by Dave Williams | Jan 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Ports Authority is reporting a strong first half to the current fiscal year.
The Port of Savannah handled more than 2.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containerized cargo from July through December, an increase of 11.4% over the same period the previous year.
The Port of Brunswick, one of the nation’s busiest ports for cars and trucks, moved 443,763 units of Roll-on/Roll-off cargo during the first half of fiscal 2025, up 7.5% over the first six months of the previous fiscal year.
The growth was aided by the Appalachian Regional Port in Northwest Georgia, which saw an increase of 13.5% in TEUs compared to the first half of fiscal 2024.
Meanwhile, ports authority officials reported the Blue Ridge Connector, a second inland port in Gainesville, is 50% complete and plans to open next year. Also, an expanded U.S. Customs inspection facility financed by the authority will open in March, which will support faster service at Savannah’s Garden City Terminal.
“We continue to focus our infrastructure renovation efforts on getting all our facilities into top shape for customers and their long-term needs,” authority board Chairman Kent Fountain said Tuesday.
The ports authority completed $262 million in improvements at the Port of Brunswick last year, adding new warehousing and processing space as well as 122 acres of Ro/Ro cargo storage. Construction has begun on a new railyard on Colonel’s Island, while a fourth Ro/Ro berth is in the engineering phase.
by Dave Williams | Jan 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Chief Justice Michael Boggs used his annual State of the Judiciary address to members of the General Assembly Tuesday to plug two bills raising the salaries of superior court and statewide judges.
“An independent judiciary must be able to attract and retain qualified jurists,” Boggs told a joint session of the Georgia House and Senate.
House Bill 85 and House Bill 86, which contain the proposed pay hikes, were due to get their first airing Tuesday afternoon in the House Judiciary Committee.
Boggs also praised lawmakers for passing a Senate bill last year aimed at improving security for judges by shielding their personal information such as addresses and phone numbers from the public. He cited a recent increase in threats to Georgia judges, including bomb threats last month that forced the closure and evacuation of the Muscogee County Courthouse.
“It is crucial that our courtrooms are secure and those who work within them can perform their duties without fear,” Boggs said. “This means not only upgrading our physical security measures but also implementing comprehensive training so that security situations can be handled effectively, or better yet, prevented altogether.”
Boggs gave a shout-out to Justice Shawn Ellen LaGrua, who is chairing a committee that developed training sessions last year to help both judges and lawmakers understand how to better protect themselves and their families from security threats.
The chief justice also updated legislators on efforts to gauge the impact of artificial intelligence technology on the state’s legal system, allow trial judges to address a shortage of court reporters by using a digital recording system, and encourage more lawyers to practice in rural counties where legal help is scarce.
Boggs singled out Cobb County’s Veterans Accountability and Treatment Court program launched in 2014 to improve outcomes for veterans in Georgia’s criminal justice system.
And he asked lawmakers to support legislation to end partisan judicial elections in the few remaining probate and magistrate courts across the state that haven’t switched to nonpartisan elections.
“The moment judges stop interpreting and applying the law as it is written and start making decisions based on their own policy preferences – or when the public starts believing that’s what judges are doing or should be doing – our democratic system of government becomes irreparably damaged,” he said.
“Simply put, an independent judiciary with respect for the rule of law keeps us from becoming a society in which the guy with the biggest stick is in charge.”
by Dave Williams | Jan 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the creation of the city of Mableton inside the borders of Cobb County.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the 2022 state law creating Mableton and providing a charter for the new city violated the “Single Subject Rule” in the Georgia Constitution prohibiting the General Assembly from passing legislation involving more than one subject.
The Cobb residents who filed the suit argued that a provision in the law establishing more than one community improvement district (CID) within Mableton violated the Single Subject Rule.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Justice Carla Wong McMillian wrote for the court that the Single Subject Rule only applies when provisions in a state law include two or more subjects that are “incongruous” or “unrelated” to the underlying bill.
“Not only is the legislature exercising similar powers in chartering a city and creating CIDs, but in this case, the legislature is exercising its powers in connection with the creation of a single municipality,” McMillian wrote. “The purpose of those CIDs is to allow Mableton to finance certain infrastructure and improvements in the same way that the charter provides for Mableton to exercise other power to finance its operations.”
Voters approved the creation of the new city in November 2022.
by Dave Williams | Jan 27, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – State prisons chief Tyrone Oliver asked Georgia lawmakers Monday for $10.4 million to hire an additional 330 correctional officers during this fiscal year to staff a prisons system the U.S. Justice Department harshly criticized in an audit last fall.
The additional staffing is part of a plan to phase-in 880 more guards by the end of calendar 2025 to improve staff-to-inmate ratios from one officer for every 14 inmates to one officer for every 11.
In a 94-page audit report following a multi-year investigation, the feds accused Georgia’s prison system of violating inmates’ constitutional rights by failing to protect them from widespread violence.
Early this month, Gov. Brian Kemp proposed to address the problems identified in the audit with $372 million in new funding for the Department of Corrections, a combination of adding staff and upgrading deteriorating prison infrastructure.
On Monday, state Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, said the public has lost confidence in the prison system because of chronic short staffing.
“People don’t have faith in our ability to fix the prison system,” Williams told his colleagues on the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over public safety.
Oliver said the system currently has 2,600 vacant positions, too many to fill in a single year.
“We didn’t get here overnight,” he said. “We won’t get out of it overnight. … (But) these budget recommendations are a step in the right direction.”
