Photo credit: Scott Housley/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
ATLANTA— A juvenile court must reevaluate the sincerity of parents’ objections to their children’s vaccinations, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
At issue is whether children in temporary state custody can be immunized with routine childhood vaccines over their parents’ religious objections – and how to decide if those objections are sincere or not.
The three young children in this case (now ages 2, 4, and 6) were removed from their parents’ care last year due to the father’s alleged violence. The removal was temporary, with a plan in place to reunify the family after the parents met certain conditions.
When the parents learned of the state foster care agency’s plans to have the children immunized, they asked a Forsyth County Juvenile Court judge to stop the state from going forward, citing religious and philosophical objections to immunization.
The state argued the children needed the immunizations to facilitate their foster care placement, education, and health care.
The juvenile court judge denied the parents’ request, finding their religious objections insincere. The parents failed to regularly attend church, lacked association with a “particular religion,” and held secular objections to vaccination, the judge said.
On Tuesday, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the juvenile court applied the wrong standards for evaluating the sincerity of the parents’ objections to immunization.
The case will now be returned to the juvenile court for another look using the new guidance.
When the juvenile court weighs the parents’ sincerity, it should use a “light judicial touch,” wrote Supreme Court Presiding Justice Nels S.D. Peterson.
Peterson provided some factors the lower court could consider when deciding whether the parents’ religious objections were “truly held.”
These included length of religious belief, amount of knowledge, reliance on religious texts and teachings, and “whether [the parents] have wavered in their actions related to vaccination.”
The state Department of Human Services (DHS), which oversees foster care, changed its policy on parents’ objections to vaccination while this case was pending.
DHS Commissioner Candice Broce sent a memo June 1 directing employees not to seek immunizations for any child in temporary custody if the child’s parents hold a sincere religious objection.
Lawyers for the agency asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case, saying the new policy made the case moot. But the Supreme Court Tuesday rejected that argument.
“[The] new policy is not legislative in nature; it is an agency memorandum,” wrote Peterson.
There is no guarantee the agency could not change its policy again in the future, the court said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga, discusses a new solar energy manufacturing law.
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga, described Tuesday how the recently enacted solar energy manufacturing law he sponsored will benefit Georgians and the country.
The new law – part of the broader package of tax, energy, and health-care reforms passed by Congress earlier this month – will provide tax credits to incentivize American solar technology production.
“This is going to boost our domestic manufacturing of solar products,” Ossoff said. “As demand for these products continues to skyrocket, we want to make sure that these products are produced here in Georgia and here in the United States.”
Enhancing renewable energy production is important to American national security and energy independence, Ossoff said. The law will also create thousands of jobs, he said.
Qcells North America – a solar technology company – owns a solar manufacturing plant in Dalton that employees 750 people.
The company plans to hire around 500 more employees as a result of the new law, said Scott Moskovitz, head of market strategy for the company.
Ossoff also discussed the new electric vehicle tax credits that were included in the legislation. Some critics have said the credits will not benefit enough people.
“Part of the credit is based upon where the final assembly vehicle is located, [and] part of it is based upon the composition of the battery,” Ossoff said. “That is a compromise that was arrived at in the Senate.”
Ossoff said his office will continue to monitor implementation of the EV tax credits to try to ensure they benefit the most people.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
State Reps. Sam Park and Karla Drenner and Sen. Kim Jackson discuss LGBTQ rights at the state Capitol.
ATLANTA – LGBTQ rights in Georgia could be under threat if Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is reelected in November, a group of Democratic LGBTQ state lawmakers said Monday.
Rep. Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, said Kemp and Georgia Republicans present a “clear and present danger” to LGBTQ Georgians.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional right to an abortion earlier this summer has caused LGBTQ Americans to worry that the court may overturn the right to same-sex marriage, Park said.
Back in 2004, Georgia voters approved a ballot measure that added a ban on same-sex marriage to the Georgia Constitution.
When the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, LGBTQ Georgians gained the right to marry freely.
But the 2004 constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Georgia could go back into effect if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the right to marry freely, Park said.
“If he has the opportunity, Brian Kemp will not hesitate to roll back the progress we made,” Park said.
