Renitta Shannon, GA State Representative for the 84th Congressional District and Democratic Candidate for Lt. Governor of GA

The North GA Blue: Getting into Good Trouble podcast covers democratic politics in North GA, the 9th Congressional District, and across the state of Georgia. The podcast is in Q&A/Interview format with various democratic politicos including county chairs, democratic operatives, politicians, and more. It is our mission to deliver crucial information to our listeners in a timely manner as we fight for community values and principles in the 3rd most Conservative district in the state. Our website is: https://www.fcdpga.com/podcasts

Our guests highlight democratic activities and actions to work toward a Blue Georgia. The 9th Congressional District spans 20 counties across the region and covers a good deal of northern GA including Blue Ridge, Morganton, Fannin, Union, Banks, Athens/Clarke, Dawson, Elbert, Forsyth, Franklin, Gilmer, Habersham, Hall, Hart, Jackson, Lumpkin, Madison, Pickens, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, and White counties. 

Our democratic party podcast also disseminates information and interviews powerful Democrats across the state of GA working to overthrow the suppression tactics of the GOP and ensure democracy and our values, grassroots efforts, and goals remain intact. 

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Transcript

Meral Clarke: 0:18

Hello and welcome back to the North Georgia Blue Podcast produced and distributed by the Fannin County, Georgia Democratic Party. I'm your host Meral Clarke. And we're getting into some good trouble today with our special guest Georgia State Representative Renitta Shannon running to be Georgia's next lieutenant governor. Welcome to the show, Renitta. We're excited to have you with us today.

Renitta Shannon: 0:41

Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here with you all today.

Meral Clarke: 0:44

So let's let our listeners know a little bit about you. And there's quite a bit here. So please bear with us. You've done a lot in a very short period of time, State Representative Renitta Shannon defeated a four term Democrat incumbent with a bold progressive message in 2016. In January 2017, she was sworn into the Georgia State House of Representatives to represent the 84th district. Representative Shannon utilizes her impactful public platform to fight stigmas and create legislation for marginalized communities. Her experience in community organizing working around economic, racial and gender justice issues equipped her to serve in the Georgia State House where Anita speaks on national platforms about her personal abortion story. Thank you for sharing that and the importance of reproductive justice and freedom. She has been a consistent advocate for LGBTQ plus rights. In 2017, she came out as bisexual making her the first openly bisexual legislator to serve in the Georgia General Assembly. And thank you for that as well. In her first year as legislator Renitta was awarded most valuable legislator in the nation magazine's 2017 progressive honor roll for her work on sexual assault policy committed to making sure immigrants do not experience the same systemic injustices black Americans have faced for hundreds and hundreds of years. Renita was awarded with the champion of Immigrant Rights Award by Asian Americans Advancing Justice. In her second year in office in mid 2018, Renitta was the keynote speaker at the Center for Reproductive Rights Conference where she discussed why advancing respectability politics hurts the fight for reproductive rights. She also published a piece in the Brown Girls Guide to Politics during pride month on why it matters to elect queer black women to public office. She serves on the board of SPARC reproductive justice and consistently sponsors legislation to drive racial, economic and gender equity. Renitta is also the co founder of Her Term, which we'll talk about later in the interview, a Georgia based initiative committed to targeting recruiting and electing progressive women into office. Wow, that's quite a bit for just a few years down there at the capital. So let's talk about some of your pressing issues that you regard as important in lieutenant governor's race. Let's talk about economic security or insecurity. For so many Georgians, we've all witnessed prices for basic necessities rising year after year, we're dealing with inflation, which is not going away anytime soon. And of course, the state minimum wage is still $5.15 per hour. Tell us why this is such a critical issue along with economic disparity and injustice and what you intend to do about it as lieutenant governor.

