Ruwa Romman on Recent Georgia Legislation and Gaza [Podcast]

Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman shares insights into the legislative session, highlighting the dynamic of having a third of the House composed of new members. She addresses the complex issues of balancing public safety and civil liberties in immigration status checks, the political landscape challenges during an election year, and experiences of changing positions on bills after hearing new information. Plus, Romman shared her view on the war in Gaza. With your host Rico Figliolini.

Resources:
Ruwa’s Website: https://www.ruwa4georgia.com/

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Discussing Important Issues
00:03:07 – First-Year Freshman Dynamics
00:04:19 – Concerns over Misuse of Immigration Enforcement Legislation
00:07:03 – Concerns Over Police Funding and Immigration Checks
00:10:43 – Balancing Immigration Enforcement and Community Trust
00:12:41 – Navigating Student Loan Forgiveness and Data Center Legislation
00:15:18 – Changing Perspectives on Film Tax Credits
00:16:59 – Balancing Film Industry Incentives and School Funding
00:18:47 – Navigating Legislation: Freshman Lawmaker’s Perspective
00:25:04 – Improving Early Literacy through Education Reform
00:26:43 – Balancing Work, Campaigns, and Local Elections
00:32:21 – Unsolicited Home Selling Offers
00:33:19 – Engaging the Community and Addressing International Challenges

Podcast Transcript:

Rico Figliolini 0:00:01

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. We have a great guest today, Ruwa Romman, the Georgia State Rep, District 97. Hey, Ruwa, how are you?

Ruwa Romman 0:00:11

Hi. I’m good, thanks. Thanks for having me. How are you doing?

Rico Figliolini 0:00:14

Yeah, good. It’s a beautiful day. Just came back from lunch, so all good. Mojito’s at the forum. Excellent.

Ruwa Romman 0:00:20

Delicious.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:21

And I actually had breakfast this morning at First Watch, so I’m just doing dinner, lunch, breakfast, lunch and dinner tonight at a new restaurant that just, that’s opening or media preview called Dahlia’s restaurant at the Hilton Northeast here in Peachtree Corners. We’ll see how that food is, but we have more important things to discuss rather than food. So let’s get.

Ruwa Romman 0:00:48

 I don’t know if there’s, honestly, to me, that’s like, top number one priority in my life.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:53

Well, actually, you know what? That’s funny, because in my family growing up, italian, italian heritage, everything around the dinner table was game, essentially. So that’s the best place to talk about stuff sometimes.

Ruwa Romman 0:01:05

Totally.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:06

Yeah. So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on because the session’s over. And it’s interesting because, you know, most people coming from New York state, reps in the House and House Senate seats and stuff, they’re almost practically full time. They work, like, in session, like nine months out of the year here in the state of Georgia. How many days is it that you’re in session?

Ruwa Romman 0:01:31

Yeah, we’re about 40 days, all of January, all of February and all of March. And so the intent, but, you know, the reason it’s 40 days is because we also have, like, committee work days, and we try to have some time to actually go through the bills that gets harder at the end of it. But, yeah, we’re about three months of.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:47

The year, so there’s quite a few bills that cat looked at. I don’t know what the numbers are. Maybe you could share that with us. You know, how many actually got looked at and how many ended up passing? Quite a few passed, I think. And I think we actually vetoed a few also.

Ruwa Romman 0:02:02

Yeah, there were definitely some vetoes, of course. And actually, people can go on legislation. So legis.ga.gov, and you can actually see every single vote that we have done. We took a total of 890 votes this year, or I guess, like this session. And that includes everything from attendance to bills. And to be clear, when we talk about a session. So there’s, like, this year’s session and then last year’s session is technically part of this one because it’s a biannual. So over the course of those, I guess like eight month period, we took over 890 votes. So that was attendance. But a lot of it was on, you know, bills and moving things and, and stuff like that. So we voted on a lot. I think it was. Somebody said we had almost 1200 bills that moved through per like four month period, but only about 200 of them get signed.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:01

That could be good because some of those bills aren’t that great. And this is your first year, really, isn’t it? Is it your first full year?

