by Dave Williams | Feb 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives passed legislation last year offering tax credits to Georgians who buy safe firearm storage devices such as trigger locks and gun safes, but the bill died in the state Senate.
Doing nothing is no longer an option following last September’s mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County that killed two teachers and two students. During the opening weeks of this year’s General Assembly sessions, lawmakers have introduced a series of bills aimed at improving school safety.
“Our children are our future,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said early this month during a news conference unveiling a comprehensive school safety measure. “This House is committed to leaving no stone unturned when it comes to securing their safety.”
House Bill 268 calls for improvements in information sharing among schools through a new anonymous app for tips alerting law enforcement personnel or mental health-care providers that a troubled student could pose a treat to themselves or others.
The measure also would establish a statewide information-sharing database to allow the timely transfer of pertinent student data between school systems. The 14-year-old student at Apalachee High arrested for the murders, Colt Gray, had just transferred from another school.
The bill also requires school systems to create threat management teams, provides for the mandatory suspension of students who make terroristic threats, and offers tax incentives to encourage gun owners to purchase safe gun storage equipment.
On the Senate side, majority Republicans are backing legislation requiring schools to install alert systems that could be triggered discretely to warn nearby law enforcement agencies of an active shooter. Senate Bill 17 – Ricky and Alyssa’s Law – is named in honor of Ricky Aspinwall, the coach at Apalachee High who died in the September shooting, and Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the students killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
The bill also requires schools to develop maps showing first responders the layout of school buildings, including access points.
“The big picture is to save minutes, save time, to let first responders take down an active shooter and protect the lives of children and teachers in the building,” Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the Senate Education and Youth Committee Thursday.
“Time equals life,” added Lori Alhadeff, the mother of Alyssa Alhadeff and founder of the nonprofit Make Our Schools Safe. “We need to get our kids and teachers to safety quicker and reduce the response time for first responders.”
The committee approved Anavitarte’s bill, and it appears headed toward passing the full Senate. Legislation backed by Senate Democrats, however, likely faces tougher sledding.
The main difference between the approach Republicans and Democrats are taking on gun safety is that Democrats want to require firearm owners to store their weapons safely, while GOP lawmakers favor offering tax incentives to encourage gun owners to voluntarily take steps to secure their firearms.
Senate Bill 49, introduced by Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, criminalizes making a firearm accessible to anyone younger than 17 without adult supervision or leaving an unsecured firearm in a place where children are likely to gain access to it.
Parent criticized Republicans for merely encouraging gun owners to store their weapons safety rather than mandating safe storage.
“If you as an adult have a gun in an unsafe location and children can gain access to it, or if you give a child a gun, the message they’re sending is, ‘Please don’t do that,’ ” she said. “The message should be stronger.”
Georgia Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, has introduced similar legislation in the House providing criminal penalties for adults who allow children access to firearms. She held a news conference on her bill recently with Apalachee High School students and their families.
“The families were appreciative of Speaker Burns and his attention to the issue of school safety but, like many, feel it does not go far enough to address the gun violence at the heart of the problem,” Au wrote in an update on the legislative session to her constituents.
Burns said he supports the Republicans’ voluntary approach to gun safety rather than a mandate to protect Georgia gun owners’ Second Amendment rights.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia businesses continued years of export growth last year, with a 6.4% gain and more than $53 billion in merchandise shipped, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday.
Top exports were civilian aircraft and parts at $12.6 billion, motor vehicles at $2.4 billion, computers at $1.8 billion, telephone sets at $1.6 billion, and medical devices at $1.3 billion.
Kemp noted the state’s key assets, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest, and two booming ports.
Brunswick recently supplanted Baltimore as the nation’s busiest port for autos and heavy equipment. Savannah has the fastest growing port in the country. Georgia also boasts more rail miles than any other Southeastern state.
Exporters here can tap the state’s official international presence, with trade representatives in a dozen global markets. But businesses have gone beyond those markets.
“Georgia’s diverse industry base and connectivity to more than 200 global markets create a more resilient state economy,” said Pat Wilson, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
However, the state is running a trade deficit with some major partners. Georgia imported $18.6 billion in merchandise from Mexico last year, nearly three times more than the $6.3 billion exported south of the border.
The gap with China was even larger: the state imported $17.2 billion from that industrial powerhouse, more than five times the $3 billion exported to the Asian giant. Germany sent four times more exports to Georgia than the state imported from that nation, at $11.8 billion versus $2.4 billion.
Motor vehicle imports – $15 billion – were more than six times greater than exports. The state also imported twice the value of computers and telephone sets than it exported.
Still, exports continued a long growth trend of 37% over a decade. Top export markets were Canada at $7.4 billion, followed by Mexico, China, the Netherlands and Germany.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs could affect that trend though.