Renitta Shannon: 3:50

Sure, and thank you for the question. Because this issue is a cornerstone of why I've launched this campaign. Georgia's inherent value as its people, but really much of our inherent value is being left behind due to a failure to invest in our people. And so when we think about the failure to invest economic justice is a lot of that failure to invest. So many people don't know that the state minimum wage is $5.15 per hour. That's actually lower than the federal minimum wage. That's allowable here in Georgia. And so when you have a minimum wage that is so low, it is unsustainable for folks to live off of poverty wages, which those are poverty wages, you see an increase in crime, you see that families are struggling, even individuals struggle to pay for the basic necessities of life, like shelter, we all see rent going up, it's out of control. For you know, most parts of the state, we see that it is increasingly harder to afford food and just the basic necessities of life. And with the current inflation, we see that really it takes a lot in order to be able to survive these days and the minimum wage that we have is just not going to cut it and I think COVID really made crystal clear the failure to invest that we've had under Republican leadership. And I say that because we didn't know that COVID was going to come, we didn't know that, that we were going to experience a pandemic. And certainly not one that will last this long, the failure to invest in Georgia, specifically around wages meant that COVID hit the state hit workers, and they were barely able to afford the basic necessities to survive. So they certainly did not have the ability to save have any type of buffer to protect themselves when some folks saw their jobs just go away overnight. And so the point that I'm making with this is that we need to do a lot to invest in Georgians across the state, so that we can reclaim our inherent value, which is Georgia's people and set ourselves up so that people are not struggling to survive, but so that families can thrive. And so the individuals can thrive because we don't know what the future may hold, we may experience another pandemic. What we do know is it's best to be prepared. And you do need to be able to afford basic necessities which are rising, cost is rising more and more every day. And you do need to be able to have some type of buffer so that when unexpected things happen, like periods of recession, the pandemic we just saw, people are not completely decimated overnight.

Meral Clarke: 6:09

Can you tell me what you mean by invest in Georgians? Can you elaborate on that?

Renitta Shannon: 6:15

Absolutely. So that's a comprehensive term. And so what I mean by that is expand Medicaid. We have far too many people who did not have access to any type of health care. And so for a lot of folks, they were discovering overnight that they either were positive for COVID, or had health conditions that they didn't even know were going on in their bodies, because they had no symptoms because they're not regularly seeing a doctor. So we need to expand Medicaid so that many more people will have access to health care and can maintain their health. That's an investment. It's an investment to raise the wage. I remember for a long time, people were fighting for 15, which was to have a $15 minimum wage. Now, if you look across the country, as shocking as it may sound, $15 is still the minimum of what you need to afford rent in a lot of places, and let alone be able to buy a house which you do see that being able to go through the process to be approved for a house is dwindling for so many folks. So that's another point of investment is actually paying people a wage that they can afford the basic necessities like transportation, childcare, food, shelter, and still have an ability to save. So those are the investments that I'm talking about.

Meral Clarke: 7:24

Terrific. And that segues into my next question about health care. Can you elaborate on Georgia's uninsured rate? And you've already touched on lack of Medicaid expansion and how that's all disproportionately affecting people of color and the poor? Why do you believe you're the best person equipped to resolve the healthcare issue in Georgia as lieutenant governor? Can you do more as lieutenant governor than serving as a state representative?

