The Georgia Supreme Court is headquartered in the Nathan Deal Judicial Center in downtown Atlanta (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Monday sided with a group of certified lactation counselors who sued the secretary of state’s office two years ago.
Writing for the court, Justice Michael Boggs ruled that a trial court erred in dismissing the challenge of a state law as unconstitutional.
The 2018 lawsuit stemmed from legislation the General Assembly enacted in 2016 prohibiting the provision of “lactation care and services” for compensation without a state license. The stated purpose of the Georgia Lactation Consultant Practice Act was “to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public by providing for the licensure and regulation of the activities of persons engaged in lactation care and services.”
In the suit, a nonprofit group of lactation counselors called Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE) argued the law made the education and training requirements too stringent, resulting in a reduction of access to lactation care and services, particularly in rural Georgia.
The secretary of state’s office filed a motion to dismiss the suit for failure to state a claim upon which legal relief could be granted. The Fulton County Superior Court granted the motion, finding that ROSE had failed to state a claim because the Georgia Constitution does not recognize a right to work in one’s chosen profession.
But in Monday’s ruling, Boggs agreed with the plaintiffs.
“We have long interpreted the Georgia Constitution as protecting a right to work in one’s chosen profession free from unreasonable government interference,” he wrote.
With Monday’s ruling, the case now goes back to the trial court.
ATLANTA – Former Georgia House Speaker Mark Burkhalter has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as U.S. ambassador to Norway.
Burkhalter is a senior advisor in the Public Policy and Regulation practice in the Atlanta office of Dentons U.S. LLP and plays a significant role in the global law firm’s public affairs and economic development initiatives in the United Kingdom.
The Republican from Alpharetta served in the state House for 18 years, representing a district in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. He became speaker pro tempore when Republicans captured control of the House in 2004 and served about a month as speaker at the end of 2009 when then-Speaker Glenn Richardson resigned his seat in the House.
Burkhalter’s political career also included a stint on the legislative staff of then-U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Marietta before Gingrich became U.S. House speaker.
While serving in the General Assembly, Burkhalter built a successful career in real estate development. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Georgia with a double major in German and Slavic languages and global studies/political science.
Subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Burkhalter would become the second prominent Georgia Republican to represent the United States overseas under the Trump administration.
Lawyer and GOP activist Randy Evans is serving as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg.
ATLANTA – Microsoft Corp. will expand its presence in Atlanta with a new facility in the city’s West Midtown area that will create 1,500 high-tech jobs, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday.
The $75 million investment will focus on artificial intelligence and cloud services in a 523,000-square-foot building in the Atlantic Yards complex at Atlantic Station.
“We are excited that a global leader like Microsoft Corp. is expanding its investment in Georgia with tech jobs that will be truly beneficial to the company and our state,” Kemp said. “I am confident that our top-notch tech talent and education pipeline will continue to be an asset to Microsoft.”
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft currently operates a cloud computing engineering center in the Coda Building at Midtown Atlanta’s Technology Square and maintains offices in Alpharetta and Buckhead.
“Microsoft’s continued expansion and growth in metro Atlanta are testaments to our region’s reputation as a hub for innovation-based companies,” said Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber. “Microsoft is sure to find ongoing success here, with our business-friendly climate and unmatched culture attracting the high-tech talent companies like Microsoft need.”
Midtown Atlanta has become a hub for tech companies. Schools within the University System of Georgia work closely with businesses looking to locate in the state to ensure students are trained with the skills necessary to succeed in high-tech jobs.
“The University System of Georgia stands ready to work with Microsoft as we help connect it with our highly skilled graduates and meet its need for ongoing professional development, training and research,” system Chancellor Steve Wrigley said. “This is a fantastic economic development opportunity, and our twenty-six institutions are excited to show our capability and commitment toward fostering the company’s growth and success in the state.”
The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce division helped land the project, working with partners from the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Georgia Tech, Invest Atlanta, the Development Authority of Fulton County, and Georgia Power.
The new facility is due to open in the summer of next year.
Rep. Patty Bentley tests out a new voting machine during a demonstration at the Georgia State Fair. (Secretary of State’s office)
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to postpone the June 9 primary election in Georgia until the end of this month and require state election officials to boost sanitizing procedures.
The suit, filed last month by a group of voters and advocates often at odds with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, argued election officials were not prepared to hold an election amid ongoing safety and health concerns over coronavirus. It asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to push the election back to June 30.
The suit also urged Judge Timothy Batten Sr. to force the state to scrap its new touchscreens for the primary in favor of all-paper ballots, which opponents of the new machines have sought in prior litigation.
In his ruling Thursday, Batten said the court should steer clear of the issue on grounds it could lead to improper political interference in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“Absent [clear] proof provided by the plaintiffs that a political question is not at issue, courts should not substitute their own judgments for the state election codes,” Batten wrote.
The ruling comes ahead of the early voting period for the primary that is set to start Monday. It also comes as absentee ballots continue pouring in to county election offices in what is shaping up to be the biggest vote-by-mail tally for an election in Georgia history.
