Gov. Kemp has a lot of bills on his desk after lawmakers finished their work
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers went home in a flurry of ripped paper, as is the custom at the end of the 40-day legislative session.
The shreds floating through the House and Senate included some of the 2,241 bills introduced during the biennial assembly that started last year, plus more than 3,000 resolutions.
Here is a highlight of some bills that passed, and failed, when the legislators finally decided to leave the Gold Dome after midnight on April 3, about an hour past “Sine Die,” the last scheduled day of the legislative session.
Some bills found bipartisan support while others were pushed through by the Republican majorities in each chamber. Gov. Brian Kemp has already signed a couple of measures, but most of them await his pen.
Consumers
The federal government will stop making pennies because the metal costs more than they are worth. House Bill 1112 would require that cash transactions are rounded to the nearest nickel.
Another bill sought to move the state east on the time zone map, out to the Atlantic. House Bill 154 would have kept clocks on the same standard year-round; no more bouncing back and forth by an hour. It did not pass.
Culture
The killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk inspired the passage of Senate Bill 552, which would make it illegal for public schools that allow student meetings on campus to discriminate based on political or ideological content.
Other ideologically driven measures triggered many hours of partisan debate and failed to pass.
Senate Bill 74 sought to strip librarians of their criminal immunity from a law that makes it illegal to give “harmful” books and other material to minors.
Senate Bill 499 and House Bill 1324 would have ensured gun silencers remained legal in Georgia. Republicans contended silencers protect hunters’ hearing. Democrats asserted they make it harder to locate school shooters. “This body surely is aware that earplugs exist,” Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, said on the House floor when Democrats voted the bill down, assisted by the absence of 11 Republicans.)
The House also killed Senate Bill 175, which sought to protect Confederate monuments.
Education
House Bill 1193 seeks to improve the teaching of reading in kindergarten through third grades. The heart of the measure would give schools $70 million a year to put 1,313 literacy coaches into classrooms.
Teenage students got a bill that aims to help them, but in a different way: House Bill 1009 would ban cellphones in public high schools starting in the 2027-28 school year. The devices were roundly criticized as an academic distraction.
College students got Senate Bill 556, an omnibus education measure that snuck across the finish line the evening of April 2 (technically the final legislative day though lawmakers kept voting past midnight). The House commandeered the bill, which was about something else (a common tactic when time is running out) and stuffed it with other language, including a $325 million need-based scholarship program that had been in a different bill that did not pass.
House Bill 328 would increase the $120 million annual cap on tax breaks for donors to one of the state’s K-12 private school tuition subsidy programs. The Senate had sought to nearly double it to $225 million but settled for $150 million.
Senate Bill 513 would have suspended the driver’s licenses of chronically absent high school students had it passed.
Elections
House Bill 369 would require Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties to hold nonpartisan elections for county commissioner, district attorney, and other county offices. Democrats blasted it as a GOP attempt to cling to power in areas with a waning Republican electorate. Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, countered that “the reason we’re doing this is because of that strong consolidated government, in order to make it safer.”
Republicans were able to agree on that bill, but could not converge on a solution to their self-imposed deadline to stop using QR codes to tally election results at polling places. Those will become illegal July 1, raising doubts among election officials about the conduct of the midterm elections Nov. 3.
Health
Pharmacists would be authorized to dispense contraceptives to women without a doctor’s prescription under House Bill 1138. Lawmakers also approved increasing the strength of THC dosages prescribed to patients, passing Senate Bill 220.
Housing
About one in four Georgians live in a condominium or home governed by an association that has the authority to levy fees and fines and then foreclose when owners do not pay. Senate Bill 406 would curb that power. Lawmakers decided not to counteract another housing force: corporate owners of rental homes. Senate Bill 463 died in the House in the last days of the legislative session.
Insurance
House Bill 1344 would increase fines on wayward insurance companies while cracking down on uninsured motorists and on fraud. There were numerous other provisions in the omnibus insurance measure that grew from a study committee last year and was a priority of House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington.
House Bill 506 would protect those with health insurance from outsized ambulance bills.
Policing
Senate Bill 443 would increase the fine for blocking a road during a protest to $5,000 and expose protesters to lawsuits. Senate Bill 443 would help de-escalate police encounters with people in vehicles who have autism by providing training and creating identifying license plates.
Senate Bill 542 would make it illegal for clergy to have sexual contact with people taking their counsel, much like existing law that prohibits such contact when there is a power imbalance. That law forbids sexual encounters between school employees and students, parole officers and their charges, hospital employees and patients, psychotherapists and their clients, police and those they arrest, and correctional officers and inmates with a disability.
House Bill 1409 would modernize the Georgia law that requires people who interact with children to report suspected child abuse. It would require the Division of Family and Children Services to establish a secure website for reporting. It would also make claims of sexual harassment or discrimination against a member of the General Assembly a public record if they were made after Jan. 1, 2019. Various Republican senators tried to attach what came to be known as the “Epstein amendment” to a half dozen bills. The update to the mandated reporter law became a vehicle for passage.
House Bill 1187 would end secrets around sexual abuse lawsuits. Trey’s Law was named after an Atlanta-area resident who was sexually abused at a Missouri camp along with other victims. Trey Carlock settled a lawsuit against the camp, but a nondisclosure agreement prevented him from talking about what happened to him. He died by suicide. The measure would prohibit settlements that contain such agreements.
Taxes
House Bill 463 would gradually reduce the income tax rate to 3.99% (from the current 5.19%). Senate Bill 33 would restrain increases in the taxable valuations of owner-occupied homes. It would also allow let counties implement a penny sales tax, with the proceeds used to subsidize homeowner property taxes.
Cities and counties can keep raising their tax rates as much as needed, but schools cannot and could have to start laying off teachersin a few years if Kemp lets the measure become law, their advocates say.
Both bills passed the General Assembly after midnight on April 3, hasty alternatives fashioned by Republicans after they failed to pass their top tax priorities. Senate Republicans had wanted to abolish income taxes. House Republicans had hoped to eliminate homeowner property taxes.
Kemp had asked to reduce the income tax rate to 4.99%, but the Legislature did not pass House Bill 1001, introduced by an ally of the governor.
But workers in Georgia are guaranteed an income tax rebate: Kemp signed House Bill 1000 into law last month when he also signed House Bill 1199 suspending the excise tax on gasoline. HB 1000 will give individual filers $250, heads of household $375 and married couples $500. The 33 cent a gallon gas tax will be in place until Georgians go to the polls on May 19 to vote in the midterm primary election. The amended budget through June, which Kemp has signed, also included $850 million for homeowner property tax rebates.
Transportation
That amended budget, House Bill 973, also included nearly $2 billion to improve I-75 south of Atlanta and state Route 316 connecting Metro Atlanta to Athens.