by Dave Williams | Feb 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia families seeking to have children would have a guaranteed right to pursue in vitro fertilization (IVF) under legislation that cleared a state House committee Monday.
While in vitro fertilization is already being practiced in Georgia, House Bill 428 would codify it into state law, protecting it from any litigation that might seek to prohibit the procedure.
IVF became a hot topic last year when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF should be considered children under state law, which essentially would have banned the procure. But after a public outcry, Alabama’s legislature stepped in to pass a bill protecting IVF in that state, and Gov. Kay Ivey signed it.
The right to IVF became an issue in the 2024 presidential race, with both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris expressing their support for IVF care. Trump, who took the oath of office for his second term as president last month, signed an executive order earlier this month calling for a list of policy recommendations within 90 days on protecting IVF access and reducing out-of-pocket and insurance costs for IVF treatment.
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, has made codifying IVF protections into state law a priority for the 2025 General Assembly session.
The chief sponsor of House Bill 428, Rep. Lehman Franklin, R-Statesboro, has personal experience with IVF. After trying unsuccessfully multiple times to become pregnant through IVF, his wife, Lorie, is due to deliver the couple a daughter in June.
“I believe she would not be pregnant if we hadn’t used IVF,” Franklin told members of the House Health Committee.
The bill now heads to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
The Georgia Senate adopted legislation Monday that would enhance lawmakers’ authority to overrule the results of the process that agencies use to enact laws.
Senate Bill 28 would require the state to produce an analysis of an agency’s rule that could cost the public or local governments at least $1 million to comply with during the first five years.
It would also empower lawmakers to call for a review of the impact of any proposed legislation on businesses with 300 or fewer employees. And the bill calls for periodic reviews of existing rules.
Rules that lawmakers disagree with could be dismissed.
The “Red Tape Rollback Act” triggered a lengthy debate that was less about the bill than about federal cutbacks led by President Donald Trump’s billionaire appointee Elon Musk.
Republicans opened the door to this critique at a hearing earlier this month, when the chairman of the reviewing committee for SB 28, Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, likened the measure to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has been slashing federal jobs.
“It’s kind of our DOGE if you will,” Beach said. “We’re going to cut back on regulations and cut back on government.”
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, the chief sponsor of SB 28, told his colleagues on the Senate floor Monday that his bill merely intends to reduce the number of burdensome rules that result from the hundreds of laws passed each year.
Rulemaking is currently the purview of agency experts trained in the subject matter addressed by the laws they are implementing, but Dolezal said lawmakers bring their own expertise: they regularly bump into constituents — on their kids’ soccer fields, in grocery stores — who are affected by rules.
“We have connectivity with the people that have to live under these rules,” Dolezal said. The legislation “gives them a touch point to reach out to us and raise a flag if there is something coming from an agency that they may have an objection to.”
Democrats said this would open the door to further influence by lobbyists. They also tied the measure to what’s happening under the new Trump administration.
Sen. Sheikh Rahman, D-Lawrenceville, called Musk’s actions a “mean spirit … a bad spirit,” adding that his constituents are afraid of what’s happening. He reasoned that the intent of SB 28 is either to cut jobs in Georgia government or reverse state rules created under the leadership of Republican governors and their appointees for two decades.
Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Dawson, lamented that the senators had occupied an hour and a half debating the bill, which she deemed to be trivial. But Sen. Colton Moore, R-Trenton, said agency rules were important to his constituents, who have complained that copious state park regulations were affecting them.
SB 28 passed along party lines, with Moore, who often opposes legislation – even from his fellow Republicans – voting for passage. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, which did not pass a similar measure last year.
by Dave Williams | Feb 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives voted Monday to increase an income tax credit for Georgia taxpayers who contribute to nonprofit organizations that help foster children who age out of the foster care system.
House Bill 136, which passed 170-2, would raise the annual cap on contributions to the program from $20 million to $30 million.
The General Assembly created the tax credit in 2022 to help the approximately 700 youths in foster case who turn 18 and age out of the system each year.
