Of As a Republican in the
Georgia General Assembly.
Representative Maynard joins me now.
Welcome. I'm glad that you were here.
I'm. I'm looking forward to hearing
your insight and your views on this.
And many people are wondering why
did you leave the Democratic Party.
I think you
said it spot on.
I'm just trying to represent District 56,
the people of Atlanta,
GA in Fulton County.
And 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
single move I did for my community.
I could give you a plethora of examples.
But along the way I got things done anyway,
really because of the help of
my Republican counterparts,
and I'm appreciative of them
as well as my community.
There have been issues in terms of
police funding and cross control,
discretion, issues of school choice.
I know that you have been at odds with
many Democrats and the General Assembly,
but one of the questions people have
is if you if you feel as though the
Democratic Party was not supportive
of you and your colleagues and
your college supportive of you,
why choose to go Republican as
opposed to say independent?
I understand that as recently as last year
you said you would never switch parties.
What change to go Republican
rather than independent?
So in Georgia it's not really easy
to be an independent last year or at
the last election I got about 1920
thousand votes To be independent you
have to get thousands of signatures
for to even be on the ballot.
So it really is impractical to
be an independent in Georgia.
Well, given that it does it sound
like are you truly a Republican now
or it was just politically expedient
to to be that now then based on that?
So when I came into office,
I came in as a Democrat.
I've been a Democrat my entire life.
That's all I knew.
It wasn't until becoming a policy maker,
actually looking at the policy,
digging in into the fine details,
that many people said, OK,
you're actually not a Democrat,
you are a centrist or you are a moderate.
As a layperson,
had no idea that that was such a thing.
And now I am still a moderate
and still a centrist,
but just on the Republican side.
When you you are for reelection I
believe in in 2024 and I I do wonder
what your constituents that you are
representing must feel about it.
I recognize it's not a monolith.
I can't say what do all the people represent
actually believe about particular issue,
but I am curious as to how
you intend to either.
Seek reelection or what will be your stance,
knowing that you have done quite a
switch from the Democrats or Republicans.
So the beautiful thing about this,
Laura, is I campaigned on
public safety as a Democrat.
I campaigned on parent choice,
school choice as a Democrat.
I campaigned on victim rights as a Democrat.
Those are the things I fought
for inside the Capitol.
Those are the exact same
things I'm going to fight for.
On the Republican ticket,
I do plan on running again.
And once the decision was
made and it was announced,
I immediately got a flood of text messages
saying I'm still going to support you,
Representative Maynard.
Phone calls, emails.
I know that you've been seeing all of the
hate emails or and text messages online, but.
For every one of those
hate emails I'm receiving,
I'm receiving hundreds of letters of support,
local media.
They've been out in the
community asking people,
how do you feel about this?
The responses are I can't wait to
see what she's going to do with it.
So I plan on winning District 56.
I've won it twice with multiple
people in my race without a runoff.
They voted for me.
They did not vote for the
alphabet next to my name.
That's interesting that I'm I'm very
saddened to hear as well about the death
threats that you have been receiving and
I know that you have been focusing on
the positive reactions you've gotten.
Something you said strikes me as interesting
from the perspective of the electorate.
You didn't know there was such
thing as a centrist or a moderate.
Could you not have been that as a Democrat?
Or was it the underlying policy that
you no longer agree with and have
only learned about while in office?
Or is it really?
The bureaucratic process,
that was surprising.
I would not call it a process.
First and foremost, I will say this,
it's not about party.
I am not expecting the
Republican Party to be perfect.
My Republican colleagues have said,
welcome Representative Maynard.
Please know that we are not perfect.
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's a policy issue.
If you want to defund the police,
that's a policy issue.
If you want to put prosecutors or systems
above families that are seeking justice,
that's a policy issue.
So once my colleagues started
putting up $1000 checks on social
media for anybody to run against me.
I did some selfreflection.
Selfreflection, said Okay.
Why is this happening?
It's a policy issue.
Every single policy issue that
is important to my community
was a policy issue that the
Republican Party was supporting.
So it's it's not party.
It's really policy.
Who is supporting my community?
Who is trying to uplift my community?
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.
It
certainly is your choice and how you
want to run and your constituents
choice and who they want to lead.
There are, of course,
there's a Republican majority
already in your Assembly.
This widens that particular gap.
But final question,
now that you are a Republican.
The head of your party happens to be
the former President Donald Trump,
at least in a de facto sense.
Do you support his bid for the White House?
I would say Governor Brian Kemp is
the head of our Republican Party.
I'm in Georgia and former President
Donald Trump is not in office right now,
so I'm going to have to
disagree with you on that one.
Will you support him if he becomes
the RNC nomination? Obviously,
Georgia has been a very important state.
Brian Kemp has been a key part of
the importance of that and it's been
looked at for a number of reasons,
including happens at the federal
and congressional level.
If he is the RNC nominee,
will you support him as a Republican?
I would say that there are 12 candidates.
I have been in office for
two seconds as a Republican.
I have not looked at any of
the candidates extensively
because I was a former Democrat.
So I was looking at what
is President Biden doing.
So ask me again.
Invite me back in a few months if you
want to ask that particular question.
It'll be the same one.
Thank you for joining us today.
The representative Misha Manor,
thank you for joining us. Thank you.