by Ty Tagami | Feb 25, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp is halfway to getting his income tax rate cut approved by the Legislature after the state House passed it in a mostly party-line vote Wednesday.
“It’s not the government’s money. It’s the peoples’ money,” said Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, who carried House Bill 1001 for the governor.
The measure would cut the income tax rate to 4.99% retroactive to the start of this year. It is currently 5.19%.
The bill accelerates a series of rate reductions set in place by lawmakers years ago, with the goal of reaching 4.99% as long as annual state tax revenues remained healthy.
The measure would delete the required revenue thresholds. It passed 106-66, mostly along party lines, after triggering an ideological debate.
Democrats said the tax reduction would cut $778 million from the budget, leaving less money to fill potholes, pay teachers and fund public safety. And they said it would benefit the wealthy the most.
Low-income Georgians would get an average of $60 back while millionaires would each gain an average of at least $2,000, said Rep. Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, the House minority whip.
“Can you help me better understand why it is the governor’s priority to continue to exacerbate income and wealth inequality?” he asked Wade.
Wade, a floor leader for Kemp, responded that the state has been fully funding education, while supporting law enforcement and helping communities recover from the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
“What you’re discussing is more of a partisan talking point,” he said, adding that all Georgians would benefit from an income tax cut “that’s going to put that much more money back into our state’s economy.”
The measure now goes to the Senate, which adopted two income tax cuts earlier this month, both reducing the rate to 4.99% and one of them pushing it further, to 3.99%, by 2028.
by Mark Niesse | Feb 24, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia senators rejected a proposal Tuesday that would have explicitly prevented power companies from passing on data centers’ costs to customers, instead advancing a bill with fewer consumer protections.
The 9-3 vote by the Senate Regulated Industries Committee is the latest round in this year’s battle over rapidly growing data centers, the engines for artificial intelligence technology that require enormous amounts of new electricity capacity in Georgia.
The committee approved legislation that would require electric utilities to write contracts with new data centers that shield other customers from related costs, such as building new transmission lines.
But the bill passed Tuesday lacks specific language that forbids utilities from making regular customers pay for the expense of expanding Georgia’s power grid for data centers.
“The data center boom created this historic demand for new electric generation, and they should pay for it,” said Bobby Baker, a consumer advocate and former member of the Public Service Commission, which regulates Georgia Power and other electricity providers. “Current ratepayers should not be underwriting this $34 billion investment that could undermine the reliability and affordability of Georgia’s electric system.”
Public Service Commission Chair Jason Shaw told senators that consumers are being protected by an agreement last year that freezes Georgia Power’s electricity rates for the next three years. He said the PSC needs flexibility to set electricity rates without the constraints of a new state law.
“We can all argue all day about what it’s going to take to keep the lights on,” Shaw said. “It’s still a national problem. But I feel like we are in the right spot with being able to stabilize these rates, because Lord knows, everybody’s tired of increases.”
The PSC has raised rates six times since 2023, increasing customer bills by an average of $43 per month.
Georgia Power Senior Vice President of Strategic Growth Aaron Mitchell said data centers will pay for the costs of their electricity consumption through contracts with the utility. He said Georgia power is investing $20 billion to serve large-load customers such as data centers.
Mitchell said Georgia Power opposes a version of the bill that would have made it illegal for the company to pass on costs for data centers’ consumption, including electricity transmission and generation infrastructure.
“We agree with the intent just not the inartful way of dealing with that in legislation,” Mitchell said.
The new Senate version of the bill is similar to a measure that passed the state House last week that critics also said was too weak.
“In my opinion, this bill offers no protection to our consumers,” said state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, the sponsor of the original version of Senate Bill 34.
The bill would next be considered by the Senate Rules Committee before it could move on for a vote in the full state Senate.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 24, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Lawmakers in the Georgia House embraced a plan to send literacy coaches to elementary schools while also sending a high school cell phone ban to the Senate, as part of a package of eight educational bills approved Tuesday.
Georgia lawmakers’ years-long focus on literacy instruction started with mandates for use of the “science of reading,” a method based in phonics. Initially, they focused on teacher training and tests to identify children with dyslexia. House Bill 1193 seeks to expand on that strategy by sending state funding to school districts to hire an estimated 1,300 literacy experts in schools with K-3 classrooms.
