by Ty Tagami | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
The Georgia Senate adopted legislation Tuesday that would make it a felony to distribute computer-generated obscenity that appears to depict a child, even one that isn’t real.
Senate Bill 9, which passed 46-9, would also enhance the criminal penalties for offenses that involve the use of artificial intelligence.
The penalty for depicting a child would be one to 15 years in prison. It wouldn’t have to be a child “who actually exists.”
Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, said the enhanced sentencing is necessary because artificial intelligence has become such a powerful tool.
“It’s not just about punishment,” he said. “It’s about deterrence.”
There was discussion about simulated versus actual obscene acts, and Albers said prosecutors would have discretion to use the enhanced sentencing in such cases.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Children of active duty military parents would be able to obtain one of Georgia’s new private education tuition subsidies without having to first attend an underperforming public school, under a measure adopted by the Georgia Senate Tuesday.
The state began taking applications this month for the new Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, a $6,500 annual private education subsidy, commonly known as a voucher, which was passed into law last year.
The program requires that students, except for rising kindergartners, first attend a public school performing in the bottom 25% in order to participate.
Senate Bill 124, which passed by a 37-16 vote, would waive that requirement for military families. They move frequently, so this legislation makes these kids eligible for private tuition help from the state, said the chief sponsor, Sen. Shawn Still, R-Johns Creek.
SB 124 is similar to a measure that the Senate’s Republican majority passed last week.
Under Senate Bill 152, the natural-born and adopted children of parents who have fostered a child at any point in the prior decade would be exempt from the requirement that their child attend a low-performing school.
Qualifying households under SB 152 would also be exempt from the voucher program’s income thresholds. The program prioritizes households earning 400% or less above the federal poverty line when the number of funded slots is running out.
Military families wouldn’t get that income exemption under SB 124.
One of the main critiques of the vouchers is that they will largely be used by wealthier households that can afford the difference between the $6,500 subsidy and full tuition, which often exceeds $10,000. The voucher money comes from the same state funding stream that pays for public schools, so Democrats have reasoned that the program will lead to budget cuts at public schools.
No Democrat voted last week for SB 152, the foster bill, but five crossed the aisle Tuesday to vote with Republicans for SB 124 and the exemption for military families.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Georgia courts would have to give more weight to religious custom and preference when applying the law in disputes about individual rights if legislation adopted by the Republican-led state Senate Tuesday becomes law.
The Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which passed 32-23 along party lines, reignites a fight in the General Assembly dating back a decade.
In 2016, lawmakers passed another such measure over objections by civil rights groups that it threatened the state’s LGBTQ community. Business organizations fretted over the risk of convention and sporting event boycotts, and then-Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed the bill.
The current iteration, Senate Bill 36, says government “shall not substantially burden” a person’s exercise of religion except “in furtherance of a compelling government interest.”
Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, the chief sponsor, said the need is demonstrated by examples from other states that already have such a law — of a Native American youth who wanted to wear his hair long though the school wanted him to cut it and of a Muslim woman who refused to remove her veil for a photo in front of men while applying for a driver’s license.
The boy got to keep his locks, and the woman got her photo taken by a female photographer in a room with no men present, Setzler said, explaining that the courts had to balance their religious rights against local and state policies.
“People from all of your communities, no matter where you come from, need this basic protection in place,” Setzler said.
The vast majority of states have one of these religious freedom laws but nearly all of them have coupled such laws with anti-discrimination mandates, said Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta.
If SB 36 were to pass without civil rights protections, he said, hotels and restaurants could refuse to serve LGBTQ patrons, pharmacists could withhold birth control or HIV medicines for religious reasons, a venue could decline to host a Jewish wedding, and a landlord could deny housing to an unmarried couple.
Sen. RaShaun Kemp, D-Atlanta, said SB 36 would allow businesses to use religion as a reason to deny service to him, his husband and their two children.
“This isn’t about politics for me,” he said. “It’s about the ability for my family to live freely in this state.”
The measure now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives, which declined to consider a similar Senate measure last year.
by Dave Williams | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives voted unanimously Tuesday to make it easier for defendants in death penalty cases to establish intellectual disability as a defense.
Georgia is the only state among the 27 that allow capital punishment to execute convicted murderers with intellectual disabilities, defined as having an IQ below 70.
“This will be that fix,” state Rep. Bill Werkheiser, R-Glennville, chief sponsor of House Bill 123, said on the House floor before Tuesday’s 172-0 vote.
Under Werkheiser’s bill, the burden of proof to establish a defendant’s claim of an intellectual disability would be eased from “beyond a reasonable doubt” to “by a preponderance of the evidence.”
The legislation also would remove the determination of whether a defendant in a capital case has an intellectual disability from the guilt phase of the trial. Instead, that determination would take place following a pre-trial hearing.
“This is not getting rid of the death penalty,” said Rep. Tyler Paul Smith, R-Bremen, whose House Judiciary Committee (Non-Civil) took up the bill. “This ensures our criminal justice system operates with fairness and integrity.”
Werkheiser said he received a letter signed by more than 100 religious organizations endorsing his bill. It also got the backing of the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities.
The bill now moves to the state Senate.
by Dave Williams | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Representatives of Georgia manufacturers asked state lawmakers Tuesday to pass legislation shielding them from lawsuits brought by victims of contamination from “forever chemicals” – known as PFAS – in their water.
But lawyers representing those victims told members of the House Judiciary Committee companies including carpet and textile manufacturers knew the wastewater they were dumping was polluted and should be held responsible.
House Bill 211 would shield from legal liability companies that have used PFAS chemicals, typically to make fabric stain resistant and fire retardant, while holding companies that produce the chemicals – including DuPont and 3M – responsible for polluting rivers and streams with cancer-causing pollutants.
Only companies guilty of “willful misconduct” in using PFAS chemicals would not be shielded from lawsuits.
“(PFAS manufacturers) sold them to us as safe,” said Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, the bill’s chief sponsor. “(This) focuses the attention of litigation on the chemical companies that willfully neglected protecting consumers.”
“Many of my members are being drawn into lawsuits over something they had no control over,” added Brittney Hull, vice president of government affairs for the Georgia Association of Manufacturers. “They used a product deemed legal and, as such, should not be held liable.”
But the bill’s opponents argued the companies that have used PFAS chemicals were aware they were unsafe and continued to use them anyway.
“This bill imposes a get-out-of-jail-free card for Mohawk, Shaw, and others,” said Andy Davis, a lawyer representing the Northwest Georgia cities of Rome, Summerville, Chatsworth, and Calhoun, which are being forced to clean up PFAS pollution and charge their taxpayers for the cost. “People responsible for putting it in the waterways, once they know about it, they’re responsible.”
Amber Fletcher, who lives in Dalton downstream from Mohawk Industries Inc. storage ponds with her husband and six children, said the creek by her house has been found to contain dangerous levels of PFAS chemicals.
“Our children play in that creek,” she said. “They need to be held accountable for what they did.”
The committee ran short of time Tuesday morning and did not vote on the bill. The Crossover Day deadline for bills to pass either the state House or Senate to remain alive for the year, falls on Thursday.
