Ep.5: Bibles & Bad Bills w/guest Rep. Park Cannon

This week, Rep. Park Cannon joined us in exposing the disintegrating wall between church and state in the Georgia General Assembly. While Democrats submit bills to strengthen public schools, expand maternal healthcare, protect crime victims, and get needed services to our communities, Republicans are continually influenced by right-wing Christian Nationalists in the halls of the Capitol; that judgemental crowd has problems of their own, however... Listen to our conversation this week as we finish the legislative session.

summary

In this episode, Representative Karen Lupton and Representative Park Cannon discuss the current legislative session in Georgia, focusing on the challenges faced by the Democratic caucus, the intersection of faith and politics, and the importance of community engagement in the legislative process. They highlight the need for transparency and the impact of last-minute amendments on the legislative process, while also reflecting on the current political climate and the influence of religious beliefs on governance.

takeaways

• The importance of holding the well during legislative sessions.
• Legislative sessions require strategic, long-term thinking.
• Community engagement is crucial during the final days of the session.
• Legislation should not be influenced solely by religious texts.
• The need for transparency in the legislative process is paramount.
• Last-minute amendments can significantly alter the legislative landscape.
• Faith and politics often intersect in unexpected ways.
• Legislators must navigate a complex and often confusing environment.
• The current political climate is marked by increased right-wing influence.
• Collaboration and communication within the caucus are essential for success.

Thank you for listening!

Transcript

Georgia House Rules (00:04)
Welcome to Georgia House Rules, the podcast that takes you behind the headlines and onto the front lines of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus. Get ready as Representative Karen Lupton breaks down legislative battles and policy fights in the state house and beyond. Let's hear what's happening this week on Georgia House Rules.

Karen Lupton (00:31)
Hello, and yes, I am State Representative Karen Lupton here with Georgia House Rules, our episode five, our fifth episode in our series, trying to give you some insight into what's happening in the Georgia State House, at least from the Democratic caucus point of view. I have joining me today, Representative Park Cannon. Thank you so much for joining me today, Park.

Rep Park Cannon (00:58)
You're welcome. We are on Legislative Day 38, and it's so important that we all realize the importance of staying tuned in right now.

Karen Lupton (01:10)
This is where, like, if you were imagining every bill that gets, you know, kind of sent through the legislature, if you were imagining it traveling along a path, along a line, this is a time in session where all of those lines get cut, re-notted, squiggled around, tied off, and thrown to the winds.

Rep Park Cannon (01:33)
totally agree this is my 10th legislative session meaning I've served since 2016 and what I have seen over the years is a difference in how the end of the session starts to go and also some of the power players that are more

Karen Lupton (01:37)
Woo hoo!

Rep Park Cannon (01:49)
powerful, have definitely changed. And with this session, I would say it seems like they have really tempered how they rule the calendars and send us back to rules multiple times within one day. So they really, really take the reins on if they're gonna put a bad bill, then they do just lunch afterwards.

or maybe they do lunch right before, then they do a bad bill. And so for us, it's important for us to tune in a little bit more these last few days, because even last night, I knew that I had a committee hearing today, but the agenda said to be determined on the bills. At 9.40 this morning,

I received the first email that has the bills on. And then at 1052, I receive another email that has another bill added on. And it's not just like an old regular study committee bill that doesn't do anything really. This is a major piece of legislation that we needed to all be in committee for at two o'clock. So this ended the session piece. Absolutely like you said, those train lines are crossing and we're just trying to figure out what to do.

Karen Lupton (02:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, it is rough. In the minority party, we often talk about how rough it is to be reactive all the time. And this is a part of session I too had yesterday afternoon, got an email that, the education committee was going to be meeting. Did it have the bills on it? No. Then this morning comes an email and there's three bills on there. I get into the office and now there's five bills. And some are

innocuous, but one that we heard in education today was a big bill trying to deal with the voucher program that Republicans passed last year. Literally it's showing up on our desk, the amendments and how it's changed. And someone on the committee made the very good point of, if you could give me a moment, please, because I'm seeing this for the very first time at day 38 in this session.

So could you give me maybe a moment to look this over?

Rep Park Cannon (03:57)
Just a moment,

just a quick moment for a glance. And that's the thing too, as members who read legislation, you know, I'm proud to serve as our secretary in our caucus, which means I work with our leadership team, our whip team, trying to see if a bill is coming, how has it changed? Who is it going to impact? It's important that we have time to actually review bills. So coming up this week, we'll definitely be looking to timestamp.

the legislation that comes to our desks and we'll be going until midnight. So we'll definitely want for folks to also be paying attention to when bills are starting to move on Friday.