Renitta Shannon: 7:50

Absolutely, I will be able to do more as lieutenant governor. And I would say that I've already gotten some things done just at the State House representative as a bold progressive serving in the minority. We've been under Republican leadership. It's been hard to get folks to listen that we need to make these investments. But specifically speaking about healthcare, these are issues that I was well aware of and worked on before being elected. I do come from the business development before being elected and worked for both pharmaceutical as well as medical device companies, as well as had an active insurance license until a couple of years ago. So I really understand these issues. And I've served on the house insurance committee, the entire time that I've been elected. We definitely are in a situation where way too many people in Georgia do not have access to health care. And the reason that is persisting is because Medicaid only applies to people who are living up to 120% above the poverty line. What that means is if you just make minimum wage on your job, let's say you work a minimum wage job and you work 40 hours a week. And if you don't have any children, you would not qualify for Medicaid. And a lot of times jobs that are in the retail space, and that do just pay minimum wage, they don't offer health care. So think about folks working at McDonald's, think about folks working at Walmart or Target a retail establishment. A lot of times they are not offered health care with those jobs. And so because of the gap in Medicaid, which Georgia has failed to expand Medicaid, all those folks are just out working every day, and they don't have any access to health care. So that's a big issue. Now, I've been able to get some results on this issue just as a state representative and I know that with the power of being lieutenant governor, I'd really be able to push for full expansion of Medicaid but where I've been able to make some headway has been I led the successful fight to expand Medicaid for new mothers. So Georgia was ranking one of the worst places to give birth. And that was because so many people were dying due to complications in childbirth. So maternal mortality tracks, anyone who dies trying to give birth and then up to a year after giving birth because we know your body has to reset and your body went through a lot of changes to carry that pregnancy. And so going through childbirth brings a lot of changes that do need to be reset for after you've given birth. And so I was able to move the state from 60 days, which is what it was before I started working on this issue to six months. Now, I submitted a bill that ask for a year so that people would have the complete ability to get everything they need taken care of to return to great health, but we were able to get six months. So that is an example of where we see that already, lives are being saved just because people have access to health care. So those are the kind of investments that I'm talking about very basic things that we need to do just to make an investment in Georgia's people.

Meral Clarke: 10:39

Well, thank you for getting that done. And we know that the maternal mortality rate, especially among people of color is especially high in Georgia. So we really appreciate that. And that dovetails into my next question, which is about reproductive justice, you touched on the high mortality rates, and of course, black women are at the greatest risk. Georgia Republicans are also attempting to emulate Texas restrictions on women's rights here in our state. How will you make this a pivotal issue as lieutenant governor?

Renitta Shannon: 11:10

Sure. So if I could just add one more thing about the previous question as well referencing maternal mortality, you're right, black women are three to four times more likely to die due to maternal mortality than our white counterparts. But another part of the conversation that does not get enough attention is what is happening to folks in rural areas. So in rural areas, we know that hospitals have struggled to survive. And a lot of times when hospitals are struggling, the first department they cut is the labor and delivery or anything having to do with the specialists that you need in order to carry a healthy pregnancy and deliver it because that's the most expensive part of the hospital, the equipment is more expensive, the insurance to run those departments is very expensive. And so you always see that that is the first to go. And a lot of times the entire hospital sometimes will have to shut down. So we saw for a while there, that we were losing rural hospitals left and right. And folks are having to drive hours just to make it to an OB appointment. And so that's definitely a central part as well of correcting this issue. And just making it so that anyone who decides to carry a pregnancy should have all the resources necessary to carry a healthy pregnancy and the state should be doing everything to support that. Now, to address your question on the converse. Yes, we see that Republicans have been working to eliminate bodily autonomy for women. They have been attacking reproductive rights for as long as I've been elected. I've seen bill after bill come through that is meant to attack and force people to carry pregnancies that they do not want to carry, the Republicans did pass a bill in 2019, that essentially outlawed abortion, it said that if you tried to terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, that would be something that would not be allowed, and the doctor who helped you do that could be brought to court over that. And so it basically criminalized abortion, it was a very invasive bill that would have opened up the healthcare records of millions of Georgian women open up their health records to essentially the general public. And so that bill was very terrible. I did take a stand against that bill. I was physically removed from the well protesting that bill trying to do a filibuster. We don't have filibuster in Georgia. But I basically got up and spoke so long that the speaker had to physically remove me from the

Meral Clarke: 13:23

And you're referring to House Speaker David well. Ralston, of course.

Renitta Shannon: 13:27

Yeah, that was not by accident. That was intentional. I had said from the beginning, if they put this bill on the floor, I will not sit by and just watch them pass this like a tax bill nobody cares about. I will make the speaker physically remove me. And that is what happened. Because what we're talking about is removing people's bodily autonomy. You know, when you say, making this a lynchpin issue, I think people are very surprised that the fights that we thought were done and decided in the 70s are now back before us. I mean,

Meral Clarke: 13:58

That's insane. That's complete insanity.

