The Capitol building in Atlanta looms on “crossover” eve on March 12, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Democratic state lawmakers in Georgia unveiled a broad package of criminal justice reform measures Thursday aimed at ending the state’s stand-your-ground law, punishing police officers for racial profiling and creating a group able to discipline district attorneys for abuses of power.
The package, called “Justice for All,” comes as an ambitious set of 12 different bills responding to recent instances of police violence and racial injustice, including the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky.
Member of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus met Thursday to outline the package ahead of the resumption next week of the 2020 legislative session, which was suspended in March as concerns mounted over the coronavirus pandemic.
“These measures go to the core of combating the disparities that exist in the administration of criminal justice in Georgia,” said House Minority Leader Bob Trammell, D-Luthersville.
“We can no longer be content with a system that only provides for justice for some,” he added. “We must work and strive to make sure that we have justice for all.”
The bills, which would be introduced once the General Assembly reconvenes on June 15, are poised to include:
Repealing Georgia’s stand-your-ground law and citizen’s arrest protections.
Prohibiting officers from racial profiling and requiring annual statistics on traffic stops, searches and data collections to be published by Georgia’s attorney general.
Implementing “anti-choke hold” rules that bar officers from applying pressure to a suspect’s throat or windpipe during an arrest.
Banning no-knock search warrants.
Ending qualified immunity for officers and the ability of officers to attend grand jury proceedings for crimes they are accused of committing.
Requiring body-worn cameras to be used by all law enforcement agencies in Georgia.
Creating an oversight committee able to recommend punishments – including removals or forced retirements – for district attorneys who engage in improper conduct.
Allowing appointed district attorneys to ask for a recusal if they have a conflict of interest.
The reform package also calls for passing a hate-crimes bill, House Bill 426, that stalled in the Georgia Senate last year but which has gained renewed support from Democratic and Republican lawmakers in recent weeks. Top Republicans including Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and others have backed the bill by Republican Rep. Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula.
Additionally, the package calls for passing a measure, House Bill 636, introduced last year in the General Assembly to create a public database of all officer use-of-force reports.
Democratic lawmakers in the Georgia Senate also put forth their own slate of bills Thursday, called the “Georgia Justice Act,” that mirrors much of what House Democrats are seeking. Many of those have already been filed in the session, while others would be introduced next week.
According to a news release, the Senate package also includes measures to:
Limit police chases and restrict the use of rubber bullets;
Boost officer training for arrests involving persons with post-traumatic stress disorder;
Create a special prosecutor and statewide licensure for police officers;
Revise state cannabis laws;
Restore voting rights for felons; and
“De-militarizing police forces.”
The bills face a tough road in the Republican-controlled General Assembly, particularly with little time left in the 2020 session and much attention being put to drafting a budget for the upcoming fiscal year that will require deep spending cuts due to coronavirus.
On Thursday, Trammell said the short timeframe should not discourage lawmakers from taking up bills in the coming weeks and that they should make the most of the extra time for bill-wrangling brought by the delayed session.
“We have the power of the General Assembly to make this happen,” he said. “And we cannot hide behind procedural rules as an excuse to delay justice for all.”
Senate Democratic leaders echoed that, noting many of their bills have been on the table for more than a year already without being schedule for a committee hearing.
“Too many of our citizens have died or been injured, while politics are at play,” said Sen. Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain, who chairs the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus. “That time is over.”
ATLANTA – More than three dozen businesses and nonprofit organizations are calling on Gov. Brian Kemp and the General Assembly to raise more revenue to overcome a looming fiscal 2021 budget shortfall rather than impose deep spending cuts.
In a letter released Thursday, the companies and groups warned that slashing spending on state programs and services would have devastating consequences for large segments of Georgia’s population.
“Georgia cannot cut its way to prosperity: that much has been made clear in the aftermath of the Great Recession and in the midst of the global pandemic,” the letter stated. “Deep cuts will disproportionately harm communities of color and rural communities and curb the state’s ability to recover.”
With Georgia tax revenues reeling from the impact of a business shutdown brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, Kemp ordered state agencies last month to reduce spending by 14% across the board. He subsequently scaled that back to 11% when new revenue numbers came in that didn’t look as dire as previous forecasts.
The Atlanta-based Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, one of the groups signing on to Wednesday’s letter, has been urging lawmakers to increase Georgia’s tobacco tax, the third-lowest in the nation, to the national average and get rid of the “double-deduction” loophole that lets upper-income taxpayers who itemize pay less in state income taxes.
The group also wants a closer examination of the lucrative tax incentives the state offers to lure businesses to move to Georgia, notably the popular film tax credit, to determine if some tax breaks should be eliminated or scaled back to achieve budget savings.
“Our leaders must recapture lost revenue given out through billions of dollars in special interest tax breaks and raise new revenues in order to reduce revenue shortfalls and ensure funding flows to health, education, programs for families experiencing poverty and more,” said Jennifer Owens, the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute’s senior vice president.
Other signatories to the letter include the Georgia NAACP, Georgians for a Healthy Future, Bell Primary Care LLC, Latino Community Fund Inc., and the League of Women Voters of Georgia.
The General Assembly will resume the 2020 legislative session on Monday, three months after suspending the session because of COVID-19.
ATLANTA – Initial unemployment claims in Georgia declined again last week, as more and more businesses brought back employees laid off to limit the spread of coronavirus.
The state Department of Labor processed 135,254 claims last week, down about 14,000 from the week before, the agency reported Thursday. That marked the fifth weekly decline in claims in the last six weeks.
