Sunday Interview with Josh McKoon: 'I want to try and make Columbus, the area I represent, a better place'

Josh McKoon has been a politican since the fourth grade.

Now 35 years old, he's entering his fifth year in the Georgia General Assembly, representing Senate District 29. He chairs the Judiciary Committee and has pushed controversial ethics reform.

Active in the Georgia and national Young Republicans, McKoon has a political network that stretches far and wide.

What's next? He's not really saying, just pointing out that political oportunity sometimes depends on timing.

Right now, he says he's content with working in the General Assembly.

He recently sat down with reporter Chuck Williams to cover a lot of issues as the legislature prepares to convene on Monday.

Here are excerpts of the interview, with some of the questions edited for length and the order of some of the questions rearranged for clarity.

What do you anticipate out of this General Assembly session?

I think the overriding issue for 2015 is going to be transportation. While folks in our area passed the TSPLOST, obviously it didn't pass in Atlanta. It didn't pass in a lot of other regions of the state and we've got to figure out how we're going to move Georgia from 49th in per capita infrastructure spending.

When you talk about transportation, what are you talking about?

I think, simply, we're talking about moving people and also moving goods, freight. Georgia's growth has largely been fueled by the fact that we're a logistical hub. You have Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, you have the port in Savannah. We are a destination if you want to be able to move things quickly in and out. And the problem is we've lived off of these investments made in the '60s and '70s. We're getting ready to open a much deeper Port of Savannah that can take on a lot more container traffic. We're growing: We have almost 10 million people in this state and our infrastructure has to grow with us.

How do the traffic problems in Atlanta or the port issues in Savannah impact Columbus?

I'd say there are a number of ways. One, when I think about it from the perspective of Senate District 29, the easiest example is Kia. Kia moves a tremendous amount of material in and out of the Port of Savannah. If they aren't able to get those goods back and forth in a timely fashion, I mean, all of this business runs on a "just in time" model. So, they've got to have the flow of raw material and the flow of cars out on a regular basis or their business model doesn't work. That's one example, but I would say -- if you want to talk about it in broader terms -- the engine that allows our economy as a state to run is having these logistical capabilities.

And if we are unable to do that, it's not just going to negatively impact Metro Atlanta, it's going to negatively impact the entire state. That's why so many of us who don't live anywhere near Savannah have strongly supported the governor's effort to deepen the port because we know that's going to mean jobs everywhere in the state. That's going to mean jobs in the Columbus area because we are able to grow our economy.

When you talk about transportation in Columbus, Mayor (Teresa) Tomlinson's transportation issue is a bullet train or a train from Columbus to Atlanta. Is that realistic?

I don't think it's realistic, and I'll tell you why: If you look at the places where high-speed rail has been successful, it's where you are traveling from one very population-dense area to another very population-dense area. And you're able to get the ridership that will make it work, and unfortunately, going from a metro area of 200,000-300,000 people to a metro area of five million people, you don't have that flow going both directions that you really need to make it sustainable.

So, I'm not against rail. I think rail has a role to play, but I just don't think that project is feasible.

Have you told the mayor that?

I haven't really been part of the discussion on the high-speed rail initiative, so we have not had that conversation. I'd love to be proven wrong. No one would like to see that train more than me, but I just don't see how you do that without a massive government subsidy.

One person told me that it would be more efficient to give every person that would ride the train an airplane than it would be to put them on a train. So, from a financial standpoint, it's just not going to work. I think it's a great vision -- I wish there was a way to make it happen -- but I just don't see it.

Let's talk about how you've gotten to where you are. You're a state senator. You're chairman of the ...

Senate Judiciary Committee.

Pretty powerful committee, right?

We see a lot of legislation in our committee. We get to touch a lot of different areas of the law. I enjoy it because it's a committee with, I think, some of the brightest legal minds in our state. I think we've been able to maintain over the last two years the reputation our committee has had for very seriously considering legislation. We don't just move anything and everything that comes to us.

Can you describe your district?

My district is a real snapshot, I think, of Georgia. You have urban areas, you have rural areas. You have the northern half of Muscogee County, which is relatively population-dense with a wide diversity of employers. You have Harris County -- all of Harris County -- which is primarily agricultural until you get into the northern part of the county where you have had a lot of that growth related to Kia. (And) Meriwether County, which again has been a real success story. A lot of people don't know, but Mando, a manufacturer of automotive components, is on its way to becoming the largest employer in Meriwether County. But then again, lots of rural areas in Meriwether County.