Renitta Shannon: 14:01

It is insane, especially when we have so many other more important issues that we need to take care of like the issue of maternal mortality. These are pressing issues that we've just now newly discovered what the impact is, and how many people are suffering due to that. So why don't we go backwards and making regressive choices to take away the right for someone to decide whether or not they want to carry a pregnancy? It is forced birthing, and it's not something that anyone's should support. And furthermore, it has a lot of healthcare ramifications. Whether you support the right to choose or not, forcing people to carry pregnancies they do not want is definitely something that leads to poor health outcomes for entire communities, not just individuals. So it is something that we all should care about, regardless of where you stand on the issue.

Meral Clarke: 14:46

And it also keeps women and others in a cycle of poverty that cannot be broken as well.

Renitta Shannon: 14:53

Correct. That's true. Yeah, there's many many, many, many reasons that one should not support restricting the right to abortion because abortion is healthcare. And it's really important for everyone to have full access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, including abortion.

Meral Clarke: 15:11

Yes, that's a hot button issue for me as well. So thank you for your work on that. Where are we with that Georgia bill that you were referencing forcing women to give birth or have children?

Renitta Shannon: 15:23

Yes. So that bill did pass the House and it passed the Senate in 2019. And then Governor Kemp signed it, it went to court, and at the first court hearing, there was an injunction in place. And that's why it never took effect. And so recently, the bill went back before the Georgia Supreme Court. And they basically said, Let's just wait and see what happens at the federal level with the Dobbs case in December. And then we will make a decision from there because the bill that Mississippi passed, in addition to the Texas bill, but the Mississippi bill is up first before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will be making a judgment call on whether or not you can restrict someone's right to get an abortion. And so the Mississippi case that bill basically says that you cannot get an abortion beyond 15 weeks, which we know the Supreme Court has set viability to be 22 weeks, so that case is going to tell us a lot about whether Georgia's bill would ever be enforceable. And so we're consistently getting wins on this. And I'm hoping that this bill will stay not enforced as it is.

Meral Clarke: 16:24

Are you worried about Roe v Wade being overturned with the conservative majority on the court now?

Renitta Shannon: 16:31

I am worried about that. And that's all the more reason why it's important to elect a lieutenant governor who knows these issues inside and out as I do, and who has shown the approven backbone to be able to fight these people on restricting people's rights. Because if the Supreme Court does injure Roe, then what that means is it's going to be left up to the states. So the Supreme Court would not outlaw abortion, what they would do is just strike down roe. And then that means that the states would have the ability to say whether or not you can get an abortion. And so that means we would have a patchwork of health care throughout the country, meaning in states like Georgia, okay, well, then you basically wouldn't be able to get an abortion here. So you'd have to travel to the closest state you could, which probably would not be Alabama, because what we'll see is that a lot of the Republican control south will follow suit and start banning abortion across the south. So you'd have to travel pretty far in order to be able to access your rights. And so that's why it's so important to elect a lieutenant governor who knows these issues, and who has a proven record of fighting for progressive values.

Meral Clarke: 17:37

it's really hard. And we have to remain vigilant because they're never going to stop, obviously, and they never have stopped. So we do need to stop them if we can. And we do that by electing, you know, leaders, Democratic leaders. So I agree with you there. I'd also like to address your stance on criminal justice reform. We know that Georgia and our country as a whole has a mass incarceration problem alongside lack of police accountability. You've said that Georgia is and it is I looked it up that we are a global incarceration leader with a rate higher than the national average. How are people of color and the poor, disproportionately affected? And how do we change this mentality of incarcerating folks for low level offenses?

