 Our current district attorney, Deborah Gonzales. Hi, good evening. This is always the moment that I'm like, hold my breath, because I don't know what picture they're going to put up. Sometimes it's a little older, and it's not what I look like. And sometimes it's like, nah, I really don't like that one. Couldn't they have picked another one? But I kind of laugh. My name is Deborah Gonzales. Most of you know me. I mean, I'm not a stranger here. I'm not a stranger to most of you guys. I've been around for many, many years out there in the community. Most of you will say, Deborah, how do you have the energy? And the truth is really that the energy comes from you. It comes from the people. The job I do is hard. And every day I walk into that courthouse, sometimes six, seven days a week. But I do it because I know that when you elected me four years ago, you gave me two mandates. The first mandate is keep our community safe. And believe it or not, our community is safer. Crime is down 6.8%. And those are not my numbers. Those are the numbers from the ACCPD, OK? Aggravated assault down 22%. And that includes shootings. Now you're going to tell me, but Deborah, we've heard a lot of stuff in the news, haven't we? About things that are happening in our community. Yes, we have. Because even though it's down 22%, we still have crime. Even though it's down 22%, we're still going to have shootings, right? This is not something that goes away overnight, OK? But crime is down. Look at those statistics on the ACCPD dashboard. They put them up. They put a lot of good information up there. So that's number one. That was my first mandate. Make sure that you're safe. And how do you do that? You do that in coalition. I work with over eight different law enforcement agencies, including UGA police, including the ACCPD, including the GBI and the FBI, in doing all of this work. Nobody does it alone. We have to do it together, OK? So that's number one. The second mandate was, make change. This is a system, the criminal legal system that has been in place for generations that has oppressed who, black, brown, and poor people. And they've been doing it for years. And how do I know that I am fulfilling that second mandate? Well, they're suing me. They're changing laws and the legislature to get rid of me, right? And how do you know your strength? You know your strength by the size of the weapons that they use against you. If they really thought that they could vote me out of this, guess what? They wouldn't have been doing all of those things. Because they see how strong your vote is. Now, this is a Democratic committee meeting. How many of you are proud Democrats? Ooh, the Democrats. We vote Democrats. Why is it that sometimes we claim that we're Democrats or that we're not Democrats? Why do we want to know when people are from a particular party? It's because we associate certain values with that party. And we want to make sure that the people that we are voting in under that label shares the same values that we do, that they're not hiding behind something else that they're proud to say. To be a Democrat, I am the only elected Democrat in Oconee County, the only one, OK? Four years ago, you guys joined me on a journey. And it was a long journey. And there are some of you that joined me even before that. If you remember back in 2017, there was a special election. And what did we do for the first time? We flipped a seat. And nobody believed we can do it. The belief was that we were so gerrymandered, there was no way that we could do anything. But what did we do? Did Democrats say, we're just going to stop? We're not going to put anybody up? No. We put up a candidate. That's why local Democratic candidates are so important, because they get people excited about going to the polls. How many of you have voted this week? Yeah, there is a presidential election happening right now. Go get that great sticker who was designed by my wife, she's beautiful. It is beautiful. Go get that sticker, guys. It is wonderful. But having candidates who are proud to say, I am Democrat, I represent the values of the Democratic Party, and I will run under the Democratic label. Because it is a way that people know who I am, right? Because that's the other thing I've never changed. I have told everybody on my platform what I was going to do, and guess what I'm doing. And again, I'm being sued. And there are bills out there to get me out. Why? Because I've done exactly what I said I was going to do. And it didn't matter what they were going to do to me, I was going to get up every day and fight that fight. When the Dove's decision was overturned, I was one of the first dais to go out there and say, what? I pledge that I will not prosecute a woman or her doctor for pursuing reproductive medical rights, thinking law when I make that statement. What I am doing is keeping my community safe so that they know that I will defend them and protect their rights. When there is a legislative bill that comes out and says, don't say gay, or that trans kids cannot be out there, our office made a pledge that we would protect those in those classes. We worked with Georgia Equality. We made sure that our people were trained in the right language to use so that we can better protect and defend our victims and our people. If anybody is going to ask you, well, why stick with Deborah? Why should we give Deborah four more years? The reason you stick with Deborah is that Deborah's been with you. Deborah's been the same. But number one, crime is down. Number two, past injustices have been righted. I'm very proud to say that I have worked with the Southern Center for Human Rights, and we have re-sentenced four individuals, one who served 25 years for $90. And second, that future injustices are being stopped through reform. There's something that I tell law students all the time. You can be a public defender, and you can save hundreds of people, or you can be a DA, and you can save thousands, because that's where the power is. And we as Democrats, we need to make sure that we have our people in power so that our values are the ones in this justice system. This is what we want, reform and change. Does it take time? Martin Luther King would say what? The long arc of history, right? He stood. He stayed in that jail. He didn't say that it was going to happen over an idore. As soon as he walked out the doors, he said the long arc of history bends towards justice. And what did John Lewis say? Go out, make good, necessary trouble. And he didn't even stop when he died, because his last words came out after he passed and were published in the New York Times. To remind people what? That he patches the torch, right? The torch doesn't stop with him. It doesn't stop with me. It did stop with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We keep passing it over and over and over again. And I'm going to use something that Russell loves to talk about, which is that pilot light. Right, Russell? Oh, yeah. We got to spread that pilot light. It starts small, and it keeps going. But the thing is, you cannot give up. When the storm comes, right? When it gets tough, when people start pushing you and saying, no, no, no, because you are changing a system that is going to do what? It's going to resist. It's going to push back. It's going to fight with everything that it has so that it can go back to what it was. And that is all that they are trying to do. Take us back to what it was and what we need to do is say, no, we started this journey with Deborah four years ago, and we're going to finish it. We're going to continue, and keep voting, and we're going to bring it all back together. So this is what I am asking you to do. Don't lose the faith, because that's what they want you to do. Be a proud Democrat. Stay with Deborah. Let's continue, and let's finish this journey together, and we're going to finish it stronger than ever. Thank you.