Top Republican state lawmakers announced Tuesday they plan to hold hearings later this week on the integrity of Georgia’s election system and to take testimony on alleged “elections improprieties” stemming from the 2020 general election.
Back-to-back hearings have been scheduled for Thursday by the Senate Government Oversight Committee to “evaluate the election process” and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to field election-impropriety claims.
The two meetings come as officials in Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office continue to dismiss claims of widespread voter fraud by allies of President Donald Trump, who certified results show lost the Nov. 3 presidential election to President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia by 12,670 votes.
In particular, Trump’s allies have homed in on how Georgia verifies signatures on the roughly 1.3 million mail-in ballots cast in the presidential election and have urged Raffensperger’s office to launch an audit aimed at matching those signatures with registration information.
Raffensperger’s office has signaled it is unlikely to do so without a court order, though the secretary of state has called for the General Assembly to pass legislation that would toughen up Georgia’s voter ID laws. A handful of federal lawsuits challenging the election’s certification are still winding through the courts.
Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, have also called for passing tighter voter ID rules during the legislative session that starts next month.
State election officials have highlighted claims of individual voting fraud or irregularities as part of more than 250 ongoing investigations as well as management stumbles from a few local election boards like Fulton County. Raffensperger’s office has also launched investigations into groups allegedly attempting to register out-of-state voters ahead of the U.S. Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5.
None of those issues are likely to overturn the ultimate outcome of the presidential election, state officials have said. Raffensperger’s office expects a second recount of the more-than 5 million ballots cast in the presidential election to wrap up by midnight Wednesday.
The state Senate meetings were announced jointly by the chamber’s majority caucus leaders including President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville; Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton; Majority Whip Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega; Majority Caucus Chairman John Kennedy, R-Macon; Majority Caucus Vice Chairman Larry Walker III, R-Perry; and Majority Caucus Secretary Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge.
Expect state lawmakers to focus again on health-care and telehealth bills amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Georgia when the General Assembly meets next month to kick off the 2021 legislative session, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told health-care and technology administrators Tuesday.
Duncan, who led a task force on health-care access and costs in 2019, gave few details on any upcoming legislation other than possible measures to curb unnecessary emergency-room visits and “ways to create opportunities for better delivery” of Affordable Care Act-related services.
Panelists at a health care-focused summit in Rome Tuesday – including two top Georgia Senate members who also work in health care – signaled they would like to see Georgia expand its use of telehealth services that have been critical to providing primary care during the pandemic.
“I don’t think we’re just creating patterns and health habits around [COVID-19],” Duncan said. “I think long-term, we’re going to watch digital health play out [and] telehealth play out in a more formidable format.”
Georgia opened up more telehealth options in 2019 with passage of a bill sponsored by state Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, which set legal definitions for telehealth services and required insurers to cover care provided via real-time, remote means.
Health-care providers have leaned more on video chats and other telehealth options to continue treating patients in the nearly nine months since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Georgia, forcing new distancing habits and the need for greater care to limit viral exposure in hospital settings.
Telehealth has been a boon for hospitals and health-care providers who have needed tighter coordination between themselves and their patients at a time when close contact is challenging, said Sherrie Williams, chief operating officer for Waycross-based nonprofit Global Partnership for Telehealth.
“If anything good came out of the pandemic … it’s the collaborative piece,” Williams said Tuesday. “And telehealth has really made it an easy thing to do.”
Many providers are now eyeing telehealth and telemedicine services as essential for hospitals and health-care organizations to continue treating patients, said Dr. Kenneth Jones, chief medical officer at Floyd Medical Center.
“That’s probably a lot of the future of medicine is the ability to access your physician and get care provided in a quick, prompt way,” Jones said Tuesday. “I think it’s going to change how we provide health care of the next five to ten years.”
Health-care and insurance-related legislation was a top priority for state Senate leaders during this year’s session, which saw passage and signing of several bills to curb unexpectedly high “surprise” hospital costs, tamp down runaway prescription-drug prices and boost insurer transparency.
State Sens. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, who is an anesthetist, and hospital administrator Dr. Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge, both of whom brought bills on those subjects as well as co-sponsored Unterman’s 2019 bill on telehealth, said the pandemic has highlighted ongoing health-care issues like insufficient broadband internet in rural parts of the state that the legislature still needs to tackle.
“We have a lot of tools available that we haven’t had before, but they’re unfortunately not all available,” Burke said. “I think the pandemic has given us a lot of transparency on what we have been able to do well and also what some of our deficiencies are.”
The 2021 legislative session kicks off Jan. 11 at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday he plans to appoint Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shawn Ellen LaGrua to the Georgia Supreme Court.
LaGrua will succeed former Justice Keith R. Blackwell, who left the bench last month to join his former law firm.
Before serving as a Superior Court judge in Fulton County, LaGrua was the inspector general for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. She also served as DeKalb County’s solicitor general and worked as a prosecutor in the Atlanta, Stone Mountain, and Tallapoosa judicial circuits.
“Judge LaGrua has spent a 30-year career serving her fellow Georgians,” Kemp said. “I am confident that she will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the bench.”
“We are delighted that Governor Kemp has chosen Shawn LaGrua to join our court,” Georgia Chief Justice Harold Melton added. “She is an excellent choice among a number of excellent choices the governor had available to him.”
Blackwell stepped down from the state Supreme Court after eight years to become senior counsel for Atlanta-based Alston & Bird LLP’s Litigation and Trial Practice Group.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Board of Natural Resources voted Tuesday to acquire 4,420 acres of undeveloped coastal habitat in southeastern Georgia from The Conservation Fund and the Open Space Institute.
The land is part of the 16,083 acre Ceylon tract, which the two preservation groups bought a year ago with the intent of transferring ownership to the state.
The largest undeveloped tract of coastal Georgia is located along the Satilla River in Camden County. The diverse landscape of salt marshes, tidal creeks and longleaf pine forests is home to threatened and endangered species including the gopher tortoise and indigo snake.
The Ceylon tract is close enough to the Interstate 95 corridor that it likely would be developed without the state and the conservation groups stepping in.
“This property is zoned to be able to take over 20,000 single-family homes, high density,” said Andrew Schock, Georgia state director for the Conservation Fund. “Three million square feet of commercial space and up to two deep-water marinas all were possible on this site.”
The purchases approved Tuesday involve two parcels, a 2,903-acre site owned by The Conservation Fund and 1,517 acres owned by the Open Space Institute.
While the state is paying $6.45 million for the two sites, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is getting contributions from several sources, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Chicago-based Bobolink Foundation and the new Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Fund.
The state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment two years ago to raise money for land conservation, restoration and parks projects through a tax on purchases of sporting goods. The Ceylon tract qualified for the program’s first round of funding awarded earlier this year.
The two sites approved for acquisition Tuesday are for the first phase of the project, Steve Friedman, the DNR’s chief of real estate, told board members. He said he would come to the board with the second phase of the proposed purchases late next year.
The Ceylon tract borders Cabin Bluff, another undeveloped site the state is in the process of acquiring. The DNR board voted in October to purchase nearly 8,000 acres there from the same two conservation groups.
“Cabin Bluff and … Ceylon are significant natural areas in Georgia,” said Kim Elliman, president and CEO of the Open Space Institute. “An incredible array of native species will continue to call the property and its waters home.”
Both the Ceylon and Cabin Bluff sites are slated to become Georgia DNR wildlife management areas.
