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Carolyn Hugley, a state representative from Columbus, Georgia, was recently selected as the House minority leader in the Georgia General Assembly.
Credit: Mike Haskey / Ledger-Enquirer
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Columbus’ Carolyn Hugley starts as GA’s House Democratic leader. What her priorities are
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After 48 years of representing Columbus in the Georgia House, retired State Rep. Calvin Smyre knows what it takes to be an effective leader under the Capitol’s gold dome in Atlanta.
So he didn’t hesitate when asked whether State Rep. Carolyn Hugley of Columbus has the ability to be successful in her new role as leader of the Georgia House Democrats.
“I really think she is ready,” Smyre, who from 1986-89 was the first Black representative to be floor leader in the Georgia House, told the Ledger-Enquirer. “… She doesn’t need on-the-job training. She’s been minority whip (2003-18 as the first Black representative in that position at the Georgia House), so she has engaged with the membership as it relates to the caucus position and carrying out the policy of the caucus on the floor of the General Assembly.”
The 2025 legislative session of the Georgia General Assembly started this week.
Smyre described Hugley as trustworthy, knowledgeable, thoughtful, courageous, persistent and respected on both sides of the political aisle because she shows integrity and communicates well to form constructive relationships.
Hugley, starting her 33rd year in the Georgia House, impressed Smyre with her leadership when she chaired the Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Committee.
“It’s one of the toughest jobs, a tall order, but she stood up to the test,” Smyre said. “… You’ve got so much coming at you because there are winners and losers when you’re doing reapportionment, but she carried herself very well.”
State Rep. Debbie Buckner, starting her 23rd year as a member of the Columbus area’s delegation, described Hugley as proactive and prepared.
“She’s a great planner, and she thinks things through ahead of time,” Buckner told the Ledger-Enquirer. “… She’s very, very good at listening to different sides of the issues, and she realizes, I think, very astutely, that just because you are on a different side of an issue with a person today, they may be your ally tomorrow, and you don’t need to burn bridges, so to speak. You need to work together, because that’s what we’re up there for.”
A prime example, Buckner said, is when Hugley previously tried to be the Democratic leader in the Georgia House.
“The members were fractured and went off in different directions, but she didn’t pout and go home and act ugly. She just helped out the current leader, even though many times they were people with much less experience than she had. In every way, she continued to work for the good of the caucus. I think that shows true leadership.”
Buckner also noted having Hugley in such a powerful position benefits the Columbus area.
“She will be able to not only introduce individual bills,” Buckner said, “but she’ll be able to shape policy conversations and discussions.”
Carolyn Hugley on being elected leader
The Ledger-Enquirer visited with Hugley last month in her Columbus office, where she is a State Farm Insurance agent. The following excerpts from our interview are edited for brevity and clarity.
What is your reaction to being elected by your colleagues as leader of the Democrats in the Georgia House?
“It’s a tremendous honor. … We are 80 members, which makes us 45% of the House of Representatives, so it’s the largest number of Democrats that we’ve had in a long time, and we’re excited about that. We have a tremendous amount of diversity in terms of geography and in terms of age, in terms of ethnicity, race, all of those things. All of those factors are part of our caucus, such that our caucus is Georgia. We reflect Georgia, and so it’s a tremendous opportunity for us … to try and do the work that the people of Georgia sent us there to do.”
Why did you seek that leadership position?
“My colleagues asked me to run because we were looking for a leader who could bring our members together, one who has the institutional knowledge of being there. And, of course, since I’m the longest-serving Democrat in the House, and I’m the longest-serving woman ever to serve in the Georgia House of Representatives, they thought I might have a little something to offer. … I’ve shown my ability to work well with others. I’ve gained the respect of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”
Why do you still want to serve in the Georgia Legislature?
“Because there’s more work to be done. Whenever you lose your why, that’s when you need to come home. The reason why I went to the Capitol was to serve my community, to look after the needs of particularly children because, when we secure the children, … that’s the only way we can secure the future. And so our children are still hurting. Our children are still in need. And so my why is still there.”
Looking ahead to the 2025 legislative session, what’s your biggest priority, and what do you want to accomplish as minority leader?
“The first thing the leader wants to do is keep their caucus together. Other than that, … we need to really look at our school funding formula, … particularly as we look at students with special needs because the formula does not really capture the cost for taking care of those students. And so, if there was an exodus of students using vouchers, the students with special needs are still going to be in our public schools because the money that it will require to take care of their needs will not follow them.
“… We sometimes have to send students outside of our state in order to find the resources they need, … and that’s not really reflected in our funding weights. And as we move forward with vouchers, I think that problem will be exacerbated. So that’s something that our caucus wants us to take a look at as it relates to education, and that’s something that our local board has expressed concerns about as well.”
What are other state issues that you know the Muscogee County School District Board and the Columbus Council have on their legislative agenda for the local delegation to advocate?
“Younger and younger students are participating in vaping, and so they’re asking us to make vape detectors eligible for school safety grants. … They are wanting to make sure that what we have at Brewer (Early Innovation Academy, a K-2 initiative designed to help students below grade level in literacy and numeracy) can be extended and can get state funding.
