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May 4, 2024 - Stew Peters Show
01:02:22
JESUS. GUNS. AND BABIES. w/ Dr. Kandiss Taylor ft. Ben Cairns & Jeff Davis
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Hey, everybody.
Welcome to Jesus Guns and Babies.
I'm your host, Dr.
Candace Taylor, and I have two special guests today, and both of them are running for office in Georgia.
And so you're going to love the show.
It's going to be informational.
It's going to be awesome.
We're going to talk Georgia politics and U.S. politics, I'm sure.
I'm going to start with one of my favorite verses, because I think it's important when we're talking about government for us to remember government's place.
And so I'm going to read Luke 17 20 and it says, In that day the government of the whole world will rest on his shoulders.
So if the whole government of the whole world rests on God Almighty's shoulders, I think we're okay.
So our government may be corrupt, we may have corrupt players, but we know that America was founded on Jesus Christ.
Our founding fathers came here to flee religious persecution so that they could be free.
And the reason why they established this government as a constitutional republic is because they knew the only way to be of, for, and by the people was to have people go, represent us, and come home.
Not make careers out of it.
But serve and come back.
There's plenty of us to do the job.
So we're going to start with one of my favorite places in Georgia.
It's near Augusta, Georgia.
It's Evans, Georgia.
I have several family members that live there.
And there is a wonderful man running for Georgia house rep.
And his name is Ben Karens.
Welcome to Jesus Guns and Babies, Ben.
Well, thanks for having me, Candice.
Thank you for coming.
So my viewers, I want them to kind of get to know you and know why you're running.
So if you'll just tell us where you're from and what made you decide to get into the race.
Well, I've kind of been transplanted here in Evans.
So I was originally from Minnesota.
Of all places, my family was kind of split between Florida and Minnesota.
My grandfather had a farm in both places so he would move the family down to Florida and he would move them back up to Minnesota and so I had kind of have people scattered everywhere.
But I joined the Marine Corps in 1998, and that kind of transplanted me permanently into the South.
And so I kind of moved my family around several different times, and we already had relatives here in the Waynesboro area, just south of Augusta.
And so we decided this would be our home.
And so since 2009, my family has claimed Evans as our home.
Well, you come from a really good state because Stu Peters is one of my very best friends and he's from Minnesota.
And Matt Lindell is my dear friend and Matt Lindell lives in Minnesota.
So it's a great state.
And so we're glad that you're here.
So let's talk about I know you're a Marine, and thank you for your service.
I think Marines are amazing.
I had several Marines that helped do my security when I ran for governor, and I'm still dear friends with all of them.
They're wonderful people.
And I was endorsed by the Proud Boys.
I mean, that was not...
The left-wing media did not like that at all, but I thought it was a wonderful, honorable endorsement.
And so I'm so proud of all of our veterans, and we have 700,000 of them in Georgia.
So we are a state of veterans.
You work, I know, as a professor now.
And so let's talk about that at some point.
And I also want to talk about what made you decide to get into this specific race.
Well, those two are kind of interlinked.
If we go back to the 2008 presidential election, I owned a business and I was actually living in Mississippi.
And So typically, like everybody else on the job site, you sit and you listen to talk radio.
So whether it was Rush or Hannity or anybody, and they're talking about the politics of the day.
And I heard an interview that then candidate Obama did with somebody.
And he talked about the Constitution.
And he talked about his understanding of it and what he thought about it.
And he said that he thought the Constitution was a charter of negative liberties.
Of course.
And at the time, I hadn't had a degree.
I was just a simple construction worker at that point in time.
Got out of the Marine Corps.
Didn't have a lot of higher education.
But the term negative liberty stuck with me.
So if we fast forward, I moved to Georgia in 2009.
And of course, there was quite a bit going on with the recession.
And so I went back to school to use my GI Bill.
And in my undergraduate degree, I took a constitutional history class.
And in that class, my professor was actually a constitutional lawyer out of Oklahoma.
It was an online class.
And he got into this, and I finally understood what then-candidate Obama was talking about.
You see, a negative liberty is something that prohibits the government from doing something to you, which is why civil rights are considered positive liberties, because it's something the government can grant you.
And so it's because of that class that when I finished a bachelor's degree in business that I decided that a master's in politics was where I wanted to go.
I was that inspired by that understanding of that simple concept.
And so in studying the Federal Constitution in my grad degree and, of course, later on studying state constitutions.
And now at my job as a professor, of course, state legislative requirement, I have to teach Georgia Constitution to every one of my students as well.
And so, you know, it's kind of come full house.
It's come from me not really understanding anything about the Constitution.
To having a deep love and respect for the purpose and the separation of powers that the founders fought so hard to get us.
So the negative liberty thing, I've never heard it called that, but you're right.
I know that the Constitution protects us from the government overreach, and that's what, that I've never heard it called negative liberties before, but I bought that, actually.
That's a legal term.
Yeah, I never would have understood that in legal language.
But negative liberty is something that the government is not allowed to do.
So take guns, for example.
If somebody believes that guns are inherently bad, the Second Amendment prohibits them from doing something that takes away somebody's gun.
So it stops the government from taking action, which is precisely what Thomas Jefferson was arguing for with the Anti-Federalist Party.
You know, there was no explicit protections for the American people.
And they cannot silence our free speech.
Exactly.
I mean, the First Amendment was...
The Bill of Rights was ordered in importance.
That's right.
So when James Madison crafted the original 12, and of course only 10 got ratified...
