We’re back. Yes, we’re back. I’m your host, BKP, and you’re watching BKP Politics on voiceofruralamerica.com.
First of all, I know there’s been some space between the last time we got together. I know last week I dropped a Substack story on the QR codes, SB 189, the special session, and everything that was going down. But what I needed to do was let things play out all the way through Friday and Saturday so I could see the full picture on the property tax, the fact that there’s no redistricting, the QR code issue, and the election bill that took place in this 3EX special session.
That is all completed now. We are ready to roll out exactly what’s going on, where everything stands, and take off into the real election season, which I think is going to happen pretty much right after July 4th.
Now, I’m not saying that nothing is happening right now. God knows we have a lot to cover with you on what is taking place and who is currently overshadowing things—people who really need to find themselves in the shadows, behind the scenes, and quiet. We’re going to explain exactly what that means here in just a minute.
Under the gold dome, our legislative special session is officially complete. You’re going to hear a lot of spin on this, but we’re going to break it down one piece at a time. Today, we’re going to cover the redistricting, the power players, what really happened down there, and who is truly in charge. Right after the redistricting, we’re going to dive deep and go in-depth into the election bill, SB 3EX. Then tomorrow, I already have everything set up to do rapidly in the morning: we’re going to expose what I call the “big lie” property tax. After that, we’ll get into what happened with the endorsements. Some developments have come out, people have started talking, and individuals under the gold dome have started whispering about what really happened with Governor Kemp endorsing Burt Jones and President Trump endorsing Mike Collins. We’ll get into all of that tomorrow.
The Commitment to the Hard Truth
Before we go too far into the day, I have to tell you I struggled with this program for multiple reasons. There are three particular groups or individuals I’m going to talk about today, and within those groups are a lot of people I really care for, think a lot of, and consider friends. Because of what I’m going to say by the time I get done with the program today, maybe my career is over. Maybe the hate mail and the attacks on social media will be terrible. I don’t know. But the commitment I make to you is to look you in the eye and always tell you the truth—not a selective truth. A lot of people out there only deal in selective truth.
I get a question all the time: “BKP, what do we do at this point? This doesn’t seem to work, we’ve tried this, what do we do?” Today I’m going to answer that question. It is not pretty, it is not enjoyable, and it’s not something I want to do, but it’s the question that is always put before me, so we’re going to deal with it.
To completely understand this comment, you need to read my Substack from 6/24 titled, Crumbs for the Grassroots: How Election Integrity Died in the Special Session, Carrying the Water for the Swamp, Time to Clean House in Georgia, Grassroots.
Emojis, Karnak, and the Georgia GOP Rodeo
We’ve got a little bit of an “I told you so” today. I got messages last week comparing me to Karnak the Magnificent. If you don’t know the reference—especially the young adults watching—ask your parents, and your parents might even have to ask their parents. And let me clarify: I’ll try to refrain from saying kids or children. My son just purchased my granddaughter a phone, and now she’s completely emoji-driven. I get 19 emojis in a row, and then she calls to ask if I’m coming to her swim meet! So, I’ll back away from “kids” and say young adults. But young adults, if you don’t know who Karnak is, look it up. We’re doing a big “I told you so” today.
I’ve always wanted to say this phrase: this is not my first rodeo. I just always wanted the chance to say it. Now, we’re not going to go in and just bash Georgia GOP Inc. today; I’m honestly not interested in that. But they just held a massive event, and if I would have done anything at all, I would have made sure to safeguard it so that reporter Greg Blustein couldn’t post pictures of an empty stadium, an empty arena, or a stage with absolutely nobody standing in front of it. There’s just a lot of talk.
We’ll cover Georgia GOP Inc. tomorrow and look at where they stand, because Rick Jackson—the guy at the top of the ticket—was not even there for their big unifying event. That event was scheduled for this weekend intentionally to come right out of the June 16th election so the Republican ticket could hit the ground running, completely unified. That did not happen. And it’s not me dragging Republicans down the road; Greg Blustein is the one intensifying it out there.
