State Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, urges support for his bill on absentee voter ID requirements from the Georgia Senate floor on Feb. 23, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Stricter identification rules for voting by mail in Georgia inched closer to law with the state Senate’s passage of a controversial bill on Tuesday.
Sponsored by state Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, the bill would require absentee voters to provide the number of their driver’s license or official state ID card, or photocopies of a passport, employee ID card, utility bill or bank statement.
It was among three bills that passed the Senate on Tuesday, marking the first election-focused measures to clear a General Assembly chamber in the 2021 legislative session.
The absentee-voting bill passed by a nearly party-line vote, as did two other measures sponsored by state Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, that would shorten the time limit for local registrars to enter voting data into the state’s voter-history system and boost reporting requirements for the state’s election-results website, including the number of absentee and provisional ballots issued, cast and rejected.
A fourth bill by state Sen. Jen Jordan, D-Atlanta, that gained unanimous approval in the Senate Tuesday would let counties begin processing absentee ballots about a week before Election Day, helping ease pressure on local elections officials to count mail-in ballots.
The four bills that passed Tuesday are among a legislative package backed by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over the Senate. Gov. Brian Kemp, state House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also support tightening absentee voter ID rules.
Republicans have set their sights on overhauling Georgia’s current system of verifying signatures on mail-in ballot request forms and envelopes, eliminating a focal point for attacks by former President Donald Trump and his allies who alleged absentee voter fraud and called for deeper audits of the 2020 election results.
Democratic leaders and voting-rights groups oppose the measure, framing it as an attempt at voter suppression to halt Democrats’ momentum after flipping both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats and carrying Georgia for Democrat Joe Biden over Trump in the November presidential election by 11,779 votes.
Speaking from the Senate floor Tuesday, Walker highlighted how vote-by-mail skyrocketed in the 2020 elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when Georgia voters cast millions more absentee ballots than normal.
Given mail-in voting is expected to remain popular, Walker said tightening voter ID requirements would create “very common-sense” rules for verifying voters, which would help county elections officials check identities with greater accuracy.
“It’s not about disenfranchising voters,” Walker said. “It’s not about overburdening the electorate.”
“It’s about efficiency and security and election integrity and allowing the Georgia public to have confidence in the vote.”
Democratic senators did not buy that argument Tuesday, voicing opposition from the floor to the bill over privacy concerns and hurdles for voters who do not have driver’s licenses.
Choking back tears, Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, who is one of the legislature’s longest-serving members, called the bill a bald attempt by Georgia Republicans to change the rules of the election game and warned them to expect a legal brawl if their absentee voter ID wish-list passes into law.
“I’m going to tell you, we’re going to fight,” Lucas said. “There’s no question what’s going to happen. And you’re going to spend taxpayer money trying to defend it.”
The bill passed by 35-18 nearly along party lines, with state Sen. Michael “Doc” Rhett, D-Marietta, voting in favor. All four bills now head to the Georgia House of Representatives.
Duncan, who backed the four-bill package, hailed the measures as “common-sense election reforms” that aim to “modernize our election procedures.”
“I am focused on maintaining confidence in our electoral process and making it easy to vote and difficult to cheat,” Duncan said in a statement.
The Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus scoffed at Duncan’s optimism, calling the four bills a product of “disingenuous” efforts by Republicans to create hurdles for voting after their recent statewide election losses.
“We all know none of these measures would have satisfied people who were misled by leaders in their party about election outcomes,” the caucus said.
Walker’s bill mirrors one proposal in a wide-ranging omnibus elections bill moving separately through the House. The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, was set for a fourth hearing Tuesday afternoon in the House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which Fleming chairs.
Other Republican-brought bills are winding through committees in both chambers, including measures to end automatic voter registration when obtaining new or renewed driver’s licenses, provide closer access for poll watchers to view ballot counting and allow state elections officials to take direct control of elections and registration activities from poor-performing county officials.
Legislation to boost voter ID requirements and procedures for casting absentee ballots in Georgia is winding through the General Assembly. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – An omnibus bill proposing broad changes to Georgia’s absentee and in-person voting faced more debate in a state House committee on Monday, adding to a trove of other elections-focused bills in the state Senate.