Renitta Shannon: 18:24

Sure. And so it's not just black and brown folks and working poor who are experiencing this. I would just say that the impact on those groups is disproportionate and they're experiencing more than everyone else. But everybody in Georgia should care about this issue. What's going on is that Georgia has basically through policy adopted a practice of just incarcerating people over any type of societal problem that we don't want to deal with the answer has been incarceration. And I've seen this happen, as I've been in the legislature, bill after bill come through with new ways to criminalize folks. And so what's happening is, Georgia has become a leader of incarceration, our rate is higher than the national average. And that's because Georgia is basically saying, Okay, if you have mental health issues, if you act out in any way that the general public doesn't find desirable, incarceration is answer. If you are struggling to make ends meet and you get a speeding ticket, and you can't afford to pay it, incarceration is answer. If you are struggling with addiction, that's not treated as a healthcare problem. Again, incarceration is answer. So for everything, we are leaning on incarceration far too much, and what that's doing is stunting the opportunity that folks can have a lot of times people being incarcerated leads to life changing consequences that some folks are never able to get back on track. Because we know once you have a criminal record, it's harder to get housing. You can legally be discriminated against for housing. Some jobs will not take you if you have a criminal record. And so we're just setting up a situation where so many people are being taken out of the game before they leave had a chance to really even play. And so what I have advocated for is a lot of people are concerned about crime right now. We're never going to police our way out of addiction, we're never going to police our way out of poverty, we're never going to police our way out of mental health issues. We have to start putting resources to deal with those issues. And that is what is going to decrease crime. That is what is going to allow us to end mass incarceration in Georgia. Incarceration is very expensive and it's not a good solution. And what it often does is places people under state supervision, and it does not actually reset them on a track that will help them become productive, it just really adds more harm than good. And so obviously, we're not talking about for the most heinous crimes, we're talking about small, low level things that really are the result of poverty, mental health, illness and addiction.

Meral Clarke: 20:53

Why do you suppose that Georgia Republicans are so interested in keeping people incarcerated for profit prisons? forced labor? What would you say?

Renitta Shannon: 21:04

Because it's good for corporations, many corporations have come to rely on private prisons, they make these deals and contracts with these private prisons. And it is a way for them to avoid even paying the minimum wage to workers who needed to survive and in favor of prison labor. Because even though we've talked about how the federal minimum wage and the Georgia state wage of $5.15, those are poverty, wages, and people can't survive off of it, if you can believe it, people in jail are creating products and working for corporations, and they're being paid pennies on the dollar per hour to create products. So it's a really great way for corporations to get the cheapest of cheap labor. And these folks are captive. So that's one reason that the Republicans continue to move forward with that. In fact, I remember the first week walking into my office after being elected and knowing that I wanted to work on ending mass incarceration in Georgia, I see my business cards for being a state representative, I flip it over, and it says thank you to the Georgia Department of Corrections labor, basically, the business cards have been created through private prison contracts. So this prison labor has infiltrated so many parts of society, that corporations and government has become dependent on captive labor, and it's terrible. So when you have that being the situation, then people want to perpetuate that. So I think it's a combination of that plus lazy policymaking. That's what it is, it just boils down to laziness. They don't want to invest and solve these problems in a real way. They just want to incarcerate and now we've just gotten to the point where incarceration is so expensive, that everyone is saying that this was just never the best solution.

Meral Clarke: 22:41

Forced captive labor sounds an awful lot like New Jim Crow slavery to me.

Renitta Shannon: 22:47

It is. It absolutely is.

Meral Clarke: 22:49

Unbelievable, albeit, unsurprising. Another pressing issue for you is lack of quality education for low income families. Tell us why this is such a critical area of concern and how you would work to ensure every child has access to a good education. Is it more of a funding problem, or a societal problem or both?

