by Dave Williams | Mar 21, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A tort reform bill Republican Gov. Brian Kemp made his top priority for this year’s legislative session gained final passage in the General Assembly Friday.
The Georgia Senate’s GOP majority voted 34-21 to agree to changes the state House of Representatives made to the bill, sending it to Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Supporters of Senate Bill 68 argued tort reform is needed in Georgia to reverse a pattern of excessive jury awards in civil lawsuits they said are driving up liability insurance premiums, making it harder for the small businesses that are the state’s economic mainstay to grow and create jobs.
“Georgians from across the state are asking for a more fair and balanced civil justice system,” Senate President Pro Tempore John Kennedy, R-Macon, the bill’s chief sponsor, said before Friday’s vote. “Everyday Georgians are struggling to make ends meet. … We need to do something about this.”
Most sections of the measure deal with how trials of lawsuit should be conducted in Georgia, including when plaintiff lawyers can argue for non-economic damages, when discovery can begin, and when lawyers on either side can request dismissal of a case.
But most of the controversy surrounding the bill involves its “premises liability” provision governing when plaintiffs can sue business owners after suffering injuries during the commission of a crime by a third party outside the owner’s control.
After an outcry from victims of sex trafficking and their lawyers, the House amended the bill to carve out those victims from the legislation.
But opponents said the carveout doesn’t go far enough. On Friday, Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to expand the carveout to include all sex crimes where the victim is a minor or a senior citizen.
“Why should they not have the same rights?” she asked her Senate colleagues. “It makes no sense.”
Other changes the House made to the bill based on feedback from hours of testimony give discretion to trial judges over whether to let defense lawyers introduce evidence involving whether a victim of an auto crash was wearing a seatbelt and give victims the right to avoid testifying multiple times during a trial if doing so would prove traumatic.
But critics remained dissatisfied with the overall bill, calling it a shield from liability for businesses that denies victims their day in court.
“Lawmakers have decided that protecting corporations and insurance companies is more important than protecting victims,” Parent said.
Kennedy objected to Parent’s characterization of the measure. He said Kemp would never do anything to take away the rights of victims of human trafficking, considering that his wife – First Lady Marty Kemp – has long been a leading advocate for cracking down on sex traffickers.
Sen. Colton Moore, R-Trenton, the only Republican who voted against the bill Friday, said it won’t necessarily fix what supporters say is wrong with the civil justice system.
“There’s no guarantee whatsoever that insurance companies are going to reduce rates,” he said.
On the other side of the aisle, only two Democrats – Sens. Ed Harbison of Columbus and Emanuel Jones of Decatur, voted for the legislation.
Business groups praised Kemp and the General Assembly for passing tort reform.
“This is a big victory for Georgia’s small businesses,” said Hunter Loggins, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. “Lawsuit abuse has driven up the cost of insurance and made it hard for small business members.”
“Governor Kemp and Georgia lawmakers have taken a bold step to restore fairness and balance to our legal system,” added Ben Cowart, vice president of Georgia Retailers. “By reducing the risk of excessive jury verdicts, this legislation will discourage frivolous lawsuits, encourage new investment, and create jobs across the state.”
by Ty Tagami | Mar 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia taxpayers will pay a little less after Gov. Brian Kemp signs two tax relief measures following their approval Thursday by the state Senate.
“The final passage of these two measures today brings us one step closer to eliminating the state income tax, while providing tax relief for Georgia families and businesses,” said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who thanked Kemp for leading the effort.
House Bill 112, which passed unanimously, seeks to give one-time rebates equaling $250 to single tax return filers, $375 to heads of household and $500 to married couples filing jointly.
But a tax cut bill – House Bill 111 – was as controversial in the Senate as it had been in the state House of Representatives, with Democrats calling it a sop to the rich that would reduce funding for services to the poor and Republicans labeling their criticism “class warfare.”
The bill, which passed 30-23 with mostly Democrats opposed, would reduce Georgia’s income tax rate from 5.39% to 5.19% retroactive to the beginning of the current tax year.
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, said it amounts to $10 off the taxes for earners in the bottom 20% but at least $3,000 for the top 1%.
“That is a finger in the eye of everyone who struggles to afford gas, eggs and rent,” she said. “When you make $2 million a year, you’re probably not worried about $3,000.”
Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, said a large portion of those top earners are actually small businesses. They’ll notice $3,000, he said, adding that it’s enough to pay their internet bill.
In conjunction with the tax cut, Republicans said, a low-wage family of four will owe nothing.
“You won’t pay a dime in state income tax unless you make over fortyish thousand a year,” said Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, adding that he’d like to see the state income tax eliminated altogether.
The two Republicans who sided against HB 111 did so accidentally.
