The Georgia General Assembly has adopted its first bill of this year’s legislative session, a measure that allows bail bond businesspeople to hold more elective offices.
The state House of Representatives passed the legislation 159-6 Friday, following Senate passage of the measure 51-2 in early February.
A mostly forgotten state law says people in that business can only serve on a local school board. Senate Bill 16 expands that to any local office as long as it is not in a county where the person does business.
On Friday, Rep. David Huddleston, R-Roopville, said deleting the prohibition would help attract good candidates for elective office in rural areas, where he said they are hard to find.
No one spoke against the measure on the House floor, though one representative asked if SB 16 was being pushed by a bail bondsmen association. No, Huddleston responded.
The bill by Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan — the Senate’s majority caucus vice chair — came about after a candidate who had won an election in Heard County discovered the old law and chose not to take office. Huddleston said lawmakers subsequently learned of instances where people in the bail bond business had held office in violation of the 1980s law without realizing it.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, prefaced the brief debate on the measure with a slight nudge to his colleagues in the other wing of the Gold Dome to get things moving. The session ends in less than two months, just before the Masters Tournament in Augusta, as is customary.
“We’re taking up a Senate Bill,” Burns said. “We hope they’ll do same for us in the Senate.”
The bill now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.