The first thing that's most important to the protection of our republic is our ability to speak out against our government, to tell people what we think.
And of course, that's under assault at not only the federal level, but the state level here as well.
Yeah, I said last week that the church runs the state.
The state obviously has no place in the church, but we run the state because we are the church.
Christians, we're the church, and we run the government.
That's how it's supposed to be.
It's a bottom-up government.
And I said I wanted extreme accountability for those who are trying to overthrow our government.
And to take away our constitutional republic.
And so I was on right-wing watch, actually, while ago I saw that, where they were saying that I was calling for an execution for everybody who doesn't believe like I do, which is a lie.
But if you commit treason, I'm okay with execution.
Honestly.
So, your seat, I know Jody Lott.
I actually know her well.
And, you know, she and I kind of went head to head in a meeting about Dominion voting system.
And there are paper ballots that we wanted and that we don't trust, you know, we don't trust any voting system.
It's got nothing to do with Dominion specifically.
We want to be able to reconcile ballots.
We want to be able to show voter intent.
We want to go in and mark our ballot and make sure it's not just putting some, Some dot on there and bubble on there that can't be reconciled and even adjudicated because we didn't market the machine market.
Anyway, and so we had this whole debate kind of thing going at a GOP meeting there last summer.
It was kind of heated.
And I knew she wasn't going to run again, and I thought, Sister, why is this a hill you want to die on?
Because, like, it's not, you're not running again.
But she was passionate about it, and I really believe that Jodi thinks the voting's fair and legal, 100%.
I think she's brainwashed into believing that.
I've seen enough...
I have open records and enough data and analysis to know that it was totally hijacked and it was totally not reliable and discrepancies all over the state.
And so I know differently.
And so it's hard to speak about something when you don't have the facts and you don't do the research and you're just a talking head and talking points.
But I'm glad Jodi is not running again because she is totally brainwashed and she don't need to run again.
We need new blood.
And so I'm so thankful.
And I don't know anybody who's running against you.
But what I do know is the people who are supporting you, I trust with all my heart.
And so that's why I had you on my show.
Some of my best volunteers in that area asked me to have you on my show.
So I know that you must stand for what we stand for us.
So if you'll talk about, I read through your website, and we'll post your website on the video, and I read some of the things that you're standing on, but if you want to talk about your platform a little bit and really what you want to accomplish in the Georgia House, that would be awesome.
Well, obviously, election integrity is vitally important to all of this, because without a democracy, you don't have a democracy, right?
I mean, you got Ukraine that suspended their election this year, and we have to defend Ukraine in order to save democracy, but they canceled democracy.
So it's super important.
But basically, my three core policy agenda items deal with economics, judicial reform, and education, because I think those are fundamental to a well-running society.
So on the economic front, I'm the only candidate running for 131 that plans or wants to end the income tax in the state of Georgia.
There's no reason why we can't join the other nine states that have done this.
Consumption tax is a better way to tax.
It's voluntary.
It's not mandatory.
It's not compulsory.
And you catch a whole lot of other people who wouldn't normally have paid tax.
So it's a better way to do it.
I mean, Neil Bortz, the legendary Neil Bortz there, From the Atlanta area for years and years, push the fair tax, which is a version of a consumption tax.
So that's the first thing.
It's the fairest white rat.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the federal government, there have been people sponsored the fair tax at the federal level in Congress every cycle, every two year when Congress convenes, and it always gets killed very quickly because it takes power away from the politicians, which is really what this whole conversation is.
Amen.
It's not power with the people, it's power with the politicians.
So it's a voting mechanism is all it is.
The second thing is I want to end the property tax in the state of Georgia.
There is no reason why we need to keep with this archaic system for funding schools.
If you have depressed property values, then you have less money going to a school, which means you're feeding underprivileged schools.
We need to use sales tax as a way to fund our schools and that way it is apportioned equally, as the founders put it, across all of our schools in the state of Georgia and every student gets the same opportunity.
Whether that's a voucher system or not, whether it's public schools or voucher systems, I dislike the voucher bill that went through the General Assembly because it's treating people in Georgia under different classes.
The bottom 25% don't have less of a legal authority within the state than the upper 75.
Everyone should have an opportunity if they want to use a voucher system.
But moving on to judicial reform, obviously we've got quite the issue that's going on in Fulton County.
It's quite an embarrassment for the state.
And it's not just Fulton County.
It's local communities that claim somehow to be sanctuary cities.
It's public officials, not just district attorneys.
It's sheriffs.
It's Columbia.
It's commissioners.
It's mayors.
It's everybody in public service all the way up through our state government that aren't following state law.
I mean, it's no different at the federal level.
If you're not going to follow immigration law, why do we have immigration law on the books?
If you're not going to follow state law, what's the purpose of having them on the books?
So my proposal is that we pass legislation that allows for the removal of activist officials, whether it's a district attorney or any other elected or appointed official, And by a simple majority vote of the General Assembly, have them temporarily removed from office so they can't do any more harm.
The Attorney General of the State can then fill that position temporarily with somebody from their office until either a new election can happen or due process and the courts can determine whether or not they violated their oath.
Because if you violate your oath of office, you violated your terms of that position.
And that's already on the books.
That's already law.
So we just need to ensure that the General Assembly can buy a simple majority vote, don't allow two-thirds of the General Assembly to be able to hold hostage the public safety in our state.
Our citizens deserve better than that.
And lastly, it's education.
We need to get social policy and cultural policy out of our classrooms.
I know everybody talks about how good some of our school systems are.
