Vernon Jones Earns the Wrong Kind of Headline

“Vernon Jones clashes with UGA students during visit.” That was the headline in the UGA Student News publication The Red & Black in an article that described the scene of Vernon Jones’s visit with the campus College Republicans. Jones was there to pitch his [misguided] primary challenge to Governor Brian Kemp.

The article includes a quote from one student who told the reporter covering the event, “Every single word out of his mouth is a verifiable lie. I mean, it’s just shocking to me that he would walk in here and start lie after lie after lie.”

Just damn.

I sat next to Vernon Jones for 3 of my 4 terms in The House of Representatives. I got to see how he spoke to and treated people. I got see how he voted. And I got to understand why his voting record looks the way it does. As Vernon tries to convince people he something he is not, a conservative, it gives me a great deal of hope for our future that a young man on the UGA campus saw through his façade and also called him out on it.

What façade is that, you ask? Well, lets dive deeper into some of the claims Jones made to the CR’s at UGA.

When pressed on why he recently switch parties, Jones is quoted as responding that, “By the time the governor’s race comes to fruition, which is about a year from now, it’d be two years [since I switched parties].” Only, that’s not true at all. Jones declared in April of 2020 that he was not going to switch parties in spite of his endorsement of President Trump. He did not join the House Republican Caucus when he had the opportunity and he did not serve as a Republican for the remainder of the legislative session which ended in June of 2020. He then Tweeted on January 6th, “Moments ago, I announced that I am officially joining the Republican Party.”

The tweet prompted State Representative Sheri Gilligan to welcome Jones to the GOP by saying in a reply, “Welcome to the Party. I how you join the fight to protect the unborn and to protect religious freedom.”

Which brings us to Jones’s second false claim in the article, that he voted against Georgia’s heartbeat bill because it did not go far enough. This is such a lie that it has to be a joke. It is so much of a bold face lie that when Vernon says it, he demonstrates an extraordinary amount of disrespect for the person he says it to. He is essentially saying that we are so stupid that we will not go back and see what he said at the time. That we are lazy. Well we are neither, and we were there when Vernon said, “If your members vote for this bill in 2020, your party [The GOP] loses. There’s going to be a new Speaker of the House here. If there’s a new Speaker, many in your party will lose power, all of you will lose your chairmanships. If you all lose based on this bill, this body is going to change over.”

That wasn’t a plea, it was threat. As if a committee chairmanship was more important than fighting to save another person’s life. Vernon Jones voted against the Heartbeat Bill because he is pro-abortion. I stood next to him and watched as he pressed his “nay” button. I heard his words with my own ears. And his steadfastness to the pro-abortion cause is the reason Rep Gilligan welcomed him to the GOP the way she did, because he had never demonstrated any interest in the pro-life agenda before then.

And there were other lies Vernon Jones told the CR’s at UGA, but I am tired of writing about Vernon already. You can read the article yourself over here.

And Alexander, wherever you are, way to be a Damned Good Dawg.