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)
Police officers and first responders may not end up being protected classes in a contentious hate-crimes bill that has raised the blood pressure in the General Assembly in the waning days of the 2020 legislative session.
Lawmakers on the powerful Senate Rules Committee moved Monday night to remove police, firefighters and medics as protected classes in House Bill 426, reversing course roughly 72 hours after those occupations were added.
Sen. Bill Cowsert, who pushed for including first responders as persons protected from hate crimes in Georgia, gave little reason for the move Monday night other than to say Republican and Democratic leadership had “reached a compromise that I think everybody will be pleased with.”
“We think this is something that’s good for Georgia and good for the Senate to take the lead on,” said Cowsert, R-Athens.
The surprise reversal likely paves the way for swift passage of the measure in the coming days after tense negotiations and loud calls from top lawmakers to resist tinkering any further with the proposal.
It also appears poised to regain support from Democratic lawmakers who shunned the inclusion of law enforcement officials as protected under any hate-crimes legislation.
“I believe that we’ll be commending the bill to our caucus,” said Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Stone Mountain.
But the measure could still run into stiff opposition from Republicans. Several GOP lawmakers in recent days have insisted that the first-responder protections stay put.
And Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan signaled he was not totally behind the reversal, noting that he was given little advance warning about the change before Monday night’s vote.
“I don’t want for a second to convey that I would support this as-is on the floor by not opposing it here in committee,” said Dugan, R-Carrollton. “But I do have some questions and concerns about it.”
Likewise, the first-responder protections likely are not dead in the water. They were added late Monday to a separate measure, House Bill 838, which deals with peer counselors for police officers as well as creating statewide rules on disciplining officers.
Both bills are scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor Tuesday.
In recent weeks, influential lawmakers on both sides of the aisle joined with advocacy groups and local business leaders in urging passage of the hate-crimes bill, 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.
In another surprise move, Senate lawmakers also voted late Monday to add several recommendations to Efstration’s bill brought last week by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, including the addition of annual data collection on hate crimes in Georgia.
Lawmakers also voted to limit offenses covered under the hate-crimes bill only to felonies and a few misdemeanors such as assault and theft. Efstration’s bill originally would apply for every crime in Georgia law.
A measure extending Medicaid benefits up to six months for new mothers in Georgia passed out of the General Assembly late Monday.
House Bill 1114, by Rep. Sharon Cooper, authorizes the state to apply for a federal waiver that would allow Georgia to offer Medicaid coverage to income-eligible women up to six months post-partum. The current Georgia Medicaid program only permits coverage for up to two months.
The bill would also extend Medicaid coverage to lactation specialists for mothers having trouble feeding their babies.
It passed unanimously out of the Senate on Monday night and now heads back to the House for final passage.
Extending coverage for low-income mothers with newborns stemmed from a House study committee on maternal mortality last year that looked at 101 cases of pregnancy-related deaths in Georgia and found 60% could have been prevented with better health care.
Cooper, R-Marietta, who chaired the study committee, has said she considers herself “very much a champion for quality health care for our mothers and babies.”
Passing Cooper’s bill was among the top legislative priorities this year for Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.
The extended coverage was at risk of not being funded in the state budget starting July 1 amid spending cuts prompted by the coronavirus pandemic and Georgia’s recent economic slowdown.
But the state Senate ultimately elected to keep funding for six months of coverage in place, totaling roughly $379,000 in state and federal funds. The fiscal year 2021 budget is awaiting final approval in the 2020 legislative session, which is scheduled to end Friday.
Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, who carried Cooper’s bill on the Senate floor, said Monday the bill aims to help curb rates of maternal mortality and infant deaths in Georgia.
“Although our budget crisis is affecting all our programs, this bill moves us in a better direction to cover our new moms and babies during a vulnerable period in their lives,” said Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta. “This should pay dividends in the state for years to come.”