I know in the local area here in Columbia County, everybody touts our education system.
But the stats aren't as good as what they portray.
The reading, writing, and arithmetic, the civics knowledge, all of those things, they decline because we're too focused on things that have nothing to do with what the classroom is intended to be there for.
So I want to return our schools back to, you know, Girls and girls sports, boys and boys sports, teaching, reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Focus on the basics of education and let outside of school activity dictate what social policy does.
If they want to protest, if they want to march, if they want to do whatever they want to do, they can do that outside of school grounds.
Those are some excellent, excellent ideas.
That's why they wanted you on my show.
They knew.
But, you know, you brought up a really good point with education because the state of Georgia, like 80% of the budget is education because it's the state's responsibility.
And so it's so important to me that legislators know about education and they care about it.
And we have very few educators involved in the process.
So very few legislators that are educators.
And so when I stood up to run, they're like, well, you could just be school superintendent.
No.
I don't want to be a state school superintendent.
That's not what God told me to run for.
And it's the same thing with you.
Like, oh, well, you can run for this.
I can run for school board.
Okay, I can't run for school board because I'm an educator.
But they think that we have our lane.
When in reality, the legislators should know something about education because that's 80% of what you're doing.
It's supposed to be.
80% is supposed to be education.
Back to the property tax, we have counties all over the state.
When I was running, that was a huge issue that was being talked about in all of the meetings, wherever the organization was.
The people are very sick of it.
They're 80 years old and they're paying property tax.
For their great-grandchildren.
They pay for their children.
They pay for their grandchildren.
They're paying for their great-grandchildren.
They're on Social Security.
They're on a fixed income.
Food prices are going up.
And they cannot afford anything because they're paying for property tax still.
And the Constitution says we have a right to own property.
But you never own property because if you don't pay your taxes, they're going to come seize your property.
So to me, it's totally unconstitutional not to ever, at some point, be done with property tax.
Exactly.
I mean, until the 16th Amendment was ratified, the idea that you could take somebody's real property, whether that's income, whether that's property, for any kind of tax, that's awful.
And obviously, the state of Georgia cannot end federal income tax, but we can definitely end state income tax and state property tax.
I think it was either North Dakota or possibly South Dakota that ended their property tax there.
And of course, they've got shale oil and other things that are helping fund their school system.
But I mean, nobody in those states has to worry that they pay off their home and they can't pay their property tax that all of a sudden their home is going to get taken away from them.
I mean, they've worked their entire life to buy that home.
And then some taxpayer just comes and says that we're going to take it away from you.
That's To me, that even if from a constitutional perspective, the 16th Amendment protects that and the courts have upheld that, it's not moral.
It's not American.
It's not American.
Yeah.
So it's totally, I've found a father that I've agreed with 100%.
I know that.
So let's talk about college and this liberal ideology that's being shoved down our children's faces.
Let's talk about that.
Because that, to me, is something that I'm dealing with his mother.
My son is at AVAC, actually, and he has had a couple of little professors, and I don't know if they know who I am, but I think one of them definitely did, and he ended up getting an A in the class, but he gave him heck, and it was about an abortion paper he wrote, and, you know, he's a male, and so it was like, how can you dare say blah, blah, blah, and he gave all the facts and gave all the things, and I told my son, I said, you know, you're doubling down on this and you may end up, you know, in a really bad fight.
He's like, it's okay, mama.
And he doesn't like being the limelight.
And I said, well, you're going to be okay if they make you a bad grade.
And this makes national news because I'm going to come for them on my platform if they're doing this.
And he's like, I'm okay, mama.
We're going to fight it.
And so he ended up with an A in the class and wouldn't have to go there.
But definitely there's this liberal ideology that's being shoved down the throats of our college students.
And it makes people scared to send your child to college.
You know, you want to go to a Christian college or you want to go somewhere else because you don't want your kid that you've raised that loves Jesus to go there and be brainwashed and they come out a Democrat.
That would be like the worst thing in the world, which that would never happen to me in Jesus' name because...
My kids are rooted and grounded in conservatism and they, you know, they love being a Republican.
But that does happen to people all the time.
I talk to people all the time where this happens and you just continue to pray for your child, but they're brainwashed.
So what do you, I mean, how are you approaching that as a professor and what do you see in the university system?
Well, luckily I work for a community college and I work for a community college that is grounded in sanity.
So our entire system is based off of military values.
We have a long history here in the state of Georgia.
Ethics, morality, teaching, educated, and contributing citizens to our society.
So that's vitally important to the mission of the college.
And at the college level, yes, professors have a lot of academic freedom.
And it really boils down to, are we hiring quality faculty?
Are we hiring faculty or propagandizing, even if you have liberal views?
I mean, I've had professors that were under me before that obviously did not agree with my political viewpoints, but as long as they're not pushing their viewpoints off on the students, if they're being open-minded about it, like on a paper, like you were talking about with your son, If they make a rational argument and they did a good job on the paper, they should still get a good grade on the paper, regardless of whether or not the professor personally agrees with it.
That's right.
And we've gotten so separated in our society to think that there is absolutes or like we're some sort of a zero-sum society.
You either believe this or you're a devil on this side.
I mean, a perfect example is the whole issue with Israel right now.
That somehow, if you don't support every decision that Israel is making right now, you're somehow anti-Semitic.
And that's not true.
There are atrocities happening on both sides.
None of it's good, right?
You think our government is wrong, but then you think Israel's government is perfect?
Absolutely not.
There's terrible people in the Israeli government that are We're pushing this because they want our money and they want a causal war and they want a new world order.
