Georgia Rep. Richard Smith is returning as chairman of the House Rules Committee.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House Committee on Assignments filled out its list of committee leadership appointments Tuesday.
Many key committees will be headed by returning chairs. The powerful Rules Committee, which controls the flow of legislation on the House floor, will continue to be led by Rep. Richard Smith, R-Columbus.
Rep. Robert Dickey, R-Musella, is back as chairman of the Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Committee. The Transportation Committee will continue to be headed by Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper.
Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, returns as chairman of the House Higher Education Committee. Longtime Natural Resource & Environment Committee chair Rep. Lynn Smith, R-Newnan, returns in that capacity.
Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, once again will head the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles tax legislation.
Some major committees will get new chairs. Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer, will be the new chairman of the House Education Committee, succeeding Rep. Matt Dubnik, R-Gainesville. Dubnik will chair the House Appropriations Committee’s Education Subcommittee.
The House Judiciary Committee (Non-civil) will be headed by Rep. Tyler Paul Smith, R-Bremen. Smith takes over for Rep. Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula, the new House majority leader.
The new Health Committee chairman is Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville. The committee’s former chair, Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, is moving over to chair the newly created House Public Health Committee.
The committees will begin holding organizational meetings next week when the House comes back into session following this week’s recess to review Gov. Brian Kemp’s budget recommendations.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – TheGeorgia Ports Authority handled a record 5.9 million twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) of cargo during the last calendar year, an increase of 5% over 2021.
The Port of Savannah achieved four of its top five months for container volume during the year, peaking in August with an all-time high of 575,500 TEUs.
“It was a challenging year, but collaborative effort across Georgia’s supply chain ensured cargo movement remained fluid,” said Griff Lynch, the authority’s executive director. “I want to thank our board for approving new infrastructure that allowed us to handle more cargo.”
Capacity at the Port of Savannah is expected to increase to 7.5 million TEUs this year and 9 million by 2025 due to the renovation of Berth 1 at the Garden City Terminal, the 90-acre Garden City Terminal West expansion, and the planned transition of Ocean Terminal to an all-container facility.
“We’re excited about the possibilities ahead,” authority board Chairman Joel Wooten said Tuesday. “We’re bringing to market faster vessel service, quicker turn times for trucks, and more room to grow business.”
In addition to record container-cargo traffic last year, the ports authority saw a 16% increase in breakbulk tonnage to nearly 3.3 million tons, up 443,000 tons compared to 2021.
Colonel’s Island Terminal in Brunswick handled 651,101 units of autos and heavy machinery, while Ocean Terminal in Savannah moved another 19,630 Roll-On/Roll-Off units, for a total of 670,731, an increase of 0.4%.
Total tonnage crossing all ports authority docks reached 42.4 million tons last year, an increase of about 2%.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Kelly Loeffler at a campaign rally in 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Georgia Republicans rode a strong ground game and a ticket of proven incumbents to overcome financial and demographic challenges in last year’s elections, according to a new report.
The 2022 Impact Report was released Tuesday by former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who chaired the conservative voter mobilization group Greater Georgia during the 2022 election cycle.
“Despite national media narratives, 2022 was a record-breaking year for Georgia Republicans,” Loeffler wrote in a news release. “Thanks to sustained and dedicated work on the ground, a commitment to growing the conservative movement, and proven Republican leaders, Georgia is a red state.”
Loeffler’s words ring true when looking at last year’s election results in Georgia. While Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., won a full six-year term over Republican challenger Herschel Walker, the GOP captured all eight statewide constitutional offices.
The incumbent-heavy Republican ticket included Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Attorney General Chris Carr.
Those GOP victories came despite Democrats vastly outraising Republicans, particularly in the Senate and gubernatorial races. Warnock outspent Walker by $100 million, and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams outspent Kemp by $30 million.
Loeffler attributed the Republicans’ success to a ground campaign that included direct contact with voters via telephone, text messages, targeted digital ads and direct mail. The GOP reached millions more though television and radio ads.
Republicans worked to diversify the conservative movement, holding more than 100 voter registration drives at colleges, churches, grocery stores, and gas stations. Outreach events were held with women, young voters, and with the Hispanic, Asian and Black communities.
Part of that outreach included educating voters on the new voting reforms the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed in 2021 requiring Georgians voting absentee to provide identification and restricting the location of absentee ballot drop boxes.
Nearly 340,000 “disenfranchised conservatives” had stayed home during the January 2021 runoff that elected Democrats Warnock and Jon Ossoff to the U.S. Senate because of concerns over election integrity, according to the report.
Georgia Democrats weren’t without some successes last fall. Besides Warnock’s victory over Walker, Democrats dented Republican majorities in the General Assembly, gaining two seats in the Georgia House of Representatives and one seat in the state Senate.
The report concludes with a challenge that Republicans must work hard if they are to turn back efforts by Democrats to turn Georgia blue.