Karen Lupton (04:37)
Can you explain to people the importance of the timestamp as things get thrown on our desks?

Rep Park Cannon (04:42)
Yeah, there's a rule that says that legislation of major importance, specifically the state budget, which is our one job, is to balance it like that. It must sit on our desks for an hour.

Karen Lupton (04:52)
Yeah.

Rep Park Cannon (04:58)
before we can even view it. And if not, then we can actually make a motion to say this has not been able to be viewed by our entire caucus. But what's interesting is when they start passing out papers, they start in the back of the room. So that could be 15 minutes before the person in the front of the room actually gets.

that piece of paper or that amendment or that bill. And so we go by the front of the room time. Sometimes they try to go by the back of the room time. And there have literally been times where we have had to hold up our piece of paper with our timestamp on it, the time that we got it on our desks, because they're like, oh no, they printed it, know, however long ago. It doesn't matter if they printed it, if we didn't get it.

Karen Lupton (05:28)
Ha ha ha ha.

Right, right, that's the time that counts. And that's, it's very important. Yesterday we got two copies and yesterday we were gaveled into session. We were in the House chamber. We were voting on lots of bills. Today is a committee workday, which means that we have not been gaveled into the session, but we're still dealing with a lot of legislation that is being debated, tried to be changed, tried to be stuffed into other bills, all sorts of shenanigans.

Yesterday we were given two copies, one right after the other, of a very thick bill, 60 some pages, and just told to like vote on it. Just, you know, here's these two versions. They're both different, but now we're going to say what the changes are in three sentences down in the well, and we're going to ask you to vote on it.

Rep Park Cannon (06:39)
No, and sometimes they don't really explain it for real or they'll do they'll do the they'll do the least

You know, sometimes there's a phrase like, you're doing the most, like you're just doing a lot right now. They are doing the least. And then we'll ask follow up questions and they won't know the answer. So they'll do even less. Like I literally had someone the other day in the well, not know how to answer my question. So he said, well, it's my bill and I wrote it. So that's why. What? This is, this is you on record? this.

Karen Lupton (06:49)
the least.

even less.

Yeah, this

is what passes as legislating. It's my bill, I said so.

Rep Park Cannon (07:22)
Because honestly, that's why we have to do some of the parliamentary procedures we do. We have to hold the well. mean, filibustering is not actually something that is permissible within our rules. But when we get a minority report and we know we have 20 minutes, we've been using it. I have to commend you. The other day, you did a great job on holding the floor on that anti-trans bill. And then there was another bill too.

Karen Lupton (07:51)
Yeah,

I just kept vamping on that one. The green light didn't go off, man. I was up there for 13 minutes. I was like, how long was I up there? I was in a fugue state. We have to take the time when we get it because any little bits can be a speed bump for them.

Rep Park Cannon (08:00)
I know.

Exactly. It's the long game for us until we get to midnight on the fourth. And I think what I've learned more and more has been that the more you pay attention to the impacts that bills are having, the more you can really drive that issue home from the well. And so at the end of session, when we have all these papers and it's like,

Well, what things did we do that were impactful? Sometimes just being able to remember like, okay, we did add this much money in the budget for this thing, or we did stop that bad bill that would have impacted this community. And I'm hopeful that Georgians are paying attention. Like, are y'all out there watching? Are y'all tuning into the live stream?

Karen Lupton (08:57)
some of it can get pretty crazy.

Rep Park Cannon (09:01)
and weird.

Karen Lupton (09:01)
It

and weird. mean, it looks like, you know, see, see, span or something. You feel like it might be boring like that. But every once in while you get like, you know, somebody huffing and puffing down in the well talking about how and and those moments really have a lot of us even in the chamber just looking at each other like, I don't is this how we're doing this? This is state governance. This we want to run things well, but.

Rep Park Cannon (09:17)
Thanks.

Karen Lupton (09:30)
Apparently this is all just about your feelings and having a moment.

Rep Park Cannon (09:33)
and no statistics,

no facts, and just the Bible. Like this week, we were all given another signed Bible. you know, you and I share faith and we understand, yes, sometimes you need to just be out of the worldliness into something larger to be able to endure. But...

when you are like this is one that I got I'm talking like fully signed name and then they gave us another one this week and it and they had it pre-highlighted it just felt it didn't feel I'm not

Karen Lupton (10:15)
It's as though these organizations that insist on handing us Bibles have forgotten that we don't live, we're not supposed to be legislating from a religious book.