And so it's the same thing we have with a lot of our politicians.
It's no different.
Why do they get a free pass?
They don't.
And so that has nothing to do with being anti-Semite.
I love Jewish people.
Jesus Christ came as a Jew for a reason.
And so, you know, who loves the Jewish people?
Well, for them, am I more for them than I am for Asians or that I am for Africans?
Absolutely not.
Because we're all God's people.
Right.
When Jesus came, he fulfilled that law.
He came as a Jew to show them, I'm coming as you.
You're crucifying me.
I'm going to raise from the dead.
And we're all children of God.
And so it's not anti-Semitic to hold them to the same standard we're trying to hold America to.
And that mentality is dangerous for America.
And they need to stop perpetuating it.
Well, it pits people against each other.
It does.
You know, I'm not justifying anything that Hamas did.
No.
But it kind of looks like, you know, Gaza Strip kind of looks like an open-air prison, if you ask me.
I mean, so even the nicest dog in the world, if you back him into a corner long enough, they're going to bite you.
And so, you know, President Trump, when he was in office, spent a lot of time I mean, shoot, the Abraham Accords was the biggest thing that happened in Middle East policy in decades.
And that was because he listened.
And we have to start listening to each other again.
We all have more in common than we have apart.
I don't care Democrat, I don't care racial lines, sexual orientation, doesn't matter.
We all have the basic necessities.
We all have more in agreeance.
And we focus on that first.
First, we can deal with the petty differences later.
That's right.
I agree.
We are more light than we are different.
And we are Americans.
And if you want to destroy America, and there are people who want to destroy America that live in America.
It's the craziest thing.
But if that's you, I'm talking about extreme accountability for you because that's treason.
That's right.
You know, there are these people that are the far-left lunatics that I'm talking to that if you hate our country, then leave.
And they're saying, like, President Trump's elected again, I'm leaving.
Okay, bye.
And it's not because I'm, oh gosh, President Trump, it has nothing to do with that.
It is, we have to have somebody who is an alpha in there and say, back off, you're not messing with America.
Clean this mess up, get control of the economy, and make sure that we don't totally fall on our face and our fiat currency be totally gone so that we are a third-world nation.
And that's what people do not understand is we're this close to losing everything we have.
You're right.
Because we're spoiled brats.
Because we're spoiled brats.
Yeah.
And you see it.
They're all looking like spoiled brats on College Camp Eye right now.
No one's willing to have a rational conversation.
You're correct.
Our currency is hanging by a thread.
A lot of the behavior that's being driven out of Middle Eastern policy or even Ukrainian policy is about protecting the U.S. hegemony.
And they're not being square and honest with the American people about that, that if we don't beat up our enemy and put them back in line and show dominance from a world stage, That people will stop putting trust in the U.S. dollar.
And that's when the things unravel.
That's right.
You know, it's really not about whether or not the Palestinians have a home.
And it's really not whether or not the Ukrainians have their sovereignty.
It's about the United States.
And if you're aware with the American people with that, we'd probably be in more support for the actions.
But when you're trying to defend democracy by ending democracy, you look like hypocrites.
And you look weak across the world.
Give a reminder of this, Ben, right?
Instability.
So, tell everybody, because I've never got to go.
We've got about one minute.
So, tell everybody how to reach you, how to donate.
I'm going to challenge my viewers.
Give them $5.
Like, you don't have to give a lot, but golly, you'll spend $20 going through the drop-throat.
So donate $5 right now.
It can make all the difference in this race for Ben.
He's a great guy.
He's a college professor who is not a liberal idiot, okay?
So let's support Ben.
Donate.
If you can give $25, do that.
Do $25 would be better, but at least $5.
Everybody can do $5.
Ben, tell everybody how to get a hold of you.
Sure.
My website is ben4ga131.com.
Very simple.
Ben4Georgia131.
My Facebook, my Instagram accounts are the same handle, Ben4Georgia131.
And I have an email address if you'd like to reach out to me that way.
It's also Ben4Georgia131 at Outlook.com.
And it's 131 because it's House Seat 131.
That is correct.
Ben Cairns, thank you so much for coming.
You are welcome.
I'm praying for your victory.
If there's anything I can do, I will be happy to help you.
And let's win May 21st.
Thank you, Candace.
So my second guest for the night is a candidate for the Georgia Court of Appeals.
He's from Northwest Georgia and he has an awesome name.
His name is Jeff Davis and that's the neighboring county to where I live and it's where my husband is from.
So a wonderful name and I kept saying Jeff Davis, Jeff Davis on all of my chats and everywhere and I thought, who is this person with this awesome name?
And so we're going to get to meet him.
So welcome Jeff to Jesus Guns and Babies.
Thank you.
I appreciate you having me here.
And yes, I guess lucky for me, I have a county named after me in the state of Georgia.
That's right.
So I probably don't need to campaign much there, maybe.
That's right.
They would love your name a lot.
We're waiting for him just because he has a wonderful name.
So tell us where you live and what area you'll be representing.
And tell everybody what the Court of Appeals does.
I will.
I live in northwest Georgia in Walker County.
That's my second favorite place.
Did you know that?
It's beautiful.
It's beautiful.
I have some very best friends who live in Chickamauga.
And so I love it there.
It's beautiful.
Up here in the mountains.
Lookout Mountain area.
So that's where I live.
And I was born and raised in this area.
So just kind of good to come home.
But I will tell you that this position, the Georgia Court of Appeals, represents the whole state.