Look, I am a Republican. I do not support voting for Democrats in any way, shape, or form, and I will not help them. But this is not a Republican show. There are plenty of shows out there if that’s what you want, and I’m not knocking them. But this show is not set up to carry any politician’s water or just cheer them on. This show is here to bring you the actual facts of what is going on, regardless of who it affects. If Democrats happen to say something of interest, we’re going to show you that, too.
Murphy’s Law and the $390,000 Bill
When I think about this special session, it was pure Murphy’s Law: anything that could go wrong did go wrong. I heard a number from a lawmaker standing in the well of the Georgia State House stating that this special session cost the taxpayers $390,000.
Keep that number in mind. We had no choice but to call a special session because leadership did not complete the work required by a law passed back in 2024. It is now 2026, and that law required bylaw that QR codes be completely gone from ballots by July 1st. Because they didn’t finish the job, we had to spend another $390,000 of your money to pay for the cost of operating the state capitol during a session.
And out of all of that, they accomplished virtually nothing. The only things that passed were the approvals of Governor Brian Kemp’s appointments, moving the QR code deadline, and a foggy recount amendment being called the Greg Dolezal amendment. That’s it. Nothing happened on redistricting. The election bill did not go anywhere near what you thought it would or what you’ve been fighting years for. And the property tax measure required a constitutional two-thirds vote to pass, so it failed completely. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, nothing happened, and there goes your 390 grand.
The Power Shift: June 16th vs. June 17th
Let’s talk about the redistricting power players. The election was June 16th, and Rick Jackson won that night to become the Republican candidate for governor. The special session started the very next morning, June 17th, and it ended with zero redistricting.
Go back to election night. I didn’t tell State House members face-to-face, but I said in a podcast a week before the election that if Burt Jones won, State House members would be going to Atlanta looking for a broom closet to hide in. On that side of the crystal ball, a Burt Jones win would mean a win for Brian Kemp, shifting the balance of power heavily over to the Senate.
But that is not what happened. Because Rick Jackson won, Burt Jones showed up the next morning on June 17th as a lame duck. Maybe he didn’t say it out loud, but his “give a damn” was busted. State senators were left asking, “What do we do now?” while Rick Jackson potentially made decisions on how he wanted things to go without our knowledge. House members came into the special session completely emboldened, as though they were going to set the tone and the direction, and let the Senate know, “We’re in charge and this is how it works.” Especially under the leadership of John Burns, the Speaker of the House.
Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner: Coach Brent Cox
Let’s look at what happened at the Gold Dome before we hit the three main issues. Go back to February 3rd, when Rick Jackson first announced he was running for governor. I was in the room on February 4th for his kickoff event. At that exact time, you saw who had the guts and the courage to get on board early. You had the people who were “all in,” and then you had the people who wanted to “wait and see” how it all worked out.
Besides Rick Jackson himself, the biggest winner in this entire election process is a guy I call “Coach”—State Representative Brent Cox of House District 28. Jackson announced on the 4th, and Brent Cox got on board on February 6th. He was the very first one out there. He didn’t wait around to see how much money was going to be put into the State House leadership pack; he went all in. By February 6th, they were already eating together at The Varsity.
I know him as Coach because he was a high school football coach. I’ve stood on the sidelines with the guy on Friday nights and sat in the coaches’ room over at Dawson when I was interviewing him. You can throw whatever you want at the camera, but I like Brent, I’ve always gotten along with him, and I think he has future aspirations. He is the absolute definition of winner, winner, chicken dinner. I wrote an article just four days before the runoff election where I scorched this guy pretty good, but I’ll look you in the eye today and tell you straight up: he is the winner.
The True Motivation for the Session
Now, why was redistricting on the table at all? The bottom line is that the Supreme Court issued a ruling on the Louisiana redistricting case on April 29th, and the base got into an absolute uproar. Social media was flying with attacks against Brian Kemp and establishment figures. People were upset—the Georgia base and Trump supporters in the Republican Party were very upset that Brian Kemp didn’t immediately call a special session for redistricting at that time.
