ATLANTA – Participants
in Georgia’s newly legalized hemp business would have to carry a license when
transporting the product or face arrest under legislation before the General
Assembly.
House Bill
847 is a follow-up to a measure lawmakers adopted last year that allows hemp, a
cousin of marijuana that does not get users high, to be grown, processed and
possessed in Georgia. States have rushed into the hemp business in recent years
to take advantage of its many commercial uses, including the manufacture of
rope, textiles and CBD oil used to treat a variety of illnesses.
As the
Georgia Department of Agriculture continues developing the rules that will
govern the hemp program, one looming drawback is that police conducting a
traffic stop who notice a bag of green leafy material can’t readily tell
whether it’s marijuana or hemp.
The Georgia
Bureau of Investigation has machines that can determine whether a substance has
a THC content – the chemical that produces a high – of below 0.3%, the legal
limit. But the machines and tests are expensive.
There is no chemical difference between hemp and marijuana, Deneen Kilcrease of the GBI’s Crime Lab said Wednesday during a House Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Committee hearing on the bill.
The House
bill would resolve that dilemma by requiring anyone in possession of such leafy
material stopped by law enforcement to produce a state-issued license for hemp.
“Law
enforcement had trouble distinguishing whether the product was legal or
illegal,” Kilcrease said. “The intent was to clear it up for law enforcement
and prosecutors.”
But Rep.
Scot Turner, R-Holly Springs, argued the law enforcement provision casts too
wide a net.
“Is it fair
to prosecute somebody for possession of something that’s not going to get them
stoned?” he asked.
Rep. John
Corbett, R-Lake Park, the bill’s chief sponsor, said Turner’s concerns would
not be an issue as long as people transporting hemp have the proper
documentation.
The
committee did not vote on the bill. Several issues remain up in the air,
including how much to charge for hemp licenses and whether to authorize private
colleges in Georgia to conduct research on the cultivation and research of hemp
or limit the program to University System of Georgia institutions.
Rep. Philip Singleton has filed legislation to tighten coordination between local police agencies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Official House photo)
Legislation taking aim at so-called
“sanctuary cities” in Georgia was filed in the 2020 legislative session
Wednesday.
Sponsored by Rep. Philip Singleton, R-Sharpsburg, House Bill 915 would force city and county law enforcement agencies to hand over detained undocumented persons to federal immigration authorities.
Local agencies would also have to notify federal officials when a detained person is being released from custody on bail.
Singleton credited President Donald
Trump’s hardline stance on immigration as inspiration for the bill.
“Radical efforts to protect criminal
illegal immigrants, which burden our state and federal government, and put our
citizens in danger, will not be unchecked in our great state,” Singleton said
in a statement.
Local Latino advocates panned the bill
Wednesday, calling it a threat Georgia’s huge immigrant workforce that drives
the state’s poultry, carpet and hospitality industries.
Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the
nonprofit Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, said the measure
would make Georgia less safe.
“Georgia does not need this legislation,
and it is simply aimed as a distraction and fear mongering during an election
year,” Gonzalez said.
Singleton’s bill would broaden a Georgia
law enacted in 2016 that allows state officials to withhold funding to cities
and counties that have adopted policies of limiting information shared between
local police agencies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Several local governments in Georgia have
adopted such policies in recent years including Atlanta, Clarkston and DeKalb
County.
Beyond tightening coordination,
Singleton’s bill would allow the Georgia attorney general’s office to act on
formal complaints filed by anyone – including the federal government – against
those policies. The attorney general could bring suit to have the policies
overturned.
The bill would also require county and
city jails and state prisons to sign agreements with the federal government
“for temporarily housing persons” facing deportation and “for the payment of
the costs of housing and detaining those persons.”
Singleton has already brought a handful
of contentious bills since winning a special election in October. In December,
he filed House Bill 747, which opponents say would prohibit transgender
children from competing in same-sex sporting events on public property.
Sen. Marty Harbin fields questions about his bill on adoption agencies Feb. 5, 2020, at the Capitol. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Legislation allowing faith-based adoption agencies to deny services in Georgia based on religious preferences was introduced Wednesday in the state Senate.
Opponents worry the bill, sponsored by
Sen. Marty Harbin, would discriminate against foster parents of various sexual
orientations and gender identifies that do not conform to an agency’s religious
or moral beliefs.
They view the measure, Senate Bill 368,
as the latest push in Georgia for so-called “religious freedom” laws that
permit businesses and churches to sidestep catering to same-sex couples or
others who forgo traditional family arrangements.
But Harbin, R-Tyrone, argued his bill
aims to attract adoption agencies that might avoid opening in Georgia without
that right to deny services. He noted those agencies could instead go to
Tennessee, where a similar adoption measure was signed into law last month.