The 59-page bill contains roughly two dozen changes including controversial proposals boosting identification rules for mail-in voters, requiring absentee-ballot drop boxes to be located inside polling places and outlawing early voting on Sundays.
Other changes outlined in the bill include consolidating precincts with long wait times outside polling places, banning people from offering food or drinks to voters while they wait in line and allowing local officials to open and scan absentee ballots a week before Election Day.
Democratic lawmakers and voting-rights groups have skewered the bill, sponsored by state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem. Fleming chairs the House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which has held three hearings on the measure. It will likely face a vote this week on whether to advance to the full House.
Fleming and the bill’s backers argue the proposed changes are needed to shore up confidence in the state’s election system after the 2020 election cycle drew claims of voter fraud from former President Donald Trump, who lost the general election in Georgia to President Joe Biden by 11,779 votes.
“There has been controversy regarding our election system,” Fleming said at an earlier hearing on Feb. 18. “I believe the goal of our process here should be an attempt to restore the confidence of our public in our elections system.”
Fleming’s wide-ranging bill would also eliminate Georgia’s “jungle primary” format for special elections that place candidates from all parties for a vacant seat on the same ballot. It would scrap the kind of free-for-all election that forced former Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler into a losing runoff with now-U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock last month.
Democrats have slammed many aspects of the bill that squeeze access to vote-by-mail and early voting, particularly the proposed ban on Sunday hours during the three-week early voting period. Those restrictions could especially impact Black and other minority voters in Georgia who have long faced hurdles to voter access, critics argue.
State Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, who is the General Assembly’s longest-serving member, called that change too restrictive.
“When you lift the water, all boats rise,” Smyre said an earlier hearing last week. “You give everyone the same opportunity.”
The voter ID proposal in Fleming’s bill mirrors a measure moving separately in the state Senate that would require absentee voters to provide the number of their driver’s license or official state ID card, or photocopies of a passport, employee ID card, utility bill or bank statement.
The Senate’s absentee voter ID measure, sponsored by state Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, is among several bills set for a floor vote on Tuesday that have backing from Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over the chamber.
That measure, along with Fleming’s proposed bans on Sunday voting and handing out food and drinks to voters in line, have drawn the ire of voting-rights groups like Fair Fight, which was founded by former gubernatorial candidate and Democratic rising star Stacey Abrams.
“[Fleming’s bill] is a bad-faith attempt to limit democracy in our state,” the group said in a statement Monday. “Georgians deserve elected officials who protect our constitutional rights first and foremost – not their own power above all else.”
Republican state leaders still stinging from the loss in Georgia of the presidency and both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats have focused on the elections proposals as among the key actions they hope to accomplish during the current legislative session, dismissing accusations from Democrats of voter suppression.
Lawmakers should focus on revising laws and policies with absentee voter ID rules, access for poll watchers to observe ballot counting, cleaning up voter registration rolls and auditing the state’s voting machines, said Brad Carver, an Atlanta attorney who led the drafting of a report on the 2020 elections issued this month by the Georgia Republican Party.
“We need to have a system where every legal vote counts in this state,” Carver, who chairs the state Republican Party’s 11th congressional district chapter in north metro Atlanta, said Monday. “At the end of the day, we’re hearing from our voters who have lost confidence.”
Reaction to Fleming’s bill from state and local elections officials has been mixed. Janine Eveler, director of the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration, told lawmakers last week she supports tighter voter ID rules but would not like to keep absentee drop boxes inside polling places.
Deb Cox, elections supervisor for Lowndes County, agreed many of the proposals like more voter ID rules would help local officials run elections, while other parts of the bill like a deadline of 11 days before Election Day for voters to request absentee ballots might dampen voter access.
“I think the bill itself meets the happy medium between the extremes of voter access and security,” Cox said.
Fleming did not indicate when he would call for a vote on his bill but said another committee hearing is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
ATLANTA – Legislation legalizing online sports betting in Georgia cleared a committee in the state House of Representatives for a second time Monday.