And of course I have about two-thirds of Troup County, including the cities of West Point and LaGrange.

Why did you target the state Senate for your first elected office?

Well, you know, as I tell people, a lot of politics is timing, and as it happened Sen. (Seth) Harp, who was my predecessor, decided to run for statewide office and the opportunity became available. I've always been interested in the General Assembly, but really to be in the state Senate where you're one of 56, I feel like you have an opportunity to make more of an impact right away.

Where does your interest in politics come from?

That probably goes back to when I was in the fourth grade. We had a mock election at Brookstone and I remember being asked by the teacher -- there were two or three of us -- that we counted the votes after it was over with.

And I thought that was really neat that we get to pick our leaders. We all get to make that decision. The next year I got into middle school and ran for student government office unsuccessfully.

So, your first campaign was a failure?

It didn't work out too well.

Who beat you?

You know, I don't really know. I was running as a fifth-grader for an office that the eighth grade always had. So, I wanted to go down and make my case and it didn't work out. I know I at least got one vote. (Laughter)

A fifth-grader running for an office held by an eighth-grader. So, you've always kind of fought the odds sometimes, haven't you?

Just because somebody tells you can't do something or "that thing" isn't done is not really to me a good reason not to look at it and see if it's something you should do.

What's the first campaign you worked on where you helped somebody?

I volunteered for Peggy Martin when she ran for Phenix City Council. That would have been, I guess, some time in the mid-'90s.

So, you were in high school then?

I was either in the eighth grade or a freshman in high school. I just remember my dad was very skeptical about her chances of winning and he was telling me I was going to be "Smartin' with Martin" by the time the election was over with.

There was a small group of us and we would go out every day in the summer and knocked on doors. She was running against a 12-year incumbent city councilor and she won and she won by a very small margin.

So, early on in middle school and high school you were working on campaigns. Who does that?

You know, not a lot of people, but I was very interested in it, and really after that looked for any opportunity to get involved. Sen. Harp at that time was not in the legislature, but he was my trial coach at Brookstone.

So, he got me involved and took me to my first Muscogee County Republican Party Convention. I learned a little bit more about the internal mechanics of the party and that sort of thing. From there, I just got more and more involved.

So, you gravitated to Republican candidates early.

I've always identified more with the Republican Party than any other political party.

Why?

I believe the Republican Party stands for allowing the individual to sort of be the master of their destiny. Kind of get the government out of your way, leave you alone, and allow you to achieve your potential. And that's really what I think the country was founded on, this idea that we are going to give you a platform where you can sink or swim. We're going to give you a fair shot, we're going to give everybody as much as we can a good start in terms of your initial education, and from there give you every opportunity to be successful.

Did you stay politically involved when you went to Furman?

I did. As a matter of fact, I was very involved in the College Republicans in South Carolina. I had my first paid job in politics when I was at Furman. I managed a campaign for solicitor for a former assistant U.S. attorney named Trey Gowdy who has become somewhat prominent and is now a member of Congress. I volunteered for the George W. Bush for President campaign and some others.

I guess there is no more of a politically active campus in America than the University of Alabama.

It's a hotbed, and I was very involved in Gov. (Bob) Riley's first run for governor in 2002.

Then you come back to Columbus and you were working in congressional campaigns, you were practicing law, you were heavily involved in the park suit against the Muscogee County School District. You went right into the political fray when you got home, didn't you?

I did. I jumped in with both feet.

What do you remember about that? What stands out about that period when you were in the middle of so many things?

I really enjoyed the campaign with Dylan Glenn when he ran for Congress in 2004. That was my first opportunity, other than with Trey Gowdy, to really know the candidate on sort of a personal level, and to get that involved and to talk about issues that could really impact this area. I also felt like we had an opportunity to really make some history. Obviously, now we have some black Republican members in the U.S. Senate. We have had some in Congress, but from my point of view, it would have been a historic moment for Georgia. So, that was something I remember very well.

Dylan lost to Congressman Westmoreland. How did you patch things up with Lynn?

I think it's a testament to Congressman Westmoreland. And something I learned from that whole process is you may be on different sides today, but tomorrow things can change.