Ruwa Romman 0:03:11

I am a brand new freshman, as they call us. What was really, actually unique about us this year is about a third of the House was freshmen. So it gave us an opportunity to get to know each other and start on a blank slate. And I think it really made the dynamics of the House a little different in a good way.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:29

Good. Yeah. Because it can be frustrating. I’m sure Congress has their issues, but. Yeah.

Ruwa Romman 0:03:35

Yeah. We actually voted on our speaker on the first try in about 15 minutes. So we did what we were supposed to.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:43

Yes. The grownups are in the room here in Georgia as opposed to Washington.

Ruwa Romman 0:03:48

I don’t know about the Senate, but the House. We’re good.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:51

Yeah. The Senate had its issues, from what I understand. Right. And if they weren’t in session, probably would have been good in some cases.

Ruwa Romman 0:03:59

It’s a fun ride. It’s a fun ride.

Rico Figliolini 0:04:01

Yes. I would think one of the important bills that you were, that you mentioned before we started was House bill 1105 that you wanted to talk about too. Why don’t we start with that one? Let’s go. Because you said that actually wasn’t turned into legislation. I mean, it’s legislation, but it was never signed, right?

Ruwa Romman 0:04:22

No, it was signed. And this seems to happen every election year. And I’ve actually noticed this. I try to watch a wide range of news, or at least follow them, and a lot of news organizations suddenly will start talking about immigration. Everything terrible with immigration, suddenly it becomes every headline. And then as soon as election year is over, it literally go. And I wish I was joking, but it literally does go away. And because of the tragedy that happened with Lake and Riley, all of a sudden, that was all we talked about for the last few weeks of session. And it was a real tragedy. I mean, parents lost their daughter, friends lost a loved one. I mean, and it really shook the UGA campus. But I was left wondering with the fact that if the perpetrator was any other person, any other type of person, if it would have gotten that kind of attention. And so what ended up happening was, unfortunately, some of my republican colleagues used that as an opportunity to push through this bill. And what it does is it mandates that our local law enforcement, so, like Gwinnett Duluth, any, any local law enforcement is now required to do federal type work, which is ensure or I guess, check to make sure that somebody is a documented individual in the United States. There’s a couple problems with that. One, it opens up the door for discrimination, because now a police officer feels like they have to check people’s papers, for lack of a better word, if they seem suspicious. And frankly, you know, those who are, who don’t look brown are not going to be impacted by this, but those who do could be. The other problem with the bill is that our driver’s licenses are not good enough documentation to prove our citizenship. Even though our licenses here in Georgia are verified. You could travel with them. I believe you can even go to Canada driving using your license. And that creates a host of problems, because now police can detain you for 48 hours. Right. So if you’ve got a job, if you got kids, if you got any set of responsibilities, suddenly your whole life can be derailed. Mistaken.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:27

Yeah. Is that prior to being. Being arrested and for a crime? Correct.

Ruwa Romman 0:06:33

So it.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:34

Yeah, go ahead. I’m sorry.

Ruwa Romman 0:06:38

The problem is that the bill is written badly. I think a lot of times people think that because we pass a bill that it’s written well, there are some inconsistencies and lack of clarity. So, like, do you actually have to be booked, or could it be that somebody arrested you because you were being annoying and then they decide to hold you to check your immigration status? And the other piece about this bill, again, along with the contradictions that a lot of people don’t realize, is it defunds the police. And I mean that sincerely. If. If a local police department chooses not to engage on this basically quota system, they could lose state funding as a result. And so it opens up this, like, wide range of issues from how we treat people holding them unfairly and now losing funding if they’re not doing federal level work, which they’re not getting more money for either.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:25

So let me ask you this. I mean, from a common sense point of view, from the way I look at it, is that I can appreciate what you’re saying as far as if you’re being stopped on a road. Yes, I can see that discrimination is. Will never go away. Right. As much as we try. But if you’re arrested and you’re booked for a crime. Right? And you’re mugshot and everything. You’re in prison. Wouldn’t that be a reasonable time then to check because you’ve committed a crime now, you’re not judged yet guilty, haven’t had a court case yet, but you’ve been booked, officially booked on that crime. Would that not be a good time to check to see if there’s an illegal immigrant?

