Georgia Senate members take the oath of office on the first day of the 2021 legislative session on Jan. 11, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Republican state senators have rolled out a legislative package aimed at overhauling Georgia’s election laws by limiting who can vote by mail, outlining how to prove identification and outlawing absentee-ballot drop boxes.
The eight bills, filed late Monday by top Senate Republican leaders, mark the most sweeping attempt to change local voting laws after the 2020 election cycle stirred mistrust among many conservative Georgians over the state’s election integrity.
The bills especially target absentee voting in Georgia after all three major elections in the 2020 cycle saw more than 1 million mail-in ballots cast amid the COVID-19 pandemic, helping Democrats carry Georgia in the 2020 presidential election and flip both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats.
Democratic lawmakers quickly cried foul, slamming the move by Republicans as attempts at voter suppression seeking to halt Democrats’ momentum in statewide elections that are likely to be close for the next several years.
Republican lawmakers including Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have called many of the proposed changes necessary to restore voter confidence in the state’s election system and rein in mail-in voting after local elections officials complained they were overwhelmed during the 2020 cycle.
No-excuse absentee voting was installed by Republican lawmakers under then-Gov. Sonny Perdue and touted by Raffensperger as proof against claims of voter suppression, particularly after Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams’ loss to Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial election.
However, Raffensperger called for ending the practice after record-breaking absentee ballots hindered election officials’ ability to quickly process results in the 2020 elections. Former President Donald Trump, who lost the Nov. 3 election by 11,779 votes, lobbed claims of voter fraud in Georgia based on absentee voting.
Other top Republicans including Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, have opposed ending no-excuse absentee voting, preferring instead to boost ID rules for mail-in ballots.
One of the bills filed Monday would require registered voters to provide their date of birth, driver’s license number or other ID card number to request an absentee ballot. The bill would also require voters to submit photocopies of their ID similar to a separate bill proposed by state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, last week.
The proposals address many claims Trump and his allies made following the 2020 elections of widespread voter fraud that state officials and federal courts rejected as baseless. Some state lawmakers who held hearings on the fraud claims are co-sponsors of the bills.
The bills also echo pledges to change state election laws made shortly after the Nov. 3 election by Georgia Senate Republican Caucus members, many of whom are co-sponsors.
Lawmakers in the Georgia Senate Ethics Committee will likely review the bills in the coming days.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s film industry has recovered from the coronavirus pandemic and then some.
Film and TV producers currently are working on 37 projects in the Peach State, up from 23 at this time last year, Lee Thomas, the state Department of Economic Development’s deputy commissioner for film, music and digital entertainment, told members of a Georgia House committee Monday.
“In spite of all that’s happened, we’re up considerably now from where we were last year,” she said.
COVID-19 shut down production in Georgia for two months last spring. As a result, the film industry’s economic impact in the state declined during the last fiscal year for the first time since the General Assembly enacted a generous film tax credit in 2008, from $2.9 billion fiscal 2019 to $2.2 billion in fiscal 2020.
Thomas said the industry began to bounce back in May when Gov. Brian Kemp released a set of voluntary best practices to protect film crews from the virus.
In July, the filming of commercials resumed, followed by independent films in August and major studio productions in September, Thomas said.
“We signaled the industry early on that we were going to be ready for business when they were,” she said.
Thomas said the sheer number of sound stages that have been built in Georgia during the last decade also contributed to the fast resumption of film and TV productions.
“They were looking for areas where they could have a controllable environment,” she said.
The legislature passed a bill last year aimed at giving the film industry more scrutiny in light of the tax credit’s high cost. The legislation requires all film productions located in Georgia to undergo mandatory audits by the Georgia Department of Revenue or third-party auditors selected by the state agency.
But Thomas assured members of the House Creative Arts & Entertainment Committee Monday that the tax credit more than pays for itself.
She cited a report from fiscal 2016 showing the film industry generated $2.2 billion in direct spending in Georgia that year, while the tax credit cost the state $667 million.
Coronavirus has sickened hundreds of thousands people and killed thousands more in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Nineteen cases of a highly contagious COVID-19 variant originating from Europe have been identified in metro Atlanta, state public-health officials confirmed on Monday.
Early studies suggest the COVID-19 variant is “significantly more contagious” than the original coronavirus strain that sparked a global pandemic last March, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH). Georgia is among 30 states reporting cases of the variant so far.
The 19 variant cases in Georgia have been reported in several metro-Atlanta counties including Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cobb, Clayton, Cherokee, Carroll, Douglas and Paulding. It has infected Georgians from ages 15 to 61, DPH said in a news release.
“We must ensure we are taking every precaution right now to prevent transmission of COVID and to avoid a surge in hospitalizations and loss of life,” said state Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey.
Toomey added the COVID-19 variant now spreading in Georgia will likely become the “dominant strain” of coronavirus in the U.S. by March after originating in the United Kingdom.
DPH officials are warning Georgians to follow COVID-19 safety measures even more strictly since laboratories have only tested a small number of samples for the variant so far, giving public-health experts a limited view of where the variant might be spreading.
Public-health officials are urging Georgians to wear masks, wash hands and social distance to help curb the highly contagious virus’ spread at a time when COVID-19 positive case rates and deaths have started trending down after grueling winter outbreaks.
The variant’s discovery in Georgia also comes as state officials, hospitals and pharmacies rush to distribute tight supplies of COVID-19 vaccines to health-care workers, nursing-home residents and staff, first responders and people ages 65 and older.
Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna have stressed that their COVID-19 vaccines “appear to work” against the variant, according to DPH.
Nearly 750,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Georgia as of Sunday afternoon, with nearly 160,000 more reported positive antigen tests indicating likely positive results. The virus has killed 12,570 Georgians.
Georgia Senate members take the oath of office on the first day of the 2021 legislative session on Jan. 11, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The Georgia Senate passed its first bill of the 2021 legislative session Monday, unanimously backing legislation calling for auditing up to five tax credit programs each year.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, aims to curb wasteful loopholes in the state’s tax structure. It would appoint outside auditors to scrutinize the chosen tax programs on request from certain General Assembly committee heads.
“We can continue to solve so many challenges to a balanced and proactive approach to having sound fiscal policy and keeping people working,” Albers said. “This is good policy and it’s the right thing to do.”
The bill now heads to the Georgia House of Representatives.
State senators passed Albers’ bill last February before it was sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislature shut down for three months in mid-March as several lawmakers took ill with the virus.
An earlier version of the bill was passed in 2019 but died on Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk. Kemp vetoed it for not giving the budget office the ability to contract with independent auditors to complete the audits.
Albers’ current bill stems from a Senate study committee report in 2017 that found shortcomings in how the state monitors whether a given tax incentive is spurring business and job creation as it was intended to do.
State lawmakers may take another stab at scrutinizing tax incentives during this year’s session. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said last week lawmakers plan to propose a two-year study focusing on potential areas to trim the fat from Georgia’s entire $9.5 billion tax-incentive structure.
The deeper dive on tax incentives comes as lawmakers look to plug holes in the state’s $26 billion budget following substantial spending cuts last year due to the pandemic. Budgets for state agencies are poised to stay flat this year with no new cuts or spending increases.
Some budget analysts have called for raising the state’s tax on tobacco from 37 cents a pack up to the national average of $1.81, potentially bringing in $700 million in revenue per year. Lawmakers largely avoided talks of raising the cigarette tax during last year’s pandemic-struck session.
