by Ty Tagami | Jun 12, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Some Georgia lawmakers have been trying for years without success to raise Georgia’s tax on cigarettes, but some think cuts at the federal level may finally stir interest in their cause.
State Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, said she’s been trying for five years to get the Republican-led Georgia House of Representatives interested in a study committee on the issue, and leadership finally relented.
The House Study Committee on the Costs and Effects of Smoking met for the first time Thursday. Members heard from smoking cessation advocates, including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, American Lung Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
They learned that, yes, cigarettes are still extraordinarily harmful to health — and that raising the cigarette tax would both discourage smoking and help to pay for the health consequences for those who keep smoking.
There are at least 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, said Danna Thompson, a regional director of advocacy for the American Lung Association, and 69 of them are known to cause cancer.
Nine out of 10 lung cancer deaths are due to smoking, which also is known to cause obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and coronary heart disease, among others, she said.
“Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body,” Thompson said.
The lawmakers also learned about the financial impact for everyone, due to rising health care costs and reduced productivity at work when smokers get sick.
Experts said Georgia is spending hundreds of millions more on Medicaid for people sickened by smoking than it gets from the cigarette tax.
Only Missouri charges a lower tax than Georgia for a pack of 20 cigarettes, said Andrew Lord, a lobbyist for the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology. Georgia’s tax is 37 cents a pack, Lord said, adding that raising it to $1.37 would generate between $400 million and $500 million.
That still wouldn’t close the gap on medical costs, according to Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
The cigarette tax currently generates about $115 million a year, and Georgia is spending about $850 million a year on Medicaid costs attributable to smoking, he said.
Kanso added that Georgia has plenty of room to raise the tax. New York state has the highest tax, at $5.35 per pack.
Au, a medical doctor, is leading the charge for a tax increase, which is a dubious prospect in a legislature led by Republicans who generally oppose taxes.
However, she has some GOP allies. A handful of Republican senators signed a 2019 resolution encouraging the House, which writes the budget, to raise the cigarette tax to at least the national average to help offset indigent health care costs.
And Au has three Republican signatures on House Bill 83, introduced this year, to raise the tax to 57 cents per pack. She said in an interview that federal budget cuts may be undermining the traditional GOP opposition to tax hikes.
The easiest way to kill a bill is to ignore it, she said, so the approval of the study committee is a sign of receptiveness to her idea.
“The fact that they’re letting us talk about it … shows a level of investment and interest that we did not have before,” Au said.
Federal cuts are already having an impact.
The Georgia Department of Public Health confirmed that it eliminated its Tobacco Use Prevention Program last month due to federal cuts. However, a spokeswoman said “core” tobacco and vaping prevention and cessation programs, including the Tobacco-Free Schools and the Georgia Tobacco Quitline, were still operating.
Courtlandt Fouche, the former director of the program, said the loss of $2 million from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention far outweighs the $750,000 the state directed to the program from the national tobacco lawsuit settlement fund.
Fouche said he and his four managers were let go. One handled youth prevention, another cessation in general, another second-hand smoke exposure and the fourth program evaluations.
Their outreach to children, adults and local public health districts helped hundreds, even thousands, quit smoking, he said, adding, now, those relationships are “completely lost.”
by Dave Williams | Jun 12, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A student pilot has pleaded guilty in federal court in Macon to stealing a private plane from an airport in Perry and flying it to North Carolina and back.
Rufus Crane, 27, of Coconut Creek, Fla., faces up to 10 years in prison on one count of interstate transportation of stolen aircraft. He also could receive up to three years of supervised release following his prison term and a maximum fine of $250,000.
According to court documents and testimony, Crane stole a Bonanza A-36 aircraft and – without the required flying credentials – flew it to an airport in Waxhaw, N.C., last month. After stopping to refuel in South Carolina, he headed back toward Perry.
However, he could not land safely because fog in the area was too heavy for him to see the runway. Instead, he flew to an airport in Cochran, where he refueled before landing the stolen aircraft back in Perry. Because of the fog, Crane operated the aircraft using instruments and navigation aids instead of visual cues.
