by Dave Williams | Apr 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – This year’s long-delayed elections for two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) have drawn eight candidates, including the two incumbents.
The three-day qualifying period ended Thursday with District 2 Commissioner Tim Echols and District 3 Commissioner Fitz Johnson, both Republicans, signing up to run for reelection.
Echols will be opposed in a June 17 GOP primary by Lee Muns, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Columbia County Commission in 2018. The winner will face Democrat Alicia Johnson of Augusta in November.
In District 3, Johnson is unopposed on the Republican side. Four Democrats will square off in the June primary for their party’s nomination to challenge the incumbent.
The list includes Daniel Blackman, who was defeated in a bid for the PSC in 2020 and went on to join the Biden administration as Southeast regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, former state Rep. Keisha Waites, clean energy advocate Peter Hubbard, and Robert Jones, who has worked in the energy and telecommunications fields.
Echols and Johnson are currently serving terms that were extended because of a 2022 lawsuit challenging the way members of the PSC are elected in Georgia.
Four Black Fulton County residents argued that electing members of the PSC statewide rather than by district dilutes Black voting strength in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, making it more difficult for Black voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
A lower federal court agreed and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The appellate court ruling was allowed to stand when the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to take up the case.
The General Assembly passed legislation last year scheduling the elections for PSC districts 2 and 3 this year.
PSC District 2 stretches from Rockdale and Henry counties in Atlanta’s southern and eastern suburbs southeast all the way through Chatham County. District 3 – the Atlanta district – includes Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton counties.
by Dave Williams | Apr 3, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Port of Savannah set a monthly record in March for containerized cargo traffic for the second month in a row, the Georgia Ports Authority reported Thursday.
Savannah handled 534,000 twenty-foot equivalent container units last month, up from February’s record of 479,850 TEUs. The March total also was 17% above the same month last year.
“The rate of growth was due in large part to two factors: cargo coming back from the U.S. West Coast after the completion of labor contract negotiations, and second, customers front-loading orders to avoid new tariffs,” said Griff Lynch, the ports authority’s president and CEO.
Savannah is the fastest growing container port on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.
Meanwhile, intermodal cargo moving through the Port of Savannah also set an all-time record in March, with 52,645 containers moved by rail. The previous record of 52,446 rail moves was set in January 2021.
The Appalachian Regional Port in Northwest Georgia handled 3,566 containers last month, a huge 47% increase compared to March of last year.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 3, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – After lengthy debate that plumbed the depths of racism in American history, Georgia’s Senate Democrats were unable to convince their Republican colleagues to drop legislation that would ban preferential treatment in public colleges and schools based on race and other factors.
With this year’s legislative session ending Friday, Republican senators were rushing their measure through. They had commandeered a bill from the House of Representatives that would have given teachers a couple more days of sick time, and they had converted it into a vehicle to financially punish educational institutions that embrace diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.
The overhauled House Bill 127 then passed the Senate after nearly two hours of debate that started late Wednesday and ended moments after the clocked ticked to midnight.
The 33-21 vote fell along partisan — and racial — lines, sending the bill back to the House for a possible vote on final approval before lawmakers go home for the year.
HB 127 would allow the state to withhold funding from colleges and schools that have policies, procedures, training, programming, recruitment, retention or activities with preferential treatment based on race, color, sex, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation. Colleges could also lose federal funding that is administered by the state, including for scholarships, loans and grants.
The bill would prohibit colleges endorsing “a particular, widely contested opinion referencing” words such as “allyship,” “cultural appropriation,” “gender ideology,” “heteronormativity,” “unconscious or implicit bias,” “intersectionality” or “racial privilege.” It also targets “Antiracism,” a noun coined by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the book “How to be an Antiracist” that was published during President Donald Trump’s first term.
“If you believe that discrimination in any form is wrong, then this legislation aligns with making sure discrimination does not happen in any form,” said Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, who authored SB 120, then plucked the language from his stalled bill and pasted it into HB 127.
The debate on the Senate floor had Democrats accusing Republicans of paying homage to Trump, who issued several executive orders against DEI soon after returning to the presidency in January.
The interaction exposed raw emotions, at times breaching the customary decorum of the Senate.
After Burns, who is white, explained his bill, he stood for questions, the first coming from Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, who is Black.
When Lucas rose to speak, Burns greeted him as “my good friend.”
Lucas responded: “You used to be my friend.”
Lucas noted that they were both old enough to have lived through segregation and the civil rights movement, saying he was “appalled” that Burns had “the unmitigated gall” to bring his measure to the Senate floor.
“I came from the ’60s, and you’re old enough to know what happened back then,” Lucas said, referring to segregated restrooms, water fountains and waiting rooms at train stations, all manifestations of the virulent racism of that time. “And now you have the nerve to come in here with this mess. You’re drinking Trump Kool-Aid.”
Other Republicans did not rise to speak for the measure. But last week, at the Senate committee meeting where Burns presented his version of the confiscated HB 127, Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, said the move was necessary because DEI had morphed into “neo-Marxist” ideology that had “infected” the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. It “squelches” academic freedom, he had said.
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Derek Mallow, D-Savannah, said the opposite of DEI was uniformity, inequity and exclusion, suggesting that this was the intent of HB 127. “Hitler did not want diversity,” he added. “He wanted uniformity.”
