State Sen. Colton Moore, R-Trenton, said efforts to ban him from entering the joint session of the Georgia General Assembly violates the rights of his constituents because it attempts to prevent him from representing them.
Moore is out of the Fulton County Jail after being arrested in a scuffle with the chamber doorkeeper preventing him from entering. Moore fell to the ground and Georgia State Patrol troopers surrounded him, arrested him, and booked him at the jail.
The charges he faces are unknown. Moore blames Republican House Speaker Jon Burns (R-Newington) for the conflict. Burns is the successor to the late House Speaker David Ralston.
According to a formal letter sent from Moore to Burns, Moore said he received a Jan. 14 letter banning him from the chamber.
“Your letter is unconstitutional, illegal, and the most disgraceful piece of correspondence issued by a legislator in the history of the State of Georgia, ” Moore wrote. “Your acts constitute both an impermissible censorship of my voice as an elected State Senator and an unlawful obstruction of my sworn duties to the People of Georgia.”
The feud between Moore and members of the General Assembly, including Burns, began last year when the Georgia Senate was set to approve a resolution naming a University of North Georgia building after Ralston. Moore spoke against it, disparaging Ralston with the late senator’s family sitting on the balcony.
Moore was then banned from entering House chambers. He claims he should have been allowed into the assembly this week because he is a senator attending a joint session rather than a House session.
“I will never back down,” Moore said on social media the day before the assembly began, stating he would attend. “I will ALWAYS speak the truth and represent the people of Northwest Georgia as their trusted America First Senator.”