Ruwa Romman 0:08:08

Yeah. The problem. The problem, though, is who do they normally check to make sure it’s not an illegal immigrant? Right. So you then have discrimination on that side of it. So not only are people more likely to be arrested, for example, if they are black or brown, they’re now more likely to have that 48 hours hold. So they could have been released that night, but now, because they have to check their immigration status, they’re now being booked for 48 more hours. And suddenly the problems start to add up on each other, and you end up having to spend valuable jail space on somebody that you wouldn’t have normally had to hold to begin with. Right. Because, remember, our prisons and jails are already overcrowded. You know, our justice system is already at its brink, and so you’re just adding more problems without actually providing any more funding is the other piece of it. So.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:54

So if you hold someone that I want to. Not that I want to get into the weeds or anything, and I won’t say bills, bills are not, God, their intent, you know, they sound good until they’re not. And I heard you and Scott Hilton at a recent legislative panel, and you were giving out some details of particular bills, and had I not heard you say those facts about those bills, I’d be like, well, on the face of it, it sounds good, but apparently it’s not because it’s this. Right? If I was fact checking or if I was able to see further into it, and most citizens don’t have that time or that interest to look at certain things further than a one sentence descriptive. But if a person’s booked and they’re in jail, they’re booked for a reason, right? So they’re going to be there regardless for 24 to 48 hours anyway. So why not check the status during that time?

Ruwa Romman 0:09:49

Totally. And, you know, so, first off, I do, like, I feel like I do need to give voice to the fact that people who are more likely to be booked, and I’ve seen this happen in front of me are, you know, again, black and brown folks. However, to your point, if they’re already there, why not check there’s a couple of problems with that. One, it can be really, really cumbersome depending on the kind of software that they’re using, whether or not they are on a special system that can do that kind of checking. But that’s why, for example, there is that 48 hours hold to give time for that check is my point. Right. So in order to allow for that check to happen, it does take up to 48 hours. And now you’re holding somebody for two days that you normally wouldn’t have to hold otherwise.

Rico Figliolini 0:10:32

Okay, understood. I mean, in a perfect world, it would be fine. You release them as they normally would be released. And if it comes back that they were illegal and they should have been held, then you go back out and get them at residence that they declined.

Ruwa Romman 0:10:51

Have to take care of that. Right. That’s what federal, like, we spend federal money on this kind of stuff that’s under the purview of the federal government and federal agents, because the other thing people don’t realize is when you do this kind of stuff, it reduces, there’s already a lot of distrust between law enforcement and community members. And so now you’re reducing that little bit of trust. So someone, for example, who is seeing a crime or is a victim of domestic abuse and might be undocumented, they’re now choosing not to seek help because they’re scared of this specific piece.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:20

And again, going back to legislation and details, I mean, it could be then that it would be checked for felons. Felon felony level crimes versus a misdemeanor crime would be better. I mean, so there, there’s some pathway there, right, to be able to do this. Yeah.

Ruwa Romman 0:11:36

And to be clear, you know, we have, with things like this, a lot of times when I engage with my colleagues, I try really hard to engage on implementation because I know sometimes we come at it from a different perspective. Like you said, it’s not a perfect world. I wish it was, but it’s not. And so a lot of times we do offer straight up, just technical feedback, but the reality is, especially in an election year, it sort of ends up with a mind of its own and kind of just, you know, goes. But in the meantime, I tell folks, like, make sure your passport is up to date. We’re now at that kind of situation, truly. Like, I’m actually, because an expired passport does not count. So if they were to book me, for example, for whatever reason, and my husband brings my passport, it’s expired, they will not accept it, and I could be held for 48 hours. So, yeah, yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:29

Difficult national identification code. That’s what it comes down to at some point, I guess. Yep. What are the bills? Are two closest to you that you’d like to talk about?