So it is a statewide position and the Court of Appeals oversees the appeals, most appeals, from civil and criminal cases in the courts around the state.
Okay.
And so, for example, my brother's been, he's in prison right now for a petty theft of my parents.
He's a drug addict.
And so he is in prison, and he's appealing to, he's not really, actually, he was just up for, that would be up for parole, and he's not.
And so anyway, I don't know if that would go through you.
His case would go to the Court of Appeals, criminal appeal.
The Supreme Court of Georgia, which is the highest court in the state of Georgia, The Supreme Court handles all criminal appeals involving cases where the death penalty can be sought.
It doesn't necessarily have to be sought, and those would be murder cases.
So the Supreme Court handles all of those cases, and then they address constitutional issues involving the constitutionality of laws and statutes and things such as that.
The Court of Appeals It has 15 judges which serve on the court and five panels of three judges per panel.
And those panel of three judges will hear various cases.
It's not divided among civil and criminal.
Every panel gets multiple cases in civil law and criminal law.
So anything else outside the context of a case where a death penalty could be sought, like a murder, those cases are going to be handled and heard by the Court of Appeals.
So the Court of Appeals is a very busy court.
You think about a state that has 159 counties and all of the cases which come up through the courts, the Superior Courts and the State Courts, Probate Courts, Juvenile Courts, all of those cases are going to end up on appeal in the Court of Appeals.
Used to be about five or six years ago, the Supreme Court of Georgia also heard All the appeals on domestic cases, family law cases, divorce, child custody, child support, and things like that.
But now the Court of Appeals hears all of those cases.
So it is a very, very important court.
A lot of people don't know about it.
Some people find out about the Court of Appeals when they've actually had a case in Superior State Court and they lose.
And they ask their lawyer, well, what can we do now?
And their lawyer, he or she would say, well, we can appeal.
Most likely that's where it would go is the Court of Appeals.
And so that's the position I'm running for in an open seat on the court, which, Candace, is also a rarity.
Most of the positions on the Court of Appeals, the judges retire before the end of their term.
And if a judge retires before the end of their term, then the governor gets to appoint the replacement for the remainder of the term.
But this is a situation where the sitting judge has decided not to do that and to allow her seat to go to an election.
Well, praise the Lord for her.
It is very rare.
Hallelujah.
How many are on the ballot for this?
Two.
And what counties or what area will get to vote for you?
All 159 counties, every resident of the state of Georgia.
Are you serious?
I'm going to get to vote for you?
Yes, yes.
And I would love to have your vote.
Okay, so everybody watching this, you are to vote for Jeff Davis.
Everyone.
All the people in Georgia.
Y'all are to vote for him.
I'll just say that I wish we had more than murder cases going to the Supreme Court.
I wish everybody who molested children and raped children that they were capital punishment.
And I'll just say that because that's how I feel.
Right.
And that's what came in my mind.
I said, you know, I'm good with hanging people and I'm good if they've taken the innocence from children for them to be hung.
So I'm good with that.
All right.
So let's go back to your background, Jeff.
I know you're an attorney.
So where you went to college and your experience and those kind of things because people are going to want to know more about you.
Yes.
My background is I was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
And I have a good friend running for State House.
His name is Gary Chafee.
He is in Cobb County and he loves Tennessee.
So he will be so glad to hear that.
Well, that's wonderful.
So I grew up there and graduated UTC and then decided to go to law school in Atlanta.
I went to Georgia State College of Law.
Great law school, actually.
And they had the highest percentage on the bar pass rate.
You are well informed.
And thank you for saying that.
Georgia State, I think, is the best law school in the state of Georgia.
Well, my son wants to be an attorney, and he wants to go to UGA Law School.
And I said, I love Georgia, and he's going to finish his undergrad there.
And I said, but you know, if you don't get in UGA, Georgia State's actually better, I think, probably.
Well, I'll tell you the difference between the two.
And this is a plug for Georgia State.
And University of Georgia is also an excellent law school.
There's no question.
It is superb.
It's one of the highest ranked in the nation.
But I'll tell you what I like about Georgia State.
Georgia State's in Atlanta.
And if you're a law student and you're going to law school in Atlanta, You have so many more opportunities to do internships and externships in the U.S. Attorney's Office, in the DA's offices.
You can work in the bankruptcy court, the federal court, and then you have all the great law firms in Atlanta, public defender's offices.
There are just so many options in Atlanta versus Athens.
Now, Athens has obviously DA's offices, public defender offices, great law firms.
The difference is there are just so many more options in Atlanta, I think, for law students.
And the other thing about Georgia State, which I really liked, is most people who go to Georgia State have come back to school.
They're not necessarily people coming right out of college.
So the average age at Georgia State is much greater than it is at UGA. You've got people because it's a metropolitan law school and it has a part-time program.
When I was at Georgia State, I had a medical doctor in my class.
I had an FBI agent in my class.
I had a private investigator, a teacher, a businessman.
And when you're sitting in class with those people and you're talking about cases, and then you hear an FBI agent chime in and say, well, you know, we had this type of case.
Or you hear a teacher talking about education law and how that affects her classroom.
It just, I thought it was a very rich educational experience.
So UGA is a great law school.
He cannot go wrong if he wants to go there.
But Georgia State is my pride.
So I graduated from there in 1991.
So I've been practicing law for 34 years.
And I've done a lot of things.
Tell me your hardest case.
Oh my goodness.
Or the one that sticks out the most, maybe, in your brain.
