Josh Tolbert

Strongly Agree

Elective abortion should not be permitted. Medical treatment necessary to save the life of the mother should remain available, with every reasonable effort made to protect both mother and child.

Strongly Agree

Agree

Human embryos deserve respect and protection as human life. At the same time, policies addressing assisted reproduction should be carefully developed so that families can pursue ethical fertility treatment without unnecessary government interference or unintended consequences.

Agree

Federal law should be faithfully enforced according to its text and applicable judicial precedent, including appropriate protections for lawful medical treatment. This issue is outside the jurisdiction of the Georgia Public Service Commission.

Wages are best driven by a competitive labor market that rewards skill, productivity, and experience. Government mandates can unintentionally reduce entry-level opportunities, especially for young and inexperienced workers.

Strongly Agree

As a Public Service Commissioner, I would defend property rights by requiring utilities to demonstrate a genuine public need and careful consideration of alternatives before approving projects that may burden private property. Eminent domain must remain an absolute last resort.

Within the PSC, my priorities would be: (1) require transparent, line-by-line justification of agency spending; (2) use competitive procurement wherever practical; (3) establish measurable outcomes and eliminate programs that do not produce them; (4) modernize outdated and duplicative processes; and (5) conduct regular independent audits. I would bring an engineer’s discipline to the budget: define the need, evaluate alternatives, measure results, and hold decision-makers accountable.

Separation of church and state means government may neither establish a religion nor prohibit its free exercise. It protects religious institutions and individual conscience from government control; it does not require people of faith to abandon their beliefs or exclude religious perspectives from public life.

Disagree

Government should strongly protect religious liberty and should not compel individuals or businesses to create expression or personally participate in conduct that violates sincerely held beliefs. At the same time, generally applicable obligations to provide essential, non-expressive services may be appropriate, particularly for regulated monopolies and public accommodations.

C is the closest, but none fully reflects my position. Medicare and Medicaid should remain available, and we should preserve an appropriate safety net for vulnerable Americans. Healthcare reform should emphasize patient choice, price transparency, competition, portability, and lower regulatory barriers—not government control of the entire system. Healthcare policy is outside the PSC’s jurisdiction.

Strongly Disagree

Government should not maintain an identifiable database cataloging citizens by their medical conditions merely to calculate economic costs. Legitimate research can use anonymized, aggregated data with rigorous privacy protections. People should never be reduced to their projected cost to the government.

Strongly Agree

The CCP presents serious national-security and economic threats. For the PSC, the relevant responsibilities include protecting critical utility infrastructure from cyber threats and reducing dangerous dependence on foreign adversaries for essential grid equipment, technology, and energy supply chains.

Yes. Israel is an important strategic ally and a fellow democracy in a volatile region. Our relationship supports intelligence sharing, counterterrorism, technological cooperation, regional stability, and the defense of both nations. While foreign policy is outside the PSC’s jurisdiction, I support a strong relationship grounded in shared interests and mutual accountability.

Strongly Disagree

I support legal immigration and believe immigrants make important contributions to our country. However, local governments should not adopt policies designed to obstruct the lawful enforcement of federal immigration law. We should secure the border, enforce the law consistently, and maintain an orderly immigration system that treats people with dignity. Immigration policy is outside the PSC’s jurisdiction.

Agree

Education is primarily the responsibility of parents, states, and local communities. I support returning control accordingly and eliminating unnecessary federal bureaucracy, provided legitimate commitments to students, including special-education protections and existing financial obligations, are transferred and administered responsibly.

Agree

Foreign governments should not be permitted to buy influence over American schools, curricula, research, or students. Foreign funding must be fully disclosed and should be prohibited when it creates foreign control, conflicts of interest, threats to academic independence, or national-security risks, especially when it comes from adversarial governments.

Strongly Agree

Parents have the primary right and responsibility to direct their children’s education, healthcare, and upbringing. Government should respect that authority except where intervention is necessary to protect a child from genuine abuse or neglect. I take both parental liberty and parental responsibility seriously.