Ruwa Romman 0:12:43

Yeah. So we actually had some really great movement this year on things like student loan forgiveness. There were a few bills that we passed, but they were specifically related to student loan forgiveness on sectors that we needed more people in. So, for example, mental health care, those who provide drug addiction services, which kind of do overlap a little bit, which was really great to work on. I think last year we did something similar. It was the governor’s bill on law enforcement. I was kind of hoping we would do the same for teachers. So, like, if a teacher teaches for however many years, specifically in a rural area, we could provide a student loan forgiveness faster than the federal government. I think that would go a really long way with retention and recruitment. But it was really heartening to see that we were beginning to, as a body, recognize the importance of sort of filling in those stopgaps. We also, unfortunately, the Okefenokee, the one bill that I got a lot of emails on was actually to protect the Okefenokee. Unfortunately, that bill did not pass. But I do encourage people to reach out to our senators, Senator Ossoff and Senator Warnock. From my understanding. I think specifically Senator Ossoff’s team is looking at ways to designate it as a UNESCO heritage site. It is a heritage site, but it’s not the right kind of heritage site list, I guess. But there is a way to protect it from that angle. So we’re hoping to maybe try to get around it. There. There was some back and forth on data centers to. Tax break. Yeah, I actually originally was a. And this is kind of my favorite kind of legislation where I. I’m not sure what I think about it, and I like to hear the arguments because, you know, it’s just, you learn a lot and.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:25

Yeah, for sure.

Ruwa Romman 0:14:26

I originally was a yes on that bill, particularly from an environmental perspective. But what had changed my mind was one of my colleagues. Her district relies on jobs in data centers. And apparently a lot of data centers now are moving towards, like, multiple elements of energy, like solar. So they are less, I guess, bad in terms of, like, energy consumption. So I learned a lot through that bill, and it did end up getting. It did not pass to take away their tax break, which was good because we need to study it a little bit more. But I learned a lot. Right. I went in with, like, one idea, and I heard from my colleagues who had better experience than I I did. I thought, okay, I’ve got new information. I’m going to adjust accordingly.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:08

And that’s a great way of doing that. And I’m assuming your colleagues were from both sides of the aisle, maybe on the subject.

Ruwa Romman 0:15:13

Oh, yeah. There were no’s on both sides of the aisle. There were yeses on both sides of the aisle. Same thing with the film tax credit, by the way, which also didn’t make it to the finish line. You know, I remember going into. Because they were trying to reduce the film tax credit. And originally I went in as a no, and I actually walked out. Yes. And same thing. We had some. Because for me, I actually had a constituent. And again, this is like my favorite thing to tell people, and I hope more people hear this. I had a constituent reach out to me, and she is in the film industry. And she told me about how, like, job to job. Yes. It’s not how much we’re giving in tax breaks, but if you look at, for example, when a movie comes to a town, how much revenue provides that town in hotels, food, lodging, et cetera. And so she gave me some, like, really, really great information, and I found myself going, huh. Maybe I don’t fully agree with this. And I would much rather be able to study it more and the downward effects more. So it was just. It was just like, really, really interesting. And then I think. So I. So sorry. Now I mix it up. I originally went in. No, I ended up with that.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:18

Okay.

Ruwa Romman 0:16:20

I originally went in, No. End up being confused myself. Hold on.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:24

It’s okay.

Ruwa Romman 0:16:27

Yeah, yeah. So the reason I went in. Yes. Is because of my constituent. And then I end up being a no because the bill itself doesn’t actually talk about the. Or it didn’t address, like, the smaller. Like, how are they called? They’re like little companies. Right? Like there’s little builds of film and then there’s like, the big budget films.

Rico Figliolini 0:16:47

So the.

Ruwa Romman 0:16:49

Correct. So the bill made a distinction between those two things. So what she actually told me about wasn’t. Wasn’t going to be impacted by this bill. So I ended up being a yes. But I would have. I don’t even think I would have considered a no on a bill like this because it meant more revenue for schools, as an example, had it not been for that constituent. So I.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:06

More revenue for schools because. Less tax credits.

Ruwa Romman 0:17:10

Correct. Because right now we’re losing. We’re losing out on revenue that these film studios. Because they’re big film studios. Right. We’re not talking about the small films. We’re talking about huge film studios that are currently not paying taxes, even though they’re using a lot of our roads, a lot of our infrastructure, things like that.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:29

But don’t they bring. So. Okay. This pedestrian a little bit on my part because I don’t know all the facts on it, but I would think, because I think was North Carolina or South Carolina ended theirs, and we got a lot of business moving south to our state, and we’re the biggest one.

Ruwa Romman 0:17:46

Yeah. Normally, I’m a yes on bills like this. I was a no for a little bit because of that constituent. So what happened? Because so many of us were no, they actually limited the bill on the House side. The reason it failed on the Senate side is because they tried to expand it way further than a lot of us were comfortable with. And had it not been for that constituent, I wouldn’t have even thought to ask my colleagues to limit the bill that way.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:07

Okay.