Well, the first case I worked on was when I was in law school, and this is one of the benefits of being at Georgia State.
I was working with a local criminal defense lawyer.
I thought that's what I wanted to do when I went to law school, but that's not what I ended up doing.
I did it for about a year and then I decided that I just couldn't It was a hard thing to do.
Just exclusively work in the area of criminal defense.
And so the first case I had was when I was actually in law school and it involved the admission of DNA evidence.
And it was the first time ever DNA evidence was admitted in a case in Georgia.
And it was in 1989, 1990.
And so it was kind of fascinating because it was new technology.
And now we just think about it as, you know, it just happens all the time.
DNA comes in all kinds of cases.
So that was a very interesting case that I handled.
Probably the most interesting and hardest cases that I worked on were cases when I was the director of the Judicial Qualifications Commission.
I can talk to you a little bit about that, my background.
From 2010 to 2014, I was the director of the state agency that oversees judicial misconduct, basically, and judicial ethics in the state.
I was responsible for investigating and prosecuting Disciplining and sometimes seeking the removal of judges from their office because they had engaged in misconduct or corruption or had, in some cases, committed crimes in office.
And so those were difficult cases because as a lawyer, and I've talked a lot about this when I've been out on the campaign trail, The system of justice that we have in America has to be something that people have confidence in.
The only thing that separates us from communist countries and countries that are ruled by dictators Is our fair and open and unbiased and hopefully a judicial system that people can really have confidence in that it is fair and justice for all.
You think about Lady Justice holding the scales up with the blinders on.
And that's how people expect our justice system to be.
But if you have a corrupt judge, there's nothing that undermines the public's confidence in the judicial system than when you have a judge who isn't following the law or is engaging in misconduct.
Or a DA that's doing that.
Well, and we can segue to that.
It's a new topic, but I'm not trying to change it.
That's just what's ringing in my head.
We can segue to lawyers, but when I was at the...
I will segue to lawyers after I finish this point of my work at the Judicial Qualifications Commission.
The other thing I did while I was there is I educated judges on the code of judicial ethics.
The code of judicial conduct is what it's called, but it's a code of ethics for judges.
And I went all around the state meeting with judges in different classes of court from municipal, magistrate, probate, juvenile, state, and superior court judges, teaching them about their obligations as a judge.
Because when you step into a role of being a judge, you take an oath.
And you take an oath to be fair and impartial.
And to serve the people.
And so I taught judges all over the state ethics, which is really one of the reasons why I want to be a judge now.
But the other position I had, mentioning district attorneys and lawyers and other things such as that, the other position I had early in my career After I got out of law school and I said I worked for a little while as a criminal defense attorney, but then went to the State Bar of Georgia.
I was an assistant general counsel at the bar.
And the State Bar of Georgia is an administrative arm of the Supreme Court of Georgia, but they are responsible for overseeing the disciplinary In terms of conduct of lawyers, the code of what we call basically professional conduct for lawyers.
It's their ethics code.
The rules of professional conduct.
What are lawyers supposed to do?
And lawyers have an ethical obligation as well when they are representing clients or if they're district attorneys or solicitors.
If they're representing the state in a proceeding, there are certain ethical obligations that district attorneys and solicitors have.
And so my role at the State Bar as an assistant general counsel was to, again, like I did with judges, Investigate and prosecute lawyers for potential misconduct and seek appropriate sanctions.
Sometimes those came in the form of reprimands.
Sometimes they were suspensions from the practice of law for a period of time.
And in very serious cases, they would result in disbarment.
Where a lawyer would lose the privilege of practicing law.
And most of the cases I handled when I was at the State Bar of Georgia involved, not judges, lawyers who were involved in criminal conduct.
Lawyers who were stealing from clients.
What I want you to get back and talk about is you were saying that you had cases where you're talking about the lawyers, the attorneys, and working on that ethics, and you said some of them...
Right, and the responsibility, right, the rules.
So I'll go back to that and say, okay, here we go.
Okay, go ahead.
So, as a lawyer, I'm working in the Office of General Counsel at the State Bar of Georgia when we were looking at lawyer conduct.
Where my area of expertise was, was when a lawyer was committing crimes or stealing money from a client and held in trust.
Those types of things where a lawyer was engaging in criminal conduct, maybe even with their client.
A lot of those cases involved me interacting with and working with local law enforcement, the FBI, the GBI, district attorneys, because you had a lawyer who was actually engaging in sometimes a criminal enterprise.
So those, your initial questions, some of your hard cases, those were some of my harder cases because, you know, when you want the best in your profession, when you set out to become a lawyer, You have ideals and you do it hopefully for the right reasons and you do it because you care about the judicial system.
You care about protecting the rights of people and being fair and equitable and all those great principles when you go to law school and your son's going to hear all about this when he goes into law school.
And then when a lawyer becomes corrupt It's a stain.
You know, it's a stain on the profession.
It's a stain on the judicial system.
And there's nothing that undermines, I think, the confidence of the public in our judiciary and the judicial system when the public sees lawyers engaging in misconduct or judges.
So, I'm the only person in the state of Georgia who's ever held both positions prosecuting lawyers for lawyer misconduct and prosecuting judges for judicial misconduct.
And so, I've really spent, Candace, my career in service to the state of Georgia trying to make our judicial system better.
Clean.
I mean, that's a good way to say it.
You know, it's fair and just in keeping...
It's not the standard, Jeff, right?
So, I think you're the perfect person for this position and we have to Immorality.
Immorality in Georgia, in the nation, is what's causing all the problems.