ATLANTA – A proposal asking Georgia voters whether to legalize casinos, horse racing and sports betting in the Peach State is back on the table in the General Assembly.
The House Regulated Industries Committee approved a resolution Monday calling for a statewide referendum on all three forms of legalized gambling. The same panel approved a gambling vote in March, but it failed to reach the House floor for a vote before lawmakers took a three-month break to discourage the spread of coronavirus.
While that seemed to doom the measure for this year, it’s back up for debate during the final week of the 2020 legislative session because supporters inserted it into another proposed constitutional amendment identical to legislation that already had gained final passage.
Lawmakers have been debating legalized gambling in Georgia for years, arguing among other things that voters deserve the chance to decide the issue once and for all.
“Whether you’re for or against the bill, allow the people to vote,” Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, a leading supporter of legalized gambling, told committee members Monday.
Stephens, chairman of the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee, has pitched legalized gambling throughout the years-old debate on the issue as a way to attract tourists and conventions to Georgia.
The state needs a boost to its economy particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced businesses across Georgia to close their doors, he said.
Stephens said casinos, racetracks and sports betting also would inject needed additional revenue into Georgia’s HOPE Scholarships and pre-kindergarten programs.
The percentage of student tuition HOPE covers has been declining in recent years because of pressure on the lottery-funded program’s revenues resulting from growing enrollment in Georgia’s public colleges and universities.
The proposed constitutional amendment would create a fund that would cover the difference between HOPE scholarship awards and the actual cost of tuition for Georgia students from families earning below 50% of the state’s median income, Stephens said. A separate fund supported by gambling proceeds would help prop up the state’s budget reserves, he said.
If voters approve the statewide referendum, Stephens noted, no casino, racetrack or sports betting parlor could be built in a community without the approval of local voters in a second referendum.
“It can’t come to your backyard until your backyard wants it,” he said.
As has been the case since Georgia lawmakers started talking about legalizing gambling, opposition has been spearheaded by faith-based groups.
Virginia Galloway, regional field director of the Duluth-based Faith and Freedom Coalition, said gambling brings crime and corruption to states where it’s legal.
“Any state that’s got gambling in it, you probably wouldn’t want to live,” Galloway told the committee. “I don’t want my state to become Louisiana, New Jersey [or] Illinois.”
The measure the House committee passed Monday is one of two 11th-hour efforts in the General Assembly to move forward on legalized gambling. A bill that would allow sports betting in Georgia cleared a state Senate committee last Friday.
A measure aimed at making broadband internet service more available in rural parts of Georgia gained final passage in the General Assembly Monday.
The state Senate passed House Bill 244 in a 31-22 vote after a last-minute change was struck down that would have put a five-year sunset date on the legislation, which opponents argued would gut the bill.
Broadband providers have argued that deploying broadband service into unserved rural communities is prohibitively expensive in part because the electric membership corporations (EMCs) that own utility poles have charged telecom providers $20 and more to attach broadband wire or cable to each of the poles.
Those installation rates are far higher than what Georgia Power charges for service attachments to its poles, in some cases more than three times as high, said Sen. John Kennedy, R-Macon.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, has been pitched as a way to reduce those costs by allowing the state Public Service Commission to determine rates, fees and other contract terms in agreements between broadband providers and the EMCs, which serve more than 4 million people in Georgia largely in rural areas.
Backers of the bill contend state regulators would serve as an independent go-between to set pole installation rates to help drive down costs and pave an easier path for cable companies to expand the reach of broadband in Georgia.
“All it does is send it to an arbitrator,” said Kennedy, who carried the bill in the Senate. “It doesn’t cut in favor of the EMCs or against them. It doesn’t cut in favor of the cable company or against them.”
But opponents have worried the rate change could hit customer-owned EMCs too hard and force them to increase monthly bills.
Senate Majority Whip Steve Gooch, who brought an amendment to the bill Monday, framed the EMCs as smaller nonprofit entities that should not have their finances capped.
