ATLANTA – With a bruising but successful re-election campaign behind him, Gov. Brian Kemp vowed Wednesday to build on the successes of his first term in education, public safety, economic development, and health care.
“The campaigns have all been run … and the people have spoken,” Kemp told a joint session of the Georgia House and Senate in his annual State of State address. “They have given us our marching orders, and it’s time to get back to work.”
Kemp spent some time early in a 30-minute speech highlighting his administration’s accomplishments during the last four years, including a $5,000 pay raise for Georgia teachers and more than 20,000 new jobs primarily in rural communities generated in part by four of the largest economic development projects in the state’s history.
To build on those accomplishments, Kemp is asking the General Assembly to approve another $2,000 teacher raise that would lift salaries more than $7,000 above the Southeast regional average. And to give the workers filling those new jobs somewhere to live, he is proposing the creation of a Rural Workforce Housing Fund enabling the state to partner directly with local governments to develop sites for workforce housing.
“Transformational projects, good-paying jobs, and new investment are worth little if there aren’t options for hardworking Georgians to live where they work,” he said.
With the state sitting atop a $6.6 billion surplus, Kemp urged legislative budget writers to add $1.9 billion in education spending, enabling full funding of the state’s K-12 student funding formula. In the higher education arena, the governor is proposing full funding of the HOPE Scholarships program for the first time in more than a decade.
While touting his administration’s accomplishments to improve public safety, Kemp asked lawmakers to crack down on no-cash bail.
“We can and we must do something about the revolving door of criminal justice, and I look forward to working with this legislature to get it done,” he said.
Kemp also asked for legislation increasing penalties for gang members who recruit children as young as elementary school students.
The sharpest political note the governor sounded was going after the Biden administration for holding up approval of Kemp’s limited Medicaid expansion plan. After the Trump administration signed off on the state’s Pathways to Coverage initiative and its work-study requirements for Medicaid enrollees, Biden’s Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services withdrew the approval.
It took a lawsuit to clear the plan to take effect. Kemp is asking the General Assembly for $52 million in startup costs to launch the program this summer.
“When it comes to health care for hardworking Georgians, the Biden administration would rather play partisan politics than get people insured and lower costs,” Kemp said. “Folks, we don’t have time to wait on Washington, and I don’t have much patience for D.C. posturing!”
Legislative Democrats have long advocated a full expansion of Georgia’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act to cover more than 500,000 Georgians who earn too much money to qualify for traditional Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance.
Kemp said Wednesday about 345,000 Georgians could qualify for the Pathways program and health-care coverage for the first time without the downside of kicking 200,000 off their private sector insurance.
The governor also proposed legislation allowing pregnant women who qualify to obtain monthly cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under current law, TANF aid only goes to eligible women after they have given birth.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A South Georgia lawmaker has introduced legislation into the General Assembly aimed at banning surface mining near the Okefenokee Swamp.
House Bill 71 is being sponsored by state Rep. Darlene Taylor, R-Thomasville, who backed a similar bill last year that failed to gain passage.
Taylor’s bill would not affect plans by Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals to mine titanium along Trail Ridge near the Okefenokee. Twin Pines already has a permit application before the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD), while the legislation would prohibit the EPD from considering permit applications submitted after July 1.
“The Okefenokee Protection Act is vital to protecting Georgia’s greatest natural treasure and the economic engine for the southeastern portion of our state,” Taylor said Tuesday.
“The swamp supports over 700 jobs and generates $65 million in revenue annually. I am certain that no mining venture can generate that sort of sustainable economic boost for local communities.”
The House bill comes less than a week after the EPD released a draft mining land use plan submitted by Twin Pines and opened a 60-day public comment period on the company’s permit application.
Environmental advocates, who are insisting the proposal undergo a federal review as well as the EPD’s scrutiny, are urging the project’s opponents to take advantage of the public comment period to weigh in on the debate.
Josh Marks, an environmental lawyer who led a successful fight against a mine DuPont sought to open near the swamp, endorsed Taylor’s bill.
“Having witnessed DuPont’s attempt to mine at the Okefenokee in the 1990s, and now [Twin Pines Mineral’s] dangerous proposal, the swamp will continue to be at risk without this legislative action,” Marks said Wednesday. “We now urge legislative leadership to move this bill forward through the House and Senate without delay.”
Twin Pines officials say the proposed mine would not threaten the Okefenokee and that the native vegetation would be restored after mining activity is completed.
