ATLANTA – An unexpectedly early end to the 2025 General Assembly session Friday night left a bid to put some restrictions on school-zone speed cameras in Georgia on the shelf until next year.
While the Georgia House of Representatives was debating a substitute version of House Bill 651, the state Senate abruptly adjourned “sine die” shortly before 9:15 p.m., calling an end to the legislative session. The General Assembly usually works until midnight on the last day of the session.
The House went on to pass the substitute 140-29, but with senators gone home, final action on the bill can’t take place until the 2026 session begins next January.
“This is the first time in my 30-plus years that I tried to pass a bill, and there was no one left to receive it,” veteran Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, the measure’s chief sponsor, said on the House floor.
While school-zone traffic cameras have reduced the number of speeders and possibly the number of student injuries and deaths, supporters say, the resulting tickets have frustrated many motorists. That tension explains why House lawmakers introduced two bills this year to regulate or even do away with the devices.
Powell’s House Bill 651 sought to strip school boards of the authority to install the devices, leaving that decision to cities and counties. The other measure, House Bill 225, sponsored by Rep. Dale Washburn, R-Macon, called for prohibiting new contracts with the companies that install school-zone speed cameras starting in July 2027 and repealing the law allowing them starting in July 2028.
The opposition stemmed from the rapid expansion of the cameras, driven at least in part by the revenue generated for local governments.
One lawmaker said the cameras produced 120 tickets per day in one small city, or about 22,000 over the 180-day school year.
“And at the current price of $75 per ticket, that’s over $1.6 million for one location, for one city,” Sen. Timothy Bearden, R-Carrollton, said during the Senate debate on HB 225. “That’s over $1.6 million for one location, for one city.”
The money, said Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, during the debate on HB 651, is like “crack cocaine for government.”
But Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, said the automated enforcement has had the intended effect. A little girl was killed by a speeder in front of her school in Banks County before a camera was installed there, he said. There have been no fatalities there since the cameras were installed, Hatchett said, adding that the number of crashes in front of the school has declined despite an overall increase in the county.
Some local governments are “bad actors” just trying to make money from the cameras, he said, but other communities are using them the right way.
“The issue is people are driving too fast in front of schools,” he said.
The Senate passed HB 651 by a 51-3 vote. But rather than agree with the Senate version of the bill and give it final passage, the House proposed a lengthy amendment.
Among other things, the amendment would have required that flashing signs accompany speed-zone cameras informing motorists how fast they’re driving, that no tickets could be issued unless the violator was driving more than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, and requiring cities and counties to dedicate revenue from speeding tickets to school safety purposes.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, strongly chastised the Senate for calling it quits before giving Powell’s bill a final vote.
“It appears the Senate has checked all their priorities, their political priorities, and decided to end their night,” Burns informed his House colleagues. “But this chamber puts policies before politics. … Let’s do our work.”
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Senate, said he called an end to the session when he did because the Senate had completed work on all of its priorities.
“It’s a two-year cycle,” he said. “What we didn’t get done this year is available (in 2026).”
Jones went on to take a shot at his House counterpart.
“I don’t tell the House how to run their chamber, and they don’t tell me how to run mine,” he said.
After the House vote on Powell’s bill, House lawmakers gave a handful of other bills that didn’t have to go back to the Senate final passage, then adjourned for the year shortly after 10:30 p.m.