Georgia State Rep. Mesha Mainor said she chose to leave the Democratic Party after realizing they were responsible for the “problems in [her] community.”
“Every single policy issue that is important to my community was a policy issue that the Republican Party was supporting,” Mainor explained to CNN of her decision to officially switch her party registration to Republican earlier this month. “So, it’s not party. It’s really policy. Who is supporting my community?” she asked.
The lawmaker cited poor literacy and math skills in her district’s public schools, blaming her former Democratic colleagues for “relentlessly” stonewalling her efforts to help minority families access better schools.
“I tell people, ‘Look around you. The schools are failing. We have high crime. There is not a Republican in office, so we can’t blame Republicans. Democrats need to blame themselves for the problems in our community.’ And I’m just trying to make a difference, honestly,” Mainor said.
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Mainor has represented District 56 in the Georgia House since January 2021. The lawmaker angered her former party after standing with Republicans in supporting a school choice bill last May.
“It really is a policy issue. So if you are against children being able to have a choice when 97% of the kids don’t know how to read, that is a policy issue. If you want to defund the police, that is a policy issue. If you want to put prosecutors or systems above families that are seeking justice, that is a policy issue. So once my colleagues started putting up 1,000 dollar checks on social media for anybody to run against me, I did some self reflection and said, ‘okay, why is this happening?’ It is a policy issue,” she told CNN.
“As a former Democrat, it was quite difficult to get things done if you have groups of people continuously and relentlessly trying to stop every…
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