Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan outlines his version of hate-crimes legislation at the State Capitol on June 17, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan on Wednesday unveiled a new bill aimed at punishing hate crimes in Georgia that critics fear could doom the hopes of passing similar legislation that has stalled in the state Senate for more than a year.
The bill pitched by Duncan would make it a crime to commit acts of violence or property damage based on a person’s race, sexual orientation, religion or other identifiers. Punishments would include imprisonment of up to five years.
The bill would also call for charges to be brought by a grand jury and give victims of hate crimes the ability to file lawsuits in civil court. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation would also start keeping data on hate-crime offenses in the state.
Duncan’s iteration of hate-crimes legislation drew immediate pushback from Georgia House lawmakers who have long pushed bills to criminalize acts of hate in Georgia, one of five states that currently do not have a hate-crimes law on the books.
Critics pressed Senate lawmakers to move forward with a different bill, House Bill 426, that cleared the Georgia House of Representatives last year, rather than pivot to new legislation so late in the 2020 legislative session.
The House measure, sponsored by Rep. Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula, has been pushed by lawmakers from both parties in recent weeks following the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick in February, and amid intense nationwide protesting over racial injustice and police brutality.
Duncan defended his Senate bill Wednesday, highlighting how it would set stronger penalties and broader restitution rights than Efstration’s House bill.
He pointed out his bill would make hate crimes a separate charge instead of just an enhancement to another charge, as Efstration’s bill would do, and that it would increase prison time from two years to five.
“This issue is way too important for 11 million Georgians and we must get it right. We must put policy over politics,” Duncan said Wednesday morning at a news conference.
However, critics worry the move by Duncan could kill chances for any hate-crimes legislation to pass this year. New bills typically do not move forward in the General Assembly following Crossover Day, which has already occurred.
House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, on Tuesday called for the Senate to pass a “clean” hate-crimes bill and move forward with the previously passed House bill without amendments, which would force it to go back to the House floor for a vote.
On Wednesday, members of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus accused Duncan of bad-faith politicking to push out his bill so late in the session, particularly as Efstration’s hate-crimes bill has languished in the Senate without a committee hearing for nearly 430 days.
“It’s an insult to our intelligence for this man to say he had a change of conscience,” said House Minority Leader James Beverly, D-Macon. “Do the right thing, lieutenant governor.”
Echoing calls from many other lawmakers, Beverly said the Senate should pass Efstration’s bill now and consider the broader measures contained in Duncan’s version during next year’s session.
Rep. Calvin Smyre, the General Assembly’s longest-serving member, argued the previously House-passed bill by Efstration could be the only way to pass hate-crimes legislation this year with the session more than three-fourths finished.
“We feel very strongly that [Efstration’s bill] has to be the vehicle by which this bill moves forward,” said Smyre, D-Columbus.
However, Duncan insisted his measure would have enough time to move forward in the coming days. He also said faith-based, business and elected leaders worked with him on the bill did not specify who exactly.
“I urge all key stakeholders involved in this process to avoid the trappings of petty politics, generating unnecessary synthetic friction between the House and the Senate, and comparing Republican ideas to Democratic ideas,” Duncan said.
ATLANTA – A legislature that was poised last winter to give Georgia teachers a 2% raise and follow through with the second installment of a state income tax cut is moving forward with a fiscal 2021 budget that does neither.
The Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday approved a budget for the year starting July 1 that cuts spending by $2.6 billion, acknowledging the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the state’s coffers.
“Our financial situation has dramatically shifted,” said Sen. Blake Tillery, the committee’s chairman. “There will be less. There’s no sugar coating of that.”
But Tillery, R-Vidalia, did his best during a brief presentation to committee members to shed the best light on the budget he could.
For one thing, the committee was able to scale back planned across-the-board reductions from 14% to 11% after the state Department of Revenue reported tax revenues haven’t plummeted as much as expected. Tillery cited the partial reopening of Georgia businesses for the rebound.
