Georgia lawmakers quickly heard then shelved a bill Wednesday aimed at bringing more real-time scrutiny to state tax incentives before they gain approval from the General Assembly.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Sheikh Rahman, D-Lawrenceville, would require measures that create or change tax incentives to include an economic analysis that examines the proposal’s impact on state revenues, spending, overall economic activity and the public interest.
Tax-credit bills would have to obtain the analysis before they could clear the state legislature and pass into law, ending the tradition of bringing tax measures at the last minute that squeak through the legislature without substantial scrutiny.
“These expenditures need to be analyzed to see if they will accomplish their stated goal,” Rahman said. “We really don’t know exactly [about economic impacts] unless we have mandated that we need to have fiscal notes.”
Lawmakers on the state Senate Finance Committee did not vote on the bill Wednesday. They also did not vote on an income-tax credit bill aimed at benefitting low-income Georgians and small businesses sponsored by state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta.
The committee’s chairman, state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, did not call any votes on the bills Wednesday. He has been among the few Republican state lawmakers to call publicly for closing tax-break loopholes and raising new revenues instead of cutting state spending amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Proposals on tax breaks, credits, exemptions and exclusions routinely crop up in the final hours of Georgia legislative sessions, flying under the radar as lawmakers give a weary thumbs up after months of bill-wrangling.
Rahman’s bill would require tax-break measures and their amendments that do not receive tailor-made economic analyses to be halted before they can move forward in the legislative process. Measures without an analysis that pass the General Assembly would be repealed, according to the bill.
Hufstetler, an anesthetist who has chaired the Finance Committee since mid-2019, said he was concerned Rahman’s bill could force the state auditor to turn around large numbers of tax-break analyses at the last minute during legislative sessions.
“What if [the state auditor] gets 500 bills?” Hufstetler said. “I like the idea, don’t get me wrong…. We are all over the map of when something gets close scrutiny and when something doesn’t.”
Despite his skepticism Wednesday, Hufstetler has called recently for shining more light on Georgia’s $9.5 billion tax-incentive structure, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic battered state tax collections so badly last year it prompted $2.2 billion in state-agency spending cuts.
Hufstetler has also publicly backed hiking the state’s tax on tobacco products from the current 37 cents a pack to the national average of $1.81, a move capable of raising an estimated $700 million in additional revenues per year.
So far, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled General Assembly have only advanced a measure by state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, to audit five tax-credit programs each year on a rotating basis. They have not shown interest yet in levying higher taxes on cigarette purchases.
President Donald Trump rallied for Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ahead of the Senate runoff elections in Dalton, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Fulton County authorities have launched an investigation into alleged attempts to influence Georgia’s 2020 elections including a call former President Donald Trump made in January pressuring state election officials to overturn his losing results.
In a letter sent Wednesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis notified several state officials her office is investigating possible illegal acts of soliciting election fraud, false statements, conspiracy and racketeering stemming from the Nov. 3 general election.
Trump, who is not mentioned by name in the letter, made a series of widely publicized phone calls in the waning days of his tenure to Georgia officials including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse his 11,779-vote loss in the state to current President Joe Biden.
The call has since become part of a second round of impeachment proceedings leveled at Trump over alleged moves to influence the 2020 elections and incite violence among supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Willis, who defeated former longtime Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard last summer, said in her letter investigators would soon start issuing subpoenas ahead of empaneling a grand jury in March.
Her letter was sent to several state officials who had contact with subjects of the investigation including Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and members of the General Assembly. It was obtained by Capitol Beat News Service and other news outlets on Wednesday.
“I know we all agree that our duty demands that this matter be investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted in a manner that is free from any appearance of conflict of interest or political considerations,” Willis said.
“The Fulton County District Attorney’s office will conduct itself in a manner that will build public confidence in our elections, our law enforcement system and our judicial process.”
Trump’s claims of election fraud in Georgia were roundly rejected by federal courts and Republican officials including Raffensperger and Kemp, who quickly became targets of the former president’s anger.
Several Republican-led hearings were held in the General Assembly in the weeks after the Nov. 3 that allowed former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani – Trump’s personal attorney at the time – and others to air a host of fraud claims that went largely unchecked.
Despite lacking evidence, the fraud claims have prompted Republican state lawmakers to prepare a package of bills in the 2021 legislative session aimed at boosting requirements for Georgians to prove their identity to vote by mail, following record numbers of absentee ballots cast in the 2020 elections.
Gov. Brian Kemp (at podium), unveiled $1,000 bonuses for state employees on Feb. 10, 2021, while flanked by Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (left), Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (right) and top-ranking General Assembly lawmakers. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Georgia officials unveiled plans Wednesday to give $1,000 bonuses to a large chunk of state government employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The one-time supplemental payments would go to around 57,000 state workers making salaries less than $80,000 annually, adding to $1,000 checks Gov. Brian Kemp has already pledged this year for K-12 public school teachers and staff.
Kemp joined Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, and top General Assembly budget writers Wednesday to announce the one-time checks.
“We have worked long beside one another during this pandemic,” Kemp said at the state Capitol in Atlanta Wednesday. “And we will continue to do that.”
State officials gave few details Wednesday on how the bonus would be paid other than it would entail $59.6 million to be included in the state’s mid-year budget.
Georgia Senate lawmakers passed the $26.5 billion amended 2021 budget Tuesday, sending it back to the state House for final revisions where the $1,000 checks will be added, according to Ralston.
“We wanted to extend that $1,000 bonus beyond our teachers to many of our front-line state employees who have also served our citizens through the worst days of this pandemic,” Ralston said.