Taylor has lined up more than 30 cosponsors for her bill, including Republicans and Democrats. The list includes Reps. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, chairman of the House Economic Development & Tourism Committee; Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert, currently the longest serving House member; Carl Gilliard, D-Savannah; Matt Cheokas, R-Americus; and Katie Dempsey, R-Rome.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia House Republicans are backing legislation that would increase the statewide cap on income tax credits offered to donors to a fund that provides private school scholarships.
House Bill 54, introduced by state Rep. John Carson, R-Marietta, would raise the cap from the current $120 million per year to $200 million.
The program offered $58 million in tax credits through 2018, then was increased to $100 million in 2019 and $120 million this year.
“Every time the General Assembly has lifted the cap – as is proposed again this year – Georgia donors have immediately matched it,” said Christy Riggins, director of the American Federation for Children’s Georgia chapter.
“This past year, requests to give through the program reached $150 million, well past the current $120 million cap. Georgians believe in this program and have proven they think it is a great use for their tax dollars.”
Legislative Democrats have opposed using state tax credits to help fund private school scholarships as diverting government resources to private education.
Carson’s bill has yet to be assigned to a House committee.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney
ATLANTA – A lawyer for a coalition of media outlets asked a Fulton County judge Tuesday to release the final report of a special purpose grand jury that investigated then-President Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
“There is genuine public interest in what these grand jurors found,” Thomas Clyde told Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney during a 90-minute hearing.
But Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said releasing the special grand jury’s findings in the case could jeopardize the rights of future defendants who may be indicted to a fair trial.
“We want to make sure everyone is treated fairly,” Willis said. “For future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”
Willis empaneled the special purpose grand jury early last year to investigate whether Trump and/or others unlawfully interfered in Georgia’s election results.
Those efforts included a phone call Trump placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021 urging him to “find” 11,780 votes, the margin that would have been needed to put Republican Trump over the top in Georgia. Instead, Democrat Joe Biden carried the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes.
On another front, Georgia Republicans assembled an “alternate” slate of electors who met at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020 to vote for Trump on the same day the actual slate of electors were in another part of the building casting their Electoral College votes for Biden.
Willis will use the special purpose grand jury’s findings to inform her decision whether to empanel a grand jury to consider whether to indict the former president and/or his associates on criminal charges.
When the special purpose panel completed its work earlier this month, the jurors voted to ask McBurney to order their findings released to the public. On Tuesday, Clyde cited the jurors’ request as a factor in the media coalition’s efforts to put its findings out for public scrutiny.
But Fulton Assistant District Attorney Donald Wakeford said going public with the report now could taint what he characterized as an ongoing investigation.
“Ongoing criminal investigations are not subject to public scrutiny,” he said. “It is premature to make the report public at this time.”
But Clyde cited previous instances in Georgia where a special purpose grand jury has recommended prosecution of a named individual, and the information was subsequently published in its entirety.
“Ongoing investigations frequently continue after there is significant disclosure of information in a case,” he said. “This is what would happen here.”
McBurney promised careful consideration of what he called a complex case.
“I’ll think about this a little bit,” the judge told the lawyers. “There will be no rash decisions.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Officers recovered this Smith and Wesson 9mm handgun investigators say was used to shoot a state trooper.
ATLANTA – The 26-year-old activist shot to death by law enforcement in Atlanta last week legally purchased the gun he used to shoot a state trooper, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported Monday.
Manuel Esteban Paez Teran was shot last Wednesday at the site of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a project that has drawn protests for more than a year from activists deriding it as “Cop City.”
Teran was shot as multiple law enforcement agencies were removing 25 campsites from the area. Officers returned fire after Teran did not comply with verbal commands and instead shot and wounded a state trooper, according to the GBI.
During the operation, officers arrested seven people, all in their 20s and 30s and from outside of Georgia. Officers recovered mortar-style fireworks, multiple-edged weapons, pellet rifles, gas masks, and a blow torch during the operation.
More arrests took place Saturday night in downtown Atlanta when protesters turned violent, setting fire to a police car, throwing rocks, and setting off fireworks.
Activists have questioned the law-enforcement version of the incident and called for the release of bodycam footage. While the GBI reported Monday that the officers who were near the incident at the time of the shooting were not wearing body cameras, the agency said there is bodycam footage of the aftermath.
The planned training center would include classrooms, a shooting range, a building firefighters would use for putting out practice fires, stables for police horses, and a driving course for emergency vehicles.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
