A bill to tighten rules for allowing ex-offenders in Georgia to be released early from probation that should help thousands of people maintain jobs and housing passed out of the state Senate on Thursday.
Sponsored by Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, the bill would let first-time felons in Georgia sentenced to prison for 12 months or fewer seek early termination of their probation after they’ve been released, paid court fines and avoided another run-in with the law for two years.
The bill would allow well-behaving probationers to petition courts for early termination of their supervision terms after three years. Its aim is to cut down Georgia’s highest-in-the-country probation population, Strickland said.
“In Georgia, we should incentivize individuals who make mistakes, serve their time, pay their restitution and stay out of trouble,” Strickland said from the Senate floor.
“We should be helping Georgians who have earned a second chance in life to get a job, buy a house, start a family or accomplish anything else they dream of doing in this state without the stigma of probation hanging over their heads.”
The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and now heads to the state House of Representatives.
It follows legislation in 2017 under then-Gov. Nathan Deal aimed at easing rules on terminating probation early. Those changes have not worked as planned, with only a handful of the roughly 50,000 eligible probationers actually being granted early termination as of last year, advocates say.
Many Georgians on probation face lengthy supervision terms lasting at least a decade, limiting their ability to land jobs and maintain steady housing from landlords wary of their status as probationers, said Lisa McGahan, policy director for the nonprofit Georgia Justice Project.
“We know that for people to be successful, they have to have access to economic opportunity [and] they have to have access to employment,” McGahan told lawmakers at a state Senate Judiciary Committee last week. “When you’re serving a very long probation sentence, those two things are mutually exclusive.”
Strickland’s bill marks a priority on Republican state senators’ criminal justice reform agenda in the current legislative session, along with another measure by state Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, that would bar licensing boards from denying business licenses to most Georgians on probation.
Cosponsors of Strickland’s bill include Sens. John Kennedy, R-Macon; Bruce Thompson, R-White; Tonya Anderson, D-Lithonia; and Ben Watson, R-Savannah.
ATLANTA – A bridge over a portion of the Port of Savannah would be named in honor of former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., under a resolution the Georgia House of Representatives passed unanimously Thursday.
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.
Isakson helped land federal funding for that project as well as the $1 billion deepening of Savannah Harbor to make room for a new generation of giant containerized cargo ships now calling at the Port of Savannah. Both projects will be key contributors to one of the nation’s fastest-growing ports.
“Johnny Isakson was and is a champion for economic development and job creation,” said House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, the resolution’s chief sponsor, who made a rare appearance in the well of the House chamber to present it. “Senator Isakson believes the best way to help lift our state up is to expand economic opportunity for everyone.”
Isakson, who hails from Cobb County, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999 and moved up to the Senate in 2004. He retired at the end of 2019 for health reasons.
Ralston praised the former senator Thursday for serving as a model of civility, which he said has become an increasingly rare quality in Washington, D.C.
“Senator Isakson only knows people as friends or future friends,” the speaker said. “His example is one we would do well to follow.”
Rep. Steven Meeks, R-Screven, told his House colleagues he got to know Isakson while working as a congressional staffer on Capitol Hill. He said Isakson treated everyone the same, regardless of their status.
“To him, everyone in a room was important,” Meeks said.
The resolution’s cosponsors include House Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington, and Reps. Bill Hitchens, R-Rincon; Ron Stephens, R-Savannah; Jesse Petrea, R-Savannah; and Carl Gilliard, D-Garden City.
Lines were sparse outside the Cobb County Regional Library voter precinct through noon on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – A wide-ranging bill clamping down on absentee voting in Georgia that has split Republicans and Democrats moved in the state House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The roughly 60-page bill, sponsored by Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, contains more than two dozen proposals including a controversial change requiring voters seeking mail-in ballots to provide the number on their driver’s license or state identification card, or photocopies of other valid ID forms.
Fleming’s bill would also restrict ballot-casting on weekends during the three-week early-voting period, scrapping rules for polls to be open on Sundays and instead requiring counties to pick either one Saturday or one Sunday ahead of Election Day for the precincts to be open.
The bill passed the state House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which Fleming chairs, on a party-line vote Wednesday and now heads to the full House for approval.
Fleming’s bill has been panned by Georgia Democrats who call it a measure aimed at suppressing votes after the party’s historic 2020 election wins. Democrat Joe Biden carried Georgia in the Nov. 3 presidential race, and the party won both of the Peach State’s U.S. Senate seats.
Republicans are going all-in to change Georgia’s rules for voting by mail this legislative session, having filed bills in both chambers that would require at least a driver’s license number or other legally-accepted ID to request an absentee ballot – and in some cases, a printed copy of one’s valid ID as well.
The Georgia Senate passed a measure this week by Sen. Larry Walker, R-Perry, that would require absentee-ballot seekers to provide their driver’s license or state ID number, or if they don’t have those ID forms, then alternatively a copy of their passport, employee ID card, utility bill or bank statement.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton, introduced a 25-page bill with nearly two dozen election-focused proposals, including a mandate for Georgia voters to obtain a witness signature and a photo ID copy in the envelopes for absentee ballots mailed back to county elections officials.
That bill, which all but three Republicans in the Senate are co-sponsoring the bill, entails the most dramatic changes for mailing votes in Georgia that stand the best changes of passing this year in the state legislature.
