Think being a lawmaker is a breeze? It often comes with high costs

With the Legislature now back in session, many Georgians are probably bemoaning officials’ alleged luxurious lives. The act of lawmaking conjures up visions of political fat cats huddling in smoke-filled rooms, coasting their way to riches and living a carefree, leisurely life at the expense of taxpayers and lobbyists.

While there have been plenty of Georgia officials who have found ways to exploit their offices for personal gain, the negative stereotype about state lawmakers doesn’t quite ring true. In fact, working under the Gold Dome can be challenging, fraught with peril and lead to ruin. Don’t believe me? Then consider Exhibit A: Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell.

Albers has served in the Legislature since 2011 and demonstrated himself to be a force within the statehouse. However, he would tell you that his political career has been far from the enriching cakewalk that some political spectators imagine.

For starters, the Georgia General Assembly is a part-time legislature, and its members make a paltry $23,000 a year—meaning most officials need a second job to earn a living. What’s more, thanks to lobbyist restrictions, they can only accept gifts of up to $75 per occurrence, per lobbyist, although some notable exemptions and loopholes apply.

Clearly, this isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. Rather, it can have the opposite effect, and back in 2021, Albers found out the hard way when he lost his full-time job. According to a March 2021 article, Albers’ former employer told the Atlanta Journal Constitution “that state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, resigned as chief information officer after it was deemed ‘incompatible’ with his role as a state lawmaker.”

“Albers pinned the blame on The Lincoln Project, the prominent Never Trump group, which he said wrongly accused him of sponsoring a measure to suppress votes in a now-deleted tweet,” the Journal Constitution reported. The anti-Trump organization even tweeted at Albers’ employer at the time and its clients.

Had Albers been trying to do something as terrible as this, then that would be one thing, but he wasn’t. The bill he co-sponsored was SB 62, which was a noncontroversial measure that sought to require ballots to “include a precinct name and number, and ‘overt, covert, and forensic’ security elements to make them harder to illegally copy,” according to National Review.

The tweets that targeted Albers were apparently unleashed in error and then eventually removed. Sadly, the damage to the Roswell lawmaker was already done, which left a stain on 2021 as he dealt with other troubling issues, including his son’s health.

In August of 2020, Albers and his family learned that his son Will—only in his early 20s at the time—was in kidney failure. “Will was immediately put on dialysis and the impact to both him and the family was substantial,” Albers wrote. “The doctor’s appointments were never-ending, he was in pain and was surrounded by others in the same situation where there was a constant fear that he would endure this forever. The surroundings were challenging and it was difficult to remain positive.”

Fortunately, Albers learned that he was an organ match for his son, and in July of 2021, he donated a kidney to Will. The procedure was a success, and both of them have recovered and are living normal lives. This allowed Albers to continue working under the Gold Dome in the interim, but further adversity wasn’t far off.

For some unknown reason in the 2023 holiday season, some individual(s) targeted Georgia officials with “swatting,” which is the process of calling 911 and reporting fake emergencies at high profile individuals’ addresses. Believing that the complaints are genuine, police invariably show up in force—sometimes in the dead of night.

One malefactor called 911 and gave Albers’ home address. Presumably unbeknownst to the culprit, Albers was out of state, but his son Will was at his house watching their dog. After hearing banging at the door, he went to investigate.

“When I went to the door and unlocked it. I was greeted by quite a few police officers who entered my home with weapons […] They weren’t asking, they were telling,” Will Albers reported to WSBTV. Soon enough law enforcement deduced what was afoot. The Albers family had been swatted. Nobody was injured, but the act of swatting is incredibly dangerous and despicable.

Compounding Albers’ challenging few years is the fact that lawmakers routinely have to deal with angry constituents in our highly polarized political environment and run for re-election every two years. Being an elected official clearly has some benefits, like enjoying increased influence and some free meals, but it’s not the glitz and glamor that some people envision. Sen. Albers is proof of that.