Home-school students in Georgia would be allowed to play sports and join clubs at public schools under legislation that cleared the General Assembly Wednesday.
The bill, sponsored by Senate Rules Committee Chairman Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, lets home-schoolers participate in public-school extracurricular activities like athletics, band and theater as long as they fulfill certain academic requirements and reside in the same district as a particular school.
The measure also removes discipline from factoring into a five-star rating system for Georgia public schools and districts that assesses a school’s health, safety and attendance, which was the original intent of Mullis’ bill.
Allowing home-school students to access public-school activities comes after years of false starts in the state House of Representatives and aims to “bring the public school and the home school communities together,” said Sen. Bruce Thompson, R-White, who pushed for the measure.
The state Senate passed the bill 35-18 nearly along party lines with Democratic Sen. Sally Harrell of Atlanta voting in favor. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk after clearing the House on Monday by a 149-13 vote.
The home-school measure was named after the late Dexter Mosely, a Dunwoody resident whose children were home-schooled athletes. It has previously been called the “Tim Tebow Act” named after the former University of Florida football start who was home-schooled.
Opponents warned adding home-school students in the mix with public schools could increase costs for local districts and put school administrators in a tough position of picking which home-schoolers to allow for their schools’ activities.
“I urge caution,” said Sen. Lester Jackson, D-Savannah. “I think this bill still needs some work to be done.”
Beyond the home-school measure, backers of Mullis’ bill argued removing discipline for school climate ratings would encourage teachers to actually punish bad-acting students rather than shirking that responsibility.
Many schools skip disciplining students to avoid poor scores that could hurt future enrollment, supporters said.
Opponents argued scrapping the discipline score would hollow out the school-climate rating system, clouding over public reporting on problematic schools and gutting a tool intended to hold schools accountable for frequent behavioral issues among students.
Lawmakers tweaked the bill to require that schools and school districts maintain separate data on disciplining that would have to be provided upon request by a parent or community member.
The story has been updated to correctly state that Sen. Harrell voted in favor of the bill, not against as originally stated.
Package and mail thieves are close to facing stiffer penalties in Georgia under legislation criminalizing so-called “porch piracy” that neared final passage in the General Assembly on Monday.
Sponsored by Rep. Bonnie Rich, R-Suwanee, the bill makes it a felony to be caught in possession of at least 10 different pieces of stolen mail that is addressed to three or more separate recipients – even if it is unclear who exactly stole the mail.
The bill also makes it a felony to steal three or more envelopes, bags, packages or other mailed items from the porch, front or back entrance of a residence. Conviction for porch piracy could carry prison time, according to the bill.
Defending her bill earlier this month, Rich said the tougher penalties aim to curb mail-theft crimes that have been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out more than a year ago.
“This was a problem before the pandemic,” Rich told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing two weeks ago. “It has become even more of a problem now.”
The bill passed in the state Senate by a 38-14 vote on Monday and heads back to the Georgia House of Representatives after clearing that chamber by a 101-67 early this month, with some Democratic lawmakers in both chambers voting in favor.
Keith Spears, an Atlanta-based U.S. Postal Service inspector, told lawmakers at the hearing that porch piracy and mailbox theft have become favorite targets for organized crime rings due to weak local laws. Elderly and low-income persons living in apartment complexes are especially targeted by mail thieves, Spears said.
“We’re seeing gangs moving from narcotics trafficking into fraud of this nature,” Spears said. “I think this would be a huge tool for local law enforcement for us to work together with them and to protect Georgians.”
Opponents questioned the rigor of the bill’s penalties, noting mail thieves could face more jail time and a worse criminal record than for petty theft at a retail store. They sought unsuccessfully for Rich’s bill to include a minimum dollar value to merit felony charges.
“It just seems to me to be bizarre to split public policy in that regard,” said Thomas Weaver, a Cherokee County resident.
This story was corrected to reflect Rep. Rich’s bill had not gained final passage in the General Assembly as of Monday, March 29.
The Georgia Senate on Monday passed a repeal of the state’s citizen’s arrest law that bans people from detaining suspected criminals unless they are business owners on their private property.
Passage of the repeal bill, sponsored by state Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, marked another step toward finally ending a practice in place since the Civil War that was condemned after the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery last year.
Owners of Georgia businesses including retail stores and restaurants could still detain shoplifters and other kinds of thieves on their premises, as long as they hand those persons over to police officers “within a reasonable time,” according to the bill.
It would also allow police officers who are off-duty or outside their jurisdiction to make arrests if they witness a crime or have knowledge a crime was recently committed.
The repeal would not affect existing self-defense and stand-your-ground laws in Georgia that allow people to defend themselves, their property and others from threats of violence or deadly force.
“Let’s get with the times,” said Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, who is carrying the bill in the Senate. “Let’s try to prevent citizens from taking the law into their hands except for the limited circumstances we’ve set forth.”
Reeves’ bill passed by a 52-1 vote in the Senate with only Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, voting against. It heads back to the state House of Representatives for a final decision after clearing the chamber by a unanimous vote on March 4.
The slavery-era citizen’s arrest law faced loud calls for repeal after 25-year-old Arbery was shot dead in February 2020 while jogging near Brunswick in an encounter with two white men who suspected him of vandalizing a nearby house under construction.