“These are young people who often end up in poverty or homeless,” Rep. Mark Newton, R-Augusta, said on the House floor Monday. “If not for this help, they can end up in prison or pregnant.”
Taxpayers wishing to contribute to the program can receive dollar-for-dollar state income tax credits for up to $2,500 per year, while married couples filing jointly can receive up to $5,000. Corporate donations are limited to 10% of the company’s annual tax liability.
The donations go toward providing program participants with medical care, mentoring, food, car repairs and housing, as well as aid for high-school GED programs and tuition to pay for vocational or college courses needed to complete their education.
Newton said at least 90% of the contributions must be spent directly on helping the participants, while no more than 10% can go to cover the program’s overhead.
The bill now moves to the Georgia Senate.
by Dave Williams | Feb 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state Senate is upping the ante on funding to help victims of Hurricane Helene recover from the massive storm that marched through South Georgia and east Georgia from Valdosta to Augusta last September.
The Senate Appropriations Committee signed off Monday on a $40.5 billion mid-year budget that would add $125 million to the $812 million Gov. Brian Kemp and the state House of Representatives already have earmarked for residents, business owners, farmers, and timber producers who suffered losses from Helene. Kemp’s original mid-budget requested $615 million, and the House kicked in another $197 million.
Of the $125 million the Senate added, $25 million would go to Georgians who are neither farmers nor timber producers, committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said before Monday’s vote.
“They, through no fault of their own, are awaiting insurance claims, or maybe they were denied coverage and are still sleeping with the only thing between their beds and the outside elements being a thin blue tarp they were given some 149 days ago,” he said. “I believe we owe them the same duty we do our farming and forest industries.”
Tillery said the committee reduced funding across the mid-year budget, which covers state spending through June 30, and rolled the resulting savings into disaster relief. Many of those cuts were made possible by delays in filling budgeted positions or holding off on building projects that have been funded but haven’t begun construction.
The Senate committee supported Kemp’s request for $501 million to increase surface water supplies in Coastal Georgia to supply the huge Hyundai electric-vehicle manufacturing plant now under construction west of Savannah.
The panel also backed the governor’s recommendation to hire more than 400 additional correctional officers to staff a state prison system criticized last fall in a federal audit for failing to protect inmates from widespread violence. In fact, the committee added another $20 million to help fund a proposed pay raise for correctional officers.
The Senate mid-year budget also calls for three modular prison units the state Department of Corrections is planning to construct to house inmates temporarily while making room for projects fixing crumbling infrastructure in existing prisons. The governor had asked for four modulars, which the House reduced to two.
The mid-year budget is expected to reach the Senate floor for a vote later this week.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 21, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Transgender people, particularly youths, remain a subject of Republican-led policy in Georgia, as lawmakers consider several bills that would regulate their interactions with the medical industry and with female athletes.
Both the Georgia Senate and House of Representatives have measures that would ban transgender students born male from female teams in K-12 schools and in higher education.
The Senate has gone further, with legislation that would ban puberty blockers and the use of state resources — health insurance, hospital facilities and medical personnel — for gender-related procedures.
The conflict has made for confusing hearings, where experts disagreed about core facts.
For instance, one doctor testified at a recent hearing on Senate Bill 30 that substances known as puberty blockers have long-term consequences, and that children should not be deciding whether to take them.
“They’re not capable of making life-altering decisions,” she said. “We don’t leave them alone for the weekend.”
Another doctor contradicted her, saying puberty blockers are reversible. He described the legislation as government overreach. The committee passed SB 30 that evening.
Senate Bill 39, the bill that would ban the use of state resources for gender-change procedures, and Senate Bill 1, which seeks to ban transgender athletes from female athletics, have already passed the full Senate.
The sports measure may get the most traction in the House, which is moving its own legislation on transgender athletes.
House Bill 267 passed the House Education Committee on Friday. Like SB 1, it seeks to ban transgender students born male from participation on female teams — and from using female locker rooms and other shared facilities where nudity occurs.
