Longtime Georgia lawmaker and former House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin is resigning his seat next week to take a job with a national lobbying firm.
Harbin, R-Evans, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he is joining Southern Strategy Group, which currently has two lobbyists in Georgia and represents several health care clients, including the Medical Association of Georgia.
Under state law, Harbin can’t lobby in Georgia during the upcoming year’s legislative session. The General Assembly has a one-year waiting period, meaning legislators can’t resign and then immediately begin lobbying their ex-colleagues.
Harbin was elected in 1994 and served as House appropriations chairman after the GOP took over the chamber in the mid-2000s. Harbin was replaced by House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, about a year after he took over the chamber’s leadership in 2010. But Harbin has continued to serve on several committees, including appropriations and the tax-writing Ways & Means panel.
Harbin said he has informed Gov. Nathan Deal and Ralston that his resignation is effective Tuesday.
He is just the latest of several Republican lawmakers to leave the House since the end of the 2015 session. House Majority Leader Larry O’Neal, R-Bonaire, resigned after Deal made him a tax judge. Longtime lawmaker Mike Jacobs, R-Brookhaven, was appointed by Deal to a state judgeship. And Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, a House committee chairman, resigned to take a job in Tennessee.
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