Turner Rentz III
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Turner Rentz III (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Georgia State Senate to represent District 37. He lost in the Democratic primary on June 9, 2020.
Rentz completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Turner Rentz III was born in Athens, Georgia. He obtained an undergraduate degree in June 1989 after attending Florida State University and the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos. He received a graduate degree in June 1992 after attending the University of California at Berkeley and Georgia Tech. His professional experience includes working as a senior systems engineer in cybersecurity and as a principal investigator. As of 2020, he was a member of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Free and Accepted Masons Guild of America. He was previously a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Georgia State Senate elections, 2020
General election
General election for Georgia State Senate District 37
Incumbent Lindsey Tippins defeated Vanessa Parker in the general election for Georgia State Senate District 37 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Lindsey Tippins (R) | 57.0 | 60,238 |
| Vanessa Parker (D) | 43.0 | 45,370 | ||
| Total votes: 105,608 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Georgia State Senate District 37
Vanessa Parker defeated Turner Rentz III in the Democratic primary for Georgia State Senate District 37 on June 9, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Vanessa Parker | 79.3 | 16,597 | |
 | Turner Rentz III | 20.7 | 4,334 | |
| Total votes: 20,931 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Georgia State Senate District 37
Incumbent Lindsey Tippins advanced from the Republican primary for Georgia State Senate District 37 on June 9, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Lindsey Tippins | 100.0 | 20,605 |
| Total votes: 20,605 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Endorsements
To view Rentz's endorsements in the 2020 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2020
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released May 8, 2020 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Turner Rentz III completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Rentz's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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In these dark times we need change. I'm a progressive Democrat running for State Senate District 37. I stand for science based policymaking, healthcare reform and constitutional balance. I am a cybersecurity professional, businessman, philanthropist and former lead investigator for an NIH team. As a member of a team I helped to reduce child labor in India by 72 percent. Having served in the Student Senate at Georgia Tech, and am familiar with Senate Parliamentary procedure and though I will be a freshman senator I believe I will be effective. Where I have led organizations, my record has been one of community development, fiscal discipline and accomplishment. I stand with the citizens of District 37 to call for change, transparency and responsiveness in State, Local and Federal Government. As a child I was inspired by the Kennedy, who were in fact for a time my next door neighbors growing up in Palm Beach. Their lives and lessons still inspire me today. I've lived in Northern California, New Mexico - where I worked at Los Alamos, and Florida but the majority of my life in Georgia. I was raised here; my family lives on Saint Simons. I am proud to have graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Master of Science in Applied Physics. I hold other networking certifications and cybersecurity qualifications and will bring this experience to bear for District 37 in the Georgia State Senate.
- Not me. Us. - I am running to restore the power of the voter, protect their voting rights, and strengthen the norms and traditions of democracy in our state. My plan is to actively involve the voter and represent their interests.
- Restore constitutional balance. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the Constitution - she should be the first to defend it. The senate should act as a check on the executive.
- Responsiveness in government, during times of pandemic. The Republican response to our national crisis has guaranteed a second wave of pandemic. We need active, science based response.
We are living through a global pandemic. The State of Georgia's response has become entangled in the unethical actions of a sitting president barely able to grasp even the most simple scientific concepts . In addition, the financial relief package that our state should have received has been mired by Republican donor companies and large companies taking the lion's share of what was supposed to have been an earmark for small business. A central issue for me for the past decade has been healthcare reform - We need to expand Medicaid funding in Georgia, and extend healthcare reforms to our state. But more importantly, we need to restore constitutional balance not only in our national government, but also our state. Our Governor addressed the nation with platitude - in his remark that he did not know Covid19 could transmit itself without symptom - and our State Senate did not stand against this blatantly dishonest remark. It was publicly available, widely known and widely discussed point of fact that the pandemic does transmit itself without symptom. Our Governor's early re-opening of state business was a disaster - almost all businesses that re-opened did so little business they were all operating in the red and many simply ignored his re-opening directive. Certainly, the Georgia consumer was wary and did not rush to the call. We need more balance in Government, and to strengthen the power of the senate - as well as empower the voter. Healthcare is a right, not a privilege
When I was young - it was the great doctors. Edward Jenner first comes to mind - his work was daring and wonderful. William Halsted, the great surgeon. Lister. And Georgia's own Crawford Long. I carried around a dog-eared copy of a book called "The Great Doctors".
My current Senate hero is Bernie Sanders. You may disagree with his policies but he maintains a standard of integrity and honesty that makes his job so much more simple than, for example, the senators from our state such as Loeffler who misled Georgians at the onset of the pandemic, or McConnell - who actually got his start as a pro-choice candidate. Those that voted for him then claim it was the worst mistake of their life.