“… The city had several items on their agenda. Most of it was health-related. … Both the city and the school district want point-of-sale data so that they’ll know where the taxes have come from. … Another thing the school district has wanted us to continue to work on is the whole notion of foster students. They come into our county, they have to be assigned to a school, but they arrive before the records arrive with the students.
“And we’ve had an incident here where a teacher or a parapro was injured and was hospitalized because the student arrived and they were assigned to a school before they knew about the mental health diagnosis that the child had. They were not able to do an appropriate placement for the child. So they have asked us for several years now, and we’ve been working with the Department of Family and Children Services, to say to them, the record should arrive when the student arrives.”
Why did the Democratic Party lose a lot of the traction it gained four years ago nationally and statewide?
“It was a pretty close election, even though the Democrats lost battleground states that they had traditionally won. But when you step back and look at the entirety of the states, it still was a pretty close election, so we have a pretty divided country. … It also means that people were feeling the stress of inflation, and they were looking for, I guess, the promise of relief, even though things were turning around.
“But things don’t happen very quickly. And when somebody comes and says, ‘You elect me, and everything will be fixed,’ people want to believe that. Of course, that’s not what’s going to happen, but that gave people hope, and that’s what people wanted to grab onto, wanted to believe.
“So we find ourselves now in a situation where there’s going to be a lot of change going on. We’re going to have to be in the position of managing change at the federal level, at the state level, and every headline you see is something different, and people’s eyebrows are continuing to be raised by the nominations to head the various departments and that kind of thing. So there’s a lot of uncertainty that we’re facing right now.
“I think, as Democrats, what we are going to do is to take a take a step back, go back to our constituencies, and go back to people all across the state, to hear from them, to listen to them, to see what is motivating them, what is it that they need. And we’re starting that with our young people. (State Rep.) Teddy Reese from here in Columbus is heading up our college tour. . . . We’re going to every college campus to talk to young people about their concerns and their issues now and going forward.
“… And the seniors of today, the Boomers, are not like seniors in the past. Seniors today are more active. They’re more concerned about things. They’re doing more things. And so we have to adjust what we do in terms of outreach for seniors and programs for them to be in line with where they are. So I think it’s a matter of reassessing where we are, going back and listening to our constituencies, from the young to the old, and fashioning policies and programs that really speak to those needs.”
What should the Democrats do to gain power in Georgia?
“There’s a map, OK? And Republicans draw the map to their advantage. And even though the population has changed, as long as we have gerrymandered maps, that will make it take longer for Democrats to get to the majority. I fully believe that we were on a path to the majority. We had some very close races this time, and Republicans had to struggle to maintain 100 (seats).
“…So we are making progress, and I think the momentum is in our favor as we continue to move forward, but that was done even though we had to be outspent because the governor and all of the constitutional officers are Republican, and they have a greater capacity to raise money. So even in light of the fundraising disadvantage we had, we came very close to bringing them under the 100 level.
“And, of course, they will talk about what a great year it was for them. It’s not a great year for you when you are not gaining, but your opponents are. So, at the end of the day, the Democrats in the House were the ones who gained seats, who gained a number, not the Republicans. So we are moving constantly toward that majority, and so our members are focused on that.
“We’re going to be focused on the issues that are of concern to everyday Georgians, and we have to continue to do that, and we have to continue to interface with our members. We’re fighting against a map that’s not designed for us, but we’re going to continue to do that work. As the demographics change, … we have to fight for every voter, and we’re willing to do that.”
Is it more important for the Democrats to better communicate their current message or to change their message?
“I think there’s some of both because we have to stay in line with where the people are, and the majority of Democrats are clustered in the metropolitan Atlanta area. But in order to win statewide, you’ve got to have a message that will resonate beyond that.
“And so that’s why we are taking the step of going to all the college campuses, going out beyond the Atlanta metro area, because some people think that they don’t have anything in common with Democrats, because they don’t know many Democrats. Most of their elected officials are Republicans. So we have to make those connections in south Georgia, in north Georgia and east Georgia and here in west Georgia.
“… I think it’s a matter of interfacing with people, meeting them where they are, and sometimes it’s not what you say but how you say it. And I think we have to look at our messages, craft them in a way that resonates with people, so that people can understand, so people can see themselves in the Democratic message and what we’re trying to do. … Any business that you would look at, it’s always in the process of monitoring their messaging and massaging it as it goes on. And even though the core tenets may stay the same, the ways they present them sometimes change.”
Do you have any political ambitions to be elected to an office beyond the Georgia House?
“I don’t see that in my future. I’m very busy right now and very pleased to have the opportunity to serve the people of Georgia where I am. I’m always reminded of the fact that only 180 people get to serve the citizens of Georgia in the House of Representatives, and it’s a tremendous responsibility and a tremendous honor. So I think my focus should be on doing what I have been elected to do. I am not looking beyond that at this moment, but there are a lot of people at the Capitol who are, so there’s plenty of room for people in that space.”
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
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