Legislator Member Spotlights

Marcus Wiedower

What is the most rewarding aspect of your career?

I do a lot in foster care legislation and some of the measures we’ve been able to get passed, knowing the positive effect for the children in the foster care system, is rewarding.

What are your hopes and goals for 2021?

I still have two foster care bills that are in the works. I have a carbon sequestration bill, [which is] not only a good environmental [bill] but it’s an environmental bill with a Georgia First mentality – it really promotes and helps Georgian grown building products. It expands the carbon registry to include certain construction products that will sequester or embed carbon. We have a lot of good things going and I’m looking forward to keep going.

Any career advice/words of wisdom?

My number one goal is to come down here and build relationships and that’s with everyone – that’s on both sides on the aisle, that’s on both sides of the building, or even floors of the building. Those working relationships and trying to build a reputation that is respectful – I think that that is a huge element to being able to be effective down here. …being able to really listen to all sides when you’re working through some of these pieces of legislation and giving that credit, I think that’s important, and it goes back to building those relationships and getting along with people even if you don’t see eye to eye on a particular subject.

How has being a REALTOR made an impact on your legislative outlook?

I’m a REALTOR and in construction, specifically. I did a lot of custom homes, and in both scenarios, there’s so many times where I joke that I’m really just a glorified marriage counselor. Because you have two people who have strong opinions about what they like and don’t like and you end up being a mediator for trying to find the common ground. Then [you] figure out what it is that each one of them likes separately and then find that common ground. If it’s building a house, you think about a budget on a house. Then you have the state budget and you often have two groups that think very differently on how to find that common ground to best spend those dollars. Being a REALTOR and being in real estate prepared me to have those conversations. I appreciated [the Governor’s] analogy of building a strong foundation, and then as you build up from there, how strong we can make the state in that manner. I really do like that analogy – setting a very solid foundation in all aspects and then going from there. There are some parallels there. Over 60% of the budget goes to education – I think that that is appropriate and critical… that’s building a foundation for Georgia’s children moving forward and putting them in the best place possible to keep Georgia growing in the right direction.

Would you advise other REALTORS to get involved in legislative affairs?

I encourage anybody to. I think REALTORS see a lot of the personal property issues and rights and certainly understanding that better will better serve them in that role. But just generally as citizens… I caution people – don’t assume that the first bill that gets dropped will end up being that bill in the end because it goes through often a subcommittee, a committee, then rules committee, then it goes to the House floor and it goes through that whole process again in the Senate. There’s a lot of opportunities for that bill to change significantly so I think anybody getting involved to really appreciate and understand that process just makes them more informed and puts them in a better position of knowing the things that can change for the betterment of everybody and some of the things that can’t. To use an analogy there – most people learn foreign language by immersion.