The bonus would benefit state public-health workers, state troopers, labor department employees, food inspectors, child-support caseworkers and staff from other state agencies.
It would not, however, go to employees under the state Board of Regents — which oversees Georgia’s public college and university system — as well as “some state authorities,” Ralston said. He did not elaborate on those authorities.
House and Senate lawmakers still have to finalize the mid-year budget before moving on to the fiscal 2022 budget that funds state agencies and public schools throughout the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Kemp has directed budget-writers to avoid any spending cuts similar to the $2.2 billion reductions imposed last year as the pandemic pummeled Georgia’s economy. State revenues have since rebounded for officials to craft upcoming agency budgets with a rosier outlook.
Georgia House lawmakers rehashed a bill Tuesday aimed at pushing back the deadline when voters can request and send in absentee ballots before elections.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, originally proposed barring county elections officials from mailing out absentee ballots fewer than 10 days before an election in Georgia.
The measure was tweaked Tuesday to set the deadline for voters to hand in applications for mail-in ballots at 5 p.m. on the second-to-last Friday before Election Day and to prohibit local election officials from accepting absentee ballots after the Wednesday before an election.
The House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which Fleming chairs, passed the bill on Tuesday for a second time with the changes included. It heads back to the House leaders who decide which bills reach the floor for full votes.
Fleming said he brought the bill back to the committee after state House Minority Whip David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, requested the revisions so that “he could support the bill and would encourage [others to do] the same.”
Fleming’s bill is the first of more than a dozen to start facing committee votes early in the 2021 legislative session as Republican lawmakers eye changes to absentee voting and voter ID laws after Democrats gained major statewide victories during the last election cycle.
Some of those proposals were echoed in a report the Georgia Republican Party released late Monday calling for stiffer voter ID laws and to end Georgians’ ability to vote by mail without giving a reason.
Democratic leaders dismissed the report, with U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams of Atlanta – who chairs the state Democratic Party – labeling it “a last-gasp attempt by an ever-more-extreme organization that is terrified of the power of Georgia voters.”
Georgia Democrats have pledged to fight Republican-backed bills proposing limits on who and how voters can cast absentee ballots, as well as other voting-rights issues. However, the changes to Fleming’s bill appeared to satisfy some Democratic state lawmakers who voted against it last week.
“I know this is a good-faith effort,” said state Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the General Assembly’s longest-serving member. “I believe we’re almost there. We’re much, much closer.”
The bill’s supporters argue it would ease pressure on county elections officials who are juggling early in-person voting and Election Day preparations on top of processing absentee-ballot applications. Voters would also know their ballots arrived in the mail on time before the polls close, according to supporters.
“I think this does a lot toward protecting the integrity of those who have voted by mail before so that those ballots can be handled with a good chain of custody,” said state Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta.
Opponents have warned the bill could spur longer lines at polling places and harm voters who requested absentee ballots weeks in advance but still had not received them in the mail by the new deadline.
Election-focused bills are taking center stage in the legislative session now underway after the 2020 election cycle saw Democrats carry Georgia in the presidential election and win both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats.
Democrats are framing Republican-sponsored election bills as attempts at voter suppression, accusing Republicans of changing the rules of the game to slow Georgia Democrats’ recent elections momentum.
Republicans have said they’re necessary to restore confidence after claims of voter fraud in the 2020 contests spurred distrust among many conservative voters in the state’s election integrity.
Joining Fleming as sponsors on the bill are House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton; Rep. Buddy DeLoach, R-Townsend; Rep. Rick Williams, R-Milledgeville; House Regulated Industries Committee Chairman Alan Powell, R-Hartwell; and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire.
Georgia Senate members take the oath of office on the first day of the 2021 legislative session on Jan. 11, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The Georgia Senate unanimously passed a $26.5 billion mid-year budget Tuesday to fund state-run public health, police and schools through June 30, adding more money for initiatives to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and boost broadband internet in rural areas.
The mid-year budget leans on federal COVID-19 relief funds to plug spending gaps in education, public health and other agencies.
The Senate version of the mid-year budget largely mirrors the spending recommendations Gov. Brian Kemp unveiled last month, which avoids imposing additional cuts after shrinking agency budgets by $2.2 billion last June due to the pandemic.
Along with no reductions, the mid-year budget restores more than half of the $950 million cut from K-12 public schools last year. The remaining shortfall will be covered with federal funds to keep school budgets stable.
State House lawmakers backed Kemp’s proposals to add $20 million for expanding broadband internet in rural Georgia, more than $38 million to buy 500 new school buses and $500,000 to jump-start the state’s new hemp farming and medical cannabis initiatives.
Senate lawmakers kicked in more money for state public-health officials to fight the pandemic, slotting in $27 million for epidemiology programs and a vaccine-scheduling system. Five new pandemic-focused jobs would be added to the state Department of Public Health, up from three jobs the House added.
The Senate-passed budget also hands the governor $7.5 million extra in emergency funds to battle the virus and would give state prison guards and juvenile corrections officers a 10% salary raise starting April 1, tapping into savings from eliminating vacant staff positions.
“I think this is a budget we can be proud of,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia. “It certainly is a lot better position than we were facing this time last year.”
Though it received unanimous approval, the budget drew criticism from Democratic state senators for not including more money for public-health services and leaving no room for lawmakers to raise revenue by clamping down on tax breaks and increasing the state’s cigarette tax.
“We believe – I believe – we should have done more,” said Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain. “The politics of the day do not drive our best thinking and our best policy and budget-making decisions.”
The mid-year budget now heads back to the House for a final vote before heading to Kemp’s desk for his signature. Lawmakers will then set to hammering out a budget for fiscal 2022.