Renitta Shannon: 23:09

It's definitely a funding problem. But it's also an issue of the schools and the resources that schools need having not being evaluated for quite some time. So consistently, folks like myself who are big believers in public education have advocated for the state to take a look at the QBE formula, which is a quality basic education formula. This formula is supposed to tell state lawmakers, how much is needed per student in order to make sure that every student can get a good quality education. The funding that we have is long, outdated, I mean, it is decades old. And it doesn't take into effect that not every student is coming from the same playing field when we think about what's happening at home. So if you think about again, and this is why I say economic justice is a cornerstone of this campaign, if you think about the fact that parents are struggling to afford basic necessities on poverty wages that they're being paid per hour, sometimes that turns into the family not having enough food. So now you've got children going to school, who are unable to learn and get a good education because they're hungry, and they don't have the resources that they need in order to be able to participate. And so that all backs up to the QBE formula in that Republicans have consistently resisted reevaluating the QBE formula to find out what is the real cost of what it takes to provide wraparound services to make sure that children are not sitting there too hungry to learn, or in pain because they can't afford see a dentist just that the normal things that befall students and can stop them from learning. And so we've seen other states do a good job of re evaluating what is the amount per student necessary in order to provide a good quality basic education. And we've seen other states do things like add in wraparound services, which would take care of a lot of these issues into the funding that they provide per student so that we can make sure that even if a student comes from a very poor zip code, they can have the resources they need to be able to learn. And so that's one part of it, that is very, very important. And then the other part is also a labor issue, we are not able to retain teachers in the way that we need to because we are not paying teachers like we value them. And so those two issues, teachers are struggling to get by on what they are paid. And then in addition to that, they're having to dip into their own personal money to try to provide resources for the class, that should never be the case. And so because of those two things, this is a big issue.

Meral Clarke: 25:30

It's a huge issue. And let's face it, schools in wealthier suburbs, and areas tend to have more funding as well. So underserved populations are definitely suffering. What are your thoughts about parents that school board, I guess, you know, the school board meetings about CRT and DEI diversity and inclusion education? What are your thoughts on what's happening across the country right now?

Renitta Shannon: 25:53

Well, I think that parents should definitely be involved in what is going on with your children's education. But that does not mean showing up to protest children learning what is actual fact in history. I think for too long, our textbooks have not reflected the total diversity of this country, it is not accurately reflected our past. And because of that, we continue to see that the country refuses to reckon with race. And a lot of that is because people have different versions of what history really has been. So I am a black woman. And my family taught me black history and what black people have been through as I was growing up. My dad did a lot of work with the NAACP, the SCLC. So I knew the struggles that black people have been through and what it meant to be black in this country. But until everybody is learning from the same book and receiving that same history, I think that you're going to continue to see issues flare up, like what we've seen in the last couple of years where race relations continue to be very bad. And even if you are somebody who, let's say you are not black, or you're not brown, you're not of color, and maybe race relations are not a top priority for you, because maybe you feel like you're not affected. I would argue that you are. The issue of race was a central way that other countries were able to interfere with our elections, because they were able to really elevate the discord that we already had brewing, they were able to accelerate that in ways that we could not imagine. And so that is a national security issue. And I maintained that if we don't deal with race in this country, this is going to be always the best way to attack the United States, and to really give us national security issues like homeland security issues.

Meral Clarke: 27:36

Yes. And there are so many other issues. I personally was never taught actual history. And I had to learn that on my own. And I'm angry about the fact that I had what was purportedly an excellent education, quote, unquote, without learning actual facts. So I would have to completely agree with you there. Let's turn our attention to voting rights. It's on everyone's mind. And with the passage of Georgia, SB 202, severely curtailing Georgians rights to access the ballot box. Let's talk about that, and how black and brown voters are affected and people in rural areas, etc, and so on. What are your thoughts on that? And how do we stop that from happening?

