Bibb legislators draw challengers in May 19 primary election

Three of the eight state legislators who represent parts of Bibb County in the Georgia General Assembly will soon face challengers for their seats.

The incumbents seeking reelection are District 26 Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon; District 142 Rep. Miriam Paris, D-Macon; and District 149 Rep. Floyd Griffin Jr., D-Milledgeville.

Republicans Nancy Hicks and Tracy C. Wheeler will face off in the May primary to determine who will run against Lucas in November’s general election.

Paris is running against Democrat George E. Thomas Jr. The winner will battle Republican Calvin Palmer in the fall.

Early voting for the May 19 primary begins April 27.

In primary elections for partisan state and federal offices, voters pick a Republican or Democrat ballot, depending on the candidate they wish to see on the November ballot. If there’s a runoff in June, voters will be limited to casting a ballot for the same party. Voters can still participate in the general election in November, even if they don’t cast ballots in the primary.

House District 145 Rep. Tangie Herring, D-Macon, qualified for reelection and will appear on the Democratic ballot. She is challenged by Republican candidate Eric Wilson, who resigned as the mayor of Forsyth in January and lost a runoff election for Senate District 18 to Steven McNeel in February.

Wilson, who qualified to run for the State House in early March, and Herring, who was elected in November 2024, both will appear on the ballot for the November general election.

Here are the candidates:

Senate District 26

Includes part of East Bibb, Hancock, Washington, Johnson, Wilkinson and Twiggs counties.

Incumbent David Lucas, Democrat 

Lucas was first elected to represent Bibb County under the Gold Dome in the House in 1974. He was elected to represent Senate District 26 in 2012. This year marks his 52nd year as a member of Bibb County’s legislative delegation and he’s running to serve another term.

Experience matters, he said.

“I don’t care how smart you are in the general legislature; If you don’t have any friends, you can’t get anything done,” Lucas said.

Lucas said he wants to see the interchange expansion project at Interstate 75 and Interstate 16 to completion, which he estimates will take at least another two and a half years.

If reelected, Lucas said next legislative session he plans to introduce a bill that would give the Macon Water Authority power to issue a four-year sales tax that can be renewed as many as seven times. Lucas had planned to introduce the bill this past session but said he did not because he was waiting on a resolution in support of the measure from the water authority.

Lucas, whose wife serves on the water authority, said upgrading aging infrastructure will come with a hefty price tag.

“The city of Macon is old. Pipes are old and ratepayers can’t pay it all,” Lucas said. “Basically, that’s where the water authority gets its money from.”

The bill would create a sales tax for the authority called the MOST, which stands for Municipal Option Sales Tax. Money from the sales tax would be used to pay for infrastructure upgrades.

Nancy Hicks, Republican 

Hicks did not respond to texts, calls and emails from The Melody.

Hicks, of Macon, ran unsuccessfully in 2024 for House District 145.

Tracy C. Wheeler, Republican 

Wheeler did not respond to texts, calls and emails from The Melody.

This is not her first time running for public office. 

After losing a bid for House District 128 by 48 votes in November 2024, Wheeler, of Sparta, filed a lawsuit in an attempt to overturn the election results, citing evidence of 14 improper votes. The Georgia Recorder reported that a Tifton Judicial Circuit judge ruled that Wheeler “failed to prove that there were enough votes or other systemic irregularities in the east Georgia district race to warrant a new election.”

The judge found that evidence of 14 improper votes was not enough proof of other ineligible votes being cast in the district. House District 128 covers Hancock, Baldwin, Glascock, Washington, McDuffie and Warren counties and partially overlaps with Bibb County Senate District 26.

House District 142 

Includes parts of East Macon, Vineville, and north and southwest Bibb County.

Incumbent Miriam Paris, Democrat

Paris, real estate agent for Century 21, has represented part of Bibb County in the State House since 2017 and is seeking another term.

As a state senator from 2011-13, Paris played a large role in the consolidation of the city of Macon and Bibb County. Before that, she served on Macon City Council for years.

“I want voters to know that I have been attending to the district’s business, making sure that I am there and present and paying attention to what is going on,” Paris said. “Being in the General Assembly is a great honor and privilege to witness how it works and how I can make a difference in everyday Georgians’ lives by casting votes in their interest.”

When it comes to business under the Gold Dome, relationships are important, she said, “and seniority is very important.

“I have worked very hard to make sure my relationships in the legislature are sound and my colleagues can call on me to report good legislation and fight legislation that I feel will hurt Georgians,” Paris said. 

George E. Thomas Jr., Democrat

Thomas, a lifelong resident of Macon and NewTown Macon’s director of leasing, said his campaign is about “affordability, access to health care, education and public safety.”

“As a father and a member in the community, I see the challenges first hand that we’re facing: rising costs, concerns about public safety and kids having real opportunities,” Thomas said. “It’s time for new leadership that listens, shows up and gets results.”

If elected, Thomas said his priorities would be expanding Medicaid, making it easier for first-time homebuyers to access assistance and increasing state funding for local school districts.

“Local school districts have to pay more than they’ve had to in the past, and I’d like to see the state step up and help fill that gap,” Thomas said.