The legislation, which Senate leaders have praised, also would bring new requirements for curriculum, teacher training and testing. And it would establish a more rigorous process for promoting students to the next grade.
“It’s something that I think will be game-changing for this state,” said Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer, chairman of the House Education committee and the main author of the bill. It passed the House by an enthusiastic 170-2 vote, moving to the Senate.
State representatives had more mixed opinions about House Bill 1009, which seeks to expand the state’s already-approved ban on cell phones and other personal devices in elementary in middle schools. That lower-grades mandate was signed into law last year, but it does not take effect until next fall. Even so, many schools have implemented it ahead of schedule, and it has proven popular among teachers, parents and even students.
That emboldened the author of last year’s law, Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, to expand the ban to high schools starting in the fall of 2027.
He said Tuesday that Georgia was an outlier among states that have banned phones in schools while excluding high schools.
Some lawmakers said a high school ban would reduce fights and other disruptions, while others were concerned about communication between parents and their children during a crisis. Both views reflect the opinions reported in surveys by academics and education organizations last year.
But Rep. Jason Ridley, R-Chatsworth, said during Tuesday’s debate that he thought it was too soon to include high schools in a “big government” ban.
“We ought to let it play out longer than a year,” he said.
Hilton responded with the same arguments he has been using for months.
“I want to let teachers do what they do best and that’s teach,” he said. “By getting cell phones out of the classroom, they no longer have to manage all that.”
Most House members saw it Hilton’s way, voting 145-20 to pass the phone ban.
The House also took up safety, passing a bill that would mandate weapons detection systems at every entry in every school building, emergency exits excluded.
Democrats criticized House Bill 1023 as a bandage rather than a cure because it does not restrict access to guns.
“We’ve allowed guns and weapons of war to become more available than a pack of gum,” said Rep. Bryce Berry, D-Atlanta. “We are installing metal detectors in our schools because guns keep ending up in our schools, because we have normalized the unthinkable.”
Other Democrats agreed with him but said they had no choice but to vote for the measure, with one referring to the mass shooting that killed four at Apalachee High School in fall of 2024.
HB 1023 passed by a vote of 151-11.
Two measures addressed college affordability.
House Bill 310 focused on future teachers, establishing a program running from next July through 2028 that would give 500 student teachers who qualify for federal need-based aid up to $5,000 to pay their bills.
Rep. Phil Olaleye, D-Atlanta, said he brought the legislation because the state is short at least 5,000 teachers, and this ready supply of future teachers is hamstrung by cost. Many must work two or more jobs while attending college and lack the time to teach as students, he said. HB 310 would also give former student teachers a $2,500 signing bonus if they work at least 30 days under a state public school contract.
HB 310 passed 151-6.
The other college affordability measure, by Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta, would extend HOPE scholarships to high-achieving students if they attend an eligible Georgia graduate school within 18 months of earning a degree. His measure, House Bill 385, passed 160-2.
Three bills passed unanimously.
House Bill 971, by Rep. Rick Townsend, R-Brunswick, would let school systems enroll homeschool and private school students in their college and career academies even if the students do not live in the same district. They would have to live in the same region though.
House Bill 372, by Rep. Bethany Ballard, R-Warner Robins, another teacher workforce measure, would add four years to a program expiring in June that allows retired teaches to return to the classroom full time while collecting their pension.
Finally, House Bill 1123, by Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, R-Milton, would require more elementary schools to offer after-school programs to their pre-kindergarten students. Most already do, she said, but the measure would give parents in nearly two dozen more school districts the option.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 24, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Bills to restrain public protests have advanced in Georgia’s House and Senate in the wake of shooting deaths in Minneapolis that shocked the nation.
One would expose people charged with blocking roads to stiffer financial penalties. Another would make it a felony to use a vehicle, whether moving or stationary, to block local, state or federal officers.
During a hearing Monday, Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, cited statistics about recent increases in law enforcement deaths due to motor vehicle incidents as a reason to pass her legislation, House Bill 1076.
Though she later acknowledged that her numbers reflected all manner of vehicular incidents, including collisions while officers were driving their own vehicles, she said cars in the hands of protesters posed a danger to police and that protesters should face stiff penalties for using even stopped vehicles.