Rep Park Cannon (10:33)
Yeah, exactly. in fact, no. And in fact, you know, they kind of double down into it and start to challenge us even on when we say that, you know. And I'm hopeful that they'll start to realize there are people of multiple faiths. It is disrespectful.

Karen Lupton (10:34)
But I don't think people get that.

Rep Park Cannon (10:58)
to just assume that we all need a Bible and that we need to be prayed for and it's just, it's not, it's not doing what they're trying to do. And for the remaining days that we have in this session, I hope that we see people of other faiths come down to talk about these bills. We've got RFRA that's possibly coming and.

As much as they'll say it's like religious freedom, is literally discriminatory religious based actions because we don't have a non-discrimination ordinance in our state. And so I'm just hopeful.

Karen Lupton (11:38)
Yep.

Yeah. Well, you have seen a lot. So if you're hopeful, I feel like anybody can be hopeful. Has this sort of very open? Because let me make clear what what Park and I are saying is that these folks are not dealing us Bibles in the shadows. They're like they came to the house floor and started handing them to us there.

And as some sort of, and they stated to me when I, when I got mine, they're like, well, this is from an organization that wants to put a Bible in the hand of every legislator in the United States. And I was okay, not a constitution, not a constitution, not the bill of rights, a Bible.

Rep Park Cannon (12:22)
Right!

No.

Karen Lupton (12:27)
And so they're not dealing in the shadows. They're not being kind of on the down low and kind of being like, yeah, we know that people think differently, but maybe you might like this. Uh-uh. The Jewish representatives, the Muslim representatives, everybody's getting the heaviest Bible I've ever picked up in my life. Yep. The state seal.

Rep Park Cannon (12:47)
engraved with our names and our district number, leather bound. I'm like, can we please

use this money for anything else? And like you said, as it relates to, when I am sitting there and I'm making a policy decision, am I looking at my Bible or am I looking at the bill? And so from

from bills and bibles to all of it in between, there's this muddiness because these organizations, they preach and act like they're so holy. And these lobbyists, they've got DUIs out here during session, you know, they are over here having no specs and statistics, having terrible internal politics going on. I'm talking families,

Karen Lupton (13:29)
Let's talk about it.

Rep Park Cannon (13:41)
you know, all them working together and working on top of each other, some of this like nepotistic type of environment. And so I just, I just look forward

Karen Lupton (13:47)
Mm-hmm.

And the best they can

come up with is, we don't like trans people.

That's the best policy they can come up with.

Rep Park Cannon (14:00)
Senate Bill 1, their first priority, the major bills that have passed in the House.

to restrict people's access to life-saving evidence-based medical care. I just came out of a committee and literally the same provisions around transgender folks who are incarcerated, they've put it in two separate bills. They heard it in two separate committees. And so we're in the second committee and we're like, why are we hearing the same language? It was already passed out earlier today, about 30 minutes ago. And they're like, really? Well.

Okay.

Karen Lupton (14:37)
That's how fast things move and how confusing it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll still hold the floor for this anti-trans bill. Anything to get that message across. Now, have you seen, you said that you've been here for 10 years. Have you seen an increase in this sort of right-wing religious influence?

Rep Park Cannon (14:40)
But they're like, we're still going past it. Yeah.

Absolutely. I say bring back the GOP that was here when I started. They really were more like conservative, fiscally minded, you know. Now it's not. It's this strange version of that one church you went to that one time and you were like, this one's not for me.

Karen Lupton (15:29)
I'll pass. Thanks. This is a little too much.

Rep Park Cannon (15:34)
Yeah, and I would say also like we used to each really get the opportunity to bring a pastor of the day or a preacher of the day and last year we ended up breaking her story by bringing the first trans pastor and they didn't know and so then they got really upset afterwards and they haven't given many of us a pastor of the day this year so

Karen Lupton (15:51)
Nope, they did not.

Rep Park Cannon (15:57)
It's like the politics and the preaching, it's all just running together, unfortunately.

Karen Lupton (16:03)
Yes, and again, it confuses me because if I don't understand what parts of scripture, if these people want to seriously legislate from scripture, what parts of the scripture they're picking from to decide that this year we're just going to give it to trans people. Where is that? Where is that in what they're looking at? Sometimes

And having come from a very evangelical background, sometimes I think so many Christians have taken the great commandment, know, the go ye into all the world, make disciples of, you of all nations as go ye into all the world and browbeat the crap out of everybody who doesn't believe exactly what you believe because we're right. Amen. USA number one, freedom forever America. Amen.

