Former Congressman Praises Accomplishments Of Trump In Meeting With Oconee County Republicans, Raises Concerns About Judiciary

***Other Speakers Officer Advice To Party***

Although the U.S. Constitution sets up three equal branches of government--the executive, the legislative, and the judicial--the judiciary is the “least equal” of the three, former Congressman Jody Hice told Oconee County Republicans last month.

“They’re not elected,” Hice, a Republican, said in justifying his distinction.

Federal judges are nominated by the executive branch–the President–and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Hice said he was “grateful” that President Donald Trump has said he “will abide” by Supreme Court decisions.

But Hice said the U.S. House of Representatives needs to impeach and the U.S. Senate needs to convict and thus remove “one or two of these (judges) that are really rogue.”

“It would send a message across the board that all they're supposed to do is their job, constitutionally,” he said. “They are not the political activists.”

Hice made his observations about the federal judiciary both in his initial comments and in response to questions from the audience of approximately 40 at the party’s regular meeting held at the Piedmont Oconee Health Campus on Jennings Mill Road on April 28.

Hice was preceded on the program by Alice O’Lenick, a candidate for First Vice Chair, and Ja’Quon Stembridge, a candidate for Assistant Secretary at the state Republican Party Convention to be held June 6 and 7 in Dalton.

Hice On Trump

Former 10th District Congressman Hice began his comments to the Republican gathering with praise for all that President Trump has done in what was then his first 99 days in office.

Hice 4/28/2025

Hice, who left Congress in 2022 to run in the Republican Party Primary for Georgia Secretary of State, is now Senior Vice President of the Family Research Council and President of FRC Action, both based in Washington.

“Unbelievable, unbelievable what has taken place in the last 99 days,” Hice said. “It's just been a whirlwind of activities.”

Hice said “99.9 percent of the border has been secured.”

“We actually know that there's two genders,” he continued. “We are going after those who have come after political opponents.”

“I mean, we go down the list.” he continued. “Crime is down. The military is coming back up. I look at the people that President Trump is surrounding himself with. And, in all honesty, there was a couple that I may have some question marks over.”

“But overall, I'm blown away with an incredible group of people that he is surrounding himself with that are just as committed as he is to getting our country back in line,” Hice said.

“There is no way in the world this happened by accident,” he said. “This was planned and strategic…It’s caught the Democrats off guard. They don’t even know where to start trying to deal with this whole thing.”

More On Trump, Comments Judicial Branch

Hice said he had worked with Trump in Trump’s first term and “I miss those times very much.” 

“He is not the monster that the media has created him to be,” Hice said. “He is funny, funny, funny. He can have everyone just sitting there just holding our sides laughing. He looks you in the eye when he talks to you. You feel like you're the only person in the world when you’re with him.”

“I just could not be more stunned and more pleased” with all that Trump has accomplished, Hice said, “but at the same time more keenly aware of the opposition.”

“Look at what's happening with the judges,” he said. “They are coming one after another after another putting restrictions in every way that they can on the president's agenda.”

Hice returned to his concerns with the judiciary multiple times in response to questions from the audience. 

When an audience member asked Hice about the status of House action on a budget, Hice said that the thin Republican majority in the House makes it hard to get “agreement on some of these very difficult decisions on cutting funding here or even impeaching some of these judges, which ought to happen.”

When asked if Trump has a plan “for working around the judges,” Hice said “There's a part of me, to be very honest with you, that would like to say I hope not.”

“Because if we start working around all our different branches of government, we lose our whole system,” he said. “And it really concerns me. Trump has been very vocal, and I'm grateful that he said he absolutely will abide by Supreme Court decisions.”

“The problem is,” Hice continued, “to be honest, we have three equal branches, but the judiciary is the least of the equal. They're not elected.”

The job of the judiciary, Hice said, “is simply to say: Is what these others are doing constitutional? That's all they do. And we're seeing more than that take place now.”

O’Lenick On Party

Drawing on her experience as a member of the Gwinnett County Board of Registrations and Elections and a founding member of Georgia’s Republican Election Integrity Task Force, O’Lenick focused in her comments on election integrity, rural outreach, and revitalizing the visibility of the Georgia GOP.

O’Lenick 4/28/2025

She emphasized the urgent need to reconnect with voters who supported President Trump but haven’t been re-engaged since the election.

“Donald Trump only won by 115,100 votes. That’s not a lot of votes for the entire state of Georgia,” she said.

“We concentrate on the big counties in the metro area,” she said, “but we have an awful lot of voters in the rural areas—the farms, the suburbs, the inner cities—people that would vote Republican, and we don't seem to reach out to them.”

She criticized the GOP’s absence from community spaces like state fairs, tractor pulls, local festivals, and school board meetings, arguing that many Georgians already share conservative values, they just need to be engaged, educated, and mobilized ahead of 2026.

“I am committed to action,” O’Lenick said. “If anybody knows me, they know that if you have a problem, I will solve it. I will work as hard as I can.”

O’Lenick, who lives in both Gwinnett and Putnam counties, said she is proud to be part of the 10th Congressional District and hopes to earn support at the upcoming Georgia GOP State Convention in Dalton in June.

Stembridge On Party

Stembridge, who is 18, said “I first got involved in politics in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the government wanted to take full control of our lives.”

Stembridge 4/28/2025

“They wanted to stop us from going to church,” he said. “They stopped me from going to school.”

Stembridge said he was raised in a single-parent, Democratic household.

“I was always taught that the Republican Party was a party of rich White men who cared nothing about people who looked like me,” he said. “But the more I studied, the more I realized that wasn’t true. The Republican Party is full of working men and women who care about values that matter to people like me.”

Stembridge said he listed to Trump “talk about racism. There was nothing racist about wanting secure borders. All of that was just common sense.”

“There was nothing racist about wanting to live in a safe community,” he said. “Everyone wants to feel safe when they go to sleep at night.”

Stembridge said that the Republican Party risks losing future elections if it continues to neglect younger voters, many of whom supported the Democratic ticket in 2024.

“The reason why they went out and voted for Kamala Harris was not because they loved Kamala Harris,” he said. “It wasn't because they loved the Democrats. It's because we're not going out, engaging with the next generation of voters.”

Stembridge called for more outreach to high school and college campuses and encouraged deeper engagement in minority communities.

“The Republican Party keeps saying it wants young people, but when we show up, we’re pushed aside,” he said. “That has to change.”

Oconee County Party Chair Kathy Hurley said she is endorsing both O’Lenick and Stembridge.

The Oconee County Republican Party will hold its May meeting on at 5:30 p.m. on May 19 at the Oconee Health Campus with Chris Pine representing Tim Echols, who is seeking re-election to the Public Service Commission, and with Rep. Houston Gaines and Rep. Marcus Wiedower as speakers.

NOTE: This post is a collaboration between Katie Vickery and myself. The party does not allow recording of its meetings.