ATLANTA – State lawmakers took up legislation Wednesday that would give the General Assembly a say over the declaration of public emergencies in Georgia.
Current state law gives the governor sole authority to declare an emergency, as happened last March when the coronavirus pandemic struck Georgia. The legislature then is required to convene in a special session on the second day following the emergency declaration.
But there’s no end date on public emergencies, Georgia Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, told members of a House subcommittee Wednesday.
“Once it gets started, it’s on cruise control,” he said. “It’s hard to stop it.”
Under a bill introduced by Setzler, emergencies declared by the governor could run no longer than 30 days unless renewed by the General Assembly. Following legislative renewal, lawmakers then would have to revisit emergency declarations every 90 days and either extend or terminate them.
“The idea of having a date certain where [an emergency declaration] ends mandates legislative involvement in the input but not with execution and control,” Setzler said.
Rep. David Dreyer, D-Atlanta, said he felt uncomfortable that the General Assembly had no further role to play after leaving the state Capitol last March for what turned out to be a three-month recess having ratified the open-ended emergency declaration ordered by Gov. Brian Kemp.
“This governor acted in good faith with this emergency declaration,” Dreyer said. “But there’s no guarantee. … The way the system is set up, we’re abdicating responsibility with no real way to get it back.”
Setzler said his bill also would let the legislature set conditions for renewing emergency declarations. For example, lawmakers could have a say on whether daytime curfews should be imposed or whether churches should have to close, he said.
Church closings became a controversial issue last year when some argued churches should be allowed to conduct services in person even while businesses had been shut down by the pandemic.
“This is not a coronavirus bill,” Setzler said. “But as we moved through the months and conditions changed … should the legislature not have had some ability to revisit that? That’s what this does.”
Setzler said his bill also isn’t aimed at Kemp, who he said hasn’t taken a position on the legislation.
“This isn’t a political thing,” Setzler said. “[But] a lot of us left uneasy with the process, not with the outcome. Now, we can affect the process moving forward.”
House Bill 358 is cosponsored by Republican Reps. Timothy Barr of Lawrenceville, Ginny Ehrhart of Marietta, Dewayne Hill of Ringgold, Emory Dunahoo of Gillsville and Steve Tarvin of Chickamauga.
The subcommittee did not vote on the bill Wednesday.
A bill to remove student discipline from factoring into a five-star rating for schools and districts cleared a state Senate committee Wednesday.
Rather than include discipline in a climate rating that rates a school’s health, safety and attendance, the bill would require schools and school districts to maintain separate data on disciplining that would have to be provided upon request by a parent or community member.
Backers of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, say removing discipline from the rating would encourage teachers to actually punish bad-acting students rather than shirking that responsibility, since many schools skip disciplining students to avoid poor scores that could hurt future enrollment.
“Teachers are being told by district and school administrators not to write kids up,” said DeAnna Harris, the director of government relations for the advocacy group Educators First. “While this sounds admirable, it does not improve student behavior or school climate.”
Opponents have argued scrapping the discipline score would hollow out the school-climate rating system, clouding over public reporting on problematic schools and gutting a tool intended to hold schools accountable for frequent behavioral issues among students.
Pamela Carn, a founder of the advocacy group End Mass Incarceration Georgia Network, said stripping discipline from the climate score could curb struggling schools from receiving needed resources to help improve student behavior and lead to worsening the school-to-prison pipeline.
“The fact is that the school climate rating allows for the community to see the environment that’s created in a school,” Carn said.
The bill passed the Senate Education and Youth Committee with reporting changes added by Sen. Lindsey Tippins, R-Marietta. It now heads to the Senate floor.
The education committee did not vote Wednesday on a separate bill by state Sen. Lester Jackson, D-Savannah, to raise Georgia’s mandatory age to attend school from 16 to 17. Current state law allows Georgia students to drop out of school when they turn 16.
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Payne, R-Dalton, signaled he may call for votes on the raise-the-age bill in an upcoming meeting after debate was held on the bill earlier this month.
“I think we are all concerned that this is something we need to look at to make sure we’re not letting those kids fall through the cracks,” Payne said.
Lines were sparse outside the Cobb County Regional Library voter precinct through noon on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Bills aimed at scrapping Georgia’s no-excuse absentee voting law and to increase identification requirements to vote by mail advanced in the Georgia Senate Wednesday.
The four bills, which passed by party-line votes out of two separate Senate Ethics Committee subcommittees, marked the first push by top Republican state lawmakers to move a slate of election bills focused on changes to absentee voting.
The most far-reaching measure would halt registered Georgia voters’ ability to vote by mail without providing a reason, ending a practice widely used in the 2020 election cycle by millions of voters wary of exposure to COVID-19 at in-person polling places.
Another bill that passed Wednesday seeks to boost voter ID requirements for requesting and casting absentee ballots, marking changes favored by top-ranking Georgia Republicans including Gov. Brian Kemp and House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.
The bill would require registered voters to provide their date of birth, driver’s license number or other ID card number to request an absentee ballot, overhauling the state’s current system of verifying voter signatures on absentee request forms and ballot envelopes.
Two other measures that cleared Wednesday’s subcommittees would create a new state elections supervisor in charge of training local elections officials and restrict mobile polling places for use only when regular voting sites have lost power or been damaged.
The four bills now head to the full committee for consideration before potentially reaching the Senate floor.
The proposals address many claims former President Donald Trump and his allies made following the 2020 elections of widespread voter fraud that state officials and federal courts rejected as baseless. Trump lost the Nov. 3 election in Georgia to President Joe Biden by 11,779 votes.
Republican lawmakers 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.
Their push to overhaul the absentee-voting process has been condemned by Democratic lawmakers who have framed the bills as attempts at voter suppression seeking to halt the momentum Democrats have built in recent elections.