Democrats introduced amendments designed to mock what they saw as the core message of HB 127 by clarifying that evolution is scientific fact, that slavery was a major cause of the Civil War and that the Holocaust “occurred.”
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Senate, ruled the amendments out of order and dismissed them, causing Democrats to assert that Republicans were afraid to debate them.
An appeal ensued, and Democrats lost that motion, but they tried eight others to keep the clock ticking, saying they would fight against HB 127 until they had exhausted all maneuvers allowed by the Senate’s rules.
They took the Senate on a tour of American racism, from its founding when Black people were enslaved, through the Civil War and the marches for civil rights and up to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery five years ago, and the legislature’s resulting repeal of an antiquated citizen’s arrest law that his white killers had used as justification for apprehending and shooting him.
The Republican majority patiently voted down each motion, until calling the final vote for passage.
by Dave Williams | Apr 3, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The General Assembly has given final passage to controversial religious freedom legislation limiting government intrusion into Georgians’ rights to exercise their religious beliefs.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) passed the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives 96-70 Wednesday night mostly along party lines. The measure, which originated in the Senate – sponsored by Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth – cleared that chamber last month strictly along party lines.
The bill closely mirrors a federal RFRA Congress passed in 1993, said Rep. Tyler Paul Smith, R-Bremen, who presented the bill on the House floor. It became necessary when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the law only applied to the federal government, he said.
Since then, 39 states have adopted RFRA laws that apply to their states as well as local governments, he said.
Smith said Senate Bill 36 is only meant to apply to actions by the government, not those of individual Georgians.
“This is not a license for private citizens to discriminate against private citizens,” he said.
But House Democrats argued the bill is just that: a license to discriminate against marginalized groups including non-Christians and LGBTQ Georgians. Attempts by Democrats to amend the bill in committee to add an anti-discrimination provision were shot down.
“Implementing a state-level RFRA without accompanying civil rights protections positions us to upset the delicate balance between safeguarding religious liberty and preventing discrimination,” said Rep. Inga Willis, D-Atlanta.
Legislative Republicans have led unsuccessful efforts to pass RFRA during past sessions. The closest they came was in 2016 when the General Assembly passed the bill only to have then-Republican Gov. Nathan Deal veto it.
Business groups campaigned actively against RFRA that year, warning the state would lose convention and tourist business if the law went into effect.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, said other states that have passed RFRA laws have suffered the consequences.
“They have lost business. They have lost tourism. They have lost big games we all like to go to,” she said. “They have lost talent because young people don’t like this stuff.”
But Rep. Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown, said the legislation treats religious freedom the same as other rights enumerated in the Constitution, including the rights to free speech, a free press, and the rights to assembly and to petition the government.
“What this measure simply looks to do is codify the same balancing tests for our exercise of religious freedom that the other four First Amendment rights have,” he said.
Gov. Brian Kemp released a statement following Wednesday night’s vote indicating he will sign the bill.
“I have always maintained that I would support and sign a version of RFRA which mirrors the language and protections provided by federal law since 1993,” he said.
“My commitment to that promise and to the deeply held beliefs of Georgians of faith remains unwavering. I also want to assure those of different views that Georgia remains a welcoming place to live, work, and raise a family.”
by Dave Williams | Apr 2, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation denying gender-affirming care to inmates in Georgia’s prison system gained final passage in the Republican-controlled General Assembly Wednesday after state House Democrats walked out of the chamber in protest.
Senate Bill 185, which the Senate’s GOP majority passed last month mostly along party lines, passed the House 100-2 and now heads to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature. The only two “no” votes came from Democrats Regina Lewis-Ward of McDonough and David Sampson of Albany, who remained inside the House chamber after their Democratic colleagues walked out as a group.
The bill prohibits using state tax dollars to pay for gender-affirming care for state inmates, including sex-change surgery and hormone-replacement therapies.
Before Wednesday’s walkout, Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, who presented the bill on the House floor, said his constituents do not support taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care for Georgians who are behind bars in the state’s custody, which essentially would offer better health care to inmates than “law-abiding citizens” receive.
But Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, accused Republicans of wasting time pushing the bill when only five state inmates have asked for such health care. The time spent debating such a narrow measure on the next-to-last day of this year’s legislative session ignores more pressing needs of concern to all Georgians, including education, health care, and public safety, she said.
“Our constituents sent us here to address serious pressing issues affecting their daily lives,” Miller said. “Yet, instead of addressing real problems, my colleagues in the majority party continue their extreme agenda.”
After the Democrats walked out of the chamber, Republicans criticized the protest as irresponsible.
“For the Democratic Party in the Georgia House to walk out of the House chamber instead of fighting for fiscal responsibility with (Georgians’ tax dollars) is an abomination,” said Rep. Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown.
“Elections have consequences,” added House Majority Whip James Burchett, R-Waycross. “Our folks in the state of Georgia have said this issue is important. Taxpayers do not want to pay for elective surgeries.”
Republicans also argued the bill provides exceptions to allow the state Department of Corrections to pay for “medically necessary” treatments, including for those inmates born with chromosomal abnormalities resulting in ambiguity regarding their biological sex.
Miller countered that the legislation represents an attack on Georgia’s tiny transgender community.
“Stop picking on people,” she urged her House colleagues. “Let transgender people live.”
