by Dave Williams | Dec 13, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia high school and college student-athletes born male should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports, a state Senate committee recommended Friday.
If adopted by the General Assembly’s Republican majorities, the recommendation would resolve a controversial issue that has been percolating under the Gold Dome for more than two years.
A bill introduced in the legislature in 2022 called for prohibiting transgender students born male from competing in most girls’ sports. Supporters said students who went through puberty as males would have unfair advantages in speed and strength over female participants.
But the measure ran into opposition from Democrats and transgender rights activists who argued such a policy would further stigmatize transgender students, who already feel isolated and suffer a much higher suicide rate than other students.
The General Assembly ended up essentially punting the issue by passing legislation giving jurisdiction over policies governing participation of transgender athletes in school sports to the Georgia High School Association (GHSA). The association’s executive committee voted unanimously in May 2022 to require transgender students to participate in school sports based on the gender identities on their birth certificates.
A nine-page report approved Friday by the Senate Special Committee on the Protection of Women’s Sport recommended repealing that delegation of authority to the association and giving it back to the legislature.
“This is an issue that should be decided by the people’s elected representatives,” the report stated.
The report went on to recommend legislation prohibiting students born male from participating in women’s sports. As envisioned by the committee, the measure would apply to public high schools, colleges, and universities in Georgia, as well as private institutions that compete against public schools in sports.
The report also suggested requiring schools that host or sponsor sporting events to provide separate changing and dressing facilities for male and female athletes based on their biological sex at birth.
Five former elite-level college women swimmers testifying before the committee in August said they were traumatized when they were forced to share a locker room with Lia Thomas, a transgender athlete born male, during the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships at Georgia Tech.
The proposed legislation is likely to pass when Georgia lawmakers convene under the Gold Dome next month. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Senate, appointed the special committee and has endorsed the bill.
Likewise, House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, has pledged to make the issue a top priority for the 2025 legislative session.
by Dave Williams | Dec 12, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp will lead a regional workforce development initiative to be undertaken by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB).
Kemp, the board’s chairman, announced Thursday the formation of a commission charged with developing lists of high-demand career pathways, priority occupations, and the credentials that will be needed to pursue careers valued by local businesses and industries.
“With the South experiencing incredible economic and population growth, one of the biggest challenges we currently face is preparing the next generation of workers for success in the ever-evolving job market,” Kemp said.
“By bringing together leaders from across industries in the South, we can better align our efforts to equip citizens with the right skills and knowledge to thrive in and beyond the classroom.”
The Commission on Career Pathways and Credentials will be made up of members from each of the SREB’s 16 states, including officials and staff from governor’s offices and state agencies, K-12 school superintendents, principals, teachers, postsecondary deans and faculty members, and business leaders.
“The goal is to bring us all together behind the north star of aligning education with the needs of our workforce,” SREB President Stephen Pruitt said. “This is complex work beyond the ability of K-12, higher education, adult education, or workforce agencies to do alone.”
The nonprofit, nonpartisan SREB was created in 1948 and is headquartered in Atlanta.
by Dave Williams | Dec 12, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is joining a renewed push by Senate Democrats to remove medical debt from credit reports.
Warnock, chairman of a Senate Banking subcommittee, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the committee’s chairman, are asking the head of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to complete proposed rulemaking aimed at protecting families from being penalized for seeking medical care.
“This rule would provide vital protections,” the two senators wrote in a letter to CFPB Director Rohit Chopra dated Dec. 10. “It would bar lenders from broadly using information about medical debt to make credit eligibility determinations, prohibit the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports, prohibit creditors from repossessing medical devices … and not penalize people for seeking treatment and care.”
In Georgia, 27% of rural residents have medical collections on their credit report, 10 percentage points higher than the national average.
“This issue is far too important to remain unsettled any longer,” Warnock and Brown wrote in the letter to Chopra. “We respectfully urge you to swiftly finalize this rule.”
The CFPB was created in 2012 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and has been a target of congressional Republicans ever since.
The latest salvo aimed at the watchdog consumer protection agency came last week from Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire tech magnate named by GOP President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead a new federal Department of Government Efficiency. Musk called for the agency – long seen as the brainchild of liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. – to be eliminated.
by Dave Williams | Dec 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rose by 2.3% last month compared with November of last year, the state Department of Revenue reported Wednesday.
The revenue agency brought in $2.38 billion in November, an increase of $52.9 million over the same month last year.
Despite the overall increase, individual income tax receipts fell by 8.3% last month, driven in part by an extension of the income tax filing and payment deadline from April of next year until May 1 because of Hurricane Helene.
Net sales taxes, on the other hand, rose by a healthy 5.9% in November.
Corporate income tax collections declined by 30.6% last month, resulting from a 25.7% drop in tax payments coupled with a 7.5% increase in refunds the revenue department issued.
by Dave Williams | Dec 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s seven commercial airports are facing a funding gap that threatens to drive businesses out of the state, the Georgia Department of Transportation’s aviation program manager said Wednesday.
“Without increased investments, projects to improve infrastructure and enhance capacity will be deferred and Georgia’s airports will continue to fall behind neighboring states,” Collette Williams told members of the State Transportation Board’s Intermodal Committee.
Williams said a study of regional airports in Augusta, Brunswick, Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Albany, and Valdosta identified funding needs for capital improvement projects of $83.5 million per year. However, the airports receive only $16 million annually from the Federal Aviation Administration and $2.8 million a year from the state, she said.
In comparison, commercial airports in North Carolina are receiving $89 million per year in capital projects funding, while Tennessee airports are getting $33 million annually, she said.
Williams said those other states collect a dedicated sales tax on aviation fuel, while all of the state funding Georgia provides to commercial airports comes from the state’s general-fund budget.
“We really need to start looking at how we close this gap,” board member Cathy Williams of Columbus said. “When a private airplane or a corporate airplane decides to move because the facilities aren’t what they needed … that is business we are not going to get back.”
Committee Chair Emily Dunn of Blue Ridge said board members need to raise awareness among members of the General Assembly – who hold the state’s purse strings – of the funding gap confronting Georgia’s commercial airports.