Strongly Agree

Children deserve compassion, protection, and truthful guidance. Adults should not socially or medically transition minors, who are not mature enough to consent to life-altering decisions about sex and identity. Encouraging that process, especially through puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgery, is child abuse. Care should address a child’s distress without attempting to change the child’s sex. Decisions of this magnitude must wait until adulthood.

Agree

As a Christian, I believe marriage is a God-ordained union between one man and one woman. However, the federal government should stay out of marriage rather than dictate its meaning to states, churches, or individuals. Government may administer contracts and civil legal rights, but it should neither redefine a sacred institution nor compel anyone to affirm a definition that violates his or her conscience.

Disagree

I do not believe gambling is socially beneficial, and I would not encourage people to participate in it. Georgia’s lottery has provided meaningful support for the HOPE Scholarship, but I am uncomfortable with government depending on or promoting gambling to generate revenue. As a limited-government conservative, I am also cautious about regulating private conduct. On balance, I do not currently support expanding gambling in Georgia.

I am a Bible-believing Christian whose faith is centered on Jesus Christ. I believe Christians should be known by their love for others, especially the vulnerable, overlooked, and “least of these.” Loving someone does not require affirming every belief or choice, but it does require treating every person with dignity, compassion, honesty, and respect. My faith calls me to serve rather than seek status, to defend those who may be overlooked, to act with integrity even when it costs me, and to remember that every person is created in the image of God.

Strongly Disagree

Requiring photo identification is a reasonable safeguard that strengthens confidence in elections. Government should also ensure that every eligible voter can obtain an acceptable ID easily and at no cost. Secure elections and accessible voting are not competing goals, we should protect both.

Strongly Disagree

America must honestly acknowledge slavery, segregation, and their lasting consequences. However, government should not assign benefits or liabilities to individuals solely according to race. Public policy should treat citizens equally under the law and address present hardship through demonstrated need and specific injustice rather than racial classification.

Strongly Agree

Women and girls deserve fair athletic competition and reasonable privacy and safety in intimate spaces. Biological sex is relevant in sports, locker rooms, shelters, and prisons and should not be disregarded. Every person must be treated with dignity, and appropriate accommodations can be provided where needed without eliminating sex-based protections for women.

Neutral

Human activity contributes to climate change, and reducing emissions is a legitimate goal. But “urgent political action” is too vague and can become a justification for mandates that raise rates or compromise reliability. PSC decisions should be driven by engineering and economics: pursue meaningful emissions reductions where practical while keeping electricity affordable, reliable, and available to every Georgian.

Nuclear is highly reliable, but new plants are costly and slow to build. Gas offers dispatchable near-term capacity, while low-cost commercial solar can serve daytime growth. Georgia needs a balanced portfolio judged by reliability, cost and timing.

Conservative

I am a Christian constitutional conservative who believes in limited government, free enterprise, individual liberty, parental rights, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, private-property rights, and equal treatment under the law. I also believe public officials must examine facts, costs, and consequences rather than automatically adopt a party position. As a Professional Engineer, I will follow the evidence, explain my decisions, and serve the public with integrity.

No

No

The criminal justice system should protect the public, provide justice for victims, hold offenders accountable through fair and proportionate punishment, and respect due process and equal treatment under the law. It should also seek restitution and rehabilitation where possible so that people who have paid their debt can become productive citizens rather than return to crime.

Strongly Agree

Government has a fundamental responsibility to protect children from sexual exploitation and aggressively prosecute those who produce, distribute, or solicit abusive material. Those efforts should be narrowly focused on criminal conduct and implemented consistently with constitutional protections, parental rights, and the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

Strongly Agree

The Constitution and laws enacted under it are the governing legal framework of the United States. No foreign or religious legal code, including Sharia, should supersede American law or diminish constitutional rights. Immigrants should be welcomed as Americans and expected to assimilate to our civic and legal system. Individuals remain free to practice their faith, but religious liberty does not authorize a separate system of government or law.

The Second Amendment protects an individual constitutional right. Restrictions should be narrow, objective, and accompanied by due process, such as prohibitions for individuals convicted of serious violent crimes or found by a court to present a clear danger to others. Government should vigorously enforce existing laws against violent criminals rather than burden law-abiding citizens or ban firearms in common lawful use.