Senator Tillery Reflects on 2025 Legislative Session
State Senator Blake Tillery recently reflected on the past legislative session earlier this year, as he shared insight on several bills and spoke on the state’s future.
Tillery began the discussion by commenting on a shift which he noticed in his fellow legislators. “I think one thing that we saw was conservatives advancing conservative causes. For so long, I think conservatives have felt that it was okay for them to be conservative, but they had to be silent. The left wing of our country has become so radical that conservatives now – in large part, thanks to President Trump – feel that they can speak out and call out [issues] when they see it,” he explained.
He continued, “For instance, it is not okay for boys to be participating in girls’ sports – why should we pretend like it is? It’s not fair for taxpayers to have to pay for transgender surgeries, especially in prisons. And we were – we paid for laser hair removal, we paid for breast reductions, and we paid for booty lifts because people thought they were of the other sex. We used to be honest and just say that continued from page
it was a mental health issue. Now, we’re saying that it’s mainstream and paying for it with taxpayer dollars, and conservatives stood up and said, ‘Hey, this has gone too far.’” Tillery also addressed Senate Bill 120, which has since been stripped of its language and included into House Bill 127. Senate Bill 120 proposed withholding state funding from schools and universities with programs and policies that promote DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs. The abolishment of DEI has been a major topic of discussion nationwide since the November election. The bill passed the Senate but was stalled by the House of Representatives. To revive the legislation, Senator Max Burns added the language into the House Bill 127, a bill that addresses teacher sick days, which was being voted on in the Senate at that time.
Tillery said that House Bill 127 has now passed the Senate and will hopefully be revisited by the State House of Representatives during the next legislative session. He spoke of his support for the legislation, as he remarked, “It really just builds on what Dr. [Martin Luther] King [ Jr.] originally said: that we are going to grade people on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”
He also spoke on Senate Bill 57, which he authored to help protect citizens from having their bank accounts closed because of their political beliefs or ideology through a practice known as debanking. When asked if debanking was an issue within the state, Tillery shared that many citizens across Georgia had their bank accounts closed because of speaking out on their perspectives on political concepts.
“It’s happening more and more,” Tillery said. “It happened to Marty Daniel, a huge gun manufacturer at Daniel Defense down near Savannah. It has happened to citizens in Southwest Georgia who have spoken out on conservative causes.”
The bill failed on the Senate floor, as Tillery stated that it had some opposition from Republican senators because of their alignments with big businesses. Yet, just one day after the bill failed, Tillery said that those same senators were reminded of the bill’s importance.
“I refiled that bill as Senate Bill 341 because the day after that bill failed on the Senate floor, President Trump filed suit in Florida, alleging 200-300 counts of debanking by Capitol One bank. The arguments on the senate floor were [that] ‘this is just going to be a litigation issue’ and that ‘this doesn’t happen anyways.’ Well, Florida is the state that we are chasing on tort reform, and President Trump filed suit in Florida, so obviously, it’s an issue,” he emphasized. “200-300 counts sounds like a whole lot to me.”
Senate Bill 341 will be considered again next legislative session and is already garnering support from citizens across the state. “A lot of the republican county parties, the district conventions in particularly, and even the state convention are considering [drafting] resolutions to urge the legislature to pass that to protect speech and constitutional rights, like owning guns,” Tillery commented.
He discussed the recent passage of House Bill 340, which prohibits students in grades kindergarten through 8th from using personal electronic devices like cell phones or Ipads during school hours but does not include high school students. When asked about limiting the bill to elementary and middle schools, Tillery remarked, “We needed to get the votes to pass it. A lot of parents still wanted to be able to get in touch with their kids. We had local superintendents ask us to pass it as well because of what they’re seeing it in the classroom.”
Tillery said that he understood the issue that cell phones can cause in the struggle for students’ attention more than ever because of his 15 year-old foster child. “I can tell you that luckily, he’s a great kid and we can talk to him about his cell phone use – but I can only imagine dealing with a classroom of children on that. The teacher is never going to win on a competition for their time,” he emphasized.
The legislation will be enforced at the local level by schools and districts, who can extend the cell phone ban to high school students if they wish. “The local board of education can still pass a measure to ban it at the high school level. We banned it K-8 but left it to the Boards of Education if they want to ban it at the high schools,” Tillery said.
Tillery also commented on a bill proposed during the last days of the legislative session, which adjusts the current Open Records Act. He stated that from his understanding, the legislation did not bar the public from obtaining open records but stated that all open records requests must go through government and public entities rather than private businesses and organizations.
“We have some people that are sending open records requests to private companies and they’re saying, ‘Oh, since you did this for the government, you have to respond.’ That just seemed a little bit heavy – I don’t think that Napa Auto Parts should be subject to open records requests because they sold some auto parts to the county road department,” he clarified. “If we went too far, we may have to come back and look at it again, but it wasn’t meant to limit open records, but to tell people where to request those records.”
Tillery reflected on improvements to the state budget, as he shared further potential savings that may be discussed through future legislation. “We’ve returned $7 billion to the taxpayers since I’ve been chairman of the Appropriations committee through lowering income taxes again this year and through sending rebates that we made sure only went to people that paid taxes to begin with. You can’t get a rebate if you didn’t pay taxes in, and we were sure to limit it to that.”
He added, “By not having a bond package this year and funding the capital projects – like schools, roads, bridges, and stuff – in cash, we now are saving Georgia taxpayers $150 million each year for the next 20 years because they don’t have to pay interest each year. We are trying to make fiscally responsible decisions while we are trying to shrink the size and scope of government.”
One area that Tillery believes may undergo changes in the future that affect the state’s budget is education. “Another place that gets controversial in our area is the area of school choice. Statewide, only 29% of third graders are reading on grade level; yet, we are spending 53% of the state budget on education. We can’t spend that much of the state budget on education and only get 30% of the kids reading on grade level. We are going to have to do something different there,” he commented.
Tillery also addressed rumors that he will be running for lieutenant governor in the upcoming 2026 gubernational election. When asked about the rumor, Tillery said it is something that he is talking about with people in our community. He has filed the paperwork to take the next step but has no plans to get in front of the current Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, who is highly expected to run for governor. Tillery emphasized that any official announcement would come after an announcement from Jones that he was running for governor.
