By running for lieutenant governor, Sen. Blake Tillery, R-19th District, Vidalia, will be giving up his district seat and the chair of the Georgia Senate’s Appropriations Committee after 2026, whether or not he wins the higher office. So why take the risk now?

“When I ran for the state Senate I ran on a platform of three items,” Tillery said in a recent Statesboro Herald interview, “reducing taxes, bringing jobs to our area, and then on broadband. …”

During the COVID pandemic years, Tillery worked with the House appropriations chair, the governor’s budget writer and Gov. Brian Kemp to direct about $4 billion Georgia received in federal money under the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, to three purposes: communities’ water and sewer projects and the expansion of broadband internet access, especially to rural areas.

“Now … you’ve got faster broadband in Hopeulikit than you do in parts of Statesboro,” he continued, and later added that Bulloch Telephone and  Pineland Telephone and regional Electric Membership Co-ops were “big winners” in broadband expansion.

Statesboro and Bulloch County, he said, also benefited from the water and sewer project funding.

“The jobs question has obviously been answered with what we’ve been able to do with economic development, and then the taxes question, we’ve reduced the state income tax by 15 percent, and I think I’ve hit the top of what I can do there, in the position that I have,” Tillery said. “Ten years is enough time in the Legislature, I’ve done a good job, I should ask for the promotion.”

He had stopped by the newspaper office Tuesday, Oct. 14, the first of at least two days he was in Statesboro last week, first for a campaign meet-and-greet that evening and then to speak to a local civic club.

His background

If voters don’t award him that promotion, 10 years would still be long enough representing a district in the Senate, he said, and noted that it’s not a full-time job. He is an attorney with a his own legal practice, The Tillery Firm, in Vidalia. After graduating from Vidalia High School in 2002, he attained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia in 2006 and then his law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 2010.

Now 42, he began his political career with his 2012 countywide election as chairman of the Toombs County Commission and served four years in that post.

“We reduced property taxes every single year I was chairman,” he said.

He was first elected to the state Senate in 2016 to succeed retiring Sen. Tommie Williams, and was sworn in in January 2017.

After the death of long-serving Sen. Jack Hill of Reidsville in April 2020, Tillery was appointed to the Appropriations Committee chairmanship Hill had wielded with such respected influence. Now, Tillery has chaired that committee – with direct input on what to do, for example, with that influx of ARPA money – for more than six years and has served in the Senate for nearly nine.

Income tax targeted

Still, the office he is seeking would be a promotion. As president of the Senate, the lieutenant governor presides over debate and has a seldom-used tiebreaker vote. But Georgia’s lieutenant governor also chairs the Committee on Assignments and appoints two of its other members, and can appoint special committees. Current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is now running for governor, appointed Tillery in July to chair a Special Committee on Eliminating Georgia’s Income Tax.

So, no surprise, that’s something Tillery wants to do.

“I know we can eliminate the state income tax” he said. “I’ve chaired the budget now for what will be my seventh year this year (2026), and we’ve already been able to reduce the income tax by 15 percent. But Florida and Tennessee have done it with zero income tax, North Carolina and South Carolina are rapidly approaching zero.

“Even blue states like New Hampshire and Washington have eliminated their state income tax,” Tillery said. “I know Georgia can do it too.”

After the previous reductions he spoke of, Georgia’s income tax is 5.39%, and with the Carolinas planning to drop theirs to around 2.99%, Georgia needs to eliminate its personal income tax to remain competitive, he said.

Eliminating exemptions

Asked how the state government will make up for the loss of a revenue source that brings in $16.2 billion annually, Tillery asserted that it can be done mainly by eliminating certain tax exemptions, which he calls “corporate welfare.”

“By not providing as many corporate welfare tax exemptions, 1 percent of sales tax in Tennessee brings in more dollars than 1 percent of sales tax in Georgia, yet we have 3 million more people,” he said.

He portrays eliminating the income tax as a way to help working families, and contrasts this with the exemptions he says go to corporate interests that can afford to hire lobbyists.

“In Georgia, we exempt the sales tax on yacht parts. How does that help a family paying for child care in Candler County?” Tillery asked.  “We also exempt the sales tax on lottery tickets. How does that help somebody in Screven County? I’m not sure.”

He acknowledged that scrapping such exemptions may not provide all the needed revenue.

“After we study that out, I think you’re going to see us with an income tax that, I don’t know if we get it all the way to zero, but we get it close, and then we could have the discussion about whether citizens would rather have a consumption-based versus an income tax,” he said.

Consumption-based taxes can include sales taxes and taxes on services.

“But I would only support that if it was a vote of the people,” Tillery said.

The special committee he chairs reportedly has a plan to eliminate the income tax.

“You’ll see that bill introduced this year (the 2026 legislative term), even before I ask for your vote for lieutenant governor,” he said.

With campaign materials that label him “a proven conservative leader,” Tillery also touts fighting illegal immigration and reducing crime among his projects.

He is one of several Republicans seeking their party’s nomination for lieutenant governor, including the state Senate’s President Pro Tempore John Kennedy and former Majority Leader Steve Gooch. State Sen. Josh McLaurin is a Democratic candidate who has filed campaign finance reports.

The party primaries will be held May 19 and the general election Nov.  3, 2026.