The labor department paid out $156.4 million in regular unemployment benefits last week, $4.1 million less than the previous week.
In the 12 weeks since Georgia’s economy shut down because of the global pandemic, the state has paid out more than $1.4 billion in regular benefits to unemployed Georgians.
To cope with the growing number of jobless workers, the labor department this week launched the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which provides extended financial support to claimants who have exhausted their regular state unemployment benefits.
“Many people who applied for [regular unemployment compensation] in the first weeks of our COVID-19 economic shutdown are rapidly approaching the end of their initial cycle of [state] benefits,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said Thursday. “This program will give claimants who have exhausted their benefits the ability to continue to receive financial support for up to an additional 13 weeks.”
During the last 12 weeks, the job sectors accounting for the most initial unemployment claims was accommodation and food services with 625,213 claims. The health care and social assistance sector was next with 288,476 claims, followed closely by retail trade with 283,126 claims.
ATLANTA – Investigative journalist Jon Ossoff has won Georgia’s U.S. Senate Democratic primary, piling up enough votes to avoid an August runoff.
Ossoff declared victory in Tuesday’s primary on Wednesday night after enough ballots had been counted to show him with a winning margin of 51% of the vote.
Former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, who earlier had appeared poised to force Ossoff into a runoff, finished second with 15% of the vote, followed by Marietta businesswoman Sarah Riggs Amico, with 12%. Four other candidates were in the single digits.
Ossoff is now free to focus on his bid to unseat first-term Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in November.
“Our momentum is unstoppable,” Ossoff said. “We will build a country with great health care for every citizen, with equal justice and civil rights for all, with world-class sustainable infrastructure, and a clean political system.”
Ossoff’s win came after a primary election marred by disarray. Some voters practicing social distancing to avoid coronavirus waited in line for hours at the polls to cast their ballots, while others who had requested mail-in absentee ballots didn’t get to vote at all because they never received the ballots or got them too late.
Ossoff and other Democrats blasted Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s handling of the election, while Raffensperger criticized local elections officials – particularly in Democratic-controlled Fulton County – for failing to “properly train” poll workers.
“Yesterday’s election debacle lays bare the need to ensure a free and fair election for every Georgia voter, and our campaign will not stop working to achieve that goal,” Ossoff said Wednesday night. “The people of Georgia deserve to have their voices heard, and that promise of our democracy must live up to its ideals.”
Ossoff lost a bid for a U.S. House seat in a special election three years ago and took some heat for that defeat during the primary campaign. But he outraised his Democratic opponents by a wide margin and held a big lead in the polls.
State officials overseeing mental health, child welfare and elderly services in Georgia at risk of deep budget reductions prompted by the coronavirus pandemic pressed lawmakers Wednesday to ease up on some spending cuts amid less dire tax revenue collections.
The requests from some agencies Wednesday marked what will likely be a push from officials across state government for slightly pulled-back cuts as the General Assembly reconvenes next week to pass the 2021 fiscal year budget.
State agencies were asked last month to hand in proposals for cutting their budgets by 14% totaling about $3.5 billion due to the coronavirus-prompted economic slowdown. Gov. Brian Kemp signaled last week agencies may only need to cut their budgets by 11% starting July 1 as state tax revenues are not declining as much as expected.
On Wednesday, the state public health commissioner, Dr. Kathleen Toomey, urged lawmakers on one of several committees looking at the budget to let her agency avoid forcing employees to take 12-day furloughs, adding about $1.5 million back to the budget for the Department of Public Health.
She also asked lawmakers to accept fewer cuts to critical grants that fund county boards of health as state and local health officials continue fighting coronavirus. The agency’s initial 14% reduction proposal called for trimming about $17.7 million from the grants.
“We really would like to lessen the impact on our county health departments that are working hard right now to support our work on [coronavirus] as well as other issues,” Toomey told lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Human Development and Public Health Subcommittee.
Deep budget cuts totaling $172 million were drafted last month for a host of state mental health services for thousands of Georgia’s most vulnerable residents, which aim to help stave off crisis situations for mental health patients and treat substance-abuse issues.
The state’s mental health chief asked state lawmakers Wednesday to restore much of the funding to meet Kemp’s pared back 11% budget reductions rather than the 14% cuts originally requested. That would help save around $29 million and reduce the initially proposed 24 furlough days for staff to 12 days instead.
“I know you have difficult decisions ahead,” said Judy Fitzgerald, commissioner of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Development Disabilities. “The 3% really is going to make a big difference.”
Other agencies serving children and elderly populations are looking to avoid furloughs by trimming their budgets via some layoffs and leaving vacant positions unfilled.
Jobs for 33 staffers at the state Department of Human Services would be on the chopping block to avoid furloughs for other employees needed for hands-on senior and child-welfare services, said Commissioner Robyn Crittenden.
“Furloughs would make an already difficult job even more difficult,” Crittenden said.
Furloughs of between 12 and 18 days slated for child welfare workers at the state Division of Family and Children Services would not need to be as severe with the 11% budget cuts, Director Tom Rawlings said.
Rawlings also noted Wednesday his staff members have pivoted to working more remotely, which has caused his agency to see “more productivity in the last two months than I think we could have imagined back in February.”
He said discussions are already underway encouraging private and nonprofit groups to help bridge the funding gap for child welfare services in Georgia, which would be much more manageable with 11% cuts than 14% reductions.
“We have made these recommendations for restoration with the idea … that we can work with our providers to encourage the philanthropic community to step up to the plate,” Rawlings said.
