Freed from Georgia GOP ‘penalty box,’ now he leads the state party. Q&A with Josh McKoon

When fellow Georgia Republicans elected him last month, Josh McKoon became the first state GOP chairman from the Columbus area, tasked with uniting a party divided by polarizing opinions about their leading presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump.

A decade ago, a relatively young and contentious state senator who upset the establishment, McKoon was accused of being a divider in the party.

During his eight years (2011-19) representing Columbus, McKoon led the ethics reform that ended unlimited gifts from lobbyists to legislators. He also rankled veteran lawmakers when he pushed for more transparency in the senate.

And he was the driving force behind the three-year effort for the controversial “religious liberty” legislation that passed the state Senate and House in 2016 but was vetoed by then-Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican.

On the first day of the next General Assembly session in 2017, the Georgia Senate Republican leadership removed McKoon as chairman of a judiciary committee. It was deemed payback for what the traditional power brokers considered his brash style.

After an unsuccessful campaign for Georgia secretary of state in the 2018 election, McKoon has been general counsel for the Technical College System of Georgia since February 2020.

McKoon, 44, now resides in Atlanta. He grew up across the Chattahoochee River in Smiths Station, Alabama, while attending Brookstone School in Columbus from kindergarten through 12th grade. After graduating in 1997, he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and communication studies from Furman University in 2001 and a law degree from the University of Alabama in 2003.

The Ledger-Enquirer visited this week with McKoon in the Phenix City law office he shared with his father, Jim, from 2006-10. Here are excerpts from that interview, edited for brevity and clarity:

What’s your reaction to being elected Georgia GOP chairman?

“I feel really honored by the fact that we had three people running for chairman that ran strong campaigns. The fact that I was able to get a majority (54%) of the convention behind me on the first ballot was very gratifying.

“A lot of people talk about there being various factions in the Republican Party. Of course, there are factions in the Democratic Party as well. But I think it demonstrates I was able to get support from all quarters of the Republican Party.”

Why did you campaign for the chairmanship?

“I think with the presidential election coming up, I guess it gets somewhat trite for people to say this, but to me it’s the most important election in my lifetime because so many things are at stake: America’s reputation around the world, our ability to grapple with really serious economic issues, fundamental issues the federal government has to confront that have been kicked down the road year after year after year. I feel very strongly the current leadership in Washington, the Biden administration, four more years of that would be ruinous for the country, and so that’s really what got me into this.”

What is your priority as chairman?

“I told people during the campaign, to me, there really are four keys for us to be successful. … The first thing is you have to get various factions of the party together and unified. … I think the two ways I’m going to accomplish that is by being relentlessly positive about Georgia Republicans … and then also not to play in primary politics. We’ve got 12 candidates on the Republican side. Half of those are people of color. I think there are a lot of reasons for people to be very excited about this field of candidates. …

”No. 2 is fundraising. We’ve got to have the money to pursue the aggressive program we want between now and next November. … I’m putting together a really great finance team that’s going to help us do that.

“Third is training. We really need excellent training for our grassroots leaders. … We’ve got to set expectations for our leaders and then give them the tools to be successful. The most important person in the Georgia Republican party is not the state chairman. It’s every precinct chairman we have because they’ll build the grassroots machinery that will allow us to turn out the vote next November. … Then the fourth and final piece will be communication. … The party’s got to get with the 21st century on communication, so that means podcasts of our own, broadcast-quality TV-type programs, where we’re telling our own story. … The spokesman on those podcasts and television programs oftentimes isn’t going to be a 44-year-old white guy wearing a tie, right? (Laughs.) It’s going to demonstrate the diversity of the Republican Party.”

Understanding the governor, secretary of state and other top Republican statewide officers didn’t attend this year’s Georgia GOP convention, where Trump spoke, how do you go about reconciling differences in the party and uniting it to win in 2024?

“ I have a relationship with Gov. Kemp that goes back to when he ran for agriculture commissioner in 2006 and have always enjoyed a good relationship with him. We have been in communication since the convention. Gov. Kemp has always been a loyal Republican, a friend of the Georgia Republican Party. …

”I suspect we’re going to see a very good partnership between Gov. Kemp, his political operation and what we’re doing in the Georgia Republican Party and really all down the line. … I think for reporters on the capitol beat in Atlanta, that’s going to continue to be a storyline they try to push, but I think the reality is going to make it that much more difficult to push in the coming year and a half.”

How so?

“We’ve spent a lot of time communicating, and some of the feedback I’ve already received in three weeks of doing this is, ‘Wow, we’re seeing a lot more communication coming out of the state party.’

“That’s by design. … Keep bringing the conversation back to: Do we want four more years of sky-high inflation, unaffordable housing, choosing between medicine and groceries? Or do we want to try to get back to some sanity in our fiscal policy, to bring inflation down, bring interest rates down and get people back to where they’re not paying $3.50, $4.00 per gallon for gas. Those are the issues the people I talk to are really concerned about.”