County offices have collected more than 250,000 absentee ballots so far out of nearly 1.4 billion ballots that have been requested statewide, Raffensperger’s office said. That number already dwarfs the roughly 223,000 mail-in ballots voters cast in the high-turnout 2018 gubernatorial election.
In a statement Friday, Raffensperger said the lawsuit’s dismissal will let election officials concentrate on gearing up for in-person voting, including efforts to distribute protective and sanitizing equipment for county election boards. He called the dismissal a warning shot for other groups like the American Civil Liberties Union challenging his office’s work toward holding the primary during the pandemic.
“I hope that the other groups who have asserted these same claims in other lawsuits will see the error of their ways, stop wasting taxpayer dollars, and drop their lawsuits,” Raffensperger said.
Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance that brought the suit, said the group is weighing possible next steps like appeal. She disagreed with Batten’s hands-off approach, arguing voter-rights issues spurred by coronavirus are exactly the type of matters in which judges and the court should weigh in.
“We need the court to intervene and bring some relief or else we are going to continue to see a chaotic handling of the election,” Marks said Friday. “It’s just going to get worse.”
ATLANTA – While the state’s coronavirus-induced budget deficit will grab the most attention when the General Assembly reconvenes next month, lawmakers also may revisit an issue that’s roiling rural Georgia.
A proposed update of the Georgia Right to Farm Act enacted during the 1980s enjoys the backing of agricultural organizations including the Georgia Farm Bureau, Georgia Agribusiness Council and Georgia Poultry Federation.
“Every serious ag group is in support of this, and it comes from the grass-roots level, from farmers across the state,” said Will Bentley, president of the agribusiness council.
Opposition to the legislation is spearheaded by environmental groups – many based in rural Georgia – who say it not only is unnecessary but would harm farm communities.
“This bill is purported to protect real Georgia farmers,” said Gordon Rogers, executive director of Albany-based Flint Riverkeeper. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
The legislation would make it more difficult for property owners living in areas zoned for agricultural use to file nuisance lawsuits against nearby farms generating offensive noise, dust, smells or sludge runoff.
In order to sue, owners would have to live within five miles of the alleged nuisance. In addition, lawsuits would have to be brought within two years after a nuisance occurs, down from four years under the current law.
The Georgia House of Representatives passed the bill last year, and it cleared the Senate Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Committee in February. But the full Senate tabled the measure when it became clear it didn’t have the votes to pass.
Committee Chairman John Wilkinson, R-Toccoa, said this month he plans to bring it back before the Senate in June when lawmakers reconvene a 2020 legislative session suspended in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“We think this is a good bill, not just for the farmers of Georgia but for the citizens of Georgia,” Wilkinson, who is running for a Northeast Georgia congressional seat, said May 3 during a Republican candidate debate televised statewide.
Bentley said the impetus behind the legislation is a series of lawsuits in Georgia and other states that have led to court rulings narrowly interpreting the current law in favor of plaintiffs. Updating the law with specific statutory restrictions on lawsuits would strengthen protections for farmers, he said.
“We’re just trying to close the loopholes in existing law so farmers can continue to operate without being subject to frivolous lawsuits,” he said. “[The bill would] ensure farmers have the protections we’ve thought we’ve had since the 1980s.”
But Rogers said the bill is a veiled attempt by Georgia agribusiness interests to open the door to more large livestock operations such as pig farms and chicken houses run by out-of-state corporations. The fight over the legislation pits Georgia’s small and mid-size family farmers against corporate agriculture and vegetable and row-crop farming against “highly concentrated protein production,” he said.
“The bill is really for farmers who are not even here,” Rogers said. “They’re not Georgians. They’re multi-national operations.”
Bentley dismissed the argument that updating the Right to Farm Act is focused solely on animal agriculture. He said the bill also would protect row-crop farmers, since they, too, make noise and raise dust in sufficient quantities to expose themselves to nuisance suits.
“They’re just as vulnerable as any type of livestock operator from being sued,” he said. “They’re at risk as well.”
The coronavirus pandemic also is playing a role in the debate over the bill.
“The coronavirus outbreak has shown us the importance of having Georgia-grown products,” Wilkinson said. “I believe this will be a big step toward doing that.”
But Rogers said the supply-chain interruptions that have accompanied the pandemic point to the significance of having a diverse mix of small farmers on the front lines of American agriculture.
“U.S. farm policy is to go more and more corporate with farms,” he said. “It gets a lot of product to market at reasonable prices, but it’s extremely vulnerable to disruption. … Diversity is more reliant to a shock than much fewer operations.”
With just 11 days left in this year’s legislative session when the General Assembly returns to the Gold Dome, the bill’s prospects are uncertain.
Bentley said the measure faces difficult timing, having lost momentum to the suspension of the session and to the legislature’s singular focus on plugging a $3 billion to $4 billion fiscal 2021 budget gap.
Rogers said lawmakers may not be willing to put in the time required to pass the bill on the Senate floor.
“It’s highly controversial,” he said. “There’s a lot to be said for not burning up two hours of floor time with indeterminate results.”
