by Ty Tagami | Mar 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Republican measure that seeks to weed out state government rules that are burdensome or no longer relevant is closer to becoming law after passing a committee in the Georgia House of Representatives Wednesday.
The Budget and Fiscal Affairs Oversight Committee voted along partisan lines to advance Senate Bill 28, called the “Red Tape Rollback Act.”
There are about 150,000 state agency rules on the books, said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, the chief sponsor of the measure.
“I don’t think these agencies are going through their existing laws with a fine-tooth comb with an eye toward making life easier on Georgia citizens,” he said. “I’m not telling you they’re intentionally making it more difficult, but what I am telling you is that, naturally, if left unchecked, government layers itself on top of each other.”
SB 28 would address that layering by requiring agencies to review their rules every four years with an eye toward trimming.
Agencies make rules to implement laws created by the legislature. The rules often go through a public vetting process, with hearings where the public can comment.
Dolezal’s legislation would affect proposed rules by requiring an impact analysis of any that could cost the public or local governments at least $3 million to comply with during the first five years.
And it would empower lawmakers to call for a review of the impact of any proposed legislation on businesses with 300 or fewer employees.
Dolezal’s fellow Republicans saw it as a pragmatic measure to keep bureaucracy in check. Democrats saw it as an assault on government that would cost taxpayers money.
At least 100 state agencies would be affected by the measure, and Rep. Lisa Campbell, D-Kennesaw, wanted to know how much the rules reviews would cost, in terms of both money and staff time.
When Dolezal responded that the cost was something that couldn’t be measured, Campbell said he’d just made her point.
“One of the things that I hear you saying is it’s impossible to account for the level of impact,” she said, “which is ironic because isn’t that exactly, essentially what you’re asking every single agency in the state of Georgia to do?”
Some agencies, such as the Department of Revenue, are exempted from the measure.
The House committee tacked on several changes, which means the bill must return to the Senate for final approval if the full House passes it as is.
One amendment, by Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, would reduce the measure’s scope. The version that passed the Senate last month had set the threshold for a compliance impact analysis at $1 million, but Dolezal agreed to her request to raise it to $3 million, and House Republicans on the committee went along.
Despite getting their GOP colleagues to approve that change and another about posting impact analyses online, Democrats voted against the final bill. SB 28 now goes to the House Rules Committee, which will decide whether to put it to a vote of the full House.
by Dave Williams | Mar 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Lawyers representing civil rights and voting rights groups asked the Georgia Supreme Court Wednesday to uphold a lower-court ruling that invalidated seven controversial changes to state election laws the Republican-controlled State Election Board (SEB) adopted last fall.
But lawyers for the state, the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party argued the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to bring their lawsuit and that the SEB was within its rights to approve the new election rules.
The new SEB rules would have required counties to hand-count the number of ballots cast at polling places on Election Day and allowed local election officials to delay certifying results in order to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” if they suspect voter fraud. Other changes included a requirement that signatures and photo IDs accompany absentee ballots, that video surveillance be provided at absentee ballot drop boxes, and that designated areas for poll watchers be expanded.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox Jr. invalidated the changes in a ruling last October, declaring the SEB lacked the legal authority to adopt them.
On Wednesday, Christopher Anulewicz, a lawyer representing plaintiff Eternal Vigilance Action, a Georgia-based advocacy group headed by former Republican state Rep. Scot Turner, argued the SEB strayed into the General Assembly’s constitutional jurisdiction when it adopted the rules changes.
“The SEB is acting in violation of the separation of powers doctrine by engaging in legislative activity,” Anulewicz said. “The separation of powers issue is the driver of this case.”
But Gilbert Dickey, representing the state and national Republican parties, said multiple branches of state government – in this case, the legislative and executive branches – can legally exercise authority in some instances.
“The mere act of the legislature would not prevent the executive from exercising further guidance,” he said.
Bryan Tyson, representing the state, maintained the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to bring the case because the standards governing the right to sue the state government are especially strict.
“There’s something more required when you bring action against the state,” he said. “That is absent in this case.”
by Dave Williams | Mar 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Comprehensive tort reform legislation Gov. Brian Kemp has made his top priority for the 2025 General Assembly session cleared a committee in the Georgia House of Representatives Tuesday.
The Republican-backed bill, which the state Senate passed last month largely along party lines, seeks to curb “runaway” jury awards that are threatening businesses’ bottom lines by driving up insurance premiums, Senate President Pro Tempore John Kennedy, the measure’s chief sponsor, told members of a House subcommittee formed specifically to consider Senate Bill 68. The panel held 15 hours of hearings on the legislature during the last two weeks.
“What we have done is attempt to provide stability to businesses and consumers while assuring fair compensation to those who have been wronged,” said Kennedy, R-Macon.
Among the bill’s nine sections are 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 of the owner’s control and allowing defense lawyers to introduce into evidence whether a plaintiff injured in an auto accident was wearing a seat belt.
It also would require plaintiffs to seek economic damages based only on the actual costs of the medical care they receive and provides for “bifurcation” of trials, meaning liability in a civil suit should be determined before the jury considers damages.
The bill underwent substantial changes as it made its way first through the Senate and then through the House subcommittee, based on the testimony lawmakers heard, including objections that the premises liability provision would let hotels ignore sex trafficking going on inside their walls.
