Thousands gathered outside the State Capitol to protest police brutality and racial injustice as lawmakers met for the 2020 legislative session on June 19, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Georgia lawmakers reached across the aisle Tuesday to pass a contentious hate-crimes bill that aims to protect people in the Peach State from acts of violence or property damage perpetrated because of the victim’s race, sex or gender.
House Bill 426 was pushed through the Senate after stalling there for more than a year, following its passage out of the state House of Representatives in March of 2019. It then gained final passage in the House less than an hour later by an overwhelming vote, 127-38.
Through tears, Rep. Calvin Smyre, the General Assembly’s longest serving member, proclaimed after the vote that co-sponsoring the hate-crimes bill was his finest act as a lawmaker in Georgia.
“I’ve had a lot, a lot, a lot of moments in my career,” said Smyre, D-Columbus, whose tenure spans nearly five decades in the legislature. “But today is my finest.”
The bill designates hate crimes as an enhancement to charges that prosecutors have discretion to bring, not as standalone offenses. It specifies hate crimes as those targeting a victim based on “race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, mental disability or physical disability.”
It would restore hate-crimes protections enacted in Georgia in 2000 that were stripped out of state law in 2004 by the Georgia Supreme Court, which ruled lawmakers did not clearly define a hate crime.
Rep. Chuck Efstration, who sponsored the legislation, reflected on the historic nature of the bill, which if signed by Gov. Brian Kemp would make Georgia no longer one of four states in the U.S. that does not have a hate-crimes law on the books.
“[This bill will] send a strong message that there’s no place for hate in Georgia,” said Efstration, R-Dacula.
Its passage was also hailed by Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, who pressed hard for the bill to move swiftly out of the General Assembly in the wake of the high-profile fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick and nationwide protests against racial injustice.
“There are very few times that members of this legislative body get called upon at a defining moment in our history,” said Ralston, R-Blue Ridge. “But this is a defining moment in Georgia.”
Passage of the bill came after days of tense back-and-forth between Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the Senate over proposed changes, including whether to add police officers to the categories protected from hate crimes.
Sen. Harold Jones II, who led the Democratic side of negotiations in the Senate, framed the bill’s passage as a model for how both sides of the aisle can unite to pass important legislation amid intense disagreements at the state Capitol.
“We many times talk about bipartisan legislation,” said Jones, D-Augusta. “This is it. This is the definition of it.”
Sen. Bill Cowsert, who pushed for changes to the bill on the Republican side, called the bill a needed step toward curbing racism in the state that has lingered long after the end of slavery and segregation.
“We have a long history in Georgia of embedded discrimination,” said Cowsert, R-Athens. “We can’t deny it, we can’t run from it, but we can change it.”
The Senate passed the bill by a 47-6 vote with some Republican lawmakers voting against it.
Ahead of Tuesday’s votes, the bill by Efstration underwent some changes from its original version that boosted penalties to a maximum of two years in prison and limited offenses that could carry a hate-crimes enhancement to felonies and some misdemeanors like assault or theft.
It also was tweaked late Monday to include a proposal from Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan requiring the annual collection of statistics on hate crimes. Those reports would not be subject to public inspection except by defendants and their alleged victims.
Jones said the inclusion of data collection in the final version is “extremely important.” Keeping tight statistics would help local law enforcement agencies pinpoint where hate crimes may be taking place.
“It’s not just something that’s feel-good,” Jones said. “It’s actually something that’s going to allow us to combat hate crimes in a scientific way.”
Left out of the final bill Tuesday was a late move by Republican lawmakers to add police officers and other first responders as protected classes alongside inherent qualities like race and gender.
Those protections were added to the bill last Friday, sparking outrage from Democratic lawmakers and social justice advocates who viewed the move as a slap in the face for black communities and other groups that have historically faced hateful and discriminatory crimes, including from police officers themselves.
Instead, the first-responder protections were tacked onto a separate bill dealing with police peer counselors, House Bill 838. It also passed out of the General Assembly on Tuesday by a largely party-line vote.
The maneuvering marked a compromise between Republicans and Democrats that tempered passions on both sides enough to ease the hate-crimes bill’s passage, though some groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have opposed the first-responder protections.
Ralston, the House speaker, said those protections were pushed by Senate lawmakers and that he “didn’t have a problem” with them being in a separate bill.
Amid lingering concerns, the passage of Estration’s hate-crimes bill marked a breakthrough in pushing forward a high-profile measure that rose to the top of the agenda for many state lawmakers in what remains of the 2020 legislative session.