Ruwa Romman 0:18:08

Yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:08

All right. All right.

Ruwa Romman 0:18:09

Yeah. All right. I use, like, my yeses and my nos, but, like, I was just trying to explain the details. Like, again, for us, the details are where this kind of gets lost in the sauce. And so when we have constituents come to us and say, this is what I think about this bill, I can go to my colleagues and say, here’s a concern I’ve heard. Normally, I would be a yes on this. Can you fix it? And then they fixed it. Okay.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:31

So, you know, it’s interesting, because when people are voting sometimes on legislation or resolutions that are not a yes or no. Well, yes or no, but not for someone, that’s. Sometimes it’s written in such a way that if you put no or yes, it could be the wrong way of going. Right of the way you’d want to.

Ruwa Romman 0:18:51

Yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:51

Yeah.

Ruwa Romman 0:18:52

And there are. And part of the confusion, to be clear, like, you will sometimes see a legislator vote one way the first time on a bill and a different way the second time on a bill, it’s because the bill changes in the process. Right. For us, as the House, we could. The version of the bill, it goes to the Senate, it comes back a different version, or in committee. That’s the other piece of, like, why I was originally, I became a no because of this constituent. Because originally in the committee, because I do follow committee stuff, too. Like, if I know a bill is definitely making it to the floor, I try to go back and watch the committee. So I remember watching the committee hearing and marking it down as a no again, truly because of this constituent. And when it then the committee actually changed it to address the concerns that I had and others had. And so then it became. Yes, because that’s actually the best part of the legislative process.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:41

Yes, it does. Everyone gets the two cent to put in on it. Did it end up. Did that bill end up having amendments to it?

Ruwa Romman 0:19:49

Yeah, it got amended in the Senate, and that’s why it didn’t pass at all.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:52

Okay. Okay. Sometimes unrelated stuff.

Ruwa Romman 0:19:56

Correct.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:57

There was another bill that ended up dying in the Senate, but I thought it was interesting how brought it up. It was the EMS changing that to essential or identifying it as essential services. So tell me a little bit about that one.

Ruwa Romman 0:20:09

That was actually my bill. I was incredibly grateful that House leadership allowed me to pass a bill as a freshman Democrat, which doesn’t always happen, but, you know, that goes to show the importance of, like, building relationships and sort of treating this as a professional job like you would anything else, because it goes a long way, and my husband’s in a part time EMT, and I was chatting with his co workers, and they said, yeah, we’re not considered an essential service. And I go, why not? And it’s because EMS actually started after law enforcement and fire. So law enforcement and fire have been around for almost a century. EMS started in the 1970s. Sorry, they started in, like, the 18 hundreds. EMS started in the 1970s. So it never got, like, put into all these laws that we’ve created around EMS and fire or around police and fire. And so what the bill would have done is actually would have reduced a lot of red tape for our EMS personnel and, frankly, recognize them as the essential service that they are. It ran out of time on the Senate side, so my hope is, if I get reelected, is to continue working on that bill and get it across the finish line.

Rico Figliolini 0:21:09

Congratulations, because I know how difficult it is for a freshman to get. To get their own bill, and this was a really good bill. I’m just surprised it didn’t get passed this year. I’m actually surprised hearing you saying it wasn’t essential services.

Ruwa Romman 0:21:23

So, yeah, only 15 would have been the 15th state to designate EMS as an essential service.

Rico Figliolini 0:21:29

Oh, wow. Sometimes I wonder about how we do things. Was there other legislation that you’d like to. I know there was one that I saw, HB Senate. Well, it was a Senate bill, so I didn’t even know if it went to the House. Senate Bill 233 was Georgia promise scholarship. It’s a $6,500 voucher for students attending lower performing public schools. But I guess they never get to the House. It looks like maybe, or no, it.

