Brian Kemp seems so approachable and down-to-earth, you might almost forget he’s a politician – that is, were it not for the stately office at the Georgia State Capitol and the hardworking staff who keep him on a consistently tight schedule.

The small business owner of Kemp Properties, a real estate investment and management company, strikes you as the guy next-door. He is a University of Georgia graduate, a board member of St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens, a Habitat for Humanity volunteer and an Emmanuel Episcopal Church member.

“Hey Goose,” he answers his phone after politely excusing himself from a meeting. The playful banter soon turns to directives about making sure homework gets done and after-school activities are taken care of.

“Sorry, about that,” Kemp says, as he turns his attention back to the meeting.

“That was my mother-in-law … my wife is out of town and I’m not going to be done here as soon as I thought so she’s picking up the kids for me and getting homework started,” he explains. No explanation necessary.

The call sums up who Kemp truly is: husband to Marty Argo, father of three daughters, ordinary businessman, former state senator; and, oh yeah, Georgia’s current Secretary of State.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue appointed him to the position in January after Karen Handel stepped down to run for governor. But Kemp will seek the voters’ approval to keep the office this coming election season.

He has a good-humored nature that ties him to the everyman. And yet he also conveys the sense that he is a straight shooter with specific goals and ambitions for making things happen in this state.

Georgia.com recently sat down with Mr. Kemp for a one-on-one discussion about his desire to continue serving as Secretary of State and the goals he has for Georgia.

INTERVIEW:
Georgia.com: What was it that first prompted you to get into politics?
Kemp: I was a small business owner in Athens working hard, raising my family and building my business when I first decided to run. The guy that ran for the [state] senate and beat a long-term incumbent was not the type of guy that I thought represented my values or the values of the district. I had lived there my whole life and been involved locally in the community and I had been involved in a few boards and commissions. It was back in a day that there were a lot of things in state government that were going wrong. It was more of a government where they told us what to do versus doing what the people wanted. I felt having a business background and being someone who had grown up and been involved with the community, I could bring a commonsense leadership to state government and that’s why I ran.

Georgia.com: We know fair elections is a huge focus for you; tell us a little bit about your plans on that front?
Kemp: We’ve got to have secure, accessible, fair elections. That’s the number one job of the Secretary of State; nobody takes that more seriously than I do. We’ve got a lot of initiatives that we’ve implemented even in the few months since I’ve been here. We have a new Stop Voter Fraud website where any Georgian can e-mail or call our hot-line if they see elections fraud going on or something improper going on during the election and we’ll investigate. We want our citizens to help us and have them to be a part of secure elections. We want to stop voter fraud.

Georgia.com: Is voter fraud a big issue in this state?
Kemp: Well, there is definitely voter fraud in Georgia. Just attend any state elections board meeting and you’ll hear some of the crazy things that are happening out there. We take it very seriously and work closely with the attorney general’s office and district attorneys if things get criminal.

Georgia.com: Your website addresses your desire to cut out government waste, how exactly do you plan to implement that aspiration?
Kemp: We’ve really tried to use technology to help streamline this agency. I’ve implemented about $2.9 million worth of reductions to our budget. The cuts have pretty much all been self-inflicted, meaning we instituted them by offering them up to the [state] legislature. We’ve redesigned our corporations website making it easier for people to renew their corporations or start a new business online. That’s saving tax dollars because we’re dealing with less paper, we have less printing costs, it takes less personnel to deal with the electronic format. It’s just making government more efficient. But then it also makes it easier on people to use our office.

We’ve implemented that same philosophy in our professional licensing division. We now have 35 of our 190 licenses online. We should have about 50 by the end of the year. And we just consolidated our securities division with our professional licensing division, so we’re saving on rent here in Atlanta.

Georgia.com: You’ve pledged to help Georgia overcome what has grown to be a sizable unemployment rate, how can we get past this slump and become a more business friendly state?
Kemp: When we have a state that has a 10 percent unemployment rate we need an all-hands-on-deck approach in state government as far as job creation goes. And I think a big part of that is helping out existing small business owners, I am one. I think I bring that mentality to this office. We need to continue to make this state one where entrepreneurs want to come and a state where entrepreneurs already here can continue to build their business. My thoughts are to try to get government out of their way, they know what they’re doing, they know how to make money, they know how to be innovative and we don’t want government to get in the way of them doing that.

Georgia.com: That falls in line with your new “Cut the Red Tape” website, tell us a little bit about what it is?
Kemp: It’s really for anyone with a good idea about how we can create jobs, how we can get ridiculous redundant outdated rules or regulations and laws out of the way. People can give us their ideas, we’ll vet them and if it’s a good idea we’ll work with the legislation to get something drawn up that will either repeal old rules or advocate for new ones.

Georgia.com: Have you started to see anything worthwhile from it yet?
Kemp: We have. One idea was to create a one-stop-shop for starting a corporation, so like I said, we’re trying to streamline that process to where it’s more inviting versus someone going ‘Oh, can’t do all this.’ Another great idea was to make Atlanta a money center like Wall Street is to New York and the Commodities Exchange is to Chicago. That’s a big picture idea, but there is nothing too big or too small that we won’t look into.

Georgia.com: Going back to your work with fair elections, we’ve heard you have sponsored legislation that would benefit Georgians oversees, as well as several other initiatives, can you address those?
Kemp: Sure. The legislation specifically helps men and women who are serving in the armed forces. I know you and your readers will agree that we should not have one military service member’s vote disregarded because of slow mail service. But as of now military voting is a mailed absentee ballot and you can imagine what a logistical nightmare it is. One part of the legislation would create a pilot project that would allow the military vote through a kiosk on base. We would be the second state in the country to have done this pilot project if the governor signs the bill. We’re looking for grant money to sponsor it now. The second bill would put us in compliance with the Military and Overseas Voting Empowerment Act. It would speed the process of getting ballots to people overseas by doing things like e-mailing ballots to them and allows them to request all of their ballots at one time. So they can let us know they want a primary ballot, a runoff ballot, a general election ballot all at once.

We’ve also been testing a bar code scanning pilot project that would allow your drivers license to be scanned at your polling location. It would save time, but it would also cut down on error. I don’t believe we’ll be able to have it by the primaries, but hopefully by the general elections we’ll get that out to some counties.

Georgia.com: And finally to kind of sum it all up, why would you tell people that they need to get involved in the election process?
Kemp: In these troubling times in our state and country right now it’s important for people’s voices to be heard. Voters can literally change the direction in the way we’re going. It’s so important for people to know and be educated on who’s representing them and what they stand for. It’s important to be involved in the process. What I’ve tried to tell people is don’t just be a voter, be an educated voter. Make sure you know what people stand for. You know their background. Because a lot of daily life decisions are affected by government.

EXTERNAL LINK RESOURCES:
1. Secretary of State Website
2. Brian Kemp Official Website