The bill gained fresh calls for passage following the fatal shooting of Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was shot dead in February during a chase by two white men. One of those men, Travis McMichael, allegedly called Arbery a racial slur after shooting him with a shotgun, according to recent court testimony.
Renewed energy for passing hate-crimes legislation also came amid intense protests across the country over the deaths of Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks that spurred many top state lawmakers, including Ralston, to press for passage.
In the Senate, lawmakers from both parties roundly praised the hate-crimes bill.
Sen. Ed Harbison, D-Columbus, described the bill as “a healing factor” in Georgia that showed how “the spirit of mankind is great.”
“I believe this represents great hope, great belief that we can help each other change and be better for it,” Harbison said Tuesday.
Not everyone in the Senate was on board with the measure. Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, worried lawmakers might be over-complicating the issue in a way that could “catch up a lot of people.”
“They’re going to get their name inscribed in a database with a lot of people they don’t want to be associated with,” Heath said.
But by and large, Senate lawmakers agreed the time is nigh for Georgia to go without a hate-crimes law.
Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, who is in the final days of her last term as a state senator, recounted receiving death threats and finding a cross in her yard after converting to Judaism. She cast the bill as a legacy vote for her and her Senate colleagues.
“We are better than this and we can do better than this,” Unterman said.
ATLANTA – Legislation that would let victims of human trafficking petition the courts to vacate convictions for crimes committed while they were being trafficked gained final passage in the Georgia House of Representatives Tuesday.
The House unanimously passed The Debbie Vance Act, named for a survivor of human trafficking. Like others who have emerged on the other side of human trafficking, she faced obstacles to moving on with her life, said Georgia Rep. Bonnie Rich, R-Suwanee, who presented the bill on the House floor.
“Victims of human trafficking often come out with criminal arrests and convictions … that can prevent these victims from getting a job, housing and education,” Rich said.
The legislation, which originated in the Senate, is part of a package of human trafficking bills Gov. Brian Kemp has made a priority of his administration for this year’s General Assembly session.
A bill the Senate passed last week would punish convicted human traffickers who transport victims via commercial vehicles by banning them from obtaining a commercial driver’s license.
A third measure would criminalize improper sexual contact by a foster parent.
The Georgia Senate passed legislation Tuesday aimed at shielding businesses and health-care providers from lawsuits filed by people who have contracted coronavirus since March.
House Bill 167 would block lawsuits from being filed unless businesses or hospitals willfully disregarded social distancing and sanitizing rules put in place by Gov. Brian Kemp.
It would apply to lawsuits brought by people who contracted coronavirus on a broad range of properties including hospitals, government offices, businesses and sports facilities.
The bill would also apply to persons who were sickened by the current strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, as well as any mutations of that strain.
The liability protections are designed to give businesses and hospitals relief from worries that they will be hammered by litigation as coronavirus infections continue and Georgia businesses reopen amid relaxed social distancing rules, said Sen. John Kennedy, R-Macon.
“We can provide them some stability and, very importantly, provide them predictability,” said Kennedy, who brought the changes that added liability protections to the bill.
The bill passed by a nearly party-line vote in the Senate and now heads to the state House of Representatives.
Like other bills being taken up in the final days of the 2020 legislative session, House Bill 167 originally did not deal with coronavirus liability protections. It was changed late last week in the Senate Committee on Insurance and Labor.
Discussions on how much to protect businesses and hospitals will likely continue as legislation winds through the General Assembly this week.
On Tuesday, Senate lawmakers spent more than an hour debating how broadly to guard businesses and health-care providers from lawsuits, particularly whether they should be liable for “gross negligence.”
That legal threshold was proposed in an amendment that failed on the Senate floor. However, the gross-negligence standard is still in a separate liability-protection measure, House Bill 216, that passed out of a Senate committee last week.
Kennedy argued gross negligence would set the bar too low and could prompt a wave of litigation.
“That’s not the message we need to be sending to businesses,” Kennedy said. “That’s not the message we need to be sending to constituents.”
Some lawmakers argued taking out the gross-negligence standard would leave businesses and hospitals liable only for intentionally infecting people with coronavirus.
“That’s tantamount to injecting someone with COVID,” said Sen. Jesse Stone, R-Waynesboro.
Others worried the liability protections might cover too many facilities such as nursing homes that may have fallen short in curbing the spread of the virus among vulnerable elderly Georgians.
“They basically get immunity for not caring for the most vulnerable people in our state,” said Sen. Jen Jordan, D-Atlanta.
And still others argued the protections outlined in the bill were just right. They included Sen. Ben Watson, a physician, who said Tuesday he had treated many patients for coronavirus in the past few months.