The House Economic Development and Tourism Committee passed the measure almost three weeks ago, but it was sent back for further work and a second vote.
The biggest change in the bill since its original airing was an increase in the tax companies licensed to run sportsbooks in Georgia would pay.
The substitute bill approved Monday calls for a 20% tax, up from 14% in the original measure. A sports betting bill before the state Senate calls for a tax rate of 16%.
Tennessee, which legalized online sports betting last year, is already collecting 20% from sportsbook operators, said Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, the committee’s chairman and the bill’s chief sponsor.
Going from a 14% tax to 20% would yield another $20 million a year in revenue for education in Georgia, including the HOPE Scholarships program, Stephens said.
Under House Bill 86, at least six sportsbook operators would be licensed by the Georgia Lottery Corp. to run online sportsbooks in Georgia, paying application fees of $50,000 and annual licensing fees of $900,000.
Before Monday’s vote, Rep. Miriam Paris, D-Macon, criticized the bill for not guaranteeing minority-owned businesses would be able to participate in the sports betting industry in Georgia.
“[The Black community is] participating heavily in the lottery and gaming,” she said. “We need to know our communities are going to benefit.”
Rep. Becky Evans, D-Atlanta, said she’d like to see the legislation steer some of the proceeds from sports betting toward need-based scholarships. HOPE bases its scholarships on merit.
But Stephens said inserting any language in the bill dealing with minority-owned business participation or need-based scholarships could require a constitutional amendment. Going that route would subject sports betting to a statewide referendum next year, which would delay it from taking effect until 2023, he said.
Stephens said Georgians already are gambling on sports, but the state can’t get any tax revenue from it because it’s being done illegally using offshore betting sites.
Rep. Don Hogan, R-St. Simons Island, said legalizing sports betting in Georgia won’t change that.
“Sports gambling that goes on now will continue going on offshore,” he said. “We won’t have an effect on that.”
“We’ll compete with them,” Stephens shot back.
The bill now moves to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
ATLANTA – A lawyer representing the state of Florida asked the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to order Georgia to use less water irrigating crops in order to restore Florida’s devastated oyster industry.
But Georgia’s lawyer told the justices the costs of a court-ordered cap on water consumption by farmers in Southwest Georgia would far outweigh the minimal benefits it would provide the Sunshine State’s oyster harvests.
“A 50% cut in irrigating would cost Georgia hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit Florida’s oyster industry by 1%,” Craig Primis said during hourlong opening arguments.
The tri-state “water wars” between Florida, Georgia and Alabama over water allocation from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin have dragged on for nearly three decades. But Florida’s lawsuit against Georgia heard on Monday dates back only to 2013, a year after the collapse of that state’s oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay.
Florida is seeking to cap Georgia’s water consumption to save an oyster industry that otherwise would be “irretrievably lost,” Gregory Garre, Florida’s lawyer, told the justices.
Georgia has countered that such a cap would bring growth in metro Atlanta grinding to a halt and devastate the state’s Southwest Georgia Farm Belt.
Florida blames the collapse of its oyster industry on historic low flows of water through the ACF system at its border with Georgia, which increased levels of salinity in Apalachicola Bay to harmful levels for its once-thriving oyster industry.
“One of the most unique estuaries in the Northern Hemisphere … essentially became a marine environment because of the increased salinity,” Garre said.
Garre confirmed what has been clear at least since a special master heard the dispute in late 2019: Florida is no longer focusing on the amount of water used in metro Atlanta to supply the region’s growing population. Essentially, Florida has conceded that Atlanta-area municipal water utilities have made such strides in water conservation that a case can’t be made in that part of the river basin.
Garre acknowledged in answer to a question Monday from Justice Amy Coney Barrett that Florida instead is targeting the amount of water uses for irrigation in Southwest Georgia. He suggested Georgia could fix the problem with steps that wouldn’t cost much, including halting illegal irrigation, eliminating over-watering, reducing farm-pond evaporation and doing a better job scheduling irrigation.
“Georgia’s unrestrained consumption is unreasonable,” Garre said. “Meaningful relief is available at little or no cost to Georgia.”
