by Dave Williams | Feb 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – For the first time since 2020, Georgia voters will elect members of the state Public Service Commission (PSC) this year.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger issued a call Wednesday for special elections on Nov. 4 to fill two seats on the PSC. Primaries will take place on June 17, with any runoffs that become necessary set for July 15.
District 2 Commissioner Tim Echols and District 3 Commissioner Fitz Johnson are currently serving terms that were extended because of a 2022 lawsuit challenging the way members of the PSC are elected in Georgia.
Four Black Fulton County residents argued that electing members of the PSC statewide rather than by district dilutes Black voting strength in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, making it more difficult for Black voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
A lower federal court agreed and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The appellate court ruling was allowed to stand when the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to take up the plaintiffs’ appeal.
The General Assembly passed a bill during last year’s legislative session scheduling the elections for PSC districts 2 and 3 this year. The election for District 5 will be held in 2026, and elections for PSC districts 1 and 4 will take place in 2028.
Under Raffensperger’s order, candidate qualifying will take place April 1-3 at the state Capitol.
PSC District 2 stretches from Rockdale and Henry counties in Atlanta’s southern and eastern suburbs southeast all the way through Chatham County. District 3 – the Atlanta district – includes Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton counties.
by Dave Williams | Feb 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Port of Savannah handled nearly 5.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units of containerized cargo (TEUs) last year, a 12.5% increase that made Savannah the fastest growing container port on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.
“Savannah is clearly the gateway port for the U.S. Southeast,” Griff Lynch, president and CEO of the Georgia Ports Authority, told an audience of more than 1,700 coastal business and elected leaders Tuesday during the annual State of the Port luncheon. “We see this pattern only continuing to accelerate.”
Lynch said the growth the Savannah port experienced last year came despite disruptions to global shipping caused by the rerouting of cargo vessels away from the Suez Canal to avoid attacks launched by Iran-backed Houthi militants as well as extended labor contract negotiations.
To keep pace with the growing demand, the ports authority is planning to add berth space at the Port of Savannah, boost container yard and rail capacity, and grow the truck gates at the port. Two new berths at the Ocean Terminal – one opening immediately and the other next year – will be used as storage space to free up room at the Garden City Terminal, allowing faster turnaround times.
Phase I of the Ocean Terminal yard renovation will be completed in mid-2027, with the second phase due to be finished by mid-2028. This will increase capacity by up to 1.5 million TEUs per year.
Longer term plans call for the planned Savannah Container Terminal on Hutchinson Island to open by 2030, ultimately adding three additional big-ship berths and 3.5 million TEUs of annual capacity. The facility is currently in the permitting phase.
“These improvements are necessary to stay ahead of growing demand and to continue providing the world-class service our customers have come to expect,” Lynch said. “With $4 billion in investments planned for Ocean Terminal and Savannah Container Terminal, Savannah will be a 12.5 million-TEU capacity port by 2035.”
by Ty Tagami | Feb 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Georgia public schools were short 5,300 teachers as of December, an ongoing problem state lawmakers have been unable to fix.
They have a new proposed solution, but it would take awhile to put in place: let more retired teachers return to the classroom with both pay and pensions.
Senate Bill 150 would allow former teachers to return to the classroom 60 days after they retire following 25 years of service.
It would expand on a current, but temporary law, that lets teachers return to the classroom after a year of retirement following 30 years of service.
That older law restricts this post-retirement service to a handful of high-demand academic subjects in high-vacancy parts of the state. About 450 retired teachers have been re-employed under that law, which is in its third year and expires next year.
The proposed law would expire in the summer of 2034.
“We’ve got a real issue that we’ve got to deal with,” Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, said Tuesday of the teacher shortage. He is the chief sponsor of SB 150, which he said would address the problem “on a temporary basis until our schools can gear up.”
