Dr. Michelle Au@AuforGA
Here’s a very small story about the kind of leader @GeoffDuncanGA is, and has been, from my time working with him my first term.
When I served in the state Senate, the first bill I ever filed was hijacked. It passed out of the Senate, through House committee, and made it all the way through House Rules, at which point it was yanked back.
(I actually appreciated the House GOP leadership for telling me this so plainly—it saved me a lot of time—but essentially I was told: “We like your policy. We don’t like your name on it. So we’re going to give it to a Republican woman.”)
And…I get it. Sometimes that’s how it works in this place. It’s about the work, and the policy, not about getting credit. What we actually do and the people we help is what’s most important.
But the thing I remember about this process was meeting with Geoff early in my first term, his encouragement, his telling me how he recognized good work when he saw it. I remember the ways he helped me, in the small, invisible ways it takes, to help this first-year nobody in the minority party to move her first bill.
And he didn’t like what ultimately happened to that bill, because he believed—has always believed—in people over politics.
The following year, that bill came back to us for a final vote. (Without my name in it, of course.) But he saw it, and remembered it, and did something so kind, and frankly unprecedented.
He called me up to the rostrum, gave me the gavel, and allowed me to preside over the passage of my own bill. It was the first bill I ever wrote as a lawmaker, and it was ultimately signed into law the Spring of 2022.
(Of note, this was also the first and last time we had two women physicians speaking together from the rostrum of the state Senate. And I know there were no subsequent times, because there are still only two of us.)
Is this a huge story? No.
Was this the most life-changing thing that ever happened in my time at the state Capitol? No.
But that’s actually why it’s important.
Because the true mark of leadership, and personal character, is what you do when you don’t *have* to.
It’s when you show, rather than tell.
It’s when you practice mentorship, true bipartisanship, strength of character, and genuine, human kindness, even when no one else might notice or care.
Think for a second if we would ever see this in today’s legislative environment.
And ask yourself if we would be better to have more moments, and leaders, like this.
Geoff is the kind of leader I want to see leading our state. And I know, with our support, that he can win.
And that’s why I’m endorsing him to be the next governor of Georgia.