In addition to not having permission to fly the aircraft, Crane possessed only a student pilot certificate. During the flights, which took place in the middle of the night, he kept the plane’s transponder turned off, so the plane did not send signals to air traffic controllers to provide information on the aircraft’s location, altitude, and speed.
“The defendant put his own life and the lives of others at risk, despite not being fully trained or holding a pilot’s license,” Acting U.S. Attorney C. Shanelle Booker said Wednesday. “The regulations governing our nation’s airspace are designed to ensure the safety of everyone. Those who disregard federal law will be held accountable.”
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Perry Police Department with assistance from the Federal Aviation Commission.
Crane is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 17.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The University System of Georgia Board of Regents held a final vote Wednesday to confirm Christopher “Mike” Johnson as president of the University of West Georgia.
The chief of staff for the University of Houston (UH) and the UH system will succeed the Carrollton university’s interim President, Ashwani Monga, on Aug. 1.
Monga will return to his permanent role as the university system’s executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer.
The Regents had already voted in late May to name Johnson the sole finalist for president after a seven-month national search.
System Chancellor Sonny Perdue said the vote marked “an exciting new chapter” for the university, home to 14,400 students, with more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs and with classes beyond the Carrollton campus, in Douglasville and Newnan.
“It’s a true honor to be named president of the University of West Georgia, and I’m grateful to Chancellor Perdue and the Board of Regents for their trust in me,” Johnson said.
The U.S. Marine Corps veteran holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from The Citadel, a master’s degree in higher education from George Mason University, and a doctorate in higher education leadership and policy from the University of Houston’s College of Education.
Johnson previously served as director of development for military programs at Purdue University, where he helped secure over $40 million in gifts, a statement from the Regents’ office said. He also worked with the UH system, state legislators, faculty and others to help secure over $20 million toward establishment of a college of medicine there.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
UPDATE: this article now includes comment from one of the companies that was sued
ATLANTA – When Regina Brinson reached the middle of the aluminum walkway, she heard it crack and watched in horror as it broke just in front of her feet, plunging the elderly people ahead of her into the fast-moving water.
Soon, her portion of the gangway to the Sapelo Island ferry was in the water, too, and the current was carrying her downstream.
Brinson described her experience of the Oct. 19 tragedy that killed seven people during a news conference Wednesday. Her attorney, well-known civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, called the conference to announce his firm was filing a “multimillion-dollar” lawsuit against the companies involved in designing, engineering and building the gangway in 2022.
Dozens were reportedly on it that afternoon, preparing to take a ferry operated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources from the Marsh Landing Dock back to the mainland when the 80-foot structure buckled and collapsed.
“When people put profit over safety, you have the traumatic loss like she and her cousin Jeff Thomas had,” Crump said at the gathering outside the visitor center of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historical Park.
Thomas’ father, Brinson’s uncle, died that day.
The setting for the news conference was deliberate because Crump’s clients — 30 people who were injured or related to four of the dead — are descendants of West Africans who were enslaved on that barrier island. The tragedy unfolded during their annual Sapelo Cultural Day, a celebration of the island’s historic Gullah Geechee community.
“I wonder, honestly, if this case would have gotten more attention if it were all elderly white people,” Crump said, adding, “Black tears are just as valuable as white tears.”
Crump, who has offices in Decatur and in seven other cities across the country, has won clients millions of dollars in high-profile, race-related lawsuits. Among those he has represented are the families of Ahmaud Arberry, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Brinson held a crumpled tissue in her right hand, her eyes red, as she recounted the worst part of her story. While floating downstream, she spotted her uncle Isaiah Thomas in the water next to her. She told him to grab her hand, and he did. But he also clutched at her collar, dragging her beneath the surface.
Brinson, who said she cannot swim, said God told her what she had to do next: go up for air!
