Ted Terry (politician)

After graduating from college, Terry worked as a field organizer for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia. He was a finance director for U.S. Representative John Barrow. He moved to Clarkston in 2011, and worked in nonprofit consulting and development.^[5]

Terry was elected mayor of Clarkston, Georgia on November 5, 2013, with 53% of the vote.^[7] He took office in January 2014, and became the youngest mayor in Clarkston's 135-year history.^[8] In his first year of office, he presided over a city council that ended Clarkston's moratorium on refugee resettlement, made Clarkston a charted City of Compassion and Welcoming City, and signed the Supreme Court Amicus Brief in support of legalizing same-sex marriage.^[6] In his second year of office, he presided over a city council that raised the minimum wage to $15/hour, made Election Day a holiday, and decriminalized marijuana possession.^[6]

He was also the director of Georgia's chapter of the Sierra Club and a member of the DeKalb County Board of Health.^{[citation needed]}

Terry was re-elected mayor on November 7, 2017, with 59% of the vote.^[9] During his second term, he presided over a city council that committed Clarkston to one hundred percent clean energy by 2050, approved the first ever tiny home neighborhood in Georgia, and became the third city in Georgia to pass a non-discrimination ordinance.^[6]

He also spoke on refugee resettlement issues at the Global Compact on Migration in Marrakech, Morocco, attended the Young Policy Network of Migration convention in Münchenwiler, Switzerland, and was appointed to serve on the advisory board of the Global Village Project.^[6]

In July 2019, he announced that he would run for the Democratic nomination in the 2020–21 United States Senate election in Georgia.^[2] In January 2020, Terry announced he was withdrawing from the race due to the struggle to raise enough money to compete in the race being a principal concern.^[10]

In January 2020, he announced he would seek the Democratic nomination for the DeKalb County (GA) Commission Super District 6 seat. He won the nomination in the August 11th runoff election with 58.6% of the vote. No Republican qualified for this district seat, thus Terry won by default. Terry's term began on January 1, 2021.

Terry appeared in the second season of Queer Eye in 2018. The show portrayed that he was nominated by his girlfriend Andrea Cervone,^[11] but Terry later revealed that the show's producers sought him out.^[12]