Two veteran members of the Georgia House of Representatives announced Friday that they won\u2019t seek reelection this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reps. David Knight, R-Griffin, and Gregg Kinnard, D-Lawrenceville, addressed their colleagues from the House floor on the final day of Qualifying Week for legislative candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knight, now serving in his 20th year in the House, is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee\u2019s Higher Education Subcommittee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the House floor Friday, Knight said the recent death of House Rules Committee Chairman Richard Smith convinced him it was time to leave office and spend more time with his wife and young son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knight praised Democrats and Republicans in the House for debating issues in a civil manner, even when they disagree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople are tired across this nation of bad politics and people being mean to each other,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we treat each other with civility, we\u2019ll all be better for it, and the people of Georgia will be better for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kennard, elected to the House in 2018, had indicated late last year he would not run for a fourth term after House Republicans redrew the House map during a special redistricting session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new map put Kennard in the same district as House Minority Whip Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, and Kennard decided to step down rather than face Park in a Democratic primary contest in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two veteran members of the Georgia House of Representatives announced Friday that they won\u2019t seek reelection this year. Reps. David Knight, R-Griffin, and Gregg Kinnard, D-Lawrenceville, addressed their colleagues from the House floor on the final day of Qualifying Week for legislative candidates. Knight, now serving in his 20th year in the House, is chairman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":940,"featured_media":74210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[15183,8978],"class_list":["post-169296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-capitolbeat","tag-legislature","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/940"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}