There's a colleague of mine in the Senate that says there are no permanent advisories, there are only permanent issues, and I think that's really good advice. If you're going to be involved in the political process, you need to keep your eye on the ball and an eye on what's important, which is advancing issues that are important to your area more than getting wrapped up in the personalities.

That's easier said than done. How do you separate the people from the issue, because sometimes the people are the issue?

It can be very difficult. I think what you've got to do is try to the extent possible to treat others the way that you would want to be treated. And that is to say if I have a disagreement with somebody on an issue, I'm not going to look at that when dealing with them in another context.

For example: If I have a member of the General Assembly I have a disagreement with on one issue, and then they have a bill that comes before my committee, I'm not going to take it out on that bill or take it out on that issue, because that does not do just a disservice to that person but to our whole process if we get away from what are the merits of the issue.

What is your definition of politics?

I would say politics is the means by which we carry on our tradition of self-government in this country. I mean, that's everything from the campaigning for office, electing someone to office, but interacting with that person as an elected official.

As an elected official, it's dealing with other constituencies. You have the people who you represent in your district, but you also have, in my situation, the other 55 members of the Senate, the lieutenant governor, the House of Representatives, their leadership, and the governor. So, there are a lot of different groups that you've got to balance a lot of different interests in trying to figure out how to get to where you want to go.

What is the No. 1 thing that can gum up the political process?

I think when politics becomes personal. I think that the biggest problem I've seen is when people get upset with someone and they say, "You're on my list and I'm not going to move this issue -- whatever the merits of the issue may be -- because I've got a personal problem with that individual."

When you got there and started pushing ethics reform, that wasn't popular.

It was not popular. I've told people that there almost seems to be an inverse relationship on how popular something is back home with how popular it is inside the Capitol. That's probably exhibit A for that.

Ethics is just another term for self-regulation, right?

I think that's true. There's personal ethics, right? I tell people, in this office all of the time there's legal and illegal and there's right and wrong, and those things are not always exactly the same.

You can have a personal ethic, but when we're talking about ethics in government, what we're really talking about are rules that not only govern our conduct, but more importantly send a signal to the public of what we think is acceptable behavior.

Your push on ethics didn't win you many friends in the House or in the governor's office, right?

Look, I'll be the first one to say the push for ethics reform was not popular under the Gold Dome. I think that it's very instructive that even though it was not popular, that we ultimately passed the first ever limitation on lobbyists given in the history of Georgia government, and I believe that would not have happened, not just because of me, but because of a group of people that were committed to moving that issue forward.

Now that you've been up there for four years, would you do it differently?

If I had to do that over again I think the only thing that I would do differently is I would probably have had more individual one-on-one meetings with lots of different members of the legislature. I've learned that really in the Capitol -- even more so than just in the day-to-day life -- that perception can be reality and so you can stop a lot of that by doing some work on the front end.

But I felt like I ran on this issue, I'm going to try and get it done. I actually waited an entire year before introducing a bill. I took the entire 2011 session, the summer, the interim period, but yeah, if I had to do it over again, I probably would have done more of that sort of legwork ahead of introducing the bill.

Your Religious Freedom Act bill right now -- obviously it's not coming from within, it's coming from the outside, but are you meeting some of the same opposition with that that you met with the ethics reform?

I would say that some of the cleavages are the same because with ethics reform what you really had -- and again, I'm saying outside of the Capitol -- is people who have a lobbyist at the General Assembly, people who can afford to hire someone to advocate on the outside for them every single day.

They didn't want anything about that system to change, because I believe our change leveled the playing field in a lot of ways for people that can't afford to send someone to Atlanta to take people out to dinner and take them on trips, and things of that nature. So, the more well-heeled folks, I think, had opposition to that.

I would say the same thing is true with the Religious Freedom Bill in the sense that we have some folks in the business community in Atlanta who seem to think there's a problem with passing legislation that has been passed in 31 other states that simply guarantees people -- again, going back to my earlier comments -- to make the government to leave them alone to allow them to practice their faith as they wish without the government getting in the way.

But the biggest opposition is coming from the gay, lesbian and transgender community, right? It is perceived as an anti-gay ....

That is the tension point. People feel like this is in some way aimed at the gay and lesbian community, and nothing could be further from the truth. The original federal legislation was passed in 1993. This is not an issue that just developed in the last year or two.

