The speedy passage and signing of controversial Republican-brought legislation overhauling Georgia mail-in and early voting has drawn a federal lawsuit and the arrest of a Democratic state lawmaker.
The sweeping 98-page bill hashed out by top Republicans in the General Assembly cleared both chambers Thursday afternoon and quickly gained Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature in an early-evening ceremony held behind closed doors at the state Capitol.
That decision led to the arrest of Rep. Park Cannon, D-Atlanta, by Capitol police officers for knocking on the door to Kemp’s office, an episode that was caught on video and widely circulated on social media. She faces felony charges on charges of disrupting legislative proceedings and violence toward police.
Park’s arrest, which prompted swift condemnation from Democratic leaders and supporters, came as opponents of the omnibus bill readied a lawsuit aimed at blocking the election changes on grounds they would violate federal voting-rights law and the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit, filed by several Democrat-aligned voting groups including the New Georgia Project and Black Voters Matter Fund, echoes criticism from opponents who have argued the bill’s passage would result in curbing election turnout in Black and low-income communities.
“Collectively, these challenged provisions not only impose severe and unconstitutional restrictions on the voting rights of all Georgians, but they also disparately impact Black voters and effectively deny them an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process and elect candidates of their choice,” the lawsuit claims.
Among dozens of changes, the bill requires stricter voter ID rules for mail-in ballots, bans people from handing out food and drink to voters waiting in line outside polling places and halts absentee ballot applications from being accepted within 11 days of an election.
It also allows state officials to take over county election boards for poor performance, which Democratic leaders and voting-rights advocates argue could give Republicans a back-door way to influence local election operations in many counties.
Additionally, the bill requires local election officials to hold two Saturdays of early voting and give counties the option to hold poll hours on two Sundays, marking expanded hours that Republican leaders say will give Georgians more access to the polls.
Republican state leaders have dismissed accusations the bill, sponsored by Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, would reduce voter access or benefit their party’s ticket in Georgia. They have insisted the election changes aim to shore up voter confidence after the 2020 elections spurred unfounded fraud claims.
Kemp, who signed the bill about an hour after its final General Assembly passage, batted back at Democrats’ attempts to cast the bill as a form of voter suppression akin to discriminatory tactics of the Jim Crow era.
“Contrary to the hyper-partisan rhetoric … the facts are this new law will expand voting access in the Peach State,” Kemp said in a video speech shortly after signing the bill.
“Georgians will no doubt soon be overwhelmed with fancy TV ads, mailers and radio spots attacking this common-sense election reform measure. … The truth is ensuring the integrity of the ballot box is not partisan [but] it’s about protecting the very foundation of who we are as Georgians and Americans.”
The governor’s speech was interrupted briefly by the arrest of Park, a Black lawmaker who drew comparisons to civil rights movement heroes the late Congressman John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. as officers forced her out of the Capitol and booked her into the Fulton County Jail. She was released hours later.
Many observers and critics including highlighted the irony of a Black lawmaker being arrested over a bill that has been slammed as an echo of old segregationist laws and practices in the state.
“While Kemp signed the most restrictive voter suppression bill seen since Jim Crow, authorities outside unjustly arrested a Black legislator and charged her with two felonies,” the Democratic Party of Georgia said on Twitter. “This is the civil-rights fight of our generation.”
Meanwhile, Republican officials in Georgia and outside the state mustered to defend the election bill against the lawsuit filed in the Atlanta-based U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, slammed Democrats’ “false narrative” on the election bill and said her organization “look[s] forward to defending this law in court.”
“Democrats can lie and spin about the bill all they want, but the real question should be: ‘Why are Democrats so terrified of a transparent and secure election process?’ ” McDaniel said in a statement.
ATLANTA – Two tax bills left for dead in the General Assembly have been resurrected in the waning days of this year’s legislative session.
The Georgia House of Representatives late Friday overwhelmingly passed legislation that originated in the state Senate as a two-page bill.
However, as Senate Bill 6 went through the House Ways and Means Committee, two much longer bills that appeared headed for failure were attached to it, making them eligible for passage during the last two days of the session next week. The measure has now grown to 31 pages.
The original Senate Bill, introduced by Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, calls for outside audits of up to five state tax credits each year to determine whether they’re creating enough jobs or generating enough economic development in general to make them worth their impact on the state’s revenue.
“This is a great opportunity for us to look at [tax credits] that are performing well … and others that may need to be tweaked or changed,” Albers declared back in January when his bill went through the Senate Finance Committee.
Another tax bill that has been added to Albers’ measure also originated in the Senate as a project of Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, the Finance Committee’s chairman.