Renitta Shannon: 28:20

Sure. So I was directly involved in the fight against this bill, as well as I've served on the Governmental Affairs Committee, which deals with election law ever since being elected. And I can tell you that every single year I've seen nothing but bills meant to suppress the Black and Brown vote in Georgia come through committee. This is an issue and it really got revved up after Trump lost the State of Georgia in the presidential election. Republicans have made it their business across the country to go and attack Black and Brown voters who largely showed up to make sure that Trump will not be reelected. And so with SB 202, it's really a desperate attempt by the Republicans to suppress what is a growing base in Georgia. You know, in the last census, we saw that millions more people are in Georgia now over and above how many Georgians we thought we would have. And most of that growth is black and brown. So you see a situation where Republicans are desperate to suppress the vote. They're targeting Black and Brown voters, but the provisions in SB 202. It definitely will disproportionately hurt black and brown voters, but it's also going to hurt everybody who is a voter and I say that because absentee voting was really attacked in that bill. Some of the provisions make absolutely no sense. So here's one, for example, this bill said that if you were going to turn in an absentee ballot, you can only turn it into the drop box when active voting is going on inside of a precinct. Okay, well, if somebody had the ability to be at a precinct between nine and five during traditional hours, they will be there voting, not turning in an absentee ballot. It's things like that, that are gonna hurt not only Democrat voters, but also Republican voters and just anybody who is trying to vote. There are other provisions in there that just make it really difficult. For example, precinct changes happen all the time, a precinct change can happen, because let's say that we're using a school. So you've been voting at this precinct for the last 5-10 years, if you're lucky, and it has not changed, unless they all of a sudden, this school now needs to go through repairs, and they have to move the precinct. Under this new bill, if you show up at the wrong precinct, they will literally toss out your provisional ballot, if it's after a certain time. And so it's issues like that, where people are really just trying to go to work, feed their families, take care of their families, make sure their kids get a good education, and just deal with the normal stressors of life. And now this bill is turning voting into a game of Whack a Mole. I mean, it's just, it's true. And so voting is the cornerstone of democracy. And there are a lot of bad things that are happening. I was on the committee when Rudy Giuliani and the Trump lawyers came to us a couple of days before Christmas, to try to force us to invalidate all of the votes of Georgians, just toss out all of them, and just hand state over to Trump. So basically, you wanted the state representatives and senators to just toss out the results of the presidential election and just say, you know, what, Trump's the winner of this state. I mean, it's just crazy. It's like these people don't want democracy. They only want democracy as long as it means that they'll be in charge. That's what I'm understanding.

Meral Clarke: 31:23

Right. And if it's to their benefit, that's all they care about. They obviously don't care about the average working Georgian, or American. So let's talk about equality or lack thereof in our state, another hot button issue for me. Can you speak to the legal discrimination against LGBTQ plus Georgians, along with discrimination across housing, education and public accommodations? How has your own experience of coming out as bisexual shaped your views and perspective?

Renitta Shannon: 31:56

Sure, so for me, I know that visibility is important. And it's also very important in a representative democracy, that we have people from all walks of life so that we will get the best legislation, we can get legislation that protects everyone. Part of that is crafting legislation that will make sure that we end discrimination against the LGBTQ community. Now, recently, the Supreme Court, they settle some cases that basically say, you will be found on the losing side in court, if it's found that you are discriminating against someone for housing, for example, solely on the basis of them being LGBTQ, because that actually is included in what is covered, meaning that you're not allowed to do sex discrimination. So that's the good news. The bad news is Georgia does not have laws on the books that just stop this discrimination cold in its tracks. So the way we have it set right now. And it's actually there was a guy from Georgia, Gerald Bostock, it was his case that made it so the opinion of the courts is that you cannot fire people for being gay. And you can kind of extrapolate that decision out to mean that you cannot discriminate against people say, Oh, I don't want to rent to you, or allow you to have public accommodations because you are gay. But the problem is, is that in order to exercise any of those rights, because they are not rights, they're just court opinions right now, that means that you have to take your case to court to prove your discrimination. And as we know, proving discrimination is very, very difficult. So what we need in Georgia is a full slate of legislation that says in advance, you cannot deny someone housing because they are gay, because currently, before the Supreme Court had come with this ruling, it was just the case that it was legal, and it still is technically legal for a landlord to say, I don't want to rent to you just because I know that you're gay. It has been the case that technically an employer could fire you just for being gay. And so what we need now is legislation that says in advance that you cannot discriminate against people, because they are a part of the LGBTQ community. And that is definitely something that I would workfor.

Meral Clarke: 33:56

That's wonderful. And how does so called religious liberty laws affect this as well?

Renitta Shannon: 34:02

Well, these religious liberty laws are both bad for business and bad for society. My dad actually was a Southern Baptist activist minister, so nobody knows religion better. And I can tell you that this is a very diverse country, and nobody has a right to force their religion on anybody else. So religion should never be used as a vehicle for discrimination for the government, in addition to the fact that government is meant to represent everybody. So this whole notion that we should be some type of theocracy is just not what the country was founded on, and is just not what representative government should produce policy wise. So those are my thoughts on that.

