David Ralston

David Ralston (March 14, 1954 – November 16, 2022) was an American attorney and a Republican politician who was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 2003 until his death. From 2010 onwards, he was also its 73rd Speaker of the House. Ralston was the longest-serving Republican Speaker in state history and the longest-serving Speaker of the Georgia General Assembly since Tom Murphy.

David Ralston was born in Ellijay, Georgia. He attended Young Harris College, graduated from North Georgia College and State University, and later from the University of Georgia School of Law.

From 1992 to 1998, he served as a member of the Georgia Senate. In 1998, Ralston was the Republican nominee for attorney general of Georgia, but lost the election to Thurbert Baker. In 2002, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives for the 7th district. He was elected to serve as Speaker in 2010, following the resignation of Glenn Richardson. As such, he is the first state House Speaker from north Georgia in more than 150 years.

Ralston spearheaded economically conservative initiatives, including passing the first-ever income tax cut in the state in 2018 and eliminating the sales tax on manufacturers. In the wake of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Ralston led the effort to pass a state hate-crimes law. Additionally, Ralston passed reforms to Georgia's election process, most recently the Election Integrity Act of 2021. Although Ralston and Republicans said these efforts were to increase voter security within the state, critics said that they are intended to disenfranchise voters and lower turnout.

In 2014, Ralston was investigated by the Georgia Supreme Court following a complaint that he had ignored a client's case for years and had failed to communicate. In 2016, Ralston and the State Bar of Georgia reached a settlement, with the Georgia Bar issuing a minor reprimand and Ralston admitting to inadvertently breaking State Bar rules, ending a years-long dispute. He had previously faced disbarment.

In February 2019, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV reported that Ralston regularly used his position as speaker to benefit his Blue Ridge-based private law practice. A 1905 state law (O.C.G.A. § 17-8-26) requires judges and prosecutors to defer to the schedules of any member of the general assembly who is also a practicing lawyer, and as speaker, Ralston was able to claim scheduling conflicts any time of year. By delaying court cases in this manner, Ralston was able to keep his clients free on bond for months or even years, while weakening court cases over time by letting memories fade and evidence expire. Some of Ralston's clients retained him specifically for these reasons.

Journalists found that over the course of 21 cases, Ralston requested delays 57 times, and that on 76 of the 93 conflicting days, the legislature was not in session; he would commonly delay individual cases over a dozen times each. Charges against Ralston's clients who benefited from this include drunk driving, child molestation, and assault.

In April 2019, an independent researcher reviewed Ralston's court cases across eight counties and found that from 2010 through 2019, Ralston delayed 226 cases a total of 966 times. Multiple attorneys wrote formal complaints to various judges regarding Ralston's delays. In response, Ralston said that the researcher "does not understand the legal system or the criminal justice system... [and] didn't have anything critical to say about my performance as speaker."