by Dave Williams | Nov 19, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday suspended former state Court of Appeals Judge Christian Coomer’s law license for two years.
The suspension will expire in August of next year, two years after the state Supreme Court removed Coomer from the Court of Appeals based on the recommendation of the state Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC). A commission hearing panel had found Coomer’s misuse of campaign funds and dealings with a client before he became a judge undermined public confidence.
Coomer, a Republican and former state legislator, was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2018 and elected to a full six-year term in 2020. Later that year, the JQC charged him with violating the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct, and he was suspended from the bench with pay in January 2021 pending the outcome of the case.
The JQC recommended removing Coomer from the bench following a three-month hearing.
The charges against Coomer stemmed from his relationship with James Filhart, an elderly client he began representing in 2015. Filhart hired Coomer to pursue an action for guardianship of Filhart’s girlfriend, according to the court ruling.
After the matter was resolved successfully, Coomer continued to represent Filhart in other legal matters, including drafting a will that named Coomer and his heirs among the beneficiaries and Coomer as executor and trustee.
Coomer also accepted several loans from Filhart, including a loan of $130,000 in 2018 to a business Coomer controlled that lacked assets, the ruling stated. The loan was not secured, and Coomer provided no personal guarantee.
By 2019, the relationship between the two men had soured, and Filhart e-mailed Coomer demanding that the judge return the money he had borrowed. Coomer repaid the loan in 2020 after Filhart filed a lawsuit against him.
Coomer also was accused of transferring campaign funds to his law firm’s operating account and, in two instances, failing to report the transfers on his campaign contributions disclosure report. A third instance involved a trip to Hawaii before Coomer left the General Assembly that he said was for legislative business but ultimately was found to have been for leisure, according to the ruling.
Coomer reimbursed his campaign account for expenses from the trip after the state Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission began investigating him.
The State Bar of Georgia agreed that the two-year suspension of Coomer’s law license was “appropriate and sufficient,” according to the 24-page ruling the state Supreme Court handed down Tuesday. Coomer had agreed to the suspension by entering a petition for voluntary discipline.
by Dave Williams | Nov 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state is laying the groundwork for a private-school vouchers program by launching a website with details on the initiative.
The new site, mygeorgiapromise.org, includes information on the Georgia Promise Scholarship, which the Republican-controlled General Assembly created this year to provide eligible K-12 students in lower-performing schools up to $6,500 in annual funding for private school tuition, tutoring services, and other qualified expenses.
“Mygeorgiapromise.org will make it easy for families, schools, and providers to learn about eligibility and the application process as we work toward the program launch in July 2025,” said Mitch Seabaugh, the program’s senior vice president.
The Georgia Education Savings Authority has partnered with Odyssey, an experienced technology provider, to create a user-centric financial services platform for families to use the vouchers.
The program is open to students who reside in a public school attendance zone that is in the lower 25% of all public schools in the state for at least one academic year or are a rising kindergarten student. Parents must have been Georgia residents for at least a year, with exceptions for active-duty military personnel.
Private-school vouchers have been a hot issue in the General Assembly for years. Legislative Republicans tried unsuccessfully over many sessions to pass a vouchers bill until this year, when the House and Senate approved the measure largely along party lines.
In an effort to get the bill through the legislature, Republicans made concessions that set spending limits on the program.
The legislation prohibits spending more than 1% of Georgia’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) fund on vouchers, a cap that is currently set at $140 million a year.
But Democrats argued the bill will divert money from public schools while not truly serving the needs of students from low-income families. Among other things, opponents said $6,500 is not nearly enough to pay the tuition at most private schools.
by Dave Williams | Nov 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s medical cannabis program has hit an important milestone.
Enrollment in the registry of patients eligible to receive the drug hit 25,000 during the weekend. That growth means the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission, the state agency that operates the program, is authorized to open additional dispensaries.
As a result, the six production companies licensed by the commission to grow marijuana and produce medical cannabis products from the leafy crop now are operating 13 dispensaries across Georgia.
“Patient access continues to be our mission and purpose,” commission Chairman Sid Johnson said. “Expanding Georgia’s medical cannabis program, especially providing service to patients, is why the commission exists.”
The General Assembly first legalized possession of low-THC cannabis oil to treat a wide range of diseases back in 2015 but failed to provide patients a legal way to obtain the drug. Adult patients and parents of ailing children were forced for years to travel out of state to get cannabis oil or buy it illegally in Georgia.
It wasn’t until 2019 that the legislature passed a bill setting up a licensing process for production companies to grow marijuana indoors under close supervision, convert the leafy crop to cannabis oil, and sell the product to patients with a doctor’s prescription who signed up for the state registry.
Under the legislation, the number of dispensaries will increase by an additional dispensing license for each of the six production companies with every increase in the registry of 10,000 patients.
“We anticipate things are going to pick up in pace quickly from here,” said Andrew Turnage, the commission’s executive director.