“Recently, many of our citizens have expressed a lack of faith and integrity in our current election systems,” read a statement from the Senate Republican Caucus. “We have heard these concerns voiced by many – and addressing these concerns has been at the forefront of our legislative efforts this year to promote the good of the state.”
Democratic leaders have blasted the GOP-brought bills, framing their opponents’ focus on election integrity as a smokescreen for wooing conservatives still loyal to former President Donald Trump, who unleashed popular – but fundamentally unproven – claims of voter fraud after losing Georgia’s presidential election in November to Biden by 11,779 votes.
“[The] Georgia GOP is hell-bent on suppressing the vote because they can’t win when Georgians vote,” said U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, who chairs the Democratic Party of Georgia. “If they wanted to restore confidence in elections, they would work with Democrats to pass common-sense legislation, not help fuel the far-right’s false election fraud narratives.”
Some local Democratic leaders have also pointed out the costs county elections officials could incur by implementing the changes in Fleming’s bill, noting a recent report from the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab that estimates Georgia counties could be forced to spend around $57 million on the changes in the next election cycle.
“Counties should not be held responsible for dangerous unfunded mandates that do nothing to make elections ‘secure’ but instead limit access to democracy for Georgians statewide,” read a letter penned this week by local leaders in Albany, Columbus and Augusta.
Fleming’s bill passed out of his committee after four separate hearings in which several county elections officials testified about the financial impacts of the proposed changes, expressing support for some provision like tighter ID verification but opposing others such as requiring drop boxes for absentee ballots to be placed only inside polling places.
Fleming, who is heading up this year’s debate on election bills in the Republican-controlled House, has made clear he believes the proposed changes would only create challenges for about 3% of Georgia voters who lack driver’s licenses – while boosting security for millions more voters.
At the first hearing to consider his bill on Feb. 18, Fleming said his bill stemmed not only from Republican voter grievances in the 2020 elections, but also Democratic voter grievances in the 2018 election for Georgia governor when then-Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams lost to current Republican Gov. Brian Kemp amid a flurry of voter-suppression charges.
“The goal of the bill … is an attempt, to the extent that we can, to begin to remedy some of those [elections] problems … and try to bring the left and the right back to a position where they have confidence overall in our election system,” Fleming said.
ATLANTA – The General Assembly is considering giving Georgians trying to cope with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic some tax relief.
Legislation raising the standard deduction allowed state income taxpayers passed unanimously Wednesday in a House Ways and Means subcommittee.
Under House Bill 593, married taxpayers filing jointly would be able to add $1,100 to the state’s standard deduction, which would increase from $6,000 to $7,100. Single taxpayers would be allowed to deduct an additional $800, and married couples filing separately would get an additional deduction of $550.
The state House of Representatives approved a bill last year setting Georgia’s income tax rate at a flat 5.375%. But the Georgia Senate didn’t take up the measure after lawmakers returned to the Gold Dome from a three-month hiatus prompted by COVID-19.
“So much of this was talked about last session,” Ways and Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the subcommittee Wednesday. “This is an opportunity to ease back into giving folks some of that relief. … It hits the most Georgians we could get with a tax relief package.”
Blackmon said the annual fiscal impact of the tax cut on the state’s coffers would be around $150 million at most.
The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, the subcommittee’s chairman; and Reps. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta; Ron Stephens, R-Savannah; David Knight, R-Griffin; and Jason Ridley, R-Chatsworth.
The legislation now heads to the full Ways and Means Committee.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday calling for the most thorough review of the state’s tax laws in more than a decade.
The 2021 Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians would be modeled after an advisory council of the same name the General Assembly created in 2010.
That iteration of the council 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,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, told his Senate colleagues Wednesday. “It’s time to do that again.”
Under Hufstetler’s bill, the council would include Gov. Brian Kemp, three economists, a fiscal expert chosen by minority Democrats, the 2021 chairman of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the 2021 director of the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, two members appointed by the lieutenant governor and two members appointed by the speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives.
The council will study Georgia’s tax structure during the course of this year and report its findings and recommendations to the speaker and lieutenant governor no later than Jan. 10, 2022.
The Special Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure, a panel Hufstetler’s bill also would create, would then develop the council’s recommendations into one or more bills to be introduced into the House during next year’s legislative session.
Anything that emerges from the joint committee would move directly to the floor of the House for an up-or-down vote with no amendments. The same process then would be followed in the Senate.
The 2010 council expressed interest in a similar up-or-down voting process as a way to prevent its tax reform recommendations from being watered down, but the General Assembly wouldn’t go along. As a result, the final legislation that came out of the council’s work was not as far-reaching as council members intended.
Like the council, the joint committee would guarantee representation to legislative Democrats, including the minority leaders of the House and Senate. Unlike the council, the joint committee would be limited to members of the General Assembly.
Hufstetler said Georgia was ranked as the sixth-best state in the nation in which to do business by Site Selection magazine at the time lawmakers created the council. Since then, Georgia has improved to the point that the state’s business climate has been No.-1 on the magazine’s list for eight years running.
“This is an attempt to replicate what we did 11 years ago,” Hufstetler said. “Are we going to stand still and let others pass us, or are we going to be more economically competitive?”
Senate Bill 148 now heads to the House of Representative.