Rep Park Cannon (17:00)
And that's not, you know, that's not who God even knows us to be. And, you know, without going too deep into my faith journey, I just want to plant here and say, like, I grew up in South Georgia, born and raised here, baptized outside, and, you know, on the outside church pools next to the family cemetery that's on the church grounds, back roads.

You know, but I've also, you know, live in Atlanta and represent in Atlanta now. And so I am a member at Dr. King's church, Ebenezer Baptist Church. And so, you know, there is some politicking that goes on within both of those types of church environments. But when you're bringing that to the state Capitol and members are expected to legislate from that perspective.

Even when they do pastor of the day, they lock the doors. You are locked in the chamber. And so many times you'll see many of us leave because sometimes I just can't. I've already had my moment with my faith that day, that morning. I don't need someone else. It's just not the feels.

Karen Lupton (17:54)
You're, yeah.

Jesus time. sometimes I forget to leave the chamber. What happens in the daily flow of the state house is generally when we're called into session, we have a roll call vote. That's pretty much the first thing that we do. So everybody comes in and we press green on our, we press that we vote that we are present. And immediately after that, if we don't leave the chamber before Jesus time begins, the doors are closed. They

meaning the doorkeepers, will not let you out. You are in there for the duration. You're hearing the sermon. You're praying the prayer, which then seamlessly transitions to the Pledge of Allegiance. And I'm sure your committees today started with prayer, as did mine. And again, I'm just... If you're in here,

Rep Park Cannon (18:43)
Mm-mm.

they love to.

Karen Lupton (19:09)
praying so fervently that you want God to help you. Why are none of our bills about feeding the poor, healing the sick, making sure that all are cared for? Visiting prisoners. You know who's in prison? Criminals. Jesus said those were the kind of people we need to be checking in on. But, but none.

Rep Park Cannon (19:17)
Yes, that's right.

in there.

Karen Lupton (19:35)
None of that seems to faze them. seem to just unabashedly pray like, God, give us strength and guidance, give us strength and guidance. F trans people.

Rep Park Cannon (19:46)
Right, soon as they come out of it, as soon as they come out of it, you know, it just changes. So for us, as for me and my, you know, and me and my house, I'm telling you, I'm good with the bills. When I'm at work, I want the bills. I'm not seeking the Bible. And whatever I do with my Bible later on in the day, that's good for me. I'm hopeful that Georgians will start to call into question why legislators legislate from the perspectives that they do

Karen Lupton (19:46)
without.

Rep Park Cannon (20:16)
hopefully when we get down to that, we'll be in the majority.

Karen Lupton (20:20)
Yeah, here's, yes, let's have a little celebration that that happens. It is very one thing that, you know, before we started recording, said to you, I want people to know, like just how very much like church it is getting in here, which is alarming to people like you and I.

as people who have to work within it. But I generally think that really, if you ask Georgians, do you want us to be sitting around praying all day or do you want us to tackle the real issues that affect people in their daily lives? Your schools, your hospitals, you're a huge advocate for maternal health. These are things

that affect millions of Georgians and we want to help them for the better instead of trying to kind of cling to a culture war slash religious doctrine.

Rep Park Cannon (21:33)
Yeah, so hopefully folks of all faiths and folks who also understand that their atheism is what holds them in this world. That they'll come, that y'all will come to the capital, y'all will be a part of it. I know in this RFRA debate that we have coming up, we have heard from the Satanic temple, we have received letters of support for RFRA.

Mm-hmm. And I think that that has really thrown a wrench in the majority's interest in what they call freedom, right? And you know, the Jewish community is very much not in support of RFRA as well because of the impacts that it has on religious minorities. And so it's gonna be very interesting. Stay tuned, y'all.

Karen Lupton (22:10)
plans.

correct.

Mm-hmm.

Never a dull moment. bought myself a bracelet that has engraved on the inside, never a dull moment. And I wear it around here as if I need some sort of reminder that things are nuts all the time. now what committees do you sit on?

Rep Park Cannon (22:43)
you

Yes, so I'm currently on two committees that don't meet, which is ethics and human relations and aging. They've, you human relations and aging meant one or two times, but it doesn't mean a lot. And then two committees that I'm new to, which is the creative arts and entertainment committee, which

Karen Lupton (22:52)
Ha

Rep Park Cannon (23:11)
meets and talks about film tax credits and things like that.

As well as the public health committee, which means a lot. was not on that committee until this year. So those are my two new committees. And then the committee that I'm still on, I've been on for a while, is the insurance committee. And I do enjoy it because I'm always curious about how do we help folks have access to backup care. And that can be car insurance, or that can be home insurance, or that can be health insurance. So those are my

Karen Lupton (23:22)
yes.