When you look at the city of Kennesaw saying to a group of Muslims, "We're going to deny zoning to a mosque," and when they pressed on it, they said, "We just don't allow houses of worship in these strip mall shopping centers." And then you find out that six months earlier they allowed a Pentecostal church in there. These are the kinds of things that this bill is designed to address so someone doesn't literally have to go to federal court to try and get some kind of relief. It's to make sure that those kind of things don't happen in our state.

Opposition is lined up already to this bill. You've got the Georgia Chamber that's fighting this. You've got gay and lesbian groups that are fighting it. You've got a lot of different coalitions fighting this. Can you pass it?

We're working on the bill now. We're meeting with everybody that is interested in having a conversation about this issue. I met as recently as yesterday with some folks that have some concerns about the legislation, and we're trying to work through those and look for ways to bridge the gap and come together on the issues that people have raised concern about.

I do think it's really important for people to understand something, which is there was a bill introduced in Arizona in 2014, and that bill talked specifically about denying service to people based on someone's religious belief. I don't think that's right. I don't agree with that. That's not what my bill does.

The bill that I introduced has been on the books in Arizona since 1999, and it's been the law on the federal level since 1993. It's not controversial. You can go through 20 years of court decisions and no court has ever interrupted that in a way to shield discriminatory conduct of any kind.

It looks like you're using some of what you learned in the ethics legislation about having conversations about this before you get to the point that you drop the bill.

Absolutely. I think that it's incredibly important to have dialogue and discussion whenever you have an issue that's raising opposition. You need to sit down and say, "OK, what is it that we're really disagreeing about and is there a way for us to bridge that gap and address it?"

If there is already federal legislation, why do we need state legislation?

In 1993, Congress passed this law. In 1997, there was a court case out of Texas where a municipality in Texas said the federal government can't set the legal standard for state or local government action. And the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with that, so what you saw after that decision in 1997 were individual states passing bills near the federal law but applied to state and local government action.

Talk a little bit about what happened in the last two years where there were ethic complaints brought against you by the school board.

So, you hear from lots of groups when you get elected. One of the persistent things I've heard is there's not enough money for K-12 education, not just in our state but specifically in Muscogee County.

I took the approach of saying, OK, where can we either generate some more money or where can we save some money? Because I felt like we were all on the same team, we're trying to solve the same problems. So, we looked at does advertising on school buses make sense? There are some states that do that. We pay 2.5 percent of our school tax to the city of Columbus -- over $2.4 million in money that is supposed to be earmarked for children being educated is going to pay for administrative fees for the city of Columbus to collect the taxes.

So, how about we make a change there. And then we started looking at these biding processes and the way that procurement is done. And I said it seems to me that a lot of money is getting wasted on no-bid contracts; they are not competitively bid. If you and I go and make a big capital purchase or if you and I go to hire somebody to perform professional services for us, we're not just going to hire the first person that we meet. We're going to shop that, right? So, why should the government be any different? ...

Anyway, the upshot of all that was a couple of members of the school board decided that they had a personal problem with me making these calls for the changes in the way they were doing business. There's no kind way to say this, they invented some allegations that were untrue about me to try to discredit my criticism of some of the school district's practices. I first had to process through the Senate's Ethics Committee, which dismissed all of the allegations.

Then they took the extraordinary step by getting a law enforcement agency involved by calling the chief of police who then by policy referred it out to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. I had to spend six months really under a cloud knowing I had done nothing wrong, because again, certain members of the board of education were so afraid of a legitimate conversation about practices of the school district that they just wanted to silence me. They thought that was the way to do it. The GBI reviewed it, found that there was absolutely no problem. The Attorney General's office reviewed it, found there was no problem.

So, you know, it's unfortunate I think that people chose to engage in that kind of conduct. It's kind of shocking to me that this kind of thing happens in the United States. It's the sort of thing you thing of happening in third-world countries.

What did this teach you?

To always have a witness with you when you have those kind of conversations. It has made me a lot more circumspect about having conversations with elected officials.

That can't help the process.

No, I don't think it's helpful at all. And I think, again, we've seen some change. Two of the board members that were engaged in that conduct are not going to be back in January.

Who are you talking about?

Beth Harris and John Wells.

You and Beth were political allies for many, many years. Y'all were on the same political team.

What I would say is Beth Harris was my friend and had been for a long time going back far before 2010. I did encourage her to run for the school board. I think in retrospect that was a mistake, not just because of this situation, but because I think she was not prepared to handle that responsibility.