Kennedy denied that going easy on hotels where sex trafficking is taking place is the intent of the bill. He noted that First Lady Marty Kemp has helped push through a series of bills cracking down on sex trafficking since her husband took office in 2019.
“The intention of Senate Bill 68 is not to harbor, enable, or turn a blind eye in any regard to this grotesque activity,” Kennedy said. “It does cause one to bristle when it’s been suggested that … Gov. Brian Kemp, who is married to Marty Kemp, would put his name on a bill that would do anything to reduce the recovery and remedies available to sex trafficking victims and human trafficking victims.”
To respond to those concerns, however, the subcommittee amended the Senate bill to carve out exceptions that would apply to sex trafficking victims. One amendment would allow victims of sex trafficking or human trafficking to avoid bifurcating their cases in order to avoid the trauma of having to testify in court on multiple occasions.
“It would be unlikely for lawyers on either side to want to press a victim of traumatic injuries multiple times,” said Rep. Rob Leverett, R-Elberton, the subcommittee’s chairman.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, objected that the amendment should be broadened to include not just victims of sex and human trafficking but victims of other sexual crimes including rape.
But Rep. Mark Newton, R-Augusta, said the subcommittee heard a lot of testimony from victims of trafficking during the course of the hearings.
“It’s getting special attention from this body because of its importance,” he said.
The subcommittee also amended the bill’s seat belt provision to give judges leeway to allow evidence related to the wearing of seat belts into a case if they deem it appropriate.
The subcommittee – and later the full House Rules Committee – defeated a package of amendments proposed by Evans before approving the bill. The legislation could reach the House floor as early as Thursday.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A bill that would ban cellphones in all of Georgia’s public elementary and middle schools has cleared another hurdle toward becoming law.
House Bill 340 passed a Senate committee on Tuesday and could get a vote by the full Senate soon.
The House of Representatives approved the measure two weeks ago amid rising frustration with social media and other distractions.
Experts had testified in prior hearings about the impact of smartphones on student behavior, mental health, and academic performance. Relentless notifications are a constant distraction and can lead to fighting and other misbehavior, they said.
As with earlier hearings, there were two main concerns expressed at the Senate Children and Families Committee on Tuesday.
The first: how do parents reach their kids during an emergency, a rising concern as school shootings become more common?
The answer, said the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners: experts say smartphones are a distraction during emergencies too, and a dangerous one. Students should be following their teacher’s lead rather than phoning or texting their parents, he said. The legislation requires schools to have policies for parent communication once an emergency has ended.
The second concern: why not ban cellphones in high schools, too?
That could be coming in a couple of years, Hilton said. Once middle schoolers get used to the absence of phones in their classrooms, it’ll be easier to remove the devices from the high schools that those kids will later attend, he said.
A half dozen states have already banned cellphones in schools, with at least a half dozen others enacting partial restrictions.
Miranda Williams, a former education policy advisor for Gov. Brian Kemp who is now a lobbyist for ExcelinEd, an advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said half the states are considering such legislation this year. She also said existing bans have produced positive effects on mental health and academic performance.
HB 340 passed the Senate committee on a 4-1 vote and now heads to the Senate Rules Committee, which will decide whether to place it on the Senate floor for a vote on final passage.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Farmers may soon get more tax relief under a decades-old program designed to keep agricultural land out of developers’ hands.
The Georgia Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation from the House of Representatives that seeks to double the acreage farmers and other agricultural producers can place under a protective covenant in return for smaller property tax bills.
The final passage of House Bill 90 in a 47-3 vote comes as farmers, timber producers, poultry growers and other agricultural producers are reeling from the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene last fall.
The legislature has considered other ways to help them, including the passage by a 50-1 vote Tuesday of House Bill 223 offering temporary tax breaks and tax credits related to the recovery.
But the protective covenant legislation is a play for the long term. It could encourage more property owners to keep working their land for years to come by bolstering their bottom line.
“It’s a tool to allow family farms to continue to grow and expand,” said Sen. Sam Watson, R-Moultrie.
HB 90 would only take effect if voters agree to amend the state constitution in November 2026. The Senate also passed HR 32, a companion measure that adds a ballot question asking if the existing conservation tax program should cover 4,000 acres per owner, twice the amount of land currently allowed.
The Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA) Program was adopted decades ago. It lets each landowner put up to 2,000 acres under a protective covenant. The land must be used for farming, growing timber or other agricultural production. The property is then valued and taxed at less than what it might sell for as plots for a new subdivision or office park.
Properties are instead assessed and taxed using a formula based on current use, annual productivity, and real property sales data of other conservation use properties.
A similar measure stalled last year, leading to a special legislative committee that studied the problem of vanishing farmland.
Three out of four of Georgia’s 159 counties — and one in seven jobs — rely on agriculture and forestry, the Senate Study Committee on Preservation of Georgia’s Farmlands learned. Their final report noted a conundrum, though: if lawmakers expand CUVA to preserve those economic pillars, they also could undermine potential growth in the local property tax base due to unrealized development.
Counties and local governments may push back as land is taken off their tax digest, Katherine Moore, president of the Georgia Conservancy, told the committee when it met last year. Other states, such as Florida, have responded by paying local governments for their foregone taxes.