As I am deeply concerned about the effect of the Russian Influence Operation (I am a cybersecurity professional) - The Manchurian Candidate. This film is a warning. There are those, I know - who think that the strange nature of social media has not somehow created opportunities for a creature of a foreign power to infiltrate our country. I'm excluding "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" because the idea that business experience qualifies you for public service is poppycock. Public service is about doing what others need you to do, and businesses are mostly benevolent dictatorships. Public service helps the people to write another chapter of their history. Remember, there are awful and dark businesses out there - that are being run successfully. That doesn't mean that their CEO would be the right person to better our State's Laws on the school lunch program. .. I'd have to say the film "Lincoln" probably expresses what I'd like to see most out of Government - and it does expose the way that laws are made. It's not going to be a straight line. Otto Von Bismarck once wrote "Laws and Sausages are two things better not being seen made "... But the film Lincoln does have a north star - a true north of principle and of the different factions finally working together after almost literally and completely coming apart. Lincoln, like Bernie Sanders - had his faults and certainly the war of northern aggression that burned our fair city could have been avoided - but he was a good man, and the way he held together his cause appeals to me. Plus, I've read the Sandburg Biographies and I'm just a fan.
To represent the will of his constituents. The great Otto Von Bismarck, another political hero of mine - once wrote ... "The job of the statesman is to listen for the footsteps of God and swing himself up by the hem of his robe as he passes by. " I think of this in terms of the might and vastness of that great being and remember when the mouse dances with the elephant, it's easy for the mouse to get trampled down. This would be no mean feat. I don't believe that elected officials have to be people persons - they don't have to have incredible interpersonal skill, nor are they required to be lawyers. A large number of the founding fathers were not lawyers. The most important characteristic or principle an elected official needs to have is to be able to see the will of the people, their wants and desires - and to see the future unfolding before them and chart the best course to take the social and political action they need to get there. There is a quality of rational thought, and respect for reason - that goes fist in glove with this approach. A legislator needs to be courageous as well, for he or she will take stances that may seem unpopular but may in the long term be beneficial to his or her constituents. Finally, I feel very strongly that public service is something that begins in the heart. When you stand under the golden dome, and look up at the portraits of the great Georgians that made this state - you can feel proud - and at the same time, humbled. For many reasons. I think an elected official understands better than others - that their accomplishment will be seen in the light of history.
I am not incurious, capable of discovering detail and understanding complex systems both an an enterprise and social level. Good at recognizing patterns. I have a tendency to be a fighter when I find the right cause - and I can carry projects through to their conclusion; I can be tenacious and persistent. I've also got a good sense of humor. The best quality may be a realization that we are part of an evolving story - and that politics is history in the present tense. An inbuilt quality of being able to recognize what we do echoes in eternity.
First, do no harm. We should be working to make people's lives better, and we should keep away from the kind of dead of night legislation that is really more about politics than governing. We should then take responsibility to be organized, focused and responsive to our constituents and know their will. Finally we should take ownership of our legislative achievements and if we fail, take ownership of our failures and learn from them.
California is a well run state with an economy so large if it were on its own it would be the seventh largest economy in the world. Georgia is a beautiful state with a rich history and vast natural resources. I would like to leave behind a legacy that others would say - he has lit a shrine in our state to wisdom, and virtue - and left behind laws, and practices that help us to be more efficient and prosperous. There's no reason why we cannot have the kind of wealth and industry that California now has - all we have to do is try.
Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon. I was living in Palm Beach at the moment, and I remember it being broadcast on an old TV that somehow seemed to glow with this amber afternoon light. The Kennedy family always inspired me. I might have been six or seven. We were living next door to them, and shared a beach with them. They were good people.
My very first job was like many other young men who grew up in Georgia - cutting lawns. I'd pull a tired old lawnmower around my neighborhood and cut yards. I was known for getting repeat business, and with this job and collecting aluminum cans, and glass bottles for recycling - I saved up enough money to buy a Red Ryder BB Gun. I practiced, got really good - and then I went out into the woods, and took dead aim. The shot went straight through the eye of the bird, and it spiraled down to the ground, corkscrew fashion. I never shot another living thing again, but I have been known to head to the range and I'm proud to say I've won quite alot of turkey shoots.
