. So money raised. I’m double. Money in the account, it’s not equal. You’re right.
Fredericks: It’s always better to have money from grassroots because somebody gives you $5. I mean, you run enough campaigns. When somebody gives you $5 and puts a sign up in the yard.
They’re vested in your campaign. That’s a lot better. I’d rather get 100,000 people give me $5 than one person giving me $500,000. (Chuckles)
Miller: There is a lady that works at the checkout counter in our grocery store. She came and she brought me $28 and I thanked her. I really thanked her. She had her adult child and her grandchildren with her and said she gave me a check for $28 and introduced me to her family.
And I thanked her and I said, Ms. Harrison, I just got to ask why $28? And she said, Butch, that’s what I can afford. And now I want to tell you something that’s humbling right there, John. That’s what America is about. Maybe people sacrificing, people doing what’s right, people getting behind the candidate that they love.
Fredericks: Butch, let me ask you this. A lot of people are upset with what went down with this latest voter integrity bill, SB89. This basically was a bill for voter transparency. This was a bill to get rid of dropboxes, which got memorialized in.
What was it? SB 202. And what upset a lot of people, senator, I’m just going to be candid is that everybody knew that Kemp didn’t want the bill because he didn’t want to have to veto it. He didn’t want to have to veto it and give Perdue a campaign issue. So Cosmo Man, his little minion running around.
Remember the guy that hid in his office and drank woke Coke when you guys were debating your buddy there, Cosmo Man ran and hid in his office, pulls out his camera to do CNN with his hair and his teeth or whatever he’s got.
So he crushes the bill. But the question is, why did you wait? Brandon Beach was blasting you yesterday. Why did you wait until 11:45 p.m to try to discharge that? Get rid of Duncan and bring that to the floor?
Miller: I had to force the lieutenant governor to call on me. You have to call on the pro-tem, and I serve as the pro-tem. I had to force him to call on me. I had to make the secretary of the Senate read the rule aloud to the chamber in order to get recognized.
That was the first step. The second step was once he called on me, I moved to bring Senate bill 89 off the table. He refused to recognize that request. Then I use the rules also to ask to override his decision. So I followed every parliamentary procedure.
I hate it if Brandon is blasting me, but Brandon is uninformed or mistaken, or calculated one of the three. But the fact of the matter is, I did exactly what I needed to do.
And lines 71 to 75, if Brandon blasting me for doing this, really and truly, it is the height of hypocrisy when he didn’t do anything but vote. That’s all he did. Every Senator has a voice, and every voice deserves to be heard.
Brandon’s voice was where? It was silent. I don’t want to talk about Brandon. Let’s talk about the Senate and moving forward. But I’ll tell you this, John Butch Miller is the only person in this race that’s gotten anything done outside of self-interest.
And I am campaigning on what I’ve done because what I’ve done is a preview of what you will get as Georgia’s Lieutenant governor. With Butch Miller in that office, I have been a dependable, consistent conservative. I’ve delivered on tax cuts.
I delivered on girls’ sports. Where was Brandon on tax cuts and girls’ sports? I delivered on CRT. That was my bill. That was my bill! I introduced that bill.
I’ve delivered on constitutional carry, suspending the gas tax, unmasking the students, parents’ bill of rights, and a whole plethora of great conservative legislation that I got across the finish line. I am proud of my record, and I’m running on my record.
Fredericks: So again, just to get this done so I can understand it because I’ve gotten a lot of feedback here from this, and I was not there. But I guess the question is, you knew what Cosmo Man was doing? They gutted the bill.
It went from 40 pages from the House to, like, one or two in the Senate. So they gutted the bill. And he didn’t want to bring it up because they didn’t want Kemp to have to veto it.
So then the question becomes, you’re the only one that could get called on. Beach’s defense was that they stripped him of his committee, so he had no standing. But I don’t want to talk about it.
Miller: (Inaudible talk) (Laughter) Look at what he’s gotten passed.
Listen to the interview:
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