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Exton Howard

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Exton Howard
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Personal
Profession
Television director
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Exton Howard was a 2017 Democratic special election candidate for District 32 of the Georgia State Senate.

Biography

Howard graduated from Northern Arizona University with a double major in advertising and electronic media. His professional experience includes working as a director at the Weather Channel.[1]

Campaign themes

2017

Howard's campaign website highlighted the following issues:

Transparency and Open Government

  • The lack of Transparency in the Georgia Senate is appalling. The fact is that we work for the people. Committee proceedings and the floor votes should be streamed live to the internet so voters can be informed and keep up to date on the issues. And then they should be archived so our citizens can look at former meetings and see what actually happened and what was actually said.
  • And I pledge to have Town Halls and continue to talk with people in my district to answer their questions and address their concerns. I believe it is important to stay in touch with the voters and have a respectful discourse.

Transportation

  • We have an excessive amount of congestion in the district and the surrounding areas. And it's just going to worse as we get more people moving to the district. I propose a modern light rail that will connect to the current MARTA line in Atlanta. In addition, we need to extend the MARTA line from Sandy Springs to Alpharetta. I will work across the aisle to get the support and the funding to ease the congestion that makes all of our commutes too long.

Jobs

  • We need to bring more high quality jobs in the STEM fields to Georgia. I propose incentives to bring more companies here, just as we have successfully used to turn Georgia into one of the leading film and TV production states in the nation. At the same time, I support increasing Georgia’s minimum wage so all Georgians can make a better living. I work in the television business and understand the need for companies to be able to control their costs, but we also need to make sure that all Georgians who work full time earn a wage that they can live on.

Healthcare

  • All Georgians deserve high quality, affordable health care as a right. We need to push to bring down healthcare costs while raising the quality and accessibility of health care for all. I believe no one should go broke just because they cannot afford insurance or get sick. It is outrageous that Georgia has the 3rd highest uninsured rate in the country. I think that Georgia should accept the Medicaid expansion available to the states under the Affordable Care Act (Or any successor law enacted by the U.S. Congress) to help lower- and middle-income Georgians get greater access to affordable healthcare.

Women’s Rights

  • I have always been a staunch believer that a person is a person, no matter what. This is the reason that I believe women’s rights are human rights. A woman’s right to choose is her choice. The government shall not impede her access to a safe procedure. In addition, we need to increase access to contraceptives and education. I have always believed this and will always fight for this. I also believe that we should fully fund Planned Parenthood so that women can get easy access to all of the wonderful services provided by their clinics.[2]
—Exton Howard[3]

Elections

2017

A special election for District 32 of the Georgia State Senate was called for April 18, 2017. The filing deadline for candidates was February 24, 2017. No candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote in the April 18 election, so there was a runoff election on May 16, 2017.[4]

The District 32 seat became vacant following Republican Judson Hill's decision to run in a special election for Georgia's 6th Congressional District. As of April 2017, the Georgia Constitution required that elected officials vacate their positions upon qualifying to run in an election for another position. The 6th Congressional District seat became vacant following Republican Tom Price's confirmation as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.[5][6]

Five Republicans filed for the District 32 seat: Hamilton Beck, Matt Campbell, Roy Daniels, Kay Kirkpatrick, and Gus Makris. Three Democrats filed for the seat: Christine Triebsch, Exton Howard, and Bob Wiskind.[7]

Triebsch (D) and Kirkpatrick (R) advanced to the runoff election. Triebsch won the plurality of the vote on April 18, receiving 24.2 percent. Kirkpatrick received 21.1 percent of the vote. The five Republican candidates received 60.2 percent of the vote while the three Democratic candidates received 39.8 percent.

The April 18 election for District 32 took place on the same day as the 6th Congressional District special election. Both races advanced to runoff elections, which were scheduled on separate dates. The runoff election for the District 32 seat was on May 16 while the runoff election for the 6th Congressional District was on June 20.

Kirkpatrick won the runoff election on May 16.[8]

Georgia State Senate, District 32, Special Election Runoff, 2017
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Republican Green check mark transparent.pngKay Kirkpatrick 57% 18,619
     Democratic Christine Triebsch 43% 14,057
Total Votes 32,676
Source: Georgia Secretary of State



Georgia State Senate, District 32, Special Election, 2017
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Republican Hamilton Beck 3.7% 2,168
     Republican Matt Campbell 10% 5,858
     Republican Roy Daniels 15.2% 8,912
     Democratic Exton Howard 6.9% 4,063
     Republican Green check mark transparent.pngKay Kirkpatrick 21.1% 12,369
     Republican Gus Makris 10.2% 5,969
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.pngChristine Triebsch 24.2% 14,199
     Democratic Bob Wiskind 8.7% 5,097
Total Votes 58,635
Source: Georgia Secretary of State

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Exton Howard Georgia Senate. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

See also

External links

Footnotes


Current members of the Georgia State Senate
Leadership
Majority Leader:Jason Anavitarte
Minority Leader:Harold Jones
Senators
District 1
District 2
District 3
District 4
District 5
District 6
District 7
District 8
District 9
District 10
District 11
District 12
District 13
District 14
District 15
District 16
District 17
District 18
District 19
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District 21
Vacant
District 22
District 23
Max Burns (R)
District 24
District 25
District 26
District 27
District 28
District 29
District 30
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District 32
District 33
District 34
District 35
District 36
District 37
District 38
District 39
District 40
District 41
District 42
District 43
District 44
District 45
District 46
District 47
District 48
District 49
District 50
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District 53
District 54
District 55
District 56
Republican Party (32)
Democratic Party (23)
Vacancies (1)