It's what's causing all this transgender push and all the other political issues we don't have time to get into today.
That is moral decay.
And so when you just look at ethics, and as an educator, you know, I have a professional certificate, and they have the Professional Standards Commission, and I respect them and their office and their investigations so high, and I think, Y'all better be careful.
The PSC could take your certificate.
That's unethical.
And people really, a lot of people don't look at them as a threat.
And I'm like, are y'all stupid?
This is how you pay your bills and feed your family.
And for me, I look at Jesus Christ first and his standard that he sets.
But then you do have these bodies that oversee and they should not tolerate misconduct and especially unethical things that would hurt children.
But when you look at attorneys and judges, it's a whole different level.
I mean, when you get a corrupt attorney, it's bad, but when you get a corrupt judge, it's the worst.
So I feel like you are by far the most qualified, and ethical, and moral, and wanna do the right thing, and I know that you love Jesus, and that is what's most important to me.
I want someone who has a moral code, because whether, you know, people, I have people on here that are Jewish, and people on here that probably are even atheists, but they love the country, that's fine.
But we have to believe in something, And whenever you believe in the Lord and the Holy Spirit is your guide, you're not going to do things that are evil and deceitful and manipulative and corrupt.
And so we have to have that goodness inside of us for us to be able to judge ethically and judge behavior ethically.
Well, and it's a very good point because our entire Constitution and the statutes and all the laws that we put into place We do so on the basis of a moral code.
There's a reason we put laws into place, because we want people to be kind to other people.
We want people to be safe.
We want people to not harm one another.
We want to give people the freedom to worship.
You know, you don't think about our Constitution, you think about our wonderful First Amendment, to give people the freedom to worship in the way that they want to worship.
And Jeff, where does the moral code come from?
Right?
It's from common law, right?
Well, it derives from a common law, but ultimately, in my view, because I'm a Christian, as you are, And for me, it derives from a God.
Because common law comes from the Bible.
From a Creator.
And so, you know, the Bible itself has, you know, there's the Law and the Prophets.
And, you know, the Bible was a Biblical code.
The Ten Commandments is a God-given Biblical code.
And a lot of those ideals that were handed down To Moses, in terms of Mosaic law, find themselves in laws and state constitutions and also our federal constitution.
The idea that thou shalt not commit adultery, murder, all of those things.
There are laws that correspond to that in our statutes.
So yes, I think that when you have a guiding principle, which is from a faith-based perspective, And certainly as a lawyer, doing this type of work in all the types of cases that I've handled, you know, I have a view of the world.
My theological view is through a Christian lens, through grace and law.
And my favorite Bible verse is from Micah about doing justice.
And loving mercy.
And I think that that's what justice is all about.
You do justice, but you also love mercy.
And there's the tempering, and that's what judges do.
You can't be just all law.
You've got to have grace.
And so that's where, in a lot of You know, when a judge is making a decision about listening to a particular case, and if it's a criminal case and having a defendant standing before them, they have to apply the law.
We have to be a government which is led by the laws and people have to abide by the laws.
But the judge is the arbiter of the mercy.
You know, what's the appropriate level of punishment within the law?
And there's a range.
And you know what I think about, Jeff, lately, I've been thinking about how we are, our country was set up to have, like our government, a judicial branch, was set up to have jurors, and, you know, beyond reasonable doubt.
And the reason why is because, like, looking at O.J. Simpson, he died, and I was looking at his case and thinking through that process, like, how we know he did it.
Like, people just seem so obvious.
But when you're sitting there as a juror, and it's beyond reasonable doubt, and the reason why we have that is because we don't want to capture people and put them in total restriction in our country that's a free country unless we know, right?
Unless we know that we know.
Right.
And so when you think about it like that, and I mean, I don't want children hurt, so I'm like the harshest punishment if we know beyond a shadow of a doubt.
You know that's what happened.
I want them obliterated.
But I don't want people to be falsely accused and be imprisoned and their freedom taken away unless it's justly done.
And I think, you know, we look at our country and how it's established.
Our founding fathers created it to be on the side of the criminal, almost, because you want to make sure.
You don't want to ever...
And I mean, I know there are people that are put in prison that you find out later they didn't do it.
And I mean, thank the Lord it's a rarity.
It's not something that happens often.
But we should never, as a free country and a free people, want to ever have the chance of captivating somebody, capturing them, and them not be guilty.
Absolutely.
And we have a system of justice unlike any in the world in that way.
And our Founding Fathers set it up that way, that there had to be an assurance, which is what you say beyond a reasonable doubt.
And I'm thinking about, and I've said this before, the first case I ever had was a DNA case.
And we were obviously trying to keep the DNA from coming into the case because it was unproven, it was unscientific, it was hocus pocus.
We were making all these arguments.
Because the DNA was just so new.
No one knew anything about it.
It can't be trusted.
Is it real?
It can't be trusted.
Well, we lost the case because it came in and that case established the scientific reliability of DNA in a case.
And the precedent.
I love that you used the word precedents in attorneys, right?
Yeah, it was a precedent.
And it was something that happened for us.
We thought it was a loss, obviously, and we didn't foresee how DNA would ultimately be used 20 years later to exonerate people who were in prison, wrongfully convicted, And because of maybe a corrupt system or bad lawyers or...
Bad jury?
Yeah.
And for whatever reason, there was a man or a woman who had been sitting for decades in prison for a crime they did not commit.
You imagine.
And decayed evidence, exonerated them.
And so that's the beauty of, I think, DNA now.