What does the increase in communication you mentioned look like?

“We have an email list that we’re using right now, and we’ve been putting out statements there. We’ve been making more active use of the party’s social media channels. We’ll do even more of that. And you’ll see us roll out as we get into the third quarter of this year these podcasts and this broadcast-quality video programming.”

Why have the Democrats made gains in Georgia the past several years, and how should the Republicans respond?

“The 2020 election, whatever people want to say about it, it was unprecedented. . … So I think it’s hard to base a lot of conclusions on trend lines based out of the 2020 election. If you look at 2022, when we returned to kind of normal absentee ballot levels, Republicans did very well around the state. …

“Obviously, I was disappointed with the U.S. Senate race. I think unity played a role in that. You can’t have a Republican elected official (former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan) go on national television and say they can’t vote for the U.S. Senate nominee (Herschel Walker). … Even after all that …that’s still a race we lost by less than five votes per precinct. So 2022 … showed the resiliency of the Republican brand in Georgia. …

“I actually think Georgia is solidly a center-right state. If we can make this election about the issues I think Georgians are most concerned about, like the economy, public safety, (transgender athletes in) men’s and women’s sports — if that’s the ground we fight on — I think the Republicans are going to win.”

Election integrity and security have been called into question in Georgia. What’s your assessment and level of confidence in the state’s election system?

“I think all of us are concerned about the recent unsealing of the (University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex) Halderman affidavit in some federal litigation going on in Atlanta over electronic voting. …

“Professor Halderman identified a number of vulnerabilities. Those vulnerabilities also have been pointed to by federal agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, as things that need to be addressed. …

“And now we’ve been told those vulnerabilities won’t be addressed before the presidential election. That’s bad for voter confidence. … I can see a scenario where Republicans win by a small margin, and we could have Democrats saying, ‘Well, they didn’t do this update, and we get this result.’ So I’m concerned about that. It’s something that needs to be addressed.”

Critics said you weren’t a team player in the legislature. What would have you done differently there, and how has that informed your leadership now as Georgia GOP chairman?

“Because of things that happened my first two years, I kind of got in the penalty box with some of the influential people. After some trying to reset and seeing that wasn’t going to happen, I really defaulted to a method of going to the public, trying to rally the public behind issues, and then use that to get some change internally.”

Why do you think you were in that penalty box?

“I was pushing for an unpopular issue (among legislators), which was ethics reform. That part, I don’t really regret. I will say there’s a balance between knowing when to take some public action on something and maybe being more confrontational on an issue versus trying to work behind the scenes and work it out that way.

“I probably would have balanced it a little bit differently but not a whole lot differently.”

Looking back, were you too abrasive?

“I think on ethics reform, I waited the first year. I didn’t introduce the bill because I was promised we would study it. That never happened. I introduced the bill in year two. Couldn’t get a hearing. So you spend two years of your life on something, and you’re not getting the courtesy of having the issue discussed, then you do feel like, ‘OK, there needs to be a wider public discussion about this issue.’ I think that was the right thing to do. I think it has permanently changed the culture of the General Assembly in a positive way.

“But sometimes, in order to do that, there are going to be hurt feelings. … I think later on, there were definitely issues that, if those relationships had been better, I could have navigated those issues differently. … I think a lot of the culture that I was battling 10 years ago has been successfully reformed, and I think you’re seeing the fruit of that. When you’re the tip of the spear, you’re going to take some flack.”

How can you go from being labeled a divider in your party to now uniting your party?

“It’s a fundamentally different role. As a legislator, you’re an advocate. … A key part, and a reason I think I’m well-suited to this task, is that I have a pretty good insight into where establishment Republicans are coming from. But I also have an understanding of that person who walked into a Republican meeting for the first time and said, ‘I want to go to the state convention. I don’t know anything about politics, and I’m not an elected official, but I want things to change in our country.’

“You need somebody that can speak to both of those people and who has at least a level of respect from both of those different audiences. … They know I’m not going to lie to them, I’m a straight shooter, and I’m going to be focused on our goal. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of distractions, but the goal is to win the (presidential) election next November.”

What’s the top one?

“I think doing more listening than talking is a big one. I spent a lot of time hearing from people and beginning a meeting by saying, ‘I want to hear what you have to say.’ … Most of the time in politics, a big part of it is people want to be heard. They want to be given the opportunity to fully give voice.

“Part of our problem today is that so much of our political discourse is in this sort of bumper sticker kind of dialogue: ‘Well, you’re a RHINO,’ or ‘You’re a Tea Party person,’ or whatever the charge is, instead of just saying, ‘What’s you’re position on this? … Is it more important to you to talk about your disagreement with this person, or is it more important to you to put a Republican in the White House?’… I’m going to work every day to earn their support. People put trust in you. It’s a big task in front of us, and I’m going to try to do them proud.”