From a 30,000-foot view, leadership saw this uproar as a perfect motivator for voter turnout. If you look back at my previous podcasts, the amount of money spent on recent elections compared to the actual voter turnout was horrific. It was terrible across the board for governor, senate, congressional, and state races. I think Republicans realized that if they could get the base whipped up into a frenzy thinking redistricting was going to happen, it would salvage voter turnout.
But when it came time for the special session, John Burns said no to redistricting because they read the polling data. That data showed that people really were not as on board with redistricting as you would think, or as first anticipated. What actually happened when John Burns gave his press conference to say he was not doing the redistricting was that the Capitol was full of Democrats—packed. The real enthusiasm on redistricting showed up on the Democrat side to stop it. They wanted to stop redistricting. So what Republicans may have thought was something that would activate their base to come out and vote, the reaction really was that it motivated Democrats far more than it did Republicans.
Let’s be specific about the timeline of the call so we’re dealing with facts rather than emotional programming. Governor Kemp issued his special session proclamation on May 13th, right before the May 19th primary. He later amended it on June 3rd, setting the session to begin June 17th. The primary purpose was the state election code deadline before July 1st and redrawing maps. He easily could have held that proclamation until June 3rd, but by putting it out before the primary, it was clear the call was meant to build turnout.
When Kemp amended the proclamation on June 3rd, he threw in local property tax relief—specifically the Local Homestead Option Sales Tax (L-HOST). My opinion on why that happened is simple: Democrats didn’t want to give Republicans a clean win, and Republicans wanted to ride this issue into November.
Remember, Rick Jackson’s very first platform statement right up to the end of his primary campaign was property tax relief. If the Republicans had actually passed this in both the House and Senate chambers, it would have kindly taken away a little bit of what Rick Jackson is currently running around promising he’s going to get done. He wants to be the one to get done what others could not.
Under the Gold Dome: Who is in Charge?
Let’s look at what really happened under the dome. A major story has been circling the political rumor mill in Georgia that Rick Jackson promised to put $2 million into the State House Political Action Committee (the Leadership PAC). In return, Speaker John Burns would greenlight any House representatives who wanted to jump on board and endorse Rick Jackson. That is what we were told. And two million isn’t a lot for Jackson. In fact, I heard that when Jackson visited DC the Saturday before the election for a fundraiser, he dropped another million dollars—his second million—hoping that Trump would change his mind and endorse him, take the endorsement away from Burt Jones, or at least give a joint endorsement. Stay tuned on that, as it is a developing story.
On the morning of June 17th, John Burns put out a statement congratulating Rick Jackson on securing the nomination, talking about party unity and electing conservatives. But let’s be real: the House of Representatives is not the conservative body of Georgia. The Senate has traditionally been the more conservative body.
John Burns walked into this special session pumped up like the strongest, most powerful man in the state. He was totally in charge. My understanding coming out of the Speaker’s office is that he made it clear he intends to hold his majorities next fall. His attitude was: Kemp is going to be gone, Jones is going to be gone, but I’ll still be here, my guy won, and my House members are now running things.
When the Speaker of the House held the press conference on redistricting, the speaker claimed that they were not going to do redistricting at this time, while looking around to see over 500 Democrats who had been bused in, along with U.S. Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. He said they decided they needed to hold off and skip it, and that they had sent a letter to the governor stating that they would not be doing redistricting in the special session. You are never going to convince me they ever actually planned to do redistricting at this time. They knew redistricting right now would completely energize the Democrats. It is now unknown if they will come back in November to do the redistricting, although that is the current rumor.
The only reason that press conference was called was so the majority of the House members could stand on the stairwell behind John Burns for a massive group picture. Burns could have easily sent out a standard press release by email and let the media tweet out that the House was bypassing districting. But he called a full press conference because he wanted every single TV camera running to show he was the leader in charge.