HB 267 is named the “Riley Gaines Act.” Gaines is a collegiate swimmer whose encounter with a transgender athlete at a 2022 national championship meet at Georgia Tech has been widely reported.
Like other women who’ve testified at recent hearings about that event, Gaines was outraged about having to compete against — and share a locker room with — a transgender woman whom Gaines said was unlike a woman due to “fully intact” male genitalia.
“I am very proud and really honored to lend my name to the fight to reclaim the English language and, of course, to save women’s sports,” Gaines said at the committee hearing on HB 267 Friday.
She introduced herself as a 12-time NCAA All American, a five-time Southeastern Conference (SEC) champion, an SEC record holder in the 200-meter butterfly, a two-time Olympic trial qualifier, and “one of the fastest Americans of all time.”
Yet, she said, she could not beat a transgender athlete at that 2022 event who had previously performed poorly against male swimmers.
Democrats have mostly opposed these measures, asserting that they are not grounded in fact or science.
They dismiss arguments that the sports legislation is intended to promote fairness for girls, countering with their own measures that demand equity in “funds, facilities access, equipment, supplies, and other resources.” Senate Bill 41 and House Bill 221 have yet to get a hearing.
For Rep. Karen Lupton, D-Chamblee, the role of religion is a concern. Frontline Policy Action, a Christian group, helped write HB 267, and she saw hypocrisy in that.
“Did Jesus say that the highest expression of faith is to love a neighbor?” Lupton asked at Friday’s hearing, suggesting that HB 267 was not “loving trans kids as you would wish to be treated.”
Frontline Policy Action also helped write SB 1, the Senate’s version of HB 267. And a representative of that group, along with one from the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, have been a consistent presence at these hearings.
The transgender sports issue has proved a popular one for Republicans, who suggest alarming scenarios where these athletes could overpower and even injure females.
The GOP pushed through a bill in 2022 that allowed the Georgia High School Association to ban transgender athletes from teams that don’t match their birth certificates.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in early February that withholds federal funding from schools that do not “oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports.” And the GOP-led U.S. House narrowly passed its own bill with the same goal in January.
Critics contend that Republicans are capitalizing on a handful of well-publicized events, such as the one involving Gaines. They say such high-stakes competitive scenarios are rare, with injury rarer still.
“Why do we keep hearing about Riley Gaines every time we have one of these hearings?” complained one woman at a subcommittee hearing on HB 267.
Critics also say that the GOP initiatives against transgender people will expose an already marginalized group to more bullying, raising their risk of suicide, which is already relatively high.
Republican lawmakers acknowledge they have no data to describe the scope of transgender participation in sports in Georgia, but they and their supporters counter that just one occurrence is too many.
The conflict around the medical regulation of gender may be the most emotional.
Transgender people and parents of transgender children say they are being targeted like gay people were decades ago.
Peter Isbister, an Atlanta-area dad, said at a hearing earlier this month on SB 30 that such measures can’t turn back history. He also implied that they would mainly affect those from lower-income households. He said he can take his child out of state to obtain puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care if necessary.
“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,” Isbister said. “Why? Because I love him as you love your children, because our love is not different than your love.”
The full Senate has yet to consider SB 30, the bill Isbister was testifying against. But that chamber has already sent SB 39 and SB 1, the sports bill, to the House.
SB 1 may get the most support there, since the House’s version, HB 267, could soon get a vote before the full House.
In a rare appearance that was clearly intended to send a message of support for the bill, House Speaker Jon Burns spoke at Friday’s hearing on the House bill.
The Republican from Newington said he was concerned about transgender participation in sport because he has four granddaughters.
“It’s simple,” he said. “Biological men have an undeniable and scientifically proven advantage against women when it comes to athletic competition.”
Burns said the legislation “levels the playing field and ensures that our daughters and our granddaughters are not robbed of their opportunity for fair and safe competition.”