Ruwa Romman 0:22:01

Unfortunately passed and got signed by the governor. I was actually opposition to this bill. It passed the House by only one vote. And there was, yeah, there was actually bipartisan opposition to it. Only one Democrat voted in favor. And the problem with bills like this, frankly, is that no matter how, which way you parse it, taking money out of public schools is not a solution. And you’ll hear people say that we have spent a record amount of money on public schools this year, but we forget that after the great Recession, we actually defunded education for almost ten years. Right. We have a hole that we still need to fill because of those ten years and be able to meet our obligations now. And I feel like people forget that just because, yes, we’re spending a lot of money on education right now does not mean we’ve actually met our obligation. And what some of my colleagues think is that it’s best to just let some kids leave these failing schools rather than just fixing the failing schools. And I don’t think that’s a good path forward. The other thing is that this $6,500 that is technically supposed to be for a kid in a quote, unquote, failing school does not address getting there, like transportation, any extra supplies that they might need, any extra expenses that might come up in tuition and fees. The majority of private schools in Georgia charge way more than $6,500.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:27

Yeah, yeah.

Ruwa Romman 0:23:29

And so I just, for me personally, I don’t like school vouchers. I would much rather, for example, allow a student to pick a public school in their county to go to. That’s what I got. I grew up in Forsyth county, and each, each school had like a kind of, what I call it, almost a magnet program. Right? So had the IB program. Central has the humanities program. So each of these high schools had something that would attract students. And if you signed up for those programs, you could go to that school, even though it’s not in your district. And I would much rather be able to have public schools compete together rather than move them to a private school system where, by the way, these dollars, there’s not a lot of good oversight for them, because technically, those who homeschool can use this money, but there is no way, for example, to claw back that money if it was being improperly used.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:18

True. Yeah, I can see that. But, and to your point about tuition being much higher than that 6500, it’s like double or triple that, depending where. And even with scholarships, you still can’t. So, I mean, if you’re going to do a voucher program, in my mind, it either has to be more money or you have to do it differently, like you said. And quite frankly, I think we just need to change the way we do education altogether. And it’s just not, I mean, yeah, it’s just not working. I think that it needs to be more attention than, personally, I feel it needs more attention. The first four grades, four years of education to get the kids set in the right path before they even get to middle school.

Ruwa Romman 0:24:59

And so you do smaller class sizes, reducing the standardized testing so that we teachers can teach students rather than teach a test. Focus on them. One thing I will say on education is we actually did pass another set of bills over the past two years about how we test if a kid is dyslexic. Because right now what’s happening is that students are getting to the third and fourth grade. They can’t actually read, but they’ve been able to get away with it because of, like, everything has pictures on it. And then in third and fourth grade, those pictures go away and you realize, oh, no, this kid does not read. We did pass legislation to have better testing for that kind of stuff earlier on so we can catch it earlier. And we are trying to kind of get to a place where other school systems have done this and they are now seeing their literacy rate just exponentially increase. It’ll just take a little bit of.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:52

Time to fully set in this type of thing takes a lot of political will to be able to do, to change because you have to change.

Ruwa Romman 0:26:03

Yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:04

Yes. Process the whole mental attitude of what people look at and maybe they can do it nicely. Yeah. Instead of, yeah. Burnett County, I think, has had some issues so far, but. Well, so we’re done. So I’m curious, we’re done with the house and stuff. What do you do the rest of the year for your job? What do you do?

Ruwa Romman 0:26:27

So unless somebody is independently wealthy or retired, they go back to their work in an election year. We are also campaigning. So our, the primary is coming up here May 21. I don’t have a primary. Senator Islam does have a primary and our commissioner, Kirkland Carden, doesn’t have a primary. But if you are in the part of Peachtree corners that has Sally Harrell, she does have a primary. So please come out and make sure you vote. We also have a bunch of judgeships up for reelection, including a Supreme Court judge in Georgia. So please make sure you go to the bottom of your ballot to vote on that. There is also school board. So we have school board seat that is open again. Go back to the bottom of your ballot to see that seat. And last but not least, there.

Rico Figliolini 0:27:12

And that’s. So then people know that’s a non partisan. So whoever wins in this May 21 on the school board is the school board person.