Senate Bill 148 would create two review panels to study Georgia’s tax and revenue structure and draft legislation to rein in wasteful spending on tax breaks.
A similar review the state undertook at the beginning of the last decade led to tax reforms that eliminated Georgia’s “birthday” tax on motor vehicles, phased out the state sales tax on energy used in manufacturing and expanded an income tax exemption for married couples filing jointly.
“Georgia did something that worked really well back in 2010,” Hufstetler told his Senate colleagues last month before they passed it unanimously. “It’s time to do that again.”
But the House shot down Hufstetler’s bill overwhelmingly last week with only 20 lawmakers voting “yes” and 139 opposing it.
However, those 20 supporters included several Republican leaders, notably House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton; Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington; and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire. Their influence allowed it to be brought back on Friday attached to Albers’ bill.
The House also strongly supported a third tax bill that originated in that chamber and passed that chamber overwhelmingly but has struggled in the Senate.
House Bill 587 includes a smorgasbord of new tax credits billed by supporters as a way to help businesses across Georgia struggling through the coronavirus pandemic.
The Georgia Economic Renewal Act of 2021 would offer tax credits to manufacturers of medical devices and pharmaceuticals, the aerospace industry, boat repair companies along the coast, performing arts venues and short-line railroads.
“Our economic renewal and recovery will create jobs and spur growth in several industries in Georgia,” House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, declared on the House floor early this month.
The Senate has yet to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. In an opinion column published by Hufstetler’s hometown newspaper, the Rome News-Tribune, the senator cited a fiscal note on the bill indicating the proposed tax breaks combined would cost the state almost $1 billion.
“In Georgia, we collect about $14 billion in income taxes a year, but we give out about $10 billion in sales tax exemptions and tax credits,” Hufstetler wrote. “Think about how low the income tax rate in Georgia could be if we phased out most of these credits.”
That bill, too, is now attached to Senate Bill 6, which creates a conundrum for lawmakers as it heads back to the Senate.
They will have to decide during the last days of this year’s General Assembly session whether to support legislation that on one hand seeks to bring additional scrutiny to Georgia’s tax credit largesse and adds an expensive set of new tax breaks on the other.
Deadly shootings at three Atlanta-area spas earlier this month have prompted Democratic lawmakers of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent to file bills aimed at multi-lingual training for law enforcement and delaying gun purchases.
The measures from state Reps. Bee Nguyen, Sam Park and Marvin Lim and Sens. Sheikh Rahman and Michelle Au – all Democrats representing parts of metro Atlanta – will need to hop rides on bills already moving in the General Assembly before the legislative session wraps up on Wednesday, March 31.
The lawmakers sponsoring those bills and others have called for bolstering support for Asian American Georgians in the wake of the March 16 shootings at two spas in Atlanta and one in Cherokee County that left eight people dead, including six Asian American women.
“Together, we mourn the senseless loss of life from those so cherished, so important and so loved by their families and friends in the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities,” the five lawmakers said in a joint statement.
“We look to our history, and where this country has been, and we look forward to the change we need to see. As AAPI legislators in the Georgia Senate and House, we are committed to not only drawing attention to the issues our communities face, but enacting meaningful change through legislation to address them.”
Two of the measures, sponsored by Park and Rahman, would require gun sellers to wait five weekdays before clearing firearms purchases or face a felony charge with possible prison time for violating the delay time.
Those measures aim to stave off future rushed purchases of guns by dangerous persons such as the suspect in the recent spa shootings, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, who police say bought his weapon the same day he went on the killing spree.
Gun restrictions habitually face an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled state legislature where the Second Amendment’s right-to-carry rules rank high on the list of conservative priorities to preserve.
Already, lawmakers are close to final passage of a bill to make it easier for gun owners from outside Georgia to have their carry permits accepted within the state.
The measure, which has drawn backlash following the spa shootings, passed the House largely along party lines and is awaiting Senate floor consideration.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mandi Ballinger, R-Canton, said on the House floor last month its intent is partly to allow gun owners from outside Georgia to “enjoy our wonderful state while they’re enjoying their Second Amendment rights as well.”
Two other bills, sponsored by Lim and Au, would create an officer-training course for police focused on responding to calls and general outreach in non-English speaking communities to bolster relationships between those communities and law enforcement.
Another two bills, sponsored by Nguyen and Rahman, would set up statewide language translation services for 911 operators to help curb communication issues for non-English speakers during emergencies.
Typically, legislation filed this late in the annual General Assembly session has no hope of passing unless it is tacked onto other bills that have already advanced in both chambers via the legislature’s stringent vetting process.
Any proposals in the bills brought in response to the spa shootings that are added to other still-alive measures would likely first face scrutiny in committee hearings before moving further, according to Georgia House Speaker David Ralston’s office.