“It is dangerous conduct and should be taken seriously,” she said, before a Republican-led committee of the House passed her bill over objections by Democrats. “The danger is real,” she said. “A motor vehicle in the hands of an ill-intentioned person is a lethal weapon.”
HB 1076 would make it a felony punishable by one to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine for anyone using a vehicle who “knowingly obstructs, hinders, blocks, or otherwise interferes” with officers enforcing the law.
Ehrhart said groups representing Georgia police and sheriffs told her they supported her bill and that prosecutors were neutral about it.
Critics said the legislation was unnecessary because Georgia already had a law against harming an officer with a vehicle. Aggravated assault, a felony, could be applied in such a case, said Mazie Lynn Guertin, executive director of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
At a another hearing in early February, a representative with a civil liberties organization offered a similar critique and suggested a motive for the legislation.
“Recent occurrences that we’ve seen in Minneapolis seem to be at least an origin or intention of this bill,” said Sarah Hunt-Blackwell, senior policy council with the ACLU of Georgia.
This was less than a month after Renee Nicole Good was shot dead in her vehicle during an encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents amid a protest in Minneapolis.
Then, Alex Pretti was shot dead as Customs and Border Protection agents forced him to the ground.
Ehrhart’s bill is at least the second to seek enhanced penalties for protesters.
Police can already charge anyone with a misdemeanor who “recklessly obstructs” a road, a violation punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.
But last week, a Senate committee advanced Senate Bill 443, which would elevate the charge to a high and aggravated misdemeanor punishable by the same amount of jail time but a fine of up to $5,000.
The bill initially would have allowed felony charges in road-blocking protests that led to injury or property damage.
The chief co-sponsor, Sen. Carden Summers, R-Cordele, then reduced the stakes by deleting the felony provision and by offering to strike language in current law prohibiting the reckless blocking of sidewalks or other public passages.
But he kept the high and aggravated misdemeanor charge and his bill would also allow lawsuits against protesters who block roads.
“Protest all you want to,” Summers said. “Just don’t act the fool.”
by Mark Niesse | Feb 23, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers couldn’t agree Monday on a bill that would shield police videos from public view if they show someone’s death.
Supporters of the bill say it’s needed to prevent tragic videos from being shared with the world online, while opponents said it could hinder death investigations and weaken freedom of speech.
“The public’s right to know should not be a right for them to have access to graphic death images at their will,” Hiram Police Chief Mike Turner told the House Judiciary Committee.
State Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, said public disclosure can help uncover the truth after someone dies.
“It would be a good idea to be able to let responsible journalists investigate and ask questions about the matter, because oftentimes that’s how you get to the truth about what happened, how the person got killed,” Reeves said.
The House Judiciary Committee declined to vote on the bill Monday as legislators consider amending it.
State Rep. Joseph Gullett, the sponsor of House Bill 1223, said it’s meant to shield disclosure of police videos that show someone’s death by traffic accidents, suicides, or natural causes.
Body cam videos of police shootings or alleged police misconduct are already kept confidential in Georgia while investigations are underway. Those videos only become a public record after investigations are completed.
“If you go to YouTube, there are video after video after video of people dying, and oftentimes it’s not at the hands of the police,” said Gullett, R-Dallas. “It’s one of the worst days in the family’s life. … Those images are captured on these cameras, and that is not something that I think should be readily accessible for the YouTube community.”
The Judiciary Committee debated allowing disclosure of police videos to newspapers, TV stations or radio broadcasters for investigative news purposes, but the committee narrowly rejected that motion.
A lobbyist for the Georgia Press Association, which represents the interests of the Georgia newspaper industry, supported allowing videos to be distributed to news media organizations. Capitol Beat is a project of the Georgia Press Association.
State Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta, said it’s important to protect the dignity of the deceased, but he said videos of law enforcement shootings deserve scrutiny.
“There could really be a significant public interest in seeing the events that led to the death,” Holcomb said. “I want to make sure we don’t want to go too far in limiting the public’s interest to observe crimes.”
The House Judiciary Committee planned to try to resolve its differences and reconsider the bill Wednesday.