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis. The reason is as easy to discover as simply remembering a quote. And since I'm tired, and this has been a long form to complete (but one that I must, given that we are in a pandemic, and absentee ballots will be sent and I must complete this ballotpedia tonight) ... I'm copying one from the net. .. "Fight like a man. Habit is overcome by habit. "
If I were my younger self , I would say The Professor from Gilligan's Island because that man could build +anything+. As I am now gray of beard and long of tooth I'd have to go with Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Grimes - Flesh without Blod/ Life in the Vivid Dream.
or maybe Roll Black Water by the Doobie Brothers.
or maybe Roll Black Water by the Doobie Brothers.
If you ask my wife - it would be that in times of duress I can be a control freak. I was taught how to dive by the Navy Seals - and I tend to lapse back to a kind of military approach during times of crisis where I bark orders and don't take any lip from anyone and my wife hates it. So, I guess, not being a control freak? The other thing I'd like to have more of is a strong ability to focus - I deeply suspect there are hidden patterns in life that if we were to be able to understand we would unlock new mystery. How does one understand time as a dimension? I've been locked in three dimensions as a life form - I've struggled for years to properly visualize the fourth.
The Senate is a higher chamber, and I feel it is upon us as State Senators to achieve and maintain the norms and traditions that give meaning to Democracy. We are also to serve as a check and balance on the power of our State's executive. More than the House - we should provide the validation needed for quality legislation and balance of power.
I do. That's why I'm proud to have been a member of the Georgia Tech Student Senate. It's apparent that being an effective legislator in the Senate goes hand in hand with being an effective parliamentarian - and understanding the rules of the game. That having been said, I don't think it's important to have prestigious committee assignments - they are somewhat like badges of honor that can be won again, and they're important - but what seems to have been lost in this new and chaotic world of governance is the power of the voter and the citizen - and it's on us to express their will in the chamber as well as act, in some fashion as legal representative of their interest.
I feel strongly that America is in a state of constitutional and pandemic crisis. Article one separation has been thrown off by a sitting president who has openly abused his power - and was rightly impeached for his untoward actions to an important ally of our country. This loss of balance has been set in motion by the Federal Senate. In a similar fashion our state has seemingly lost its voice when our Governor openly and blatantly lies to its citizenry in right excellent his decisions made that guide us now through the pandemic, and have guaranteed a second wave - far more likely to be more deadly than the first than we would like to admit. It was a point of national embarassment for our state when Brian Kemp, Trump Supporter Governor - stated publicly that the transmission of Covid19 was "just discovered" to be asymptomatic. This was public knowledge, and widely known since January - including his own office. Others from neighboring and faraway states asked .. Is this the state that is the home of the CDC? How could a Governor not know what his own people already know? The answer was that he did, but he wanted to look good to his false leader. The pandemic response has to be our first priority, and some parts of our state won't be healed until five years from now. And then, from there - we need to return power to the voter and to the houses of government - both Federal, and State. Finally - and not last because it is least - we need to forge a set of policies that promote the arts, and industry - and to address the very real threat of climate change.
Parliamentary procedure followed, and a careful balance struck between the executive and the legislative. Good Governors - men like Roy Barnes, Zell Miller and others like them - dare to dream big. Zell Miller pioneered the education lottery - creating the hope scholarship system that has borne so much benefit to our state. Roy Barnes oversaw the critical investment in our infrastructure - the highways, roads, and structures that we rely upon for commerce, and trade. When a Governor has lost his ability to be honest with his citizens, the Senate needs to act as a check upon his power and should be ready to override any veto of any legislation that diminishes the rights of the citizens of Georgia, or their power to decide the fate of this state.
Of course. Legislation is not a zero sum game. That said, my opponents pretense of bipartisanship should not be mistaken for the philosophy of action. Lindsey T. claims he's for "bipartisan healthcare reform", but Georgia has opted out of Medicaid expansion - this was essentially - an expansion of a system that works, to people that need it - now more than ever. A senator should be guided by his principles and willing to fight for what is right - but know that he or she can't always get there alone.
There are 67 committees in the State of Georgia. My approach to governance is to first separate the politics from governing. Political drama seems to be everywhere, but getting things done - to me - means empowering the citizens of my district to have a voice in setting the agenda. If my district wants me to focus on, say, economic development - then I will pursue the Economic Development Committee. In my ideal world I'd like to be a part of the rules committee - and frankly, with my background in building schools (the non profit I served on as director - built 72 of them - 60 are still in operation ) - to continue any good work already in progress in the education committee, as this is a positive legacy of our district. Marietta High School is the best high school in the state. :) I am not objective on this point. Finally , if I could have three perfect assignments - Science and Technology Committee. I'll take Health and Human Services, as well. We need to end cannabis prohibition in our state. The tax revenue alone would make it worth the trade - let's just make it a DUI to drive under the influence, and keep Atlantans from crashing into each other when they're driving in the rain.