Ruwa Romman 0:27:21

Yeah. So unlike, for example, myself and our commissioner and our senators, we. This is like the end for judges and school board. There might be a runoff, but again, we can prevent one if we all come out and vote. And last but not least, there are two tax exemptions on our ballot. One is a broader tax exemption for a homestead exemption that would save about 20, $30 a month for most people, which I know for some is a lot, but for some, they’re kind of like, what’s the point? So definitely make sure you vote on that. And then the one I personally signed on to and co sponsored is the one for teachers and public, any kind of public service employee to get an extra tax exemption because it’s becoming harder to afford to live in Gwinnett for those who provide our most needed services. So that’s where we are.

Rico Figliolini 0:28:09

All right. That’s cool. Yeah. And it’s not only difficult to live here, but it’s also. And maybe that’s why it’s difficult even higher. I mean, I know the school system has budget money for positions they can’t even find people to and even the police elected. It’s sad when you have the money sitting there and you can’t find anywhere to fill the spot.

Ruwa Romman 0:28:30

You know, it’s interesting you say this. Unfortunately, Georgia law preempts Hoas from preventing companies from purchasing single family homes. And what we’re seeing is all these hedge funds are coming into states like Georgia and buying single family homes and forcing all these prices to artificially kind of increase. And they’re artificially reducing supply. Definitely. That’s something I want to be working on this year. What I did is actually co sponsored legislation with Stephen Fry, and we actually co wrote it where right now, if you buy a business, a commercial space, you actually get a tax break because it depreciates over time. What we’re seeing is that these companies are getting that tax exemption for homes that appreciate in value. So they actually double dipping. And with the way the bill and unfortunately didn’t move, and I hope it does next year, but the way the bill would have done it is that if a business bought a home and that business owner does not live in Georgia. Cause I know sometimes, like, small business owners will, like, for asset purposes and stuff, purchase it through their business.

Rico Figliolini 0:29:30

Yeah, sure.

Ruwa Romman 0:29:31

Yeah. If the business owner does not live in Georgia. They will no longer be, like, allowed to get that tax credit, for lack of better word, and hopefully disincentivize some of this purchasing of single family homes. And I really wanna repeal the law that preempts Hoas from. From prevent cause. I will tell you this, I think, like, seven or eight homes in my neighborhood have been bought by cash from hedge funds, and they put them on the market for, like, an insane amount of money per month. That is even higher than a mortgage.

Rico Figliolini 0:29:58

Yeah. I don’t even understand how people can afford to pay that rent, unless what happens, too, sometimes is that they split pad the house and you get four people, let’s say, living in four separate rooms. And I know in our neighborhood, there’s 84 homes here, at least I’m sure about three of them are owned by companies like American Federation homes, I think is one of them. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I mean, my oldest son, he’s like, he has enough money for a down payment, and he’s like, why? There’s not enough property out there for me to even look through to see what I want to buy because. Because Vanguard and Blackrock and all these other companies are out there purchasing. Yeah. So we’re essentially becoming, as he says, and I agree, a subscription society. Right. You can’t buy Adobe software anymore. It’s subscription.

Ruwa Romman 0:30:50

Yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:30:50

You can’t buy stock photos. It’s subscription. Can’t buy your home. It will be subscription, essentially through a lease of rent.

Ruwa Romman 0:30:58

Yeah.

Rico Figliolini 0:30:58

It’s kind of sad. Everything’s like, then. And then you. So instead of owning it outright, at some point you’re going to end up just continuing to pay someone who’s making that money. Exactly.

Ruwa Romman 0:31:10

That’s an important piece of wealth for people to be able to build that wealth for themselves. So that’s why I’m in the state house. That’s why I ran, is to try to kind of bring some of that sanity back into our society.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:21

Yeah, no, that’s great. And I would love to see, I don’t know if anyone’s really done this. I think it was in Atlanta, maybe I saw some. Something about maybe in Atlanta was like, forget what the percentage was. That was company owned. I’d love to see a study like that done in Gwinnett county specifically, especially because I’m in pastry corners to see how much, how many home housing stock is owned percentage wise by these types of companies.

Ruwa Romman 0:31:47

In Atlanta, it’s 35% of single family homes are owned by corporations.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:52

That’s nuts. That’s just crazy. Yeah, let’s just. If you already own a home, maybe that value. I mean, I get texted every day and same, you know, are you ready to sell? Or. The messages are the weirdest things because, like, it’s me. It’s Bobby again. And I’d like to know, you know, from our discussion last time, are you ready now? And I’m like, we didn’t even talk last time. What’s going on?