“I just do not believe that the answer is going to be to take a dip of a wad of cash out of the pockets of a bunch of nonprofit co-ops that are governed and elected by the people you and I live with at home,” said Gooch, R-Dahlonega.
Gooch’s amendment called for letting state regulators consider whether broadband service was being taken out to unserved areas when deciding how to establish an EMC’s pole attachment rate. It also would have required EMCs and broadband providers to submit annual reports to the state on how they are promoting internet expansion in unserved areas.
“We need to know if it is going to work or not,” Gooch said Monday.
Kennedy argued the amendment would give EMCs a potential backdoor to continue charging higher rates, while putting a sunset provision in the bill would discourage telecom providers from investing in broadband deployment.
“Are you going to make that investment when you know you cost is only going to be fair for five years?” he asked. “They’re trying to shackle the hands of the people who are trying to get broadband out.”
Several lawmakers, including some from rural areas, also spoke out against Kennedy’s bill on grounds it would hurt the member-owned EMCs.
Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, argued EMCs should be allowed to make turn a profit since their services directly benefit local communities, both financially and by keeping the electricity running.
“It goes to the people that own that company who are members only because they’re being served by that company,” Heath said Monday. “It’s not going to some shareholder from New York City that’s bought an interest in this and is profiting.”
Despite disagreements, Senate lawmakers passed the bill with Democrats joining several Republicans to push the measure forward.
Gooch’s amendment failed by a narrow 24-27 vote.
The bill passed by the Senate Monday follows legislation passed last year that permitted EMCs to start deploying broadband to rural customers.
Expanding broadband into rural and other underserved parts of the state has been a top priority on both sides of the aisle at the General Assembly in recent years, though lawmakers have disagreed on how best to do it.
Telecom industry representatives have pledged to launch a major investment in rural broadband if the EMCs were to lower pole attachment prices. That includes a pledge from Comcast to spend $20 million on broadband deployment in rural Georgia over five years if the attachment fees were reduced enough to justify the cost.
Monday’s debate in the Senate was the second standoff between lawmakers over Stephens’s broadband bill.
Earlier in this year’s session, Senate lawmakers killed a separate measure brought by Kennedy because of sudden changes – also proposed by Gooch – that would have made broadband installation free in rural areas but not in suburban communities.
Stephens’ bill was quickly tapped in the House to give lawmakers another chance to pass legislation on broadband costs before the 2020 legislative session wraps up later this week.
The Georgia Senate passed legislation Monday that would allow pharmacists to fill certain prescriptions for up to 90 days in the event of a state of emergency or a hurricane warning in Georgia.
House Bill 791, sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, would allow health-care insurers to waive the “refill too soon” rules if the governor has issued an emergency declaration or the National Weather Service has sent out a hurricane warning.
Waiving those rules would allow pharmacists to dispense up to 90 days-worth of maintenance medications for patients with chronic illnesses who reside in areas where an emergency has been declared or a hurricane warning issued.
Pharmacists would still be allowed to withhold refilling a prescription if it involves a controlled substance, is an initial refill or if a doctor has specified that the medication should not be refilled.
The measure passed unanimously out of the Senate on Monday. It heads back to the House for final passage.
Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, who pushed for the bill in the Senate, said it would help cut through red tape in times of emergency.
“This legislation is to ensure that patients continue to receive essential medications,” said Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta.
Rules on prescription refills were recently loosened by Gov. Brian Kemp in response to the coronavirus pandemic. As social distancing rules kicked in earlier this year, many elderly persons and those with chronic illnesses worried about how to keep their medications available.
Kemp relaxed prescription rules in late March to allow pharmacists to dispense a 90-day medication supply if a patient had no remaining refills and their pharmacist was unable to contact the prescriber to get approval for a refill.
Kirkpatrick sponsored a similar measure, Senate Bill 391, that is currently winding through the state House. The 2020 legislative session is scheduled to conclude on Friday.