“I’m underwater, peeling finger by finger by finger off my shirt, having to release my uncle,” she said. Once free, she broke for the surface, then saw him float by. She was distraught as she dog paddled toward shore, thinking, “Oh my God, what did I do?”
Crump said she did nothing wrong, that the companies responsible for the gangway forced her to choose survival.
In addition to Thomas’ family, Crump’s lawyers are representing the families of Jacqueline Crews Carter, Cynthia Gibbs, and Carlotta McIntosh, who also died that day.
Crump said the lawsuit only targets companies responsible for the gangway. So far, he said, the state of Georgia is not a defendant.
Collaborating attorney Jeffrey Goodman, a Philadelphia lawyer known for handling product liability and structural collapse cases, said the gangway should have been able to support 100 pounds per square foot but was instead designed to hold less than a third of that.
The suit was filed Tuesday in Gwinnett County. Goodman said that venue was chosen because Gwinnett is the base of one of the defendants, Centennial Contractors Enterprises, which he characterized as “right in the middle of what went wrong.”
Centennial said in a statement that the company doesn’t comment on pending legal proceedings but said the “underlying facts” of this case were still being investigated.
“Our deepest sympathies are with those who lost loved ones or were injured,” Centennial said.
Other lawyers are representing survivors of the other three who died that day — William Johnson, Jr., Queen Welch and Charles Houston — as part of the same lawsuit.
Houston’s daughter, Heather Houston-Meeks, is represented by the national injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, which said she was on the gangway with her father when it broke.
The firm previously represented four victims of a 2022 incident in which a boat ramp in St. Marys 75 miles south of Sapelo Island collapsed, injuring several people.
by Dave Williams | Jun 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Recent changes in the adoptions process in Georgia are causing such extensive delays that the state is no longer considered “adoption-friendly,” several adoption lawyers said Wednesday.
But the owner of an adoption agency in Coastal Georgia and a birth mother defended Georgia’s process as ensuring that Peach State adoptions are safe and legal.
Before November 2023, Georgia requirements for both birth mothers and adoptive parents matched those of other states, the adoption lawyers told members of the state Senate Children and Families Committee. But since then, Georgia has imposed a host of additional burdensome requirements not found in other states, including changing its checklist of requirements six times, Norcross adoption lawyer Justin Hester testified.
“It’s open-ended,” he said. “It delays these people from getting home with a newborn.”
“We’ve got families spending thousands of dollars to stay in hotels and Airbnb’s with newborn babies,” added Sherriann Hicks, an adoption lawyer based in Lawrenceville. “These families are traumatized by this experience.”
While the additional requirements appear to be aimed at preventing human trafficking of mothers and/or babies, the adoption lawyers said they have never encountered instances of trafficking.
“We do not understand what rationale exists for the current requirements,” said Rhonda Fishbein, an adoption lawyer in Atlanta. “None of us have knowledge of sex trafficking with the adoptions we’ve been involved with.”
But Ashley Mitchell of Utah, who put her newborn up for adoption 19 years ago, said Georgia did the right thing by stiffening its adoption requirements because adoption has evolved with the advent of the internet and adoption consultants.
“This paperwork and these guideposts should move and should evolve with it,” she said.
“I am proud that we have stopped rubber stamping,” added Carrie Murray Nellis, who runs an adoption agency on St. Simons Island. “It has made me a better practitioner.”
Jacqui Jackson, an Atlanta adoptee and adoptive mother who runs a nonprofit that works with at-risk children, said adoption-related human trafficking is a reality that demands an intense level of regulation to prevent.
“There are bad actors and back-door channels of moving children,” she said. “There have been instances of children being transferred in Walmart parking lots with no oversight.”
Jackson said she supports model legislation that aims to address unregulated child custody transfers, where a parent or guardian transfers custody to another individual without court or agency oversight.
“There are currently eight states, four that have enacted (the Uniform Unregulated Child Custody Transfer Act), four that are considering,” she said. “I would love for Georgia to be the ninth.”