N/A. But I do like my opponent's work on the Education committee. I would be honored to extend that work and continue it.
I would like to see what life is like as a Whip. When I was in the Senate at Georgia Tech - I admired the people in our legislature who could get their team to unify and follow a daring agenda. That being said, a freshman should probably be Chief Deputy Whip, or Assistant Minority Leader. One must be realistic about such positions if one is a freshman.
Bernie Sanders. Whether or not you agree with his policies - he maintains a very responsive, intelligent model of interaction with his constituency. Vermont is a surprisingly libertarian state - and it may be like herding cats. He keeps an even keel by simply maintaining his integrity - and going after daring positions that are a bit more advanced than the politics of the day, but seem to bear themselves out in time. For example, the pandemic which is now upon us is directly related to global climate change. Ten years from now Bernie's call to have a manhattan project -style response to global climate change will seem prescient. Perhaps Joe Biden, as well. He suffers from a speech impediment - so he organizes his thought and agenda carefully and assembles really good teams of people to work on things, and where he gaffes one speech or another - when he's in the room, he knows how to focus and get things done.
Senator. But first, let's elect Jon Ossoff and Teresa Tomlinsen. Those two are far more qualified than I, right now - and they will make great Senators for our state.
When I was young, my family - and the Kennedys and others were on the beach we shared and a dolphin swam up on shore. Just like the thanksgiving dinner table, there were two teams - the big people and the little kids table. I can't remember who was on the beach that day, I was very young - maybe 5 - the kids were john Jr. or maybe it was Patrick or Lisa or Caroline or one of the Smith children, but we were called upon - like a call to public service - to get our little plastic buckets and pour water upon the gray skin of the dolphin. And the men readied themselves to lift this incredibly heavy mammal back into the sea... they battled and finally got him to the ocean... and he turned around and swam straight back onto the beach. So, again, they led him out. I think it was one of the Kennedys who swam far out there, almost drowning - holding the dolphin , pushing him - I could only see two or three men's heads out there - far out to sea. They kept going, until you could barely see them. And then, the Dolphin just swam away. But he circled them, and you could see him leaning on his side, looking at them. He left, and never returned.
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See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on May 8, 2020
Current members of the Georgia State Senate
Leadership
Majority Leader:Jason Anavitarte
Minority Leader:Harold Jones
Senators
District 1
Ben Watson (R)
District 2
Derek Mallow (D)
District 3
Mike Hodges (R)
District 4
Billy Hickman (R)
District 5
Sheikh Rahman (D)
District 6
Matt Brass (R)
District 7
District 8
Russ Goodman (R)
District 9
Nikki Merritt (D)
District 10
Emanuel Jones (D)
District 11
Sam Watson (R)
District 12
Freddie Sims (D)
District 13
Carden Summers (R)
District 14
Josh McLaurin (D)
District 15
Ed Harbison (D)
District 16
Marty Harbin (R)
District 17
Gail Davenport (D)
District 18
John Kennedy (R)
District 19
Blake Tillery (R)
District 20
Larry Walker (R)
District 21
Vacant
District 22
Harold Jones (D)
District 23
Max Burns (R)
District 24
Lee Anderson (R)
District 25
Ricky Williams (R)
District 26
David Lucas (D)
District 27
Greg Dolezal (R)
District 28
Donzella James (D)
District 29
Randy Robertson (R)
District 30
Tim Bearden (R)
District 31
Jason Anavitarte (R)
District 32
Kay Kirkpatrick (R)
District 33
Michael Rhett (D)
District 34
Kenya Wicks (D)
District 35
Jason Esteves (D)
District 36
Nan Orrock (D)
District 37
Ed Setzler (R)
District 38
Rashaun Kemp (D)
District 39
Sonya Halpern (D)
District 40
Sally Harrell (D)
District 41
Kim Jackson (D)
District 42
Brian Strickland (R)
District 43
Tonya Anderson (D)
District 44
Elena Parent (D)
District 45
Clint Dixon (R)
District 46
Bill Cowsert (R)
District 47
Frank Ginn (R)
District 48
Shawn Still (R)
District 49
Drew Echols (R)
District 50
Bo Hatchett (R)
District 51
Steve Gooch (R)
District 52
Chuck Hufstetler (R)
District 53
Colton Moore (R)
District 54
Chuck Payne (R)
District 55
Randal Mangham (D)
District 56
John Albers (R)
Republican Party (32)
Democratic Party (23)
Vacancies (1)
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