You have the Innocence Project that's going out.
And making sure that folks who were convicted before 1989 or so, when DNA was first introduced into Georgia, making sure that those were fair.
And the person who is sitting in prison is actually the person who committed the crime.
So, we have a beautiful system of justice in our country, but the only way we can continue this experiment, called the Democratic Experiment, is if people have faith.
In the integrity and the fairness of our judicial system because it's the only thing that separates us from third world countries.
You see what happens in Russia.
You see what happens in China when a reporter goes over there and is accused of spying and their trial happens within a week and they're put in a gulag never to be seen again.
Without a reasonable doubt standard, without a competent counsel, without the ability to have time to prepare for their defense.
And so the system of justice we have is imperfect because we're imperfect people.
That's right.
But it is the best system of justice ever created.
As a candidate for the Court of Appeals, as someone who has devoted my whole life to improving justice in the state of Georgia, I'm honored to be able to run for this position and I look forward to serving the people of Georgia as a Court of Appeals judge and being committed to all the things I have in my career.
My core convictions of fairness and holding people accountable, but also doing justice and loving mercy, as the prophet Micah told us.
So I want to say we have to close up and I want you to give people your information because I want them to donate and I want them to be able to help you and vote for you and go to your website and check all that out.
But I want to say this is a nonpartisan seat.
Correct.
And I understand that and we do want our judges nonpartisan.
But I will tell you this and people argue with me and they'll say, if you're a Democrat, you're not a Christian.
That's a lie.
I have friends that are Democrats.
I ran against them.
I ran for U.S. Senate.
They are Christians.
They just want to change the Democrat Party to be more in the middle and not these left-wing, radical one-percenters that are destroying our nation.
Just like the Republican Party, we're trying to get out the establishment elite who care on the total right side and don't really care about the constitutional republic.
They care about themselves and their power.
And so we have to be together as people and care about our freedom and our Constitution.
And so I see you as that person who can be fair, who has the experience, who will go in and not have an agenda of the left or the right.
Your agenda is going to be we the people and the Constitution and what's morally and ethically sound and right and look at it on a case-by-case basis.
You're a hard worker and you're going to pour yourself into it.
And I thank you for running.
I thank you for running.
I thank you for being a man of integrity.
And I just, I pray that you win.
And I will be praying that you win.
And so if you'll tell everybody how to donate, I'm going to challenge y'all right now to give Jeff, y'all give Jeff Davis $25.
Everybody can do that.
Go and go to his donation and give him 20.
He has to cover the whole state.
It's very expensive.
Y'all know that I did it.
And so I need you to go and donate.
And y'all can.
Y'all spend more than that at a fast food restaurant.
Thank you, Candice.
My website is jeffdavisforjudge.com and I also have a Facebook page that you can go to, Jeff Davis for Court of Appeals.
You can search me on there.
But if you go on my website, there'll be a link to my Facebook.
You can go there.
And then there's a Donate Now section at the bottom.
You can read a little bit more about me.
There's a bio there.
And We didn't really touch on it much, but while I was practicing law, I think from maybe 2012 to 2015, I went to seminary and I got my Master of Theological Studies degree and became an ordained pastor and started a non-denominational church out in Madison, Georgia, which is where I was practicing law.
And started it the first Sunday with 30 people there and grew it to 350.
And I was doing that while I was doing the Judicial Qualifications Commission job.
So I was bivocational, pastoring in the community, And also doing this work for the judicial system.
A lawyer that's a pastor.
That is an excellent man, right?
Lawyers get a bad rap.
So that's wonderful.
So basically, I don't endorse very many people.
I really only endorse a handful of people.
I try not to do endorsements.
But I'm just going to say that I totally endorse you, Jeff.
100%.
You have my support.
If there's something I can do for you, you let me know.
But I'm just thank you for running.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for this opportunity to talk to your listeners.
And as you said, this is a nonpartisan race.
So people who pull a Republican ballot or a Democrat ballot.
Or independent.
I'm going to appear on your ballot and it's a two-person race and I will be the first name on the ballot.
So I would appreciate your vote and make sure you get to the polls and vote because this is going to be a very low turnout election and it's going to depend on who gets out and votes.
We've been talking about election fairness.
We've been talking about election integrity.
On both sides of the aisle, whatever it may be, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, everyone wants to have elections we can be confident in.
Yet, people don't go vote.
And they're expecting that about 18% of the voting population will vote in this primary.
Well, I'm telling you, in my hometown, we have high early vote turnout here.
We have a sheriff race that's intense, and we have this probate race that's intense, and we have several commissioners that are intense, and we have several counties around us that are that way.
So we're voting in South Georgia.
That's wonderful.
We need the rest of the state to catch up.
We're voting.
Well, vote for Jeff Davis for the Court of Appeals.
And Candace, thank you so much for the opportunity to visit with you today.
And I hope I'll see you out there soon.
Yes, thank you.
Hey, tell everybody what your favorite Bible verse is really quick.
Well, it's Micah 6-7.
It's the one I said, to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Humility.
We all can have a lesson in humility.
Thank you so much.
Thank y'all for tuning in.
I will see you next week on Jesus Against the Babies.
I love you.
God bless you.
you God bless America hey everybody I want you to go to heavens harvest dot com promo code Candace and I want you to get prepped We don't know what's coming, who knows, but regardless whether it's a hurricane, national disaster, or the whole government shuts down, they have awesome deals on freeze-dried food.
In fact, they have a new item, it's freeze-dried cans.
It's a lot less expensive than the big barrels.
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