Rep Park Cannon (23:47)
Yeah.

Karen Lupton (23:49)
Yeah, well you've got a hand, that's what, five?

Rep Park Cannon (23:53)
Yeah!

Karen Lupton (23:54)
I've only got three and that's like enough for me. But yeah.

Rep Park Cannon (23:59)
Well, one of those

committees is only because I'm the secretary. There's some elected internally positions that put you on certain committees. So like I'm put on ethics by being the secretary, but other than that, correct, secretary of yep.

Karen Lupton (24:09)
Okay. Of the Democratic caucus. Okay.

And just to give, since this podcast is hopefully projecting some of our caucuses work out into the internet sphere or whatever we want to call it. What do you do and what does it mean to you to be the secretary of our Democratic House caucus?

Rep Park Cannon (24:36)
Thank you for asking. This is my fifth year making the decision to become internally elected. So externally, I get elected at the polls for the voters. Thank you, District 58. And then when session starts, I ran internally because we have two structures within the House, the Majority Caucus and the Minority Caucus. I'm in the Minority Caucus along with Representative Lupton. So we have to have our own internal leadership structure.

There

are seven positions and one of those is secretary. Now, the reason why I ran for secretary is because I am a truth teller. If something happens, I'm ready to tell it. And that has gotten me into some very interesting places over the past 10 years. So I had to find a way to tell the truth, but...

Karen Lupton (25:25)
Yeah, talk about never a dull moment, geez.

Rep Park Cannon (25:33)
have it be just plain. So I can do that with minutes. I can do that by Zoom chats. I can do that by getting the right folks the right questions. I can recall things for people. I can prove things with numbers and I can be in contact with lobbyists and constituents and things like that. So I enjoy being the secretary because I still get to be like

a little bit of a messy millennial, but they need me, you know?

Karen Lupton (26:02)
Yes,

yes, and I can attest to the fact that we need you. And I'm very grateful that you've been so willing to give you, we're all very busy people, but I know that you have a lot on your hands, especially, but to still, as you say, choose to run internally and be a part of the leadership of our caucus means a lot to me. And I rely on your expertise a great deal and I appreciate it.

Rep Park Cannon (26:28)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Karen Lupton (26:30)
And you were kicking butt yesterday with all your parliamentary inquiries.

Rep Park Cannon (26:35)
Thank you, gotta keep the motions going, yeah. And we've got more coming, so again, they just gotta watch, know. Drink their coffee, 7 p.m., we're still in there. Let's go.

Karen Lupton (26:47)
Okay, you've been here longer than I have, so riddle me this. I am convinced. Okay, there's a lot of people in the state house and Senate who are just kind of retirement age gentlemen, shall we say. These guys must be getting, like their prostates are getting them up at like five o'clock in the morning. How are they still trucking at three, four o'clock in the afternoon with the ability to like wheel and deal and slip things under our noses? How is this possible?

Rep Park Cannon (27:17)
I really think it's because the meeting before the meeting, like they have already talked about doing this thing and now they just have to live it through. Like literally the majority caucus gets a script of everything that's gonna be said.

from the speaker's rostrum, from the clerk. And so they already know their parliamentary procedures, they have them written down, they hand them out. And so sometimes I think it is them kicking back so they can do that one little thing they're supposed to do that day. And as we get to legislative day 40, it's typically the...

unexpected players that you'll see get used to do some of the worst. So we're going to be watching our heads are on a swivel for any of these little last minute amendments.

Karen Lupton (28:09)
The Zombie Bills.

Rep Park Cannon (28:12)
They were all dead and now their language has come back to life over here and.

Karen Lupton (28:12)
I mean.

And not

in like a he is risen hallelujah sort of way. Like in a dear God, what is this unholy thing? Much more. Well, Park, you know that I appreciate you. I'm proud to be your colleague in the House Democratic Caucus. Thank you so much for giving of your time today so that we could record something really fun and hopefully engage, inform, and pull some people.

into the process out there from the internet into what's happening under the gold dome.

Rep Park Cannon (28:51)
That's right. Thank you, Rep. Lupton. Great job.

Karen Lupton (28:54)
All right, well, we will see you next time on Georgia House Rules.

Georgia House Rules (29:04)
Thank you for listening to this episode of Georgia House Rules with your host Rep. Karen Lupton. We hope you've enjoyed our discussions today. Please keep the conversation going by finding us online at www.gahouserules.com or email us at gahouserules.gmail.com. Until our next episode, please follow us on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok at gahouserules.