Harbin said his bill is also geared
toward respecting the wishes of some mothers not to hand their children over to
same-sex foster parents.
“I believe that for the mothers it’s
critically important where their children go,” Harbin said. “I think family and
faith run together.”
That reasoning does not pass muster for
Jeff Graham, executive director of the advocacy group Georgia Equality. He said
the bill risks reducing the number of children who end up being adopted by
winnowing the pool of potential foster parents.
Possible discrimination would not be
limited only to gay, transgender or otherwise-identifying foster parents,
Graham added. He highlighted adoption laws in South Carolina that allow
agencies to deny services to non-Christian foster parents.
“We all know families come in a variety
of makeups,” Graham said. “If an individual or couple can prove they can
provide security for a child, they should be allowed to adopt in Georgia.”
Around 12,600 children were in Georgia’s
foster care system as of December 2019, according to Tom Rawlings, director of
the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. The state agency helped
adopt out roughly 1,400 children last year, he said.
Speeding up and simplifying adoptions in
Georgia is a top priority for Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2020 legislative session.
Last month, Kemp urged passage of bills lowering the minimum foster-parent age
from 25 to 21 and tripling the state’s adoption tax credit to $6,000.
Several governor-backed bills on foster
care are expected to be filed in the coming weeks. One measure allowing the
state to contract with licensed child-placing agencies was scheduled for
hearing Wednesday afternoon in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The federal government has a
religious-freedom law on the books, but Georgia has not adopted a state
version.
Recent stabs at doing so faced backlash
from large corporations fearful of Georgia gaining a reputation for same-sex
discrimination. Then-Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed a measure in 2016 giving
faith-based groups broad leeway to deny services.
Harbin also sponsored a statewide
religious-freedom bill in 2017 that died in the Senate.
His latest measure, narrower in scope,
has backing from the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. Its public affairs
minister, Mike Griffin, dismissed claims Wednesday that the adoption bill
targets certain would-be foster parents.
“This is about not discriminating against
faith-based agencies,” Griffin said.
Rep. Matthew Wilson, one of the
legislature’s few openly gay members, disagreed. He called Harbin’s bill
“hateful discrimination, pure and simple.”
“The state should not be in the business
of discriminating against its own citizens,” said Wilson, D-Brookhaven.
They left the gate at breakneck speed but
have come to a screeching halt.
The General Assembly will take an early, unplanned
break in the 2020 legislative session starting Thursday. The session began its
12th official day Wednesday after kicking off last month.
The session will reconvene Feb. 18 to give lawmakers more time to debate Gov. Brian Kemp’s $28 billion fiscal 2021 state budget plan and funding cuts ordered by the governor.
In a letter Wednesday, House Speaker
David Ralston said the decision to break was made after talks between House and
Senate Appropriations committee leaders, who oversee budget negotiations.
Budget-focused committees and subcommittees will still meet during the break,
he said.
“Decisions made on the budget touch the
lives of every Georgia citizen,” Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, told his House
colleagues Wednesday from the House podium. “I don’t believe it behooves us as
a body to come down here and speed through spending $28 billion.”
Kemp’s fiscal 2021 budget leaves major programs like Medicaid and public schools untouched. But his proposal would also trim more than $210 million during this fiscal year and another $300 million in fiscal 2021, which starts July 1.
After the House voted to approve the new
session schedule, Ralston told reporters he’s particularly worried about
proposed cuts to mental health services, public safety and criminal justice reform
initiatives including accountability courts.
Ralston said it was negotiators for the
House who convinced Senate leaders of the need to take a break and focus on the
budget. He noted that since all spending bills originate in the House, members
of the House Appropriations Committee get the first crack at reviewing the
budget.
“They have the first real contact with the budget process,” Ralston said. “Department heads and agency heads have come in and said they don’t have the information to give us. … We started asking for this information as far back as late September. Some of the information we still don’t know.”
Kemp’s office defended the governor’s budget cuts Wednesday while slamming Ralston, who last week supported then backtracked on a bill many Democratic lawmakers favored that would change the format for an upcoming U.S. Senate race.
“While we respect the legislature’s purview, the governor does not need a lesson in conservatism from a man who brokered a deal with Democrats just last week for political gamesmanship,” said Kemp spokeswoman Candice Broce.
The proposed cuts would come as Kemp
pushes for teacher salary raises that would cost about $400 million to fund.
Some lawmakers like House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England,
R-Auburn, cast doubt recently on whether those raises should go through amid
deep cuts elsewhere in the state budget.