Gregory and Travis McMichael, who are father and son, pleaded not guilty under the citizen’s arrest protections that Reeves’ bill seeks to end.
The citizen’s arrest repeal has gained broad support from Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly, as well as criminal-justice advocacy groups such as the NAACP and the nonprofit Southern Center for Human Rights.
Other proposals to ban no-knock warrants and boost officer training in de-escalation practices failed to gain traction after last summer’s nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer.
Legislation to loosen restrictions on gun owners who carry weapons into Georgia from out of state is close to clearing the General Assembly amid backlash from recent mass shootings in the Atlanta area.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mandi Ballinger, R-Canton, would allow anyone licensed to carry weapons in other states to bring their guns legally into Georgia and have their concealed-carry permits recognized.
It would also let Georgia probate judges create online application portals for weapons-carry license requests and renewals, as well as prohibit state officials from halting weapons and ammunition sales during officially declared emergencies.
The gun measure follows mass shootings at three different spas in metro Atlanta earlier this month that left eight people dead, sparking calls from firearm opponents and Democratic lawmakers in favor of tighter gun-ownership rules.
Republican lawmakers have dismissed calls to shelve Ballinger’s gun measure in the wake of the spa shootings, arguing that loosening rules on carry-permit reciprocity between states aims to bolster constitutional gun-ownership rights for Georgians and those who visit the state.
“This bill will protect the Second Amendment rights of Georgians,” said Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia.
Ballinger’s bill passed by a 34-18 vote in the state Senate Monday along party lines. It now heads back to the Georgia House of Representatives for a final decision after clearing that chamber by a largely party-line vote in late February.
The gun measure comes as Democratic lawmakers push a separate bill filed last week to require that gun sellers wait five weekdays before clearing firearms purchases or face a felony charge with possible prison time for violating the delay time.
The purchasing delay aims to stave off future rushed purchases of guns by dangerous persons such as the suspect in the recent Atlanta-area spa shootings, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, who police say bought his weapon the same day he went on the killing spree.
“Gun safety should not be a partisan issue,” said Sen. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek. “Gun safety is a public-health issue.”
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, noting the U.S. sees higher rates of gun violence than many other countries, argued the reciprocity bill would add “more guns to our over-armed and over-weaponized society.”
“Second Amendment rights are great,” Parent said on the Senate floor Monday. “But we also need to talk about saving lives.”
Gun restrictions habitually face an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled state legislature, where the Second Amendment’s right-to-carry rules rank high on the list of conservative priorities to preserve.
Sen. Carden Summers, R-Cordele, pushed back on Democrats’ arguments that passing Ballinger’s bill would worsen gun violence, arguing that mass shootings such as those at the Atlanta-area spas are the result of mental-health issues in perpetrators that go unaddressed.
“It was a hate crime, not a gun crime,” Summers said. “Let’s not go down the gun-control road.”
A bill aimed at letting family members visit their loved ones in Georgia hospitals and nursing homes during emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic cleared the state Senate Monday after being gutted last week.
Sponsored by Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, the bill originally would have blocked hospitals and long-term elderly care facilities from limiting patients’ ability to visit with family members in the event treatment or hospitalization lasts more than 24 hours.
It was scaled back to permit only legal representatives and caregivers who could include family members to visit loved ones for short amounts of time, marking a compromise with health-care and nursing-home professionals wary of opening their doors during infectious-disease events like COVID-19.
But last week, Setzler’s bill was stripped of even that watered-down provision by members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee – which includes a half-dozen doctors and health-care workers – to only require that hospitals and nursing homes follow federal rules for allowing outside visitors.
“This bill gives hospitals and long-term care facilities absolute, complete control over their visitation policies,” Setzler told the committee at a March 24 hearing. “This bill [as amended] has nothing to do with visitation.”
Setzler’s gutted bill passed by a 49-2 vote on Monday and is likely to undergo further changes in what’s called a conference committee before it can gain final passage.
Parts of Setzler’s original visitation bill could be tacked onto other pieces of legislation still alive in the 2021 legislative session before the General Assembly shuts down shop this Wednesday.
Supporters have argued Setzler’s original bill would relieve the despair families have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when dying loved ones often were reduced to spending their final moments with family via phone calls for live video and not in person.
They call the visitor-allowing measure one of the most important legislative actions they can take this year after fielding thousands of requests from constituents to loosen hospital and nursing-home visitation rules amid the pandemic.
“This bill may not be perfect,” said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, at last week’s committee hearing. “But I think if we go back to the status quo of what we lived through the past year, that is also far from perfect.”
But the bill drew some backlash from hospital and long-term care representatives who worry an influx of visitors could weaken safety protocols and run afoul of federal rules on allowing visitors during emergencies.
Currently, Georgia allows visitation at nursing homes and long-term care facilities based on levels of COVID-19 positivity rates in a given community.
“When we hear such significant, resounding messages from our medical community and our health community … I find it impossible to walk away from that body of evidence and advocacy on their part and pass anything other than [the gutted bill],” said Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, at the March 24 hearing.
More than 849,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Georgia as of Sunday afternoon, with nearly 206,000 more reported positive antigen tests indicating likely positive results. The virus has killed 16,487 Georgians.
