According to the Associated Press (AP), Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler will not seek a fourth term overseeing the state’s unemployment and job search system.
The Republican, in a memo to staff at the state Labor Department, wrote that it is “my intention to retire from politics at the end of my term to concentrate on family and new opportunities.”
Butler, who was a state House member from Carrollton for eight years before he was elected labor commissioner in 2010, said that the decision was motivated in part by a recurrence of his wife’s cancer after she had gone into remission in 2021.
The three-term commissioner was facing a tough re-election fight due to criticism of the Georgia Department of Labor for its handling of unemployment claims during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
“I’m extremely proud of how the men and women of the Department of Labor stepped up and put in long hours taking on unbelievable odds during this pandemic,” Butler wrote in the memo
Challengers for the position in Georgia so far include:
Georgia is the only state in the nation with an elected Labor Commissioner. In most states, the governor appoints the head of the state labor department and is directly responsible for the person fulfilling those duties.