The week-and-a-half break looks to throw
off schedules for lawmakers who hold down full-time jobs in the off-season. The
unscheduled pause felt irksome, but many agreed the need to slow down and work
through the budget takes priority.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan said
the Senate agreed to the break give lawmakers in the House more time to craft
the budget before sending it to the Senate.
“We get one chance to get this right,”
said Dugan, R-Carrollton.
Ralston asked other House committee heads
to abstain from holding meetings during the break, effectively pausing the
legislature’s consideration of hundreds of bills not related to the budget.
“This is the most important thing we do,
the only thing we have to do,” he said. “Georgians want us to do it right.”
Bureau Chief Dave Williams contributed to
this story.
Rep. Kevin Tanner pitched his revised rural transit bill on Feb. 4, 2020. (Official Georgia House photo)
Ride-share companies Uber and Lyft would get an exemption
from a newly imposed online sales tax in Georgia under a revived rural transit
bill that stalled in the state legislature last year.
The tax carve-out has been tacked onto a reworked House Bill 511, which ran up against opposition last year over broad changes to several state agencies and a proposal to raise local sales taxes on for-hire transport services like taxis and ride-sharing.
Sponsored by House Transportation Committee Chairman Kevin
Tanner, the bill originally included the 50-cent fee for ride-share trips but
was amended last year to let counties levy their own sales taxes dedicated to
public transportation. Uber representatives argued the company should not be
subject to any sales tax in Georgia.
On Tuesday, Tanner unveiled his overhauled version of the
bill that would impose the 50-cent fee, but only on condition that Uber
receives an exemption to the online sales-tax measure Gov. Brian Kemp signed
last week.
That measure aims to collect sales taxes on third-party “marketplace facilitators” that facilitate online sales such as Amazon, Google and Uber. It also stumbled last year amid opposition from Uber but gained the governor’s signature Jan. 30 after state lawmakers settled on giving Uber an exemption in separate legislation.
“What we’re talking about doing … is a big tax increase,”
said Tanner, R-Dawsonville, referring to the online sales-tax measure.
His rural transit bill, Tanner said, “makes it clear that
[Uber] is not subject to sales tax.”
Uber supports the bill and the flat fee, which would amount to lower charges overall. Imposing a sales tax would drive up prices for Uber rides, said company spokeswoman Evangeline George.
“Applying sales tax to ride-sharing apps would force consumers in Georgia to pay one of the highest taxes in the country on ride-sharing – which will make trips significantly more expensive for students who need rides home late at night, seniors taking rides to doctor appointments and commuters sharing rides to work,” George said in a statement Tuesday.
Uber would need Tanner’s bill to quickly clear the
legislature and pass into law to avoid being included in the new online sales
tax, which is set to start collections on April 1.
Tanner’s bill faced a rocky road in the state legislature
last year. After soaring through the House, it hit a wall in the Senate amid a
high-stakes battle over a different piece of legislation that would hand
control over Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to the state.
It returned in revised form to the Senate Transportation
Committee, whose members got a rundown of the bill from Tanner late Tuesday
afternoon. No vote was taken to advance the bill to the Senate floor.
Beyond the ride-share fee, the bill would let counties raise
their own sales taxes with revenues earmarked for local transit projects. It
would also create a new state agency tasked with overseeing those projects via
managers spread out across the Georgia in multi-county “mobility zones.”
The new agency, called the Georgia Department of Mobility
and Innovation, would also absorb many regional transit planning functions from
several other state agencies. But unlike initially proposed, the bill now would
not take over a few areas like the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority,
which runs express buses.
That change, as well as other provisions meant to separate
the new agency from the fledgling Atlanta-Region Transit Link Authority (The
ATL), was done to appease state transit officials concerned about the cross-agency
shakeup, Tanner said.
Additionally, Tanner’s revised bill would include a tax
credit for businesses that help set up work transportation for their employees.
It would also launch a state-run pilot program providing shuttles people can
use to get to work in Georgia’s poorest counties.
Tanner stressed those tax credits could be easily rolled
back if lawmakers determine they are not working as advertised since they would
be pilot programs only.
“The idea here is let’s try new things, new ideas, but if
they don’t work, we’re not going to continue them,” Tanner said Tuesday.
Tanner has framed his bill as a boost to transit options for
low-income people and seniors living in isolated rural areas where it can be
tough to get around. Those options might include ride-sharing services like
Uber or small passenger shuttles.
The Georgia Council on Aging, which oversees the state’s
senior centers, supports the bill as a way give older Georgians better transit
options in isolated rural areas.
About 200,000 seniors in Georgia have trouble driving or finding rides to make routine trips like doctor appointments and grocery stores, according to a 2018 report from the Georgia Health Policy Center.
This bill has been updated to clarify Uber’s position on sales taxes and flat fees.