But Primis said the collapse of Florida’s oyster industry was a “self-inflicted wound” caused by overharvesting. He pointed to data backing up overharvesting as the cause of the devastation.
“The [sand]bars that were heavily fished collapsed, and the ones that were not heavily fished … thrived,” he said.
While both lawyers were put on the spot with questions from the justices, as is usually the case before the Supreme Court, some justices appeared particularly skeptical of Florida’s arguments. Special Master Paul Kelly recommended dismissing the lawsuit after he heard from the two sides in 2019.
At one point, Justice Stephen Breyer supported Georgia’s argument that overfishing occurred.
“You did overharvest after the oil spill,” Breyer told Garre, referring to the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. “You said, ‘Get them now or never.’ ”
Breyer also expressed frustration that the legal dispute between the states has lasted so long. Monday’s oral arguments marked the second time the Supreme Court has heard the Florida v. Georgia case.
“Has anybody ever tried to work out that Florida would pay Georgia to solve the problem?” the justice asked.
A ruling by the high court is expected by the end of June.
A bill to limit how local governments in Georgia can impose what energy sources their businesses, houses and other buildings can use passed out of the state House of Representatives on Monday.
Sponsored by state Rep. Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, the bill would block city and county governments from prohibiting service connections to local houses and businesses “based upon the type or source of energy or fuel to be delivered.”
Williamson cast his local-ban bill as a measure to give communities more choice in whether to burn natural gas or alternative fuels, rather than letting city and county governments limit options.
“Now’s not the time to take away consumers’ choice,” Williamson said from the House floor on Monday. “Nothing precludes local governments from incentivizing your citizens toward the energy policies you deem best for your citizenry.”
Environmentalists and local-control proponents argue the bill would trample on the governing powers of city and state officials and create hurdles for communities to build their own defenses against the predicted harms of climate change.
“We cannot stop technology today based on a hypothetical,” said state Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates. “This is a bad bill and it sets a bad precedent.”
No cities in Georgia have enacted any policies yet to restrict energy sources, Williamson noted. Atlanta, Augusta, Athens, Savannah and Clarkston have passed resolutions setting long-term goals of converting their buildings to 100% clean energy.
“What we don’t want to do is be hampered in this effort,” Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz said after Monday’s vote. “For the General Assembly to take a potential tool out of the hands of local government flies in the face of local control.”
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said the bill didn’t even originate with the Georgia legislature but from out of state.
“This is a bill from the gas industry serving a very limited special interest … an attempt to preempt local government,” he said. “We deserve the right to make decisions we deem are in our own best interest.”
The bill’s supporters say restrictions on local decisions could stave off economic hardships for residents and businesses like restaurants that rely on natural gas, which they argue contributes less to carbon emissions than sources like oil and coal.
“I’m not even sure that the Waffle House would even exist if we didn’t pass this bill,” said state Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton. “We’re all for local control until locals get out of control.”
State Rep. Don Parsons, R-Marietta, pointed to electrical grid failures that have affected millions of people in Texas during recent winter storms as what could happen if cities and counties move to disrupt the kind of energy sources being used to fuel local power plants.
“To treat the public fairly on providing electricity is not through allowing the cities to set portfolios [but] allowing the people to do that,” Parsons said on Monday. “I fear that what these cities want to do would unbalance the grid so badly that we would have chaos without bad weather.”
Critics highlighted how local officials from Atlanta, Savannah and Athens have opposed the bill, arguing that natural gas is still a heavy contributor to greenhouse gases that scientists overwhelmingly agree is driving global climate change and rising sea levels.
“From wildfires to record temperatures to storms to flooding, we’re already seeing the impacts of climate change,” said state Rep. David Dreyer, D-Atlanta. “If a local government wants to be innovative 15 years from now when renewables are affordable, reliable and readily accessible, we are prohibiting them from doing that.”
The bill passed by a 103-62 vote largely along party lines, with some Democrats voting in favor. It now heads to the Georgia Senate.
This story has been updated to include additional quotes from Athens’ and Savannah’s mayors, as well as state Rep. Don Parsons of Marietta.