If you look at that big group picture on the stairs, I bet you couldn’t find more than three state senators in the crowd. Larry Walker, the Senate Pro Tempore, is essentially the equivalent to the Speaker of the House in terms of Senate chamber power because of how the Lieutenant Governor’s role operates. Larry Walker could have pushed back. He could have held his own press conference. Senators sent me multiple messages saying, “We came here to do redistricting, we didn’t agree to skip it, we came to get at least two more Republican congressional seats.”
But as you know, the walls have ears, and the echoes coming out of the gold dome—the whispers being put out there—are that John Burns and Larry Walker may have had a conversation, basically saying, “This is how it works. Next year when you want to get your bills through, maybe you and I can have a little better relationship than the last guy.”
Don’t forget the 2024–2025 session on Sine Die. Burt Jones gaveled the Senate out early and made John Burns very, very angry. When this session started back in January—the regular 2026 session—reporters were running around asking if they were still mad at each other, and both Burns and Jones claimed, “Oh, that’s all behind us.” I’m looking you straight in the eye to tell you that was absolute bullshit. It was never behind them. Burns has been holding the balance of power in his hands as long as he could, and Rick Jackson’s win gave John Burns the ultimate chance to let Burt Jones know: “You gaveled out early last time, now I’m going to make you gavel out on my terms.” They are not a happy, “get-along” crowd. They can’t even spell unify.
As for the election bill, word under the dome is that SB 3EX was entirely pre-written and came straight out of the House to Max Burns. We address this in full detail in a Substack that I released on June 24th. We’ll get into the depths of that bill later.
The 24-Year Echo and the November Threat
Immediately after the election, Rick Jackson put out a statement showing himself teamed up with Congressman Mike Collins, declaring they will defeat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Jon Ossoff. They teamed up instantly. What is the common denominator pulling those two together so fast? Question mark: maybe Brandon Phillips? Just saying.
Jackson is also running around boasting endorsements from Governor Sonny Perdue, Governor Nathan Deal, and Governor Brian Kemp. Sonny had eight years, Deal had eight years, and Kemp had eight years. Do you really need to remind the voters right this minute that Republicans have held the governor’s mansion in Georgia for 24 consecutive years, back-to-back-to-back? It feels like the Swami trying to catch a baseball: back, back, back, right?
As we close out the analysis on this special session, let’s look at what Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones said when they gaveled out: “You know, they say we might be back here in November. I mean, so this might not be goodbye. But if we come back here to redraw lines in November, it ain’t the Democrats who need to be worried.”
Catch on to what that actually means regarding the power base. If Rick Jackson wins the general election, one thing happens. But if Keisha Lance Bottoms wins, or if a Democrat wins the Lieutenant Governor’s race, the legislature is going to come back in November for a lot more than just redistricting. They will be coming back in a lame-duck session to strip whoever wins of executive power before they can even take office. Watch and see what happens in November, because the power struggle is real.
Here is the ultimate takeaway: Lawmakers have had six full years to pass a solid piece of election integrity legislation that actually protects and secures your elections the way you think they should be—not the way Brad Raffensperger thinks. They had years to make these corrections, and they didn’t do it.
Rick Jackson is the official nominee now, so I am not attacking the guy, but if his camp does not figure out how to pull the Republican base back together, we have a massive problem. It is not Burt Jones’s obligation to fix this; he lost the election, it’s over, and Rick Jackson is the nominee. Jackson needs to start leading the party and leading the ticket right now. He has to try to bring in independents and Democrats, yes, but first and foremost, that hasn’t happened because we haven’t even gotten our own house in order. We need to stop, fix our internal problems, and then focus on growth.
We have a long, hard road to November. Lawmakers under the gold dome have told me directly that the Democrats are completely united, organized, and ready to move forward. Republicans have to solve their internal separations and hard feelings immediately, or November is going to be a disaster. And John Burns cannot fix this by just strutting around the Capitol acting like he’s the most powerful man in the state.
But hey, if you want to talk about real winners, I’ll say it one more time: winner, winner, chicken dinner goes to Brent Cox for jumping out there on February 6th. Just saying.
Just another Nugget of Truth with BKP.