But Kemp spokesman Andrew Isenhour said the governor considers the same-sex marriage issue settled law.
“Governor Kemp’s personal position on same-sex marriage has not changed, but this issue has been settled by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Isenhour said.
Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, an Episcopalian priest married to a woman, described how many religious denominations have changed their approach to same-sex marriage over the past two decades.
“Brian Kemp … has chosen to ignore the ways in which both the church has evolved and the very people of Georgia have evolved,” Jackson said.
“He’s ignored the evolution of his own fellow Republicans who understand that LGBTQ people have a fundamental right to access to marriage,” Jackson said.
The Democrats said they are confident Georgians would vote in favor of a ballot measure to affirm the right to same-sex marriage in the state if given the opportunity.
However, they noted it could be difficult to get such a measure on the ballot because it would need approval by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.
“Georgia is one of five states in the country that does not have comprehensive civil rights protections in which discrimination is permitted in employment, housing and public accommodations,” Park said.
Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates, the first openly gay legislator in Georgia, said she has proposed such legislation several times but it has never moved forward.
Drenner described how she fought for LGBTQ rights in the Statehouse many times over the last two decades.
One moment of optimism came in 2020 when the state enacted a hate crimes law that provides additional penalties for those who terrorize or physically harm others based on race or sexual orientation.
Lawmakers passed the hate crimes bill four months after Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery was shot to death near Brunswick after being confronted by three white men, who were later convicted of murder.
“I’m here today preemptively to let everyone know … that we’re not going to go back into the shadows and be quiet about any of these issues,” Drenner said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA — A federal judge ruled Friday that the federal government should not have blocked a proposal to reform Georgia Medicaid.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and other leaders had sought permission from the federal government to change Georgia’s Medicaid program.
The state applied to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for approval of a non-traditional Medicaid plan called Georgia Pathways. The program requires most people getting Medicaid insurance to work, volunteer, or study for a certain number of hours each week as well as to pay a small premium.
In October 2020, while Republican Donald Trump was still president, CMS approved Georgia’s Pathways plan. When Democratic President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, CMS told Georgia it was rescinding its approval of the plan.
Lawyers for the state then sued in federal court last January, asking U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to block CMS’ rescinding of its approval of Georgia’s plan.
“This case is about whether the federal government must keep its promises,” the original complaint said.
The judge did just that on Friday.
“CMS’ decision to rescind approval for Pathways was arbitrary and capricious,” Wood wrote.
The judge identified several problems with CMS’ ruling.
“[CMS] measured Pathways against a baseline of full [Medicaid] expansion, rather than taking the demonstration on its own terms,” Wood wrote.
And CMS relied on what Wood called an “impermissible factor” in making its decision: health equity. The federal agency also did not give any explanation for the change in policy, the judge said.
Kemp praised the court ruling Friday with a post on his Twitter account.
“Despite the Left’s efforts to claw back good policy for partisan politics, this week the judiciary … ruled the Biden admin[istration] erred in striking down our innovative health-care waiver, which would better serve Georgians than a one-size-fits all Medicaid expansion,” the governor wrote.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that Georgia’s Public Service Commission (PSC) elections should be put on hold until the state can fix its unusual voting system.
The PSC regulates the state’s public utilities and sets utility rates. Under Georgia’s system, commissioners run statewide but must live in one of five districts.
The current case began when a group of prominent Black leaders sued the state, claiming the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a redistricting plan last March that dilutes the Black vote in two of the five PSC districts.
Initially, a lower federal court ruled that Georgia must put its PSC elections – originally scheduled for November – on hold until the state can reform its system for electing the commissioners.
The state appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court reversed the lower court’s decision, saying the PSC elections could proceed as planned.
The challengers appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court last week.
In vacating the appellate court ruling Friday, the Supreme Court left the door open for the appellate court to consider certain additional challenges but not any revolving around the timing of the election.
“We are pleased that the Supreme Court took this important step toward ensuring that this November’s PSC elections are not held using a method that unlawfully dilutes the votes of millions of Black citizens in Georgia,” said Nico Martinez, one of the lawyers for the challengers.
“We look forward to presenting the merits of our case on appeal and are confident the district court’s well-reasoned decision will ultimately be upheld.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
