Well, folks, Georgia lawmakers have officially gone clucking mad.
I was going to write this week about the serious issue of recording and broadcasting public meetings. It’s an actual problem affecting transparency and accountability in local government across Georgia. But then Representative Foghorn Cluckhorn of the 75th district (Okay, okay, his real name is Eric Bell) went and introduced a bill about chicken wings, and honestly, I’m in a fowl mood about the whole thing.
Yes, you read that correctly. While Georgia ranks 48th in healthcare quality, while rural hospitals are closing faster than a henhouse at sunset, while families are choosing between groceries and medical care, the Georgia Legislature has decided to tackle the pressing issue of declaring lemon pepper the official state chicken wing flavor.
This is no yolk, folks. This is House Bill 1013, a real piece of legislation that real lawmakers will spend real time discussing under the real Gold Dome. Because apparently, when you’re running a circus, you need to make sure the concession stand menu is properly codified.
The bill—and I’m not making this up—includes legislative findings that explain how lemon pepper wings “resonate across Georgia communities, transcending race, region, and class.” It references Gucci Mane, Rick Ross, and NBA star Lou Williams, affectionately known as “Lemon Pepper Lou.” There’s even a comparison to peaches, suggesting that just as peaches symbolize Georgia’s agricultural pride, lemon pepper wings symbolize our “cultural flavor and global culinary influence.”
I’ll give Representative Bell this much: he didn’t wing it on the research. The bill is fully-baked with historical context, noting that J.R. Crickets introduced chicken wings to Atlanta in 1982, and that lemon pepper has become distinctly tied to Georgia culture. This is legitimate culinary history.
And look, I’m not going to pretend there isn’t a tender side to this argument. Lemon pepper wings were indeed pioneered in Atlanta. They are a real part of our food culture. They’ve been name-dropped in songs, celebrated in restaurants from Buckhead to Brunswick, and yes, they do bring people together at cookouts and family gatherings. That part is absolutely true.
But here’s what really ruffles my feathers: this is not the job of the state legislature.
This is the job of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. This is the job of Explore Georgia, our state tourism department, which already does an excellent job promoting everything from Vidalia onions to Brunswick stew without requiring legislative intervention. Marketing professionals get paid to hatch these kinds of promotional campaigns. They know how to make cultural symbols take flight without wasting taxpayer money on legislative sessions.
Let me remind you of some Georgia history that didn’t require lawmakers ruling the roost.
Georgia has been known as The Peach State since the 1870s. For over a century, peaches were synonymous with Georgia. Farmers grew them. Tourists bought them. The whole country associated Georgia with peaches. Which is amazing considering that Georgia isn’t even the state that produces the most peaches. But, marketing declared it to be The Peach State and that is who we are. Brood on that for a while.
And do you know when the legislature felt the strange need to weigh in and officially designate the peach as a state symbol? Would you like to take a peck at this riddle? It was 1995. That’s right—Georgia managed to be The Peach State for 125 years without legislative approval. The marketing took care of itself. The brand was built by farmers, businesses, and people who actually knew what they were doing.
But now, we can’t let lemon pepper wings organically represent Atlanta culture. We need a bill. We need findings and declarations. We need lawmakers to debate whether “lemon pepper wet” deserves a mention in the official legislative record. (It does get mentioned, by the way. Your tax dollars at work.)
Meanwhile, back in the real world where real Georgians live, we have half-baked solutions to serious problems. We have healthcare costs that doubled for over a million Georgians. We have maternal mortality rates that should make us hang our heads in shame. We have infrastructure crumbling, housing costs soaring, and mental health care so scarce that finding a therapist is like finding a unicorn at a poultry farm.
But sure, let’s spend legislative time on chicken wings. Let’s have committee meetings about seasoning. Let’s make sure future generations know that in 2026, while Rome burned, Georgia’s legislature was deeply concerned about properly crediting the cultural significance of citrus-flavored poultry.
This isn’t even the first time we’ve done this dance. As I mentioned in my column about the circus rolling back into town, the legislature has a long and distinguished history of wasting time on symbolic gestures.
The pattern is always the same. Lawmakers introduce these bills, claim they’re celebrating Georgia culture and then pat themselves on the back for “doing something.” Meanwhile, they chicken out on the actual problems that keep Georgians up at night—the ones we discuss at kitchen tables while eating our state-sanctioned cornbread—get kicked down the road like a can full of chicken scratch.
I can already hear the defense: “It’s just a symbolic gesture! It doesn’t cost anything! Why are you being such a killjoy?”
But it does cost something. It costs time. It costs attention. It costs the opportunity to address real issues. Every minute spent debating lemon pepper wings is a minute not spent on healthcare, education, or infrastructure. Every committee hearing about chicken flavors is a hearing that could have been about maternal mortality or rural hospital closures.
And here’s the thing that really gets me: the people introducing these bills know this. They’re not stupid. They know Georgia has serious problems. They know families are struggling. They know our state rankings are embarrassing. But it’s easier to file a bill about chicken wings than to reach across the aisle and tackle the hard, complicated, politically risky work of actually fixing things.
Chicken wings don’t have lobbyists who will pull campaign donations. Chicken wings don’t require you to stand up to powerful interests. Chicken wings let you look like you’re doing something without actually doing anything that might ruffle anyone’s feathers or cause any real controversy.
It’s legislative theater. It’s performance art. It’s the same chicken dance our lawmakers do every year. It’s the governmental equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, except the Titanic is serving lemon pepper wings and everyone’s taking selfies instead of looking for lifeboats.
Look, I like lemon pepper wings, too I understand the appeal. Although, I do prefer my wings with a little more fire to them. I get that they’re part of Atlanta culture. I’m not anti-wing. I’m anti-wasting-time-on-nonsense-while-people-suffer.
If Representative Bell and his co-sponsors want to celebrate lemon pepper wings, great. Write an op-ed. Organize a festival. Partner with the tourism board. Start a social media campaign. Do literally anything that doesn’t involve dragging the entire legislative process into your culinary appreciation society.
And now is a good point to mention that I’ve been writing about this nonsense so long it became a book. If you enjoy this brand of punnery and chicanery, you can buy it here.
The Georgia Legislature meets for 40 days a year. Forty days to address every problem facing 11 million Georgians. Forty days to pass budgets, fix laws, and actually govern. And some of those precious days will now be spent discussing whether lemon pepper wings deserve the same official recognition as the brown thrasher and the Cherokee rose.
So here’s my suggestion for the legislature: Let’s leave the marketing to the marketing professionals. Let’s let the tourism department do its job. Let’s allow cultural symbols to emerge organically, the way they did for 125 years before anyone felt the need to legislate peaches.
And let’s use those 40 legislative days to do what lawmakers are actually supposed to do—address the real, boring, expensive, complicated problems that affect whether Georgians can afford to live, work, and raise families.
That said, if anyone in the legislature would like to send me some lemon-pepper wings, I might be willing to reconsider my objections to this bill.
