“In March of next year I will qualify for re-election of the Georgia House of Representatives,” announced David Ralston, Speaker of the House of Representatives for the State of Georgia.
Ralston represents District 7, which includes Fannin, Gilmer and a part of Dawson County.
At a reception in his honor at Willow Creek Falls and Vineyard in Blue Ridge September 17, Ralston said he would run again, in part, “because there is work that matters for hard working Georgians still to be done.”
Rick Jasperse, chairman and representative of House District 11 said, “He surely deserves our support and our friendship and our prayers every day.”
Speaker Pro-Tempore Jan Jones, representing House District 47 and the highest ranking female in the state government of Georgia in history, said, “I know him not just as Speaker Ralston. I know him as someone who wakes up every day and wants to represent the counties he represents, and he wants to do the best for you. … He never forgets where he came from.”
Ralston went through a laundry list of accomplishments he said would endure for generations, saying, “For seven years in a row, Georgia has been the number one state in the nation in which to do business. Number one.
“We have balanced the state budget every year. … We’ve retained a triple A bond rating through some challenging financial times. Full funding for public schools for the first time ever. The first income tax cut in Georgia’s history. Reform of our adoption laws to make adoption quicker, easier and less cumbersome. Added protections of our second amendment rights. And, for the first time ever a real focus on growing jobs and opportunity in rural Georgia.”
Locally, aside from mentioning numerous improvements in Gilmer County, including a million dollar expansion of the Gilmer County water system and a satellite office for the Center of Rural Prosperity in Ellijay, he spoke about Fannin County, too. “... $900,000 for an expansion of the water system, $500,000 for the park and street project in McCaysville, the widening project of Highway 5, which is becoming a reality after being talked about for over thirty years, and as Dana (Chastain, Clerk of Superior Court) said, the crowning achievement, next year we’ll open the University of North Georgia campus in Blue Ridge.”
Ralston is the 73rd Speaker of the Georgia House, having been elected to that post by his colleagues in 2010. He was first elected to the House in 2002.