by Dave Williams | Feb 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation reforming the salary structure for superior court and statewide judges in Georgia overwhelmingly cleared the state House of Representatives Thursday.
House Bill 85, which the House passed 163-7, is aimed at superior court judges, who currently are paid both a state salary and optional county subsidies.
Those local subsidies vary significantly, Rep. Rob Leverett, R-Elberton, the bill’s chief sponsor, told his House colleagues.
“That has led to a lot of disparities in pay throughout the state,” he said.
Leverett’s bill would cap local supplements paid to most superior court judges at 10% of their state salary or $20,106. The measure also includes provisions ensuring that no judge’s salary would be cut by the measure.
House Bill 86, another Leverette bill that passed 167-6, would reform the salary structure for statewide judges, including justices of the Georgia Supreme Court and state Court of Appeals as well as the judge who presides over the Statewide Business Court.
Under the bill, state Supreme Court justices would receive 100% of the salary paid to federal judges in the Northern District of Georgia. Judges on the Court of Appeals would get 99% of the federal judges’ salary, and the Statewide Business Court judge would be paid 95% of that salary.
The judge presiding over a new statewide tax court the General Assembly created last year also would get 95% of a federal judge’s salary in the Northern District.
Both bills now head to the Georgia Senate.
by Dave Williams | Feb 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday that would put the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA) in the gas business.
House Bill 51, which cleared the House 120-55, would allow municipal natural gas providers to borrow money from GEFA to expand gas supplies.
The legislation is needed particularly in rural Georgia, Rep. Leesa Hagan, R-Lyons, said on the House floor before Thursday’s vote. Hagan’s district includes all or parts of six rural counties.
“Reliable energy infrastructure is the backbone of economic growth, public safety, and quality of life in our rural communities,” Hagan said. “This bill ensures that GEFA has the necessary authority to support these critical projects.”
But freshman Rep. Gabriel Sanchez, D-Smyrna, said the bill provides a “broad solution to a specific problem.” He suggested the goal of expanding natural gas supplies in Georgia would be better left to city utility systems and private-sector utilities.
Currently, GEFA focuses on financing water and sewer projects across the state.
“Adding on another whole industry could cause hardships,” Sanchez said.
Hagan said GEFA would stick to financing gas projects under House Bill 51 and would not regulate gas systems.
The bill now moves to the Georgia Senate.
by Dave Williams | Feb 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Georgia House Republican and Democrat introduced bipartisan legislation Thursday to overhaul the system used to compensate the wrongfully convicted in Georgia.
Current law requires a person who has been exonerated after spending years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit to find a legislative sponsor to introduce a compensation resolution. The House has passed a series of such resolutions in recent years, but the Senate has refused to take them up.
“Two wrongs do not make a right,” said Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome, chief sponsor of House Bill 533. “That is our challenge here.”
Dempsey’s bill would remove the General Assembly from the process of compensating wrongfully convicted Georgians. Instead, claims for compensation would be heard by administrative law judges, who would make a recommendation to the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
“We’re trying to create a system that is fair and takes politics out of the process,” said Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta, a cosponsor of the measure.
Exonerated individuals who are able to prove their innocence based on a “preponderance of evidence” would receive $75,000 in compensation for every year they have been incarcerated.
Holcomb said people released from prison after years behind bars are at a huge disadvantage because they can’t get a loan to start a business and haven’t been able to save for retirement.
“Is ($75,000) a fair figure? No,” he said. “Is it a reasonable figure? Yes.”
The bill has some influential Republican backing. Cosponsors include House Majority Leader Chuck Efstration, R-Mulberry, and Rep. Tyler Paul Smith, R-Bremen, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (Non-Civil).
by Dave Williams | Feb 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation that would make it easier for defendants in death penalty cases to establish intellectual disability as a defense cleared a Georgia House committee Wednesday.
“Georgia is the only state in our nation that is executing those with intellectual disabilities,” Rep. Bill Werkheiser, R-Glennville, chief sponsor of House Bill 123, told members of the House Judiciary Committee (Non-Civil).
Werkheiser’s bill would make two changes to the state law governing death penalty cases involving defendants claiming they suffer from an intellectual disability, defined as having an IQ below 70.
First, the burden of proof to establish such a claim would be eased from proving an intellectual disability “beyond a reasonable doubt” to proving it “by a preponderance of the evidence.”
“That is an impossible hurdle,” Werkheiser said of the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.
Second, the legislation would remove the determination of whether a defendant in a capital case has an intellectual disability from the guilt phase of the trial. Instead, that determination would take place following a pre-trial hearing.
Werkheiser said having those two phases of a death penalty case considered at the same time – including details surrounding the crime – could inflame a jury against a defendant.
“The facts of a crime and the question of intellectual disability are completely separate questions,” added Michael Admirand, a staff attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights. “(If) you separate those two decisions, you lower the risk that someone with an intellectual disability will be executed.”
Charlotte Dunsmore, director of public policy for the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities, said the bill wouldn’t affect many death penalty cases because less than 1% of the population has been diagnosed with an intellectual disability.
However, there have been instances where Georgia has executed someone with an intellectual disability. Last year, the state put to death Willie Pye, convicted in the 1996 kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder of his ex-girlfriend in Spalding County. Pye had an IQ of 68.
“(House Bill 123) will bring Georgia in line with other state’s standards of evidence for determining that an individual has an intellectual disability,” Dunsmore said.
Randy McGinley, district attorney for the Alcovy Judicial Circuit – which includes Newton and Walton counties – told the committee he opposes the bill because the Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the current law.
“The Georgia law is constitutional,” he said. “It works fine. It works well.”
McGinley went on to specify that he does not oppose changing the standard of proof to establish a defendant in a capital case has an intellectual disability. However, he argued that changing the process by allowing pre-trial hearings in such cases would make the death penalty very difficult for prosecutors to seek.
Under the bill, which now heads to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote, motions to hold a pre-trial hearing to determine whether a defendant has an intellectual disability would be subject to the court.
by Dave Williams | Feb 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate confirmed former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., Wednesday as director of the federal Small Business Administration, the Associated Press reported.
The 52-46 vote will put Loeffler in charge of an agency that oversees federal loans and grants to small businesses and provides counseling to entrepreneurs trying to start one.
Gov. Brian Kemp appointed the wealthy Atlanta businesswoman to the Senate in January 2020 to fill the unexpired term of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, who died late the following year. Loeffler ran for a full term later in 2020 but lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock in a runoff at the beginning of 2021.
Loeffler is married to Jeff Sprecher, chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange. She also was CEO of Atlanta-based Bakkt, a Bitcoin-focused subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange, and was formerly a co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.
A staunch loyalist to President Donald Trump, Loeffler backed his unsuccessful legal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia that saw Trump lose his bid for a second consecutive term to Democrat Joe Biden. At the time she joined a call for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign amid unproven Republican claims of election fraud.
After the 2020 election cycle, Loeffler founded the organization Greater Georgia to recruit Republican candidates and register GOP voters.
Loeffler becomes the second Georgian to join Trump’s second term Cabinet. The Senate recently confirmed former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, to head the Veterans Administration. Another Georgian, former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, is headed overseas to become U.S. ambassador to China.