The committee’s budget also fully funds Georgia’s lottery-funded pre-kindergarten program, which had been threatened with losing 4,000 enrollment slots.
Agencies preparing to furlough employees for two days per month – including the human services and behavioral health departments – would only have to furlough workers once a month, or 12 days, during the coming fiscal year.
However, Georgia’s public schools, university system and technical college system still would have to make to do with 11% cuts.
Tillery said the Department of Agriculture would get enough funding to launch the state commission that will oversee the new hemp cultivation program the General Assembly approved last year. Also, farm markets in Cordele and Thomasville that were facing closure would be funded, he said.
The committee’s budget also leaves intact a healthy bond package of $990 million for capital projects, including $342 million for K-12 school construction.
Lawmakers are prepared to take part in the sacrifices. The committee’s budget would reduce senators’ annual salaries by 11% from the current $17,000, and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan’s salary of about $91,600 a year would be cut by 14%.
The full Senate is expected to take up the budget later this week.
State Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, is the sponsor of a bill to tighten rules for elderly care facilities in Georgia. (Officials Georgia House photo)
Legislation to boost regulations for elderly care facilities in Georgia was injected with additional rules for reporting coronavirus infections in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities as it advanced in the Georgia Senate Tuesday.
House Bill 987, which is a priority for top House leaders in the 2020 legislative session, aims to tighten rules on assisted-living and long-term care facilities for seniors.
Its sponsor, Rep. Sharon Cooper, filed the bill following reports of elder neglect, poor care and financial troubles in some facilities in the state.
As it cleared the House in late February, the bill would bolster training for staff members in elderly care facilities and increase the number of staff who would have to be on site at any given time to watch over residents. It would also up the fines for violations or if a facility causes a resident’s death.
“Georgia has had our problems,” said Cooper, R-Marietta. “They have been numerous, and they have occurred in many assisted-living [facilities] and nursing homes.”
On Tuesday, lawmakers in the Senate tweaked the bill to add extra requirements for elderly care facilities to publicly report when residents or staff test positive for coronavirus. Facilities would also have to keep seven days-worth of protective supplies like masks and gowns and have every resident and staff member tested within 90 days of the bill’s enactment.
Seniors living in nursing homes and other elderly care facilities in Georgia have been hit hard by the virus, accounting for nearly half of the state’s total 2,529 deaths as of Tuesday afternoon.
Gov. Brian Kemp has focused particularly on boosting testing and sanitizing measures for seniors in recent months, including deploying hundreds of Georgia National Guard members to clean elderly care facilities and test residents.
In recent months, the state has tested every resident and most staff in nursing homes, according to Kemp’s office. Assisted-living and personal care facilities have seen 77% of their residents and 57% of staff tested so far.
At a hearing Tuesday, Senate Regulated Industries Committee Chairman Bill Cowsert said the additions to Cooper’s bill related to coronavirus should ensure elderly care facilities are prepared for the next time Georgia faces a fast-spreading disease or viral pandemic.
“We want them to have a plan, have the equipment on hand,” said Cowsert, R-Athens. “We want them for this immediate problem to test.”
The bill passed unanimously out of Cowsert’s committee on Tuesday. It now heads to the Senate floor for a full chamber vote.
Besides the new provisions on coronavirus, Cooper’s bill would require at least one direct-care staff member for every 15 senior residents during waking hours, and one for every 20 residents at night.
It would also require a licensed or registered professional nurse to be on site at assisted-living facilities for a certain amount of time each week and require all staff to undergo training in elderly and disabled-adult care.
The bill also includes a slate of rules to tighten staffing standards and training for memory care centers, which provide services for people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or other cognitive conditions.
Cooper stressed Tuesday that she drafted the bill with input from Rep. John LaHood, R-Valdosta, who owns and operates several senior-living facilities. She called the bill a compromise measure between health-care professionals and elderly-care industry executives.