Democratic lawmakers also slammed Republican state senators for holding Wednesday’s two subcommittee hearings at 7 a.m. – an unusually early hour for hearings in Georgia legislative sessions – and for not broadcasting the hearings via live-stream video for the public to watch.
“Clearly, we are trying to hide something from the public, the people we answer to,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta. “This gamesmanship is unacceptable.”
Subcommittee hearings in the state Senate “are not typically streamed unless we have approval from leadership,” said Andrew Allison, director of the Senate Press Office, which is in charge of broadcasting meetings during the session.
The Georgia Senate Republican Caucus also stressed subcommittee meetings are not live-streamed, though the state House of Representatives does broadcast live video of subcommittee meetings.
The Republican caucus punched back at Democrats, saying their complaints “misrepresent election integrity efforts” and bashing the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus for soliciting donations in a message on Twitter criticizing the election bills.
“Ethics complaints are being considered,” the Republican caucus said.
ATLANTA – Georgia would observe standard time all year long under legislation that cleared a state Senate committee Wednesday.
Senate Bill 100 would do away with the current practice of switching back and forth between standard time and daylight saving time every six months.
“Most people want to stay on the same time all year,” Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the Senate Government Oversight Committee.
Watson cited studies that point to an increase in heart attacks during the two weeks in spring following the switch from standard to daylight time.
On the other hand, judges have been found to mete out harsher sentences to criminal defendants immediately following the switch from daylight to standard time in the fall, he said.
“It interferes with our sleep … for about a one- to two-week period every fall and spring,” he said.
Watson said his bill calls for going on standard time permanently only because federal law prohibits states from unilaterally going on daylight saving time all year.
He said most people would rather be on daylight time permanently if given the choice.
As a result, he has amended his original bill to provide that Georgia would observe standard time all year until Congress acts to allow states to switch to daylight time permanently. If and when that happens, the substitute version of the legislation the committee approved on Wednesday would move Georgia to daylight time all year.
Before the vote, freshman Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, said going on standard time permanently could hurt businesses in Georgia. Earlier sunsets would lead to fewer daylight hours during the evenings for shoppers, she said.
“I’m concerned this would have a significant economic impact, particularly in the summer,” she said.
But Watson, who is a physician, said he’s heard from trauma surgeons who worry that later sunrises during the winter if Georgia goes on daylight time permanently would increase the risk of children being hit by cars on their way to school.
Watson’s bill isn’t the only one before the General Assembly dealing with time. The House State Planning and Community Affairs Committee approved legislation sponsored by Rep. Wes Cantrell, R-Woodstock, last month calling for Georgia to observe daylight saving time all year.
ATLANTA – Legalizing pari-mutuel betting on horse racing in Georgia would generate commercial investment and create jobs without using tax dollars, state Sen. Brandon Beach said Tuesday.
Beach, R-Alpharetta, pitched a proposed constitutional amendment calling for a statewide referendum on horse racing and a separate bill specifying how the industry would operate in Georgia at a hearing held by the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee.
Bringing horse racing to Georgia would produce an economic impact of more than $1 billion a year, not only from racetracks but from breeding racehorses, Beach said.
“When we first got into the movie business, a lot of people thought we weren’t going to be successful,” he said. “I think we can do the same thing in the equine industry.”
The difference, Beach said, is that horse racing can operate in Georgia without state subsidies like the large tax credit the state has provided for the past dozen years to lure film and TV productions to the Peach State.
“It’s all private investment,” he said. “We’re not going to have any public investment in this.”
The legislation calls for the construction of up to three mixed-use developments featuring a racetrack, hotels and restaurants. The facilities also could include convention space, entertainment venues and retail shopping.
One of the racetrack complexes would have to be located within 50 miles of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and require an investment of at least $250 million. The other two facilities would be outside the metro region and require a smaller investment of at least $125 million.
Portions of the betting proceeds would go toward education, health care, rural development and to efforts to address problem gambling and promote the horse racing and breeding industries in Georgia.
Horse racing would generate revenue from three sources: pari-mutuel betting during at least 60 days of live racing, betting on simulcast races conducted at tracks in other locations and betting on historic racing machines, similar to slot machines, located at the racetracks.
Beach said the historical racing machines at tracks in Kentucky generated $700 million in 2017 and nearly $1.4 billion in 2018.
“There’s a lot of money in these historical racing machines,” he said.
Several committee members questioned whether racetracks could operate successfully in Georgia without casinos, pointing to examples of racetracks that have struggled financially without them.
Beach said members of the Georgia Horse Racing Coalition, which supports legalizing pari-mutuel betting on horse racing, have assured him racetracks can make a go of it without casinos.
Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, expressed concern that requiring racetracks to be at least 125 miles apart would disqualify Macon, which is closer than that to Hartsfield-Jackson.
Beach responded that he would be willing to amend those distance numbers in the bill.
The legislation also drew criticism from representatives of religious groups.
Mike Griffin of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board said legalized gambling doesn’t make economic sense. He cited a study showing that every $1 in gambling revenue generates $3 in social costs including gambling addiction and family bankruptcies.
Paul Smith of Citizen Impact, a network of pastors, used a slippery-slope argument.
“Once we get horse racing, it’s hard to argue we won’t get the next type of gambling,” he said. “It will be difficult to do one without the other.”
Opposition to legalized gambling among church congregations has played a large part in sinking past efforts in the General Assembly to approve casino gambling and horse racing.
But Beach cited polls showing strong support for legalizing horse racing in Georgia.
“I don’t think anybody’s going lose a primary or general election letting voters decide whether to allow pari-mutuel betting on horse racing,” he assured his Senate colleagues. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