Ruwa Romman 0:32:19

We. We started getting. So we were very lucky. We actually got our home right before, like, the market went really crazy during COVID So that was the only reason we could afford. It was, like, right when the market was perfect. But within a month of us moving into our house, we started getting solicitation to sell it.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:35

And the value has gone up. I think I have to. What do you call it? I just got my tax bill from the assessment I’m looking at. I’m like, really? Where do they even called them up? And I said, how is this figured out? Can you guys give me a formula? No one can give me a formula. And it’s just like, are you kidding me? You think it’s this much? That’s crazy.

Ruwa Romman 0:32:58

So, you know, we want more people involved in this process. The more of y’all that come down people’s house, the less influence these other special interests have. So I always love to invite people to come down and talk to us about this kind of stuff.

Rico Figliolini 0:33:09

Good.

Ruwa Romman 0:33:10

But, you know, really appreciate the opportunity to talk about this. And I’m always open to meet with people, talk about legislation. We try to host what I call mini town hall. So I’ll go sit around coffee shops in the district. Usually it’s either peachy corners, even though it’s not in my district. I do try to go down there. 45 south cafe. Unme coffee and break coffee are usually where we kind of try. We try to, like, spread out across the district, but I usually post up there for a few hours about once a month for folks to come down and chat. So.

Rico Figliolini 0:33:37

Cool. And I’m going to have you give your website and all that. It’ll be in the show notes also. But before we get there, it should be remiss in not acknowledging the things going on internationally a little bit. We had spoken about that. You’d be cool talking about it a little bit. You’re the only palestinian in the state house on either side, I think, right. Of the. Of the house. How does that, by the way, how does that feel? I mean, how have. Has it been fine.

Ruwa Romman 0:34:10

Not even a little bit you know, I think it feels like my obligations have sort of burst past the boundaries of our district, for lack of a better word. I am the only elected Palestinian in the state, in much of the southeast. The only other elected Palestinian, Isam Rasul, up in Virginia. So it’s just the two of us, which meant that a lot of Palestinians, regardless of whether or not they’re in our district, are coming to us and asking us for help to sort of navigate what resources they can use. It’s mostly to either get their family out or get food in has been sort of the biggest ask of people. And so it’s been hard. I have tried to be as communicative as possible with the public. I really do try to shy away from interviews, but this is a very serious moment, and I know that I have a platform and I have a duty to use it. And so I try really hard to educate people, to get them to sort of understand a perspective they might not have thought about and to recognize that at the end of the day, we are dealing with people. They’re not human shields. They are women, men, and children who had nothing to do with what’s going on and had no voice in what’s going on. And I’ve always believed in protecting lives, all life, as much as possible. And that is where my advocacy and politics will continue to go.

Rico Figliolini 0:35:24

Good to hear. Appreciate you sharing that with us.

Ruwa Romman 0:35:27

Thanks.

Rico Figliolini 0:35:28

If people want to reach out to you or find out a little bit more about what you’re doing, where can they find that information?

Ruwa Romman 0:35:35

You can sign up for our newsletter. You can send a contact form which goes to my email at Ruwa4georgia.com. You’ll also find us under the same handle, Ruwa for Georgia everywhere. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, if you’re interested. And social media is something you’re passionate about. I am currently hiring a social media fellow. I didn’t have a primary, so I’m in a big, like, hiring spree. So if you’re interested in getting politically involved, reach out.

Rico Figliolini 0:36:02

Excellent. Good. And I see you on TikTok, so it’s all good. You, good job out there. You and Scott Hilton, I saw him on there, too, a little bit. We tried. I appreciate you sharing time with me today and talking about these things. We’ll get together, no. And we’ll get together again soon about more things that are going on, I’m sure. So hang in there for a second. But thank you, everyone, for joining us. Peachtree Corners Life. We’re working on. What are we working on? We’re working on the next issue of Peachtree Corners magazine, the best of issue. You can always find more information at livinginpeacetreecorners.com. Follow us also on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn if you’re listening to the podcast, Spotify or I heart radio, YouTube and all that. And we are on TikTok also as well. We’re putting out some stuff. So it’s all good. It’s all good. Thank you, everyone, for being with us. Appreciate it.