Part of the growth in patients enrolling in the medical cannabis registry stems from a recent series of listening sessions the commission conducted at Valdosta State University, Georgia Southern University, Kennesaw State University, and Middle Georgia State University. The tour will wrap up this week at Lanier Technical College in Gainesville.
“We have heard from patients, caregivers, health professionals, veterans, researchers, and students with an interest in or need for medical cannabis,” Johnson said. “Their willingness to share their personal stories and feedback for improvement is invaluable to the betterment of the program.”
by Dave Williams | Nov 15, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Boating enthusiasts and representatives of the recreational boating industry are asking Georgia lawmakers to separate the right to float along the state’s rivers and streams from hunting and fishing.
That was a major theme of the final meeting Nov. 13 of a legislative study committee that has been grappling with how to guarantee Georgians access to the state’s navigable rivers and streams without violating private property rights.
“The right of passage is independent of laws relating to navigability,” Joe Cook, paddle coordinator for Georgia Rivers, a member of the Freedom to Float Coalition, told members of the study committee. “Common law guarantees the right to float.”
The right to float down Georgia waterways has been caught up in a debate over fishing rights that began early last year when a property owner on the Yellow Jacket Shoals portion of the Flint River banned fishing there and sued the state to enforce it.
The General Assembly responded with legislation codifying public fishing rights into state law. But that didn’t clear up confusion over which rivers and streams across the state are navigable and, thus, open to fishing and paddling, and which are off limits.
The House Study Committee on Navigable Streams has held several hearings this summer and fall to try to come to grips with that issue.
Front and center in the debate has been legislation House Majority Whip James Burchett, R-Waycross, introduced this year naming 64 rivers and creeks “presumed to be navigable.”
Burchett’s “list” bill has run into strong opposition. Representatives of the Freedom to Float Coalition argue the bill, if adopted, would ensure the public’s right to boat, fish, and hunt on just 5% of the state’s 70,000 miles of waterways.
“List bills do not work when it comes to capturing the breadth of recreational boating in Georgia,” said Suzanne Welander, author of “Canoeing and Kayaking in Georgia.” “List bills barely scratch the surface of where people are boating today without conflict.”
Burchett has suggested that boaters wishing to float down streams that are not on the list of navigable waterways seek permission from landowners along the banks of those streams.
But Janina Edwards, a kayaking instructor in DeKalb County, dismissed seeking out every property owner along a stream as unrealistic and even potentially dangerous.
“This idea could get me killed for trespassing or having to get permission from dozens of property owners,” she said. “If a person has a vessel and it will float on a Georgia waterway, we have a right to recreate on it.”
Opponents of limiting access to the state’s rivers and streams also are putting forth an economic argument. Boating and fishing generated $1.1 billion in economic activity in 2022, and 70 small businesses offering canoe, kayak, tube, raft and paddleboard rentals as well as hundreds of independent fishing guides depend on access to Georgia waterways.
“Let’s not curtail an entire river recreation sector,” Andrea White, community programs coordinator for Georgia Rivers, told the study committee. “It’s a major draw for our state.”
The study committee has until Dec. 1 to make recommendations for the full House to consider during the 2025 General Assembly session starting in January. While Burchett’s bill died with the end of the 2023-24 legislative term, it could resurface next year.
“It won’t be an easy debate,” Rep. Lynn Smith, R-Newnan, the study committee’s chairperson, said at the end of the Nov. 13 hearing. “But it’s one worth having.”
by Dave Williams | Nov 15, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan to expand the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge – including land near the swamp being eyed by a mining company – received strong support this week.
Speakers at a public hearing on the proposal in Folkston were overwhelmingly in favor of the plan to add about 22,000 acres to the existing refuge.
This week’s hearing was the fourth in a row where public opposition to Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals’ (TPM) plan for a titanium mine along Trail Ridge adjacent to the Okefenokee was strong, said Josh Marks, president of Georgians for the Okefenokee.
“Georgians overwhelmingly said they want the Okefenokee protected, and they do not want mining,” Marks wrote in an email to Capitol Beat. “Hopefully, Governor (Brian) Kemp will finally listen to his constituents, deny the TPM permits, and instead join the federal government in permanently protecting Trail Ridge and the swamp once and for all.”
Proposed state draft permits would allow Twin Pines Minerals to mine titanium oxide along Trail Ridge on the Okefenokee’s eastern rim. Scientific research has shown a mine would threaten the swamp’s water levels, increase wildfire risks, harm wildlife, and release toxic contaminants into nearby surface and groundwater.
Twin Pines officials say the project would not harm the largest blackwater swamp in North America.
In a news release last month, the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote the planned expansion of the refuge would “enable the service to work with willing landowners to explore voluntary conservation actions, including potential acquisition, that would further protect the refuge’s globally significant freshwater wetland system and wildlife habitat.”
There is precedence for adding to the wildlife refuge to head off proposed mining. That’s what happened in the 1990s when DuPont abandoned its plans to mine titanium near the swamp.
Public comment on the Fish and Wildlife Service expansion plan must be submitted by Nov. 18 via email to Okefenokee@fws.gov.