Williams also was skeptical about a request for $96 million to design and build four 126-bed modular correctional units to house inmates who must be moved out of brick-and-mortar prisons slated for renovation projects.
“A modular unit isn’t going to be as solid as brick and mortar,” he said. “There’s no way it’s going to last 30 years.”
But Oliver said the modular units the corrections agency plans to use – manufactured by Galveston, Texas-based ModCorr LLC – shouldn’t be confused with modular homes.
“They’re not like modular units,” he said. “These are hardened prefab fortresses.”
While the modular units slated for prison use can be fixed or mobile, Oliver said the state plans to put them in permanent long-term locations . Specific sites for the units have yet to be selected.
Oliver also asked for $35 million for drone detection equipment to target a problem that has become rampant in the prison system: drones that drop contraband including cellphones inside prison walls for inmates to retrieve and use.
Oliver said inmates, including members of prison gangs, use cellphones to order hits on rival gang members inside and outside of prison walls as well as to smuggle illegal drugs into prison.
“Cellphones are considered a deadly weapon inside prisons,” he said. “They’re a very lucrative business.”
The subcommittee will send its recommendations on public safety spending to the full House Appropriations Committee to consider along with the rest of Kemp’s $40.5 billion fiscal 2025 midyear budget, which covers state spending through June 30.
by Dave Williams | Jan 24, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The signs are clear as Georgia lawmakers prepare to resume the 2025 General Assembly session on Monday after a weeklong recess: Gov. Brian Kemp is making tort reform a high priority.
Even before the session began two weeks ago, Kemp issued a call for tort reform in a speech to newly elected and returning legislators in a December speech at the University of Georgia.
He returned to the theme Jan. 14 in his annual address to political and business leaders at the Eggs and Issues breakfast sponsored by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
Two days later, Kemp devoted a major portion of his State of the State message to a joint session of the Georgia House and Senate to the need for tort reform.
“One of the biggest threats to Georgia’s future is our state’s legal environment,” he said. “The cost of insurance is threatening (small businesses’) ability to operate. … At the end of the day, the increased cost of doing business is simply passed on to the consumer, hardworking Georgians who are already struggling to make ends meet.”
Tort reform has been a goal of Georgia Republicans and their allies in the business community for decades. But most of their efforts have fizzed amid opposition from legislative Democrats and the trial lawyers lobby worried that imposing restrictions on lawsuits would rob victims in liability cases of their day in court.
The most significant reform legislation to make it through the General Assembly came way back in 2005, a bill that imposed a $350,000 cap on non-economic damage awards in liability lawsuits.
The cap immediately came under fire in a constitutional challenge. The Georgia Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs and threw out the cap in 2010.
The General Assembly passed a Kemp-backed bill last year that laid the groundwork for a big push for tort reform in 2025. The legislation directed the state insurance department to gather data on legal trends affecting insurance premiums and deliver a report.
While Kemp has not yet released details on what his tort reform legislation will look like, the report – released in November – includes recommendations that could find their way into this year’s bill.
The report found that the number of tort claims in Georgia increased steadily between 2014 and 2023, while the average claim payout also has risen. Cases where the plaintiff retained a lawyer paid out 66.2% higher on average than claims where no lawyer was involved, according to the study.
The study pointed to a number of steps the General Assembly could take to rein in “runaway” jury awards in tort cases, including limiting liability property owners face from plaintiffs injured on their premises due to actions of third parties, restricting the use of third-party litigation financing, and limiting so-called “venue shopping” by plaintiffs looking for a favorable jurisdiction for filing a lawsuit.
The report even suggested revisiting caps on non-economic damage awards such as pain and suffering as a way to curb “nuclear verdicts” – those exceeding $10 million.
Accolades for Kemp’s stand on tort reform poured in following his State of the State speech, with representatives of Georgia retailers, restaurants, and convenience stores endorsing his position. The Georgia Senior Living Association also chimed in, arguing that runaway damage awards have driven up insurance premiums to the point that providers are having a hard time staying in business.
“Georgia’s imbalanced civil justice system threatens Georgia’s economic competitiveness and our long-term prosperity,” said Chris Clark, the Georgia Chamber’s president and CEO.
“Georgia’s litigation environment is among the most costly and unpredictable in the nation, contributing to rising insurance premiums for businesses and families alike,” added Will Barnette, chairman of the advocacy group Georgians for Lawsuit Reform and associate general counsel at The Home Depot. “These legal burdens stifle economic growth, discourage investment, and create barriers to job creation.”
But legislative Democrats say the state’s civil justice system is the wrong target for the vitriol aimed by Republicans and business leaders.
“The problem isn’t lawsuits. It’s the insurance companies themselves,” said state Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, who chairs the House Minority Caucus. “Rather than holding insurance companies accountable, Republicans are standing in defense of corporate Goliaths while everyday Georgians are left to fight for their homes, their businesses, and their dignity.”
State Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, warned Republicans that pushing tort reform could cost them politically because it’s not an appealing message to GOP base voters.
“I can assure you, they have more of a problem with insurance companies than they do with trial lawyers,” McLaurin said Jan. 17 on the floor of the Senate.
The prospects for meaningful tort reform legislation in 2025 are good. Kemp went so far during his State of the State address to suggest he would call a special session of the General Assembly later this year if lawmakers fail to act during the 40-day session that ends in early April.
With Republicans holding 100 of the House’s 180 seats and 33 of the Senate’s 56 seats, the GOP has more than enough votes to make it happen.
