ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate passed legislation Tuesday aimed at encouraging more Georgians to become living organ donors.
Senate Bill 330 is sponsored by Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, who donated one of his kidneys last July to his son, who suffered renal failure and was forced to go on dialysis at the age of 24.
“This bill is going to save lives,” Albers told his Senate colleagues shortly before Tuesday’s unanimous vote. “My goal is to get the transplant [waiting] list down to zero.”
The legislation would expand an existing state income tax exemption for living organ donors from $10,000 to $25,000. Businesses would receive a state tax credit to help them cover the cost of up to six weeks paid time off for employees recovering from transplant surgery, whether they are donors or recipients.
The bill also would prohibit life insurance companies from canceling or denying coverage to living organ donors.
The tax breaks would cost the state an estimated $1.7 million a year. Albers said that pales in comparison to the tax dollars the state spends to maintain patients on dialysis.
Sen. Jen Jordan, D-Atlanta, spoke in support of the legislation but suggested it be expanded to apply to health insurance as well as life insurance when it moves to the state House of Representatives.
While the bill is currently limited to kidney and liver donors, Jordan said it also should include living donors of other organs including lungs, intestines and bone marrow.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Veteran Georgia Rep. Matt Dollar of Marietta resigned from the House Tuesday to take a job as deputy commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia.
Elected in 2002 at age 24, the Republican went on to become the youngest committee chairman in the General Assembly.
Until Tuesday, he was serving as chairman of the House Creative Arts and Entertainment Committee. In that role, he steered legislation through the House two years ago that brought Georgia’s popular film tax credit under greater scrutiny, a move aimed at strengthening the credit by responding to arguments that the program was vulnerable to abuse.
This year, Dollar is the chief sponsor of legislation calling for a referendum to create a city of East Cobb. The measure cleared the House last week and has moved over to the state Senate.
In an emotional farewell speech Tuesday, Dollar said he’s sad to be leaving his friends in the House, including many from the other side of the aisle.
“Some of my closest friends have been Democrats,” he said. “I don’t apologize for that. … This place has taught me that those who show the most respect are the most respected.”
The new House map drawn by the Republican-controlled General Assembly last fall put Dollar in the same House district as Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta. Dollar’s departure clears the way for her to seek reelection without a divisive primary against a fellow GOP incumbent.
At the technical college system, Dollar will be in charge of working on economic development issues.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath raised more than $745,000 during the fourth quarter of last year in what promises to be a competitive Democratic primary race against fellow Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in Georgia’s newly redrawn 7th Congressional District.
While Bourdeaux raised more than $430,000 in October, November and December, both candidates reported total fundraising of about $2.5 million since the two-year campaign cycle began.
It wasn’t until November that McBath, D-Marietta, and Bourdeaux, D-Lawrenceville, found out they would be pitted against each other. In a special legislative session, the General Assembly’s Republican majority redrew McBath’s 6th District to heavily favor the GOP, prompting McBath to run in the 7th District, currently represented by Bourdeaux.
Both candidates stressed the grassroots nature of most of their campaign contributions.
About 83% of the donations to Bourdeaux during the fourth quarter were for less than $200.
“Congresswoman Bourdeaux has raised her formidable war chest without taking a dime of corporate PAC money,” said Ashely Wolsefer, Bourdeaux’s campaign manager. “Instead, she has relied on her powerful coalition of grassroots supporters—workers, teachers, business owners, families, community leaders, and advocates.”
McBath raised 94% of her fourth-quarter campaign contributions from donors giving less than $200.
“Rep. McBath is proud to be running a grassroots-powered campaign that refuses to accept a single dime of corporate PAC money,” campaign spokesman John Lee said.
A third Democratic candidate in the 7th Congressional District race is state Rep. Donna McLeod of Lawrenceville.
Republicans running in the heavily Democratic district include Michael Corbin, Elfreda Desvignes, Yahanseh George and Mark Gonsalves.
The redrawn 7th District takes in large portions of Gwinnett and Forsyth counties.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Republican gubernatorial candidate David Perdue touts his endorsement by former President Donald Trump in the first television ad of his campaign to oust incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp in May’s GOP primary.
Trump appears on camera in the ad, released Tuesday, criticizing Kemp for refusing to help overturn the results of the 2020 presidential voting in Georgia that saw President Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the Peach State since Bill Clinton in 1992.
“Brian Kemp let us down,” Trump says in the ad. “We can’t let it happen again.”
In the second half of the ad, Trump goes on to describe Perdue, who served one term in the U.S. Senate before losing to Democrat Jon Ossoff early last year, as “an outstanding man. He’s tough. He’s smart. He has my complete and total endorsement.”
Kemp, who is seeking a second term as governor, has dismissed Perdue’s campaign as fueled by anger over his loss to Ossoff.
Besides Kemp and Perdue, other Republican candidates running for governor include former state Rep. Vernon Jones, educator Kandiss Taylor and human resources executive Catherine Davis.
The winner of the GOP primary will face Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination unopposed.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