Broad and high tariffs on imports likely will drive up prices for Georgia consumers, while retaliatory tariffs levied by America’s trading partners could damage export industries, State Economist Robert Buschman told Georgia lawmakers Wednesday during his annual economic outlook presentation.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 13, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Local government officials and employees who violate a state law requiring them to cooperate with federal immigration authorities could face new financial consequences under legislation adopted by the Georgia Senate Thursday.
Senate Bill 21 passed 33-18 in a near party-line vote in the Republican-dominated chamber.
The legislation would strip local governing bodies and law enforcement agencies that violate the state law of the “sovereign immunity” that shields them from lawsuits. It would also remove what’s called “governmental immunity” from individual local officials, employees and law enforcement officers, likewise exposing them to the risk of lawsuits.
The measure “just adds teeth to Georgia law,” said Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the bill’s sponsor.
It is a crime in Georgia to “knowingly and willfully” refuse to comply with a federal request to hold a non-citizen for potential deportation or federal custody.
It’s also illegal to enact, adopt, implement, or enforce any “sanctuary” policy prohibiting cooperation or the sharing of immigration status information with federal immigration authorities.
SB 21 is a backlash against a “sanctuary city” movement nationally that aims to withhold information about immigrants from federal agents.
Democrats and Republicans agreed Thursday that no local government has violated the existing state law. This led Democrats to question why Republicans were introducing the threat of lawsuits and the potential resulting costs for taxpayers.
Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, said opening the way for more lawsuits contradicts Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican lawmakers’ push for “tort reform” legislation that would reduce payouts in lawsuits.
The bill could expose rank and file employees, such as teachers, to lawsuits by zealous immigration opponents, she said.
“The right to sue teachers act, that’s what this bill is,” Parkes said. “There is no sanctuary city in Georgia, not a single one, but SB 21 pretends there is a problem.”
Democrats also said the measure would impose additional costs on local law enforcement to house and staff their jails.
Tillery dismissed these criticisms. Local jails are already obliged to detain suspects sought by immigration authorities, so there should be no added cost from SB 21, he said. And teachers would only become exposed to a lawsuit “if we had third graders committing rapes and murders,” he said.
The debate about teachers stemmed from a hearing last week, when Megan Gordon, policy director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, warned that SB 21 could expose teachers to lawsuits if they follow federal court precedent prohibiting the collection and reporting of students’ immigration status.
The legislation now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 13, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation that would make it illegal for doctors and hospitals to administer puberty blockers to children is advancing through Georgia’s Republican-controlled Senate.
The General Assembly previously prohibited irreversible procedures, including sex reassignment surgery and hormone replacement therapies.
Senate Bill 30 would add bans on the use of reversible treatments and puberty blockers on minors.
Hospitals already risk losing a permit over a violation. The new legislation, which Republican lawmakers pushed through a Senate committee Wednesday on a party-line vote, exposes both hospitals and doctors to the prohibition. The legislation also adds a provision exposing both to lawsuits by parents for violations.
Medical doctors testified for and against the measure, with one saying children aren’t ready to make life-altering decisions and another saying puberty blockers are reversible.
Peter Isbister, the father of a transgender child, said the legislation won’t stop people with resources from outflanking such a law.
“My 11-year-old son will get the health care he needs, I am privileged to say, because I will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that he does,” he said. “Why? Because I love him as you love your children.”
Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, is sponsoring SB 30. The primary care physician said he is concerned about health implications of puberty blockers.
The bill now heads to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full Senate.
by Dave Williams | Feb 13, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A New York City man has pleaded guilty to running a massive investment fraud scheme involving a planned commercial real estate project in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.
Elchonon “Elie” Schwartz, 46, admitted his guilt on one count of wire fraud in federal court Wednesday and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
According to information presented in court, Schwartz began soliciting investments in the proposed Atlanta Financial Center in May 2022 and subsequently in a mixed-use building in Miami Beach, Fla. He ultimately raised $62.8 million from more than 800 investors.
However, before either real estate project closed, Schwartz diverted the funds to his personal bank account and accounts for other unrelated commercial real estate investments he controlled.
Schwartz spent the money, among other things, on luxury watches and stocks and options in a brokerage account. In July 2023, both of the corporate entities he formed to receive investments in the two projects filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“Seeking to do nothing more than pad his own bank accounts and buy expensive luxury items, Elie Schwartz betrayed hundreds of investors who sought the opportunity to invest in these commercial real estate projects,” said Richard Moultrie Jr., acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
“This office is committed to protecting investors from individuals, like Schwartz, who defraud donors out of their hard-earned money and seek to prioritize their own greed at the expense of legitimate investors.”
Schwartz is scheduled to be sentenced in May.