One of them, Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, asked to reconsider the vote before withdrawing that request. A spokesman later explained that he and Sen. Clint Dixon of Buford, the other Republican ‘no’ vote, had pushed the wrong button at their desks and had intended to support HB 111.
Both later filed clarifying statements with the secretary of the Senate. (Something similar happened last month when Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, accidentally voted with two Republicans against a measure to ban cockfighting.)
The Senate also on Thursday gave bipartisan approval to House Bill 161, which would empower the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to issue subpoenas in investigations into domestic terrorism. The GBI must get court approval for subpoenas, but this legislation would bypass that process to expedite investigations of crimes like swatting.
HB 161 now returns to the House for approval of Senate amendments.
by Dave Williams | Mar 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Republican-controlled state House of Representatives narrowly passed GOP-backed tort reform legislation Thursday over objections from Democrats that the bill is both unnecessary and would reduce Georgians’ access to the courts.
Senate Bill 68 passed 91-82 – the minimum number of votes needed to approve legislation in the 180-member House – with several House Democrats supporting it and several Republicans voting against it. The bill cleared the Senate last month, also primarily along party lines.
Gov. Brian Kemp has made tort reform his top priority for this year’s legislative session.
“Today, the Georgia House took another step toward delivering much-needed reform to our state’s current litigation environment,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said after Thursday’s vote.
“The common-sense solutions provided by Senate Bill 68 protect the rights of Georgians who have been harmed, while ensuring that the scales of justice in our courtrooms are fair and balanced. We look forward to working alongside the Senate to champion this critical lawsuit reform across the finish line.”
The bill’s 10 sections include provisions establishing “premises liability” guidelines for when plaintiffs can sue business owners after suffering injuries during the commission of a crime by a third party outside the owner’s control. It also lets defense lawyers introduce into evidence whether a plaintiff injured in an auto accident was wearing a seat belt and requires plaintiffs to seek economic damages based only on the actual costs of the medical care they receive.
Such reforms in Georgia’s civil justice system are needed to curb a growing number of excessive jury awards that are driving up liability insurance premiums, which is hurting businesses’ bottom lines, Rep. Chas Cannon, R-Moultrie, told his House colleagues.
“Reducing frivolous lawsuit and excessive jury awards will stabilize insurance costs, enabling businesses to invest in growth and create jobs,” he said.
But Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, who also chairs the Liberty County Development Authority, said he’s never had a prospective business tenant he was recruiting complain about high insurance premiums, despite the American Tort Reform Association having named Georgia as the nation’s No.-1 “judicial hellhole” in its annual report on states with the worst climate for tort claims.
Williams said tort reform advocates’ characterization of Georgia’s legal climate flies in the face of the state’s perennial status as the best state in which to do business.
“You can’t say for 11 straight years you’re the best place in the nation to do business … and are a hellhole for insurance,” he said.
Rep. Shea Roberts, D-Atlanta, said there’s no guarantee that passing the bill would lower the costs of liability insurance.
“There isn’t a single line in this bill requiring insurance providers to reduce premiums,” she said.
The House made a series of changes in the Senate’s version of the measure based on input during more than a dozen hours of testimony, including a carveout aimed at ensuring the bill won’t affect the rights of victims of sex trafficking to file lawsuits.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, said the carveout means those who suffer from sex trafficking would be treated differently from those victimized by other sex crimes.
“What about a rape victim? What about a victim of sexual assault committed in the stairwell of an apartment complex?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t we want other victims of crime to be able to recover damages?”
House Majority Whip James Burchett, R-Waycross, took exception to Evans’ characterization of how the bill would affect victims of rape.
“There’s not one line in this bill that does not allow a rape victim to bring a claim,” he said.
Evans also criticized a provision in the bill she said would make it harder for victims of crime committed on the premises of a business to bring a lawsuit against the company’s owner. Any crime committed on a business premises would have to result from a defective physical condition the owner was aware of – such as a broken lock, broken window, or faulty security system – in order for the victim to sue, she said.
Other opponents said the legislation would put Georgians at a disadvantage in the civil justice system.
“The courtroom is where everyday citizens, the Davids with a slingshot, are on an equal footing with Goliath,” said House Minority Caucus Chair Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta. “This is an attack on the very fundamental principles that make this country what it is.”
But Rep. Rob Leverett, R-Elberton, who chaired the House subcommittee that took testimony on the bill, said it would make the system fair to both victims and business owners.
“I just don’t think we can do nothing,” he said. “People in our state are telling us they’re having serious problems.”
The bill now goes back to the Senate to weigh in on the changes made by the House.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A marathon hearing about legislation to enshrine religious freedom in Georgia law produced no outcome but clarified the fears of those on both sides of the issue.
The Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed the state Senate along party lines earlier this month. A committee of the House of Representatives spent four hours vetting the proposal on Wednesday, then ended without final action on the measure.
Democrats, with the help of a Republican, nearly succeeded in derailing the GOP bill, but it survived for possible passage in a future hearing.
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, said he drafted it with help from Gov. Brian Kemp’s office.
It is a necessary protection against government intrusion into religious practices and would bring Georgia in line with 39 other states with a similar statute, Setzler and his supporters said.
Twenty-nine people testified for and against the bill, many of them religious figures such as Bishop John E. Citizen, a Pentecostal pastor in Powder Springs.
He said he supported the legislation because he didn’t want the government dictating whom his church must hire and serve.
“I want to be left to do my worship my way, the way God intended me to do it,” he said. “I’m not going to push my agenda onto you, but don’t push your agenda onto me.”
Opponents noted that only a handful of states have such a law without counterbalancing safeguards for marginalized groups. And Setzler’s refusal to include an anti-discrimination clause in SB 36 was evidence for them that the intent was to wield religious freedom as both a shield against government and a sword against gays, lesbians, transgender people and others outside the heterosexual mainstream.
They said the lack of an anti-discrimination clause would allow private actors to refuse services on religious grounds, including landlords, adoption agencies, and medical dispensaries.
“We want to be protected by the state of Georgia and we’re asking you to add that language to the bill,” said Michael Schulte, a Lutheran pastor in Decatur who said nearly half of his congregation identifies as LGBTQ+.
“They are the people who will be discriminated against if this bill is passed,” he said. “And that is so unfair and it’s so unjust, and to me it is not Christ-like.”
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, pressed Setzler for evidence that religious freedoms were being violated in Georgia and that such protections were needed. She asked him five times to cite specific cases.
Setzler could only produce examples from other states, though an advocate he brought to testify with him offered a couple of local instances.
One involved a Gwinnett County student who was prohibited from distributing religious literature on campus. Another involved a counselor at Augusta State University who asserted that her religious rights were compromised by having to counsel LGBTQ students.
The students complained, then the university put her on a remediation plan and she sued in federal court. The court sided against her.
A lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union said religion had been used to justify atrocities in America’s past, including the massacre of Native Americans and the enslavement of Black people.
Racial discrimination has been prohibited by federal law since the 1960s, but no such protections exist for those with sexual identities outside the mainstream, except on a local basis. Eighteen jurisdictions in Georgia have passed ordinances protecting the rights of LGBTQ people.
Opponents of SB 36 fear that a statewide religious freedom law would pre-empt those local protections, despite Setzler’s assurances that it would not.
One Republican, Rep. Deborah Silcox from Sandy Springs, pressed Setzler on that issue, and later sided with Democrats in a vote against passage.
Opponents briefly had the upper hand. With at least one Republican absent and the acting chairman abstaining, SB 36 failed to pass in that first House Judiciary Committee vote. But Republicans rallied and with the help of Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, the acting chairman, they approved a motion to reconsider SB 36 before adjourning the meeting.
That means the committee can revisit the measure at a future meeting.
by Dave Williams | Mar 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation codifying into state law the right of women seeking to become pregnant to receive in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment cleared a Georgia Senate committee unanimously Wednesday.
House Bill 428, which the state House of Representatives passed unanimously last month, was prompted by an Alabama Supreme Court ruling last year declaring that frozen embryos created through IVF should be treated as children. The decision essentially banned the procedure in that state until Alabama lawmakers passed a bill protecting IVF.
“We’re not going to create anything that’s not being currently done in Georgia,” Rep. Lehman Franklin, R-Statesboro, the House bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee before Wednesday’s vote. “All it does is codify the process of IVF so Georgia families can continue to have this process.”
Franklin has a personal interest in IVF. He and his wife, Lorie, went through IVF four times before she became pregnant. The couple is expecting a daughter in June.
Several other parents who delivered children through IVF testified at Wednesday’s hearing. Andrea Kerr said she sought fertility treatment 15 years ago, and it took five years for her to give birth to a son in 2015 and twin boys in 2016.
“We lost one baby after another after another,” she said. “We could have given up, but we trusted the science.”
Another mother, Suzanne Guy, told the committee she supports IVF but called on lawmakers to regulate a process that typically results in embryos that are nonviable being discarded.
“Most people are unaware of the number of children who are discarded, tested on, and killed in the IVF process because there is no regulation,” she said. “Please do this process ethically.”
Franklin responded that his bill simply codifies IVF into state law but does not address regulating the process.
“Those issues are there,” he said. “But this bill doesn’t dive into it.”
House Bill 428 now moves to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full Senate.
