Derek Mallow, adjusting to jump from House to Senate in Georgia Legislature, credits mentors

Usually, around this time of year, Georgia Sen. Lester Jackson would have a lot on his mind.

What are the hot topics of the coming legislative session in the Georgia General Assembly? What issues are of concern to his constituents? Does he have enough money to pay his staff through the entire session? Does he have a place to live in Atlanta?

But for this session, for the first time in 24 years, those questions don’t concern Jackson They fall squarely on the shoulders of Sen. Derek Mallow, who left his House seat to run Senate post left vacant when Jackson retired last year.

And so far, Mallow says, the preparations don’t feel that different, at least not yet. But the lingering questions of logistics, beyond the political issues and expectations, exert their own pressure.

“It doesn’t feel any different yet. But I’ll tell you, the work is different. I went from about 60,000 constituents to now, almost 200,000 people,” Mallow said. “Sen. Jackson was there a lot longer, and often didn’t have opposition (at election time). So he was able to fundraise to pay his staffers to work for him at the Capitol. I had to go through two elections with two opponents. So I didn’t have that luxury.”

But Mallow, who first won his House 163 seat in 2020 after the departure of his mentor and predecessor, J. Craig Gordon, has a long list of issues on his mind: Medicaid expansion, public transportation investments, health care reform and affordable housing solutions — but statewide affordable housing, not just in Atlanta

Wisdom from predecessors

For all the newness and pressure that will come with his new post, Mallow said he’s prepared. Flanked by mentors who walked the same path before him, including Jackson and former State Sen. Regina Thomas, he’s received key advice for legislating on behalf of Savannahians.

Mallow said he worked closely with Jackson during the 2022 session, gleaning as much as he could from the long-time legislator. And keeping the focus on Savannah was a big part of that advice.

“He told me: Remember, you’re not from Atlanta, you’re from Savannah,’” Mallow said. “And there are going to be a lot of people who will try to pull you for the Atlanta-based issues. He said, ‘Just remember, your district is in Savannah.’”

But Mallow’s mentorship extended beyond Jackson — he said he’s been in constant contact with Thomas, who held the seat before Jackson.

“She said, ‘You have to be watchful. You have to watch everything and everyone,’’” Mallow said. “They’ll let you know if anybody gets you on the wrong side of anything.”

Numbers game

Mallow is the most recent in a long line of Savannah representatives to make the jump from the House to the Senate.

Both Jackson and current Senate District 1 Rep. Ben Watson served in the House prior to moving to the Senate. So have many others in recent history, including Buddy Carter, now a U.S. congressman; Thomas, who left office in 2009; and Eric Johnson, who left the Georgia Senate in 2010 to run for governor.

It’s a more powerful position, by the numbers alone. Georgia’s Senate has 56 members, while the state’s House of Representatives has 180. That means the same amount of power is delegated to a much smaller number of representatives, and Jackson says that makes it a lot more important to form meaningful relationships with colleagues.

“When a bill gets into a committee, just one or two votes can make the difference,” Jackson said. “And oftentimes, it depends not on the message, but who is carrying the message. Derek already knows about relationship building, and he knows what he needs to do to be effective, so I told him, just keep those same relationships skills up because it plays even more in the in the Senate than it did in the House.”