“The hospitals and health-care providers have been doing the best we can,” said Watson, R-Savannah. “This bill is a good bill. It is intentioned correctly.”
ATLANTA – The fee landfills charge for storing coal ash in Georgia would increase under legislation that cleared the state House of Representatives Tuesday.
The House voted 142-15 to increase the coal ash fee from $1 per ton to $2.50 per ton, matching the fees charged for other items. The increase is intended to discourage an influx of coal ash being transported to Georgia from power plants in surrounding states like North Carolina and Florida.
“We certainly don’t want out-of-state coal ash to come to our state,” Rep. Steven Meeks, R-Screven, told his House colleagues before Tuesday’s vote.
Under the bill, 20% of the revenue generated by the coal ash fees would go to local governments for recycling, litter control and improvements to areas adjacent to landfills such as repairs to local roads affected by the hauling of solid waste to landfills and beautification initiatives.
“It generates a lot of money and does a lot of good things,” said Rep. Terry Rogers, R-Clarkesville.
The House incorporated two related bills into the coal ash fees measure, including the imposition of a $1 fee on each tire sold in Georgia. The funds generated by the fee would go into the state’s Solid Waste Trust Fund.
The bill also would require the director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to produce an annual report outlining how the money in the trust fund is being spent.
Because of the House changes, Senate Bill 123 must now return to the Senate before gaining final passage.
Sen. Randy Robertson (R-Cataula) speaks from the Senate floor about protections for first responders from bias-motivated crimes on June 23, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The General Assembly passed legislation Tuesday aimed at protecting police and other first responders from bias-motivated crimes, marking a compromise between state lawmakers over who should be included in legislation outlawing hate crimes.
The measure, House Bill 838, was overhauled late Monday night to propose punishments for those who commit bias-motivated intimidation against first responders including police officers, firefighters and medics.
That intimidation would have to be motivated because of the victim’s “actual or perceived employment as a first responder,” and would have to involve serious physical injury or property damage.
The bill passed out of both the state Senate and House on Tuesday. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Adding first-responder protections to the hate-crimes measure, House Bill 426, sparked outrage among Democratic lawmakers and social justice advocates. They viewed the move as a slap in the face for black communities and other groups that have historically faced hateful and discriminatory crimes, including from police officers themselves.
Instead, the first-responder protections were inserted into the separate measure, House Bill 838, which originally dealt with peer counselors for police officers.
With the change, the bill now proposes penalties for persons who target first responders based on their occupation that could carry up to five years of prison time.
It would also create statewide rules on investigating complaints made against police officers and allow officers to sue those who file false complaints.
The changes were brought by Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, a retired major with the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office. He said the proposals outlined in the bill were “near and dear to my heart” as a law enforcement official.
Despite tense negotiations ahead of Tuesday’s vote, lawmakers held almost no discussion on the bill from the Senate floor.
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan praised the bill’s passage shortly after Tuesday’s vote, calling it necessary to help distinguish between officers who have violated the public’s trust on the job from those who have carried out their duties properly.
“The vast majority of officers in this state serve us honorably and selflessly,” Duncan said in a statement. “At a time when officers feel under siege, when police fear politically motivated prosecution, when extreme voices are calling to ‘defund the police,’ our state must stand up for those who put their lives on the line for us.”
House Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington, also hailed the measure as an important show up support for first responders.
“These people who put their lives on the line every day deserve protection,” Burn said.
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Georgia branch opposed the bill, framing it as “dangerous language” that would “affirm the state government’s power for first responders to use violence against its own citizens with impunity.”
The advocacy group also pointed out Georgia law already has punishments on the books for people who attack police officers and other law enforcement officials.
“This legislative action in this moment pours salt in the wounds of the Georgians of all races and backgrounds who are participating daily in protests calling for the reform of policing and expressing their support for black lives,” said Andrea Young, the Georgia ACLU’s executive director.
The compromise measure on police protections comes after influential lawmakers on both sides of the aisle joined with advocacy groups and local business leaders in recent weeks to urge passage of the hate-crimes bill, House Bill 426, sponsored by Rep. Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula.
Efstration’s bill would designate hate crimes as an enhancement to charges that prosecutors would have the discretion to bring. It specifies hate crimes as those targeting a victim based on “race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, mental disability or physical disability.”
The measure sat idle in the Senate for more than a year after passing the House in March of 2019 but picked up steam this month amid nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, is a prominent backer of the bill who has called for the Senate to pass it without changes.
Efstration’s bill also gained fresh calls for passage following the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was shot dead in February during a chase by two white men near Brunswick.