Thomas ran unsuccessfully for the Macon-Bibb County Commission twice in recent years.

“I’m running not just to hold the title but running to serve,” Thomas said. The campaign is about “people, families and the future of our community.” 

Calvin Palmer, Republican

Palmer, owner of Quality Furniture & Mattress Warehouse on Emery Highway, has been involved with the Republican Party for years. This is his second bid for the House District 142 seat, which he lost in 2024 with 10,391 votes to Paris’s 15,936 votes.

“It seems like the Democratic Party is moving in a very harsh left direction and embracing, I think, Muslim and Islam and things like that. That’s a scary thing,” 76-year-old Palmer said. “Basically they have turned Middle Georgia blue, so I’m trying to run to put a little conservative Republican back in Georgia.”

Taxes, regulations and school zone speed cameras are among Palmer’s top issues.

If elected, the main issues Palmer would focus on are reducing taxes and cutting regulations. 

“I think that we’re overregulated,” he said, adding that local government-instituted fees are among “a lot of things that need to be looked at.”

Palmer also said he would like to see Bibb County eliminate its local 4% tax on groceries, a move that would require local action then legislative approval.

“Somebody who’s at a lower income level, they’re paying a higher percentage of their income for that tax than a person who, say, is in the upper 50% of income levels,” Palmer said. “The state charges nothing on food. That’s all the local tax.”

Palmer said his other concerns range from local tax dollars being used to pay for under-enrolled schools to remain open in the Bibb County School District, low voter turnout, eliminating property taxes for seniors, maintaining the birth rate in Bibb County and addressing the state’s “huge” population of illegal immigrants.

“There’s a lot of things that need to be looked at, but a lot of that requires the state and county working together,” Palmer said. 

House District 149 

Includes west Baldwin County, a portion of Jones County and East Macon. 

Incumbent Floyd Griffin Jr., Democrat

Floyd said he is running for reelection because he has unfinished business at the Capitol. Constituents and party leadership asked him to, he said, and he wants to ensure the majority-minority district continues to have Democratic leadership.

“We are losing 11 or more Democrats who are either retiring or running for another office,” Floyd said. “Therefore, we need to have strong leadership and work with new people when they come in next year. … We need to have people that understand the process and have been there and done that, which I have.”

Griffin, who was the first Black mayor of Milledgeville and its first Black state senator in the ‘90s, was elected to the State House in 2024.

“After just two sessions, you can’t get a lot done – even if you’ve been there before,” Floyd said, adding that the rules and people and “lay of the land” have changed in the decades since he served as a senator. “Reintroducing myself to individuals in the house that were there when I was in the senate has made a very big difference this year.”

As far as unfinished business, Griffin said, some legislation he introduced was “either not heard or not voted out of committee. It’s very difficult when you’re in the minority, like we are, to get bills to move through the process. Just because you don’t get them one time, you continue to do them.”  

Andrew Ross Sheppard, Democrat

Sheppard, an agent for Ansley Real Estate, said he is running for House District 149 because, “I see so many needs in our community that are not being met, and I know that I have the ability to move the needle and try to get some things accomplished.”

Sheppard lives on the south side of Milledgeville, a place he said faces similar socioeconomic challenges as East Macon and is “the part of our county that is the most neglected and sort of left out and left behind and has the worst economic and health outcomes.”

Sheppard said he has knocked on about 1,000 doors since starting his campaign and plans to do so in Bibb County next weekend.

“We’re asking people what they are most concerned about and the top three are the cost of housing, cost of health care then the corresponding issue, the lack of jobs and the lack of good-paying jobs,” Sheppard said. “People are struggling to make ends meet. It’s, by and large, an economic set of issues that we’re hearing most about.”

Sheppard said it will take state intervention to improve some of the pocketbook issues he is hearing about from voters. Building more affordable housing could be accomplished through the state “incentivizing builders to build more that are affordable,” he said, adding he would like to see more funding and improvements to the state’s downpayment assistance program for first-time homeowners.

Fixing the housing crisis is going to take time, he said. 

“A couple of things that I think we could do pretty much immediately is expand Medicaid and raise the minimum wage,” Sheppard said, adding that the state’s decades-old education funding formula could also be updated. “Those are three things that could be done quickly and have a big impact quickly.”

Sheppard was a candidate for Milledgeville City Council in 2013 but said he dropped out of the race upon being accepted to graduate school at the University of Georgia, where he studied historic preservation and specialized in rehabilitation and restoration of historic buildings.  

Randy Peters, Republican 

Peters did not respond to texts, emails and phone calls from The Melody.

On his website, Peters describes himself as “a businessman, job creator, and devoted family man who believes deeply in the promise of the Georgia Dream.”

Peters, of Milledgeville, is the CEO of Med-Lake Laboratory, a medical laboratory and health care clinic that opened in 2018, according to The Union-Recorder.

In a Facebook post announcing his candidacy on March 18, Peters said he is “focused on strengthening our local economy, expanding access to rural health care, supporting school choice and workforce development, standing with law enforcement, protecting faith and family values, and advocating for our farmers and rural communities.”