Some lawmakers have shown support for backing the proposals with two days of committee hearings left before the session’s ending next Wednesday including Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, who said recently she will push for passage of the measure prolonging wait times for gun purchases.
“It is our responsibility as legislators to take concrete action to prevent future tragedies,” Jackson said on Twitter.
Jackson joined other Democratic co-sponsors on the bills from the metro Atlanta area and elsewhere, including Reps. Zulma Lopez, Pedro Marin and Becky Evans as well as Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler and most Democratic lawmakers in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the spa shootings this month prompted broad calls for the admitted gunman to face charges under the state’s recently enacted hate-crimes law, which adds penalties for crimes motivated by a victim’s race, color, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, sex, gender, or whether they have a physical or mental disability.
Authorities have not yet divulged whether Long’s motive in the shootings involved alleged hate crimes. Cherokee County officials earlier this month said Long claimed he targeted Asian-run spas to purge a sex addiction that he sought to satisfy at those spas.
That information has spurred some observers to dismiss characterizing the shootings as hate crimes.
Sen. Bruce Thompson, R-White, challenged Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ recent assurances the spas were operating legally, adding that the shooter’s and victims’ races should not matter.
“The reality here is this person shot people and all lives matter regardless of race,” Thompson said March 22 on the Senate floor.
ATLANTA – A controversial bill expanding a state-funded school voucher program created in 2007 has cleared the Georgia House of Representatives by the barest of margins.
House lawmakers passed the legislation 91-71 late Friday, largely along party lines. To gain passage in the House, bills must receive the support of a minimum of 91 of the chamber’s 180 members.
The bill, which already had squeezed through the Senate by one vote more than the minimum required, would expand a state program that allows special-needs student in Georgia to receive state-funded scholarships to attend private schools.
The legislation would grow the 13-year-old program by increasing the number of conditions that would qualify a student for a scholarship. Conditions not listed in the 2007 bill include attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, cerebral palsy, cancer and drug or alcohol abuse.
The bill also would ease restrictions requiring students to have attended a public school the year before enrolling in the program.
“Public schools are doing a good job,” Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, who carried the bill in the House, said at the start of a lengthy debate on the bill. “[But] our responsibility in this state is to ensure that every child has a chance for a quality education.”
As was the case back in 2007, House Democrats attacked the bill as a back-door attempt to put Georgia on the path toward a broader voucher program that would divert tax dollars from public schools.
“We cannot disinvest in our public schools,” said Rep. David Dreyer, D-Atlanta. “That’s what this bill does, remove resources.”
Rep. Winfred Dukes, D-Albany, said the bill’s impact would be felt particularly in rural Georgia, where private schools are in short supply.
“How does this bill help people in rural Georgia?” he asked. “We don’t have these facilities for our kids to go to.”
Wade denied Democrats’ charges that the bill was aimed at legalizing a broader voucher program for all students.
“This is not a slippery slope,” he said. “This is to help those students who are currently looking for a small option that isn’t available [in public schools].”
“I know many families whose lives have been transformed by this program, and many more would be if they eligible,” added Rep. Wes Cantrell, R-Woodstock.
Not all House Republicans were convinced. Eleven ended up voting against the bill, while three Democrats voted for it.
Because of changes the House made to the bill, it must return to the Senate to gain final passage.
ATLANTA – A resolution naming a bridge over a portion of the Port of Savannah in honor of former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., has cleared the General Assembly.
The Georgia Senate passed the resolution unanimously on Thursday, one month after the House approved it, also without opposition. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.
The bridge on Georgia 307 crosses over the Mason Mega Rail Yard, a $215 million project that, when completed, will give the port enough additional capacity to ship goods to cities in the nation’s Mid-South and Midwest regions.
While Isakson was instrumental throughout his congressional career in landing federal funding for the Mason Mega Rail Yard and other port projects, his influence spread much farther.
“Johnny Isakson worked greatly in helping people in Georgia,” Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, who carried the resolution in the Senate on behalf of House Speaker David Ralston, told his Senate colleagues before Friday’s vote.
“No matter who you are, no matter what side of the aisle you came from, no matter what side of the tracks you came from, Johnny Isakson was a man about the people, taking care of people, taking care of our state.”
Isakson, who hails from Cobb County, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999 after serving for years in the General Assembly. He moved up to the Senate in 2004, serving two terms and part of a third before retiring at the end of 2019 for health reasons.
The House resolution honoring Isakson drew bipartisan sponsorship. House Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington, joined Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, as a sponsor.
Members of the Chatham County legislative delegation from both parties signed on as cosponsors.
