Greg Dolezal has not been elected lieutenant governor yet. But inside the Georgia Senate, Republicans are already debating how much power he has — and how much they are willing to give him.
Georgia legislators returned to Atlanta last week to fix a problem they created two years earlier, when they set a July 1 deadline to stop using QR codes to tabulate votes but did not settle on a replacement system before the deadline arrived.
Senate Republican leaders put forward SB 3EX, which would create a legislative-led committee to recommend standards for Georgia’s next voting system and delay the QR-code deadline until Jan. 1, 2028.
The bill was supposed to reflect a compromise reached by Republican leaders in the House and Senate.
Easy, right?
Not quite.
Dolezal, a state senator from Cumming who is the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, campaigned on returning Georgia to a paper-ballot system that would eliminate QR codes from the vote-tabulation process. Several Senate sources say Dolezal’s opposition, combined with pressure from paper-ballot activists, threatened to peel off enough Republican votes to endanger the bill.
Senate Democrats had already locked down against the measure because there was nothing in the legislation that guaranteed Democrats — the minority party — would be represented on the panel that would select the state’s new voting system.
Bills must receive 29 votes to pass the chamber. With 33 Republicans in the Senate, just five no votes would tank the bill.
The special session offered an early look at how Georgia Senate Republicans may behave if Dolezal becomes lieutenant governor: some members are already accounting for his power, some are resisting the idea that he controls them and Republicans in the House are warning that his style could make governing harder.
Democratic lockdown, Republican fix
Republicans have argued that Democrats deciding to lock down against the election bill created an opening for Dolezal to influence the final legislation.
Senate Democratic Whip Kim Jackson of Pine Lake disagreed.
Republicans had an easy fix — put Democrats on the committee — and chose not to, she said.
“We are not responsible for any opening that Greg [Dolezal] had, nor are we responsible for them choosing to capitulate to him. That’s all on them,” she said. “Republicans knew they were dealing with Greg Dolezal, and they chose to make a deal with the devil.”
The Senate first amended the bill to require manual hand counts of the top two races on the ballot.
Senate sources rejected the idea that Dolezal alone forced the changes, saying versions of the language had already been drafted and that the caucus was working through what members would be comfortable supporting.
To Dolezal’s critics, the amendment showed senators already bending toward the man likely to preside over them next year. To others inside the caucus, the episode showed the opposite: Dolezal being forced to accept an imperfect bill to stay aligned with the team.
The House later narrowed the provision. The final version requires hand counts only in certain statewide races when the margin is within half a percentage point and the contest appears among the top two races on the ballot.
One Republican involved in the discussions said Dolezal’s concern was less about perfecting the bill than protecting himself with paper-ballot activists who had powered parts of the GOP primary electorate.
“What he was trying to do is cover. He wanted cover with the paper ballot people,” the Republican said. “It wasn’t about getting the bill right.”
Dolezal says the story is wrong
In text messages exchanged between PeachPol, Peach Pundit’s Scot Turner and Dolezal, the senator rejected the idea that he strong-armed Senate leadership or whipped votes for the amendment, calling that premise “wildly inaccurate.”
Shortly after the Senate passed the early version of the legislation that required hand counting the top two races on the ballot, Jones praised Dolezal’s work to amend the bill on social media.
“I stand behind @DolezalForGA’s plan to fight for election integrity in Georgia by requiring immediate manual recounts of major races. We owe it to the voters that elected us to do our jobs, and I hope the House of Representatives has the courage to do the same,” he said.
When Turner asked Dolezal in text messages who proposed the amendment, whether House and Senate leaders had handshake deals on the election bills and whether Dolezal ever told the caucus he would vote no, Dolezal did not answer the questions directly.
“Your ‘insight’ was already formed,” Dolezal wrote in response. “You are not seeking data, you are seeking to prove yourself right.”
The exchange underscored the central dispute inside Republican circles: whether the amendment showed Dolezal’s early influence over the caucus, or whether critics are reading a messy Senate process through a preconceived narrative.
Heading to November
Senate sources say Dolezal boxed himself into a position of either showing loyalty to his base of supporters who seek to overhaul the state’s election system and staying in line with a caucus that could limit the power of any incoming lieutenant governor.
The Senate majority caucus, which is anticipated to continue to be the Republicans, has the power to limit or expand the lieutenant governor’s role in the chamber. The lieutenant governor’s only constitutionally required roles are to preside over the Senate and step in if the governor is unable to fulfill his or her duties.
But since its creation in 1945, the office’s constitutional duties are limited, but its practical power depends on Senate rules — and on how much authority senators choose to give the person holding the gavel.
A Republican majority has changed Senate rules twice — in 2003 and 2011 — that pared back the power of the lieutenant governor.
As the Senate debated the final passage of the election bill, Josh McLaurin, a state senator who is the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, said he planned to vote for the legislation even though most members of his caucus would not support it.
The final version required a hand recount only if a race was within .5 percentage points.
McLaurin accused Dolezal of working against the legislation in favor of Georgians who oppose the use of QR codes and falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump.
He called out “election deniers in the hallway” who didn’t want to fix the problem. “But dear God, we have to fix this problem.”
Dolezal did not address McLaurin’s claims, and he was uncharacteristically quiet during the floor debate of the legislation, but Senate President Pro Tem Larry Walker disputed McLaurin’s accusations. The Perry Republican called Dolezal an “honest broker” and that claims the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor whipped votes against the measure were “patently false.”
That leaves Senate Republicans with a question that will hang over the next several months:
Was the special session Dolezal’s first show of force as the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor? Or was it the first sign that the caucus intends to define the limits of his power before he ever takes the gavel?