The state is changing – economically, demographically, and politically – but that change is positive as long as conservatives put in the work,” Loeffler wrote. “If we continuously adapt to this dynamic environment, then conservatives will have the infrastructure and mobilization needed to succeed in even greater numbers in 2024 and beyond.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation
ATLANTA – The state’s chief economist injected a note of caution Tuesday as the General Assembly began reviewing Gov. Brian Kemp’s $32.5 billion fiscal 2024 budget request.
More than half of the state’s record $6.6 billion surplus was built on a huge increase in capital gains tax payments not likely to be repeated, Jeffrey Dorfman told members of the Georgia House and Senate Appropriations committees at the start of three days of hearings on Kemp’s spending recommendations.
Typically volatile corporate income tax payments also are uncertain, with only 2% of Georgia businesses accounting for 96% of the record $2.5 billion the state collected in corporate income taxes last year, Dorfman said.
“If they don’t make as much money, that spigot shuts off very quickly,” he said.
The expected loss of capital gains taxes due to last year’s drop in the stock market and likely decrease of corporate income taxes are largely responsible for Dorfman setting a revenue estimate for the current fiscal year that is significantly below what the state brought in last year.
Still, Georgia’s economy remains strong just more than halfway through fiscal 2023, which ends June 30, Dorfman told the lawmakers.
Individual Georgians are paying more in income taxes due to a combination of pay raises and inflation driving up prices, Dorfman said.
Inflation also is responsible for boosting the state’s revenue outlook by increasing sales tax payments, he said.
Georgians are still saving 2% to 4% of their incomes, even though post-pandemic spending is on the rise, Dorfman said.
“So far, the consumer is not running out of money,” he said. “The consumer is still handling their debt quite well.”
Dorfman said Georgia’s workforce has risen by 167,000 jobs despite the impacts the pandemic had on the economy.
“The [job] sectors that have grown the most pay more [in taxes],” he said. “The Georgia employment picture still looks strong.”
While Dorfman is projecting capital gains taxes to all but disappear and corporate sales tax payments to shrink this year and next, he said he expects a 3.5% increase in personal income taxes during the current fiscal year and a slight rise in sales taxes.
Despite the anticipated hit on revenue from declining corporate taxes, the huge surplus means the state can afford the additional tax relief Gov. Brian Kemp promised on the campaign trail last year and again in his inaugural address last week.
Kemp repeated that pledge Tuesday in brief remarks at the beginning of Tuesday’s hearing on a remote feed from Davos, Switzerland, where he is appearing at the annual World Economic Forum. Kemp is calling for an additional $1 billion state income tax rebate on top of the rebate the General Assembly approved last year, as well as $1.1 billion in property tax relief.
“Building a bigger and better Georgia doesn’t come from building up our government,” he said. “It comes from building up our citizens.”
Kemp said he is taking advantage of his trip to Europe to invite overseas “job creators” to visit Georgia. He said he’s looking to build on record-breaking corporate investment in the Peach State during the last two years.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A record number of Georgians – over 846,000 – signed up for health insurance for 2023 under the Affordable Care Act during the latest open enrollment period, which ended on Sunday.
That’s about 8% of the state’s population, and at least 145,000 more than signed up for the program last year.
The program allows individuals – many of them low-income or self-employed – to sign up for private health insurance. It offers significant tax subsidies to offset insurance costs for people earning between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level, or between $13,590 and $54,360 for an individual.
The program has steadily grown in popularity in Georgia. Only about 316,000 Georgians signed up in 2014, its first year.
In Georgia, 10 insurers offered plans for 2023, including big players such as Aetna, Anthem, and Ambetter as well as upstarts like Oscar and Friday. However, not all of the plans are available in every county.
While open enrollment has closed for this year, Georgians can still sign up for Healthcare.Gov plans under certain circumstances, such as the loss of health care coverage, marriage or divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, or a major change in income.
One reason the program has soared in popularity in Georgia is that the Inflation Reduction Act a then-Democratic Congress passed last year increased the dollar amount of subsidies for people purchasing the health-care plans.
About 80% of Affordable Care Act enrollees nationwide qualify for subsidies that reduce their monthly payments to less than $10, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
“My last person I [helped] only paid $8 a month health-care coverage for 2023,” Deanna Williams, an insurance navigator who works at Georgians for a Healthy Future, said during a press conference last week. “A lot of people who I’ve helped, especially in my rural area … were shocked to know that they could get a plan.”
Despite its increasing popularity, the Affordable Care Act is not without controversy in Georgia.
Earlier this year, the federal government denied the state’s application to exit the HealthCare.Gov marketplace, a key part of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s health-care agenda.
The state then established its own health-insurance portal, GeorgiaAccess.Gov, directing consumers to private insurers.
Democrats contend the state should expand Medicaid to help cover more uninsured Georgians. Last Friday, state House Minority Leader James Beverly, D-Macon, and other House Democrats introduced a bill that would allow the state to expand Medicaid.
But Medicaid expansion is unlikely to gain the Republican backing necessary to pass in the General Assembly.
However, the state does plan to expand Medicaid on a limited basis by providing the insurance to low-income Georgians who meet monthly work, education or volunteer requirements. The state initially estimated that plan, slated to start in July, would help around 64,000 Georgians obtain health insurance.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