ATLANTA – Georgia House Speaker David Ralston outlined a short agenda of priorities Tuesday for the short remainder of the 2020 General Assembly session.
Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, reiterated the two top priorities he had listed previously: passing a state budget – the only action required of the legislature each year by law – and passage of a hate-crimes bill.
But during a media availability at the Georgia Capitol, Ralston touted three other bills the House passed last winter and sent to the state Senate before the coronavirus pandemic forced a three-month suspension of the session:
Legislation extending Medicaid coverage for new mothers in Georgia from the current three months postpartum to six.
A bill providing up to three weeks of paid parental leave for state employees and teachers.
Legislation adding training and staffing requirements for elderly-care facilities in Georgia.
“That’s essential considering what we’ve been through,” Ralston told reporters, referring to the disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths in Georgia that have occurred to nursing home patients.
The proposed fiscal 2021 budget currently is in the hands of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is expected to vote on it Wednesday.
State agencies are being ordered to reduce their spending by 11% across the board to help offset losses in tax revenue due to the business lockdown that followed the coronavirus outbreak.
Some lawmakers and budget watchers have called for raising revenues to balance the budget instead of such deep spending cuts, including increasing Georgia’s tobacco tax, now third-lowest in the country, to the national average.
But Ralston said raising taxes during an economic downturn would not be a wise policy choice. While it might discourage smoking, it also likely wouldn’t bring in much tax money, he said.
“Raising that tax would probably do more to change behavior than raise revenue,” he said.
Ralston repeated his plea for the Senate to pass a “clean” hate-crimes bill in the waning days of the session. He said attempts by the Senate to amend hate-crimes legislation the House passed last year could sink the bill given the few days remaining in the session.
It’s a good thing for the speaker that he has such a short agenda in mind.
Because of social distancing requirements, House members are meeting in three locations inside the Capitol: the House chamber, the public gallery above the chamber and a room around the corner. Since that makes electronic voting unworkable, every vote is being taken by a roll call of all 180 members, a laborious process that takes at least 10 minutes.
That will render impossible the usual flurry of rapid-fire lawmaking that goes on at the end of the session, particularly late on the 40th and final day, when votes come so quickly lawmakers sometimes can’t digest what they’re voting on.
“As the clock ticks down, you’re not going to see the pace get as frantic as it usually does,” Ralston said. “But I’m not a believer in passing a large quantity of bills. To the extent it makes our workload more manageable, that makes it a good thing.”
ATLANTA – Legislation that could clear the way for developers in Georgia to construct mid-rise office buildings made mostly of wood gained final passage in the General Assembly Tuesday.
The state Senate unanimously approved a bill asking the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) to review a provision in the International Building Code that allows buildings constructed of “mass timber” to rise as high as 18 stories and recommend whether Georgia should adopt it. The state building code limits wood office buildings to six stories.
Only four Western states – Oregon, Washington, Montana and Utah – have adopted the new provision for their states, Senate Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee Chairman John Wilkinson, R-Toccoa, told his Senate colleagues Tuesday.
Wilkinson pitched the bill as a potential boost to Georgia’s timber industry, which already leads the nation in a number of categories. Forestry generates an annual economic impact of $36.3 billion and is Georgia’s second largest industry, accounting for 148,414 direct and indirect jobs, according to the Georgia Forestry Association.
“This will help the forestry industry, which is so important to our state,” Wilkinson said.
Mass timber has yet to make significant inroads in Georgia. Some cities have passed ordinances in recent years limiting the height of buildings made of wood, but the General Assembly passed a bill in 2018 prohibiting local governments from imposing height restrictions below what the state building code allows.
Wilkinson said the legislation would expedite the DCA’s review of the International Building Code provision on mass timber. It calls for the agency to begin its review this summer and complete its work by July 1, 2021.
Georgia Rep. John Corbett, R-Lake Park, introduced the legislation into the House of Representatives, which passed it unanimously in February.
It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.
