Georgia Rep. Renitta Shannon has entered the increasingly crowded race for lieutenant governor.
Shannon, a Democrat from Decatur, announced her candidacy on Monday.
Elected to the General Assembly in 2016, Shannon has gained attention by staging direct confrontations with Republicans. In 2018, she led a group of fellow progressive Democrats in boycotting Gov.-elect Brian Kemp’s first public address.
In 2019, she was physically removed from the floor of the Georgia House of Representatives when she refused to give up the podium during her dissent to a restrictive abortion bill being pushed by the GOP.
“I was not going to just let them pass this like some tax bill that nobody cares about,” she said at the time.
If she is elected lieutenant governor, Shannon would become Georgia’s first openly LGTBQ statewide elected official.
Shannon is a member of the House Governmental Affairs Committee, which gave her a platform to push back against passage of Republican-backed election legislation she argued amounts to voter suppression.
In 2018, she introduced a bill that would have restored a legal requirement that the U.S. Justice Department “preclear” any changes in voting laws passed by legislatures in states with a history of racial discrimination.
Shannon also serves on the House Insurance, Small Business Development and State Planning & Community Affairs committees.
With incumbent Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan not running for a second term, a large candidate field is vying for the vacant post. The Republican side features state Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller of Gainesville, Georgia Sen. Burt Jones of Jackson and GOP activist Jeanne Seaver of Savannah.
Joining Shannon in seeking the Democratic nomination are Bryan Miller of Watkinsville, grandson of the late Gov. and U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, and state Reps. Erick Allen of Smyrna and Derrick Jackson of Tyrone.
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
