Georgia House of Representative’s Minority Leader Tanya Miller’s Closing Speech

Tanya Miller is my Representative in the State of Georgia House of Representatives. She is one of those rare individual politicians that I actively vote for (rather than ticking a box for an abstract person / party). She has like gone door to door on my street and chatted in-person with constituents. I’m not surprised at all that she’s the Minority Leader in the Georgia House. Her closing speech of the session is one of those rare speeches that is actually immediately, directly relevant to me, today*.

*like, I’m paying a shocking car insurance bill while finding out that a State Trooper who might have been the guy who flew by me & my son on a bike ended up causing a death only a few blocks from me – not to mention my local schools, etc.

Transcript

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, colleagues.

Here we are, day 39. Our constituents sent us here to address serious pressing issues affecting their daily lives: affordable healthcare, underfunded schools, housing affordability, public safety concerns, workforce development, crumbling infrastructure, rural hospital closures, rising drug prices, mental health crisis, and economic insecurity.

Yet instead of addressing these real problems, my colleagues in the majority party continue their extreme agenda of alternating between using the General Assembly as Donald Trump’s vengeance machine and solving problems that do not exist. The presenter of this bill shared today in rules that there is not a single case, not one, of an inmate receiving or even asking for a sex change operation. This is absolutely ridiculous. It is a waste of time, and I would like to know what is going on with my colleagues that they have become so obsessed with what is happening in transgender citizens’ panties and their underwear and their boxer shorts and their bedrooms and their medical rooms when they talk to their doctors, when they deal with their families. Why is it that this has become such an obsession?

There are five, five cases of someone maybe in prisons, and I would—please, please leave because actually today I’m talking to the citizens of Georgia because they need to know the mess that’s going on down here. I am tired. We are all away from our families. We are away from our children. We are away from our jobs. We are not seeing patients. We are not seeing clients. We are taking financial hits, and you are wasting our time. Better still, wasting the taxpayers’ money down here solving problems that no one asked you for, that do not in fact exist.

It is exhausting on day 39 when I go back to my constituents who care about the affordability of childcare, who care about all the children in Georgia that don’t have healthcare, who care about the children who only get two meals they can count on in this state, and that’s when they’re in school—a free lunch, a free breakfast—and in the summertime are left to fend for themselves. We come to this body asking to feed hungry children, and what do we get? “We couldn’t feed hungry children with somebody else’s money.”

So let me just—I just want us to focus a little bit, and I’m talking to the citizens of Georgia wherever they are. I want to talk to you about some of the things that we could be focused on down here, but instead we are worried about maybe five people. We don’t know if they want a pill. We don’t know if they want a shot. We don’t know what their doctor has prescribed them. We don’t know anything about it, but I want you to count the hours of debate time that we have wasted on this issue.

This is what I think the people want to hear: According to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2024 infrastructure report card for Georgia, we were given a C+. C means mediocre. That’s barely a passing grade. How do we feel about that? Each category was evaluated on the basis of capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation, maintenance, public safety, resilience, and innovation. Drinking water was given a C+—barely passing grade. Public parks were given a C. Roads were given a C. Solid waste and water treatment was given a C. Storm water management was given a C-. Transit was given a D. Not a single infrastructure category was given an exceptional rating. We settle for mediocrity when our infrastructure is crumbling, but tell me more about the ambiguous five people who may or may not exist who are going to get a sex change operation in prison.

We might be—and I’m very proud of the fact that we are—the best state to do business in. Very proud of that. But we are also one of the most dangerous states for a woman to be pregnant. Women die here trying to have babies. We’re one of the worst in the country, one of the hardest states to get access to quality healthcare. In fact, we are number five. We are the fifth worst state in the country for healthcare access.

Five. There are 10 counties in this great state that have no doctor. There are 17 counties in this state that have no family medicine doctor. There are 37 counties with no internal medicine doctor. There are 67 counties with no pediatric physician. There are 73 counties with no emergency medical physician. There are 82 counties with no OB/GYN. There are 82 counties with no general surgery physician. There are 53 counties, citizens of Georgia, rural counties, that don’t have a hospital. When these folks, constituents in this room, have an emergency—53 no-hospital rural counties in this state. But tell me more about prison sex change operations, because my God, let us continue to waste time on solutions to problems that do not exist.

There are families in my community working and looking to buy a home for the first time, young families, hardworking families who are priced out by skyrocketing rents and greedy corporations who are gobbling up the American dream in this state. This body could be focused on that. We could be addressing this affordable housing crisis. We could be making this a safer and better state for women and families to have children. We could be solving and tackling the big problems that we are sent here—this body of 180 members with a learned Speaker, collectively representing this state, solving as best we can the big problems. But yet we waste time. It’s silly season, apparently, in the opposition party.

I’m going to—I’m going to ask us to do this: When y’all have worn yourselves out, when y’all have gotten this obsession with the transgender community—probably one of the smallest, tiniest populations in this state, they’re so tiny—you’re talking to me about five potential, but we’re not even sure. Who knows how many children go to bed hungry in the state? Who knows how many women in their district died trying to have a baby? Who knows how many children in their county, their district, can’t afford to eat over the summer? Who knows how many of your constituents can’t afford to buy a home? The American dream is completely foreclosed to them.

Who amongst you has outrageous crime in your district? Who amongst you is focusing on not only the criminal justice system and our critical infrastructure but the crumbling prisons we have? We are abysmal. I appreciate the funding this year, but the problems with this Department of Corrections in the state of Georgia are longstanding. I’m glad we’re paying attention to it now, likely because the federal government has been crawling all up in it.

I would ask you this as we barrel towards the last day of our precious time here in this esteemed body: Please stop wasting my time. On behalf of the 60,000 strong I represent, please stop wasting their time. Stop playing in their faces. Stop manufacturing crisis. Stop making up stuff that nobody asked you for. Stop planting seeds of division in our communities. Stop picking on people. Let transgender people live, my God.

Now I’m sure that that was all lost on many of my colleagues. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about it. I see little baby Jesus up here; maybe he’s watching. But I do hope that the citizens of Georgia understand the great capability this body has to solve the big problems affecting you. We do. And this is how your representative potentially has chosen to spend their time. Mr. Speaker, I will yield the well, and I thank my colleagues for their attention.

Representative Tanya Miller, District 62, State of Georgia