Columbus has always had a very cohesive, for the most part, legislative delegation. Is this a cohesive delegation?

Well, I think we're fortunate in that several members have a very long tenure in the General Assembly. They understand the process and understand the players. And so, I would say on issues that are important to Muscogee County and to Columbus, we all work well together. We make sure we're all on the same page, and we advocate for the items that are important to Muscogee County.

Earlier you talked about you worked in campaigns in Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia. You're heavily involved in the Young Republicans nationally. What do you do with a political network like that?

One of the things is if you want to accept change in our system, you can't do it alone. You can't do it alone even if you run for office and get elected. I think if the governor was sitting here he'd tell you that. It takes a team. And for me, what's exciting about having been involved in the National Young Republican Board is that I've been able to help friends of mine who share a philosophical point of view get into positions to effect change.

Leslie Rutledge, who is going to be sworn in as the attorney general of the state of Arkansas in January, is somebody I've known for a decade, someone I've worked well with on a number of things. My friend Allison Ball... is going to be running for state treasurer in Kentucky in 2015. It's very exciting to see people who are like-minded, who are excited about the political process and want to restore public trust in elected officials, make those moves and be successful. So, it's nice to be part of that team.

You've got political friends in all corners of this state, don't you?

I feel like I've gotten to know a lot of people and made a lot of good friends, not just since I've been in the State Senate, but when I was county party chairman here in Columbus and when I was involved in the Young Republicans as a chapter chair here.

It's not uncommon for you to go to Republican gatherings in other parts of the state, right?

In the last week and a half, I was the speaker for the Savannah Young Republicans Christmas party and the Whitfield County Republican Party Christmas party up in Dalton. So, yes, if I'm asked to come to do something or to help out, then I want to be there.

Do you have statewide aspirations?

What I would say to that is -- going back to your earlier question about running for State Senate -- politics is about timing, and I thought that I never would be running for the State Legislature in 2010 until Seth made his decision. So, I don't think it's possible for me to predict what's going to happen in the future. What I'm focused on doing is working extremely hard in 2015 and 2016 to try to carry forward items I think are important to people in this area and the State Senate.

You are a political scientist, right?

I have a degree in it.

As you look, how have you elected to combat the fact that nobody has been elected to statewide office out of Columbus?

Not in the recent history.

Some argue J.R. Allen would have been governor?

I think correctly they argue that.

J.R. Allen was on a path to be governor of Georgia, right?

I think if his life had not been cut short he would have been the first Republican governor of Georgia.

Is everything you have done since you were in the fourth grade -- or whatever grade it was -- prepared you for now and for something bigger?

As I said before, I want to be active in my community. I want to try and make Columbus, the area I represent, a better place. And I think if you look at anything I do, it's animated by a desire to do that. Building relationships around the state helps you do that.

It's real hard to project into the future and say what would happen in 2016, what would happen in 2018. What I do know is that I feel like I'm well positioned to make an impact on public policy in the state, and that's really my goal, that's what I want to do in the next two years. I want to be a strong voice on the issues that matter and I think I'm in a position to do that.

So, you're enjoying what you're doing right now?

Well, I keep running for reelection, so, yeah, I'm enjoying it. I feel like you're able to do a lot of good for people. ... I had a gentlemen that recently had an issue getting his retirement through the Georgia National Guard. We worked on that issue for about six months, got it worked out. But when someone comes to you with tears in their eyes about "this is going to change my life because this bureaucratic junk got worked out," that's what makes you want to come back.

I compare it to going and playing a round of golf. You might have a horrible day, but you have that one good shot that you feel like "I need to come back out here and do this again." And that's how I feel about this. You don't hit a home run every time, but every now and then you're able to do something pretty neat.

Bio

Name: Josh McKoon

Age: 35

Job: Attorney, McKoon Law Group, practicing since 2004; Georgia state senator, first elected in 2010

Education: Brookstone School, 1997; Furman University, bachelor of arts in political science, communications, 2001; University of Alabama School of Law, JD, 2003

Family: Parents, Jim and Barbara McKoon; mother, Sharon McKoon; brothers Patrick McKoon and Chase McKoon; and stepsister, Debra Kennedy

This story was originally published January 10, 2015 at 10:38 PM with the headline "Sunday Interview with Josh McKoon: 'I want to try and make Columbus, the area I represent, a better place'."