A Senate committee voted unanimously to pass the bill on for a cost analysis. However, it likely won’t come up for further action until next year’s legislative session.
by Dave Williams | Feb 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Chief Justice Michael Boggs announced Tuesday that he will resign from the state Supreme Court at the end of next month, the last day of the Court’s current term.
Boggs plans to return to private practice in South Georgia.
In a resignation letter hand-delivered to Gov. Brian Kemp, Boggs noted his 25 years in elective office, including more than two decades of service as a judge at various state court levels.
“Throughout my service, I have endeavored to be a good steward of the public’s trust,” Boggs wrote. “During my 21 years as a judge, I have found it especially rewarding to contribute to efforts that improve our state’s judicial system for the citizens who rely on it to deliver justice for all.”
After spending two terms in the Georgia House of Representatives in the early 2000s, Boggs moved over to the courts, where he served first as a Superior Court judge in the Waycross Judicial Circuit. Subsequently, he joined the Georgia Court of Appeals, then was appointed to the state Supreme Court by then-Gov. Nathan Deal in 2016 .
Boggs won reelection to the high-court bench in 2018 and 2024. He became chief justice in July 2022.
In that role, he chaired the Judicial Council of Georgia, the policy-making body for the judicial branch, and initiated ongoing efforts to improve judicial security, address the state’s civil justice gap, and respond to the challenges and promises of artificial intelligence in the courts.
Boggs also sought to bolster access to justice through collaborative initiatives with the State Bar of Georgia’s Office of Bar Admissions and the Supreme Court’s Committee on Access to Justice. As chairman of the Judicial Council’s American Rescue Plan Act Funding Committee, he worked with the state’s executive branch to direct resources to trial courts to address case backlogs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In his letter, Boggs noted that his wife has recently retired from full-time teaching, as well as increasing family and personal obligations at his home in South Georgia.
Kemp will appoint a new justice to fill Boggs’ seat, and the court will select its next chief justice.
by Dave Williams | Feb 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation prohibiting Georgia Power from passing on the costs of providing electricity to data centers to residential and small business customers cleared a state Senate committee Tuesday.
An 8-5 vote of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee sent the bill to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
Senate Bill 34 comes in the wake of six Georgia Power rate increases in less than two years that have driven up what homeowners and small businesses pay by 37%. At the same time, the rapid growth of power-hungry data centers in Georgia is behind a demand for 3,300 megawatts of additional electric generating capacity, exponentially more than Georgia Power’s typical growth rate of about 100 megawatts per year.
“The consumers are paying for this additional power that’s being consumed by the data centers,” Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, the bill’s chief sponsor, told committee members Tuesday. “I want something in place that doesn’t let history repeat itself.”
Aaron Mitchell, vice president of pricing and planning for Georgia Power, argued the bill is unnecessary because of rules changes the state Public Service Commission (PSC) adopted last month that prohibit the Atlanta-based utility from passing on the costs of serving new large-load customers including data centers to residential customers.
“We have committed that residential customers will pay nothing to account for those 3,300 megawatts,” he said.
But energy lawyer Bobby Baker, a former member of the PSC, said the new rules the commission approved are full of loopholes that give Georgia Power so much flexibility over compliance that they offer no guaranteed protections for residential ratepayers.
“These rules changes are essentially worthless,” he said. “The cost causers need to pay for the costs they cause.”
Hufstetler’s bill got pushback from committee members who objected to the General Assembly stepping in on issues that are already being handled by the elected members of the PSC.
Others called for broadening the bill to apply to Georgia’s electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) and municipal electric utilities rather than limiting it to Georgia Power. Sen. Carden Summers, R-Cordele, proposed amending Hufstetler’s bill to do just that.
But Kevin Curtin, senior vice president of government relations for Georgia EMC, opposed the amendment as taking away the power of board members of the state’s 41 EMCs, who – unlike Georgia Power’s board – are elected by EMC customers.
“Having a law imposed on us … takes away our boards’ authority to make decisions,” he said.
Summers’ amendment died for lack of a second before the committee approved the underlying bill.