Meral Clarke: 34:43

Oh, most definitely. And certainly scares the heck out of me. So I'm with you there. And here's something else that you did. That is very exciting. Tell us about the group Her Term. You co founded this group to elect to progressive women to office. Tell us more about Her Term and its goals. and how it works.

Renitta Shannon: 35:01

Sure, so Her Term started out as a project in 2016. This was before Trump was elected, I had just won my primary. And so I saw what the lack of resources were to elect progressive women to office really women on either side of the aisle. But my focus has always been electing progressive candidates. So for me, I was intently focused on what it takes to elect progressive women. I saw that it was really hard, it felt like almost an act of God to be able to unseat an incumbent. And it's really, really hard for women to get elected. They tend to receive less in donations, people just don't think of them as natural leaders as much as they do men. And because of that, there is less investment for women candidates. And we get asked things that people would never even dream of asking men. And so I started Her Term with another person, Gina Simony. At first was a project. After we saw wha happened in the presidentia election where Trump bea Hillary, we knew that we neede to make this a full o organization that woul consistently work year round. S I went from a side project to a entire organization. And s since 2017, I co founded an have led this organization tha has worked to flip competitiv seats from Republican an Democrat, and to recruit an elect progressive women i public office. I recruited Luc McBath, to run for office Fantastic. That's a great one Yeah. And many of the seats tha you saw change in the house many of those people were He Term candidates. We helped t let Bee Nguyen who's now runni g for secretary of state hel ed to elect the newest senator that we have. And so we've done a lot of work in helping to ge this state to a point where it is more representative f the actual people that live n it. And also, that, you know, e can elect progressive wo en to public office. So I thin when we started just to sum th s up, when we started, I think Georgia, maybe had 20% women elected across all office

Meral Clarke: 36:54

As well you should be and we're grateful to you for, and I think Georgia is now it ay be between 30 and 40%, we've had a significant impact on the umber of women who are elec ed at every single level of o fice. And we're proud of running with that and making it so successful. So if someone wants to volunteer or donate to your campaign, where would you send them?

Renitta Shannon: 37:16

Yes. So please go to my website, RenittaShannon.com. That's R E N I T T A S H A N N O N. So it's just my first name and last name. So yes, you can donate there. You can also sign up to receive the emails that we send out as well as volunteer.

Meral Clarke: 37:33

Wonderful, wonderful. And finally, and I ask all my guests this question, tell us a fun fact about yourself something not related to your work or your position as a Georgia State Representative or your campaign for lieutenant governor. Tell us something interesting just about you.

Renitta Shannon: 37:49

Well, three things come to mind. So I had a chihuahua for a long time, whose name was Punky Brewster. Oh, so and he said something interesting about me and then I've done quite a few extreme sports. So I have been skydiving in zero degree weather. I've been hang gliding and I've been zip lining over Vegas and various other zoos in places.

Meral Clarke: 38:10

Wow. So you're definitely not risk averse. Good to know.

Renitta Shannon: 38:14

Exactly. And definitely not us. Yeah, I'm not scared. So

Meral Clarke: 38:17

Great. grateful for that. Well, thank you, Renitta for joining us today and sharing more about your campaign and your critical work to support Democrats and maintain our democracy. I'm Meral Clarke and on behalf of our team, I'd like to thank everyone for listening to the North Georgia Blue Podcast. We hope you'll join us next time when we interview Saira Draper voter protection chair for the Democratic Party of Georgia. To learn more about us and the work that we're doing, please visit us online at FanninCountyGeorgiaDemocrats.com and share the North Georgia Blue Podcast with your friends and family. Be sure to subscribe and follow. If you're enjoy our podcasts consider becoming a founding patron and friend of the show at NorthGeorgiaBluePodcast.com/patron so we can continue getting into more good trouble.