by Dave Williams | Apr 1, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Republican-backed legislation denying coverage of gender-affirming health care though the State Health Benefit Plan (SHBP) advanced in the Georgia House of Representatives Tuesday.
The House Health Committee approved a bill that originated in the state Senate and passed that legislative chamber in February.
The House panel added a provision to Senate Bill 39 that would extend the denial of coverage beyond employees of state agencies, public schools, the University System of Georgia and the Technical College System of Georgia to also apply to state prison inmates.
The legislation defines gender-affirming care to include hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery. It would also ban state-owned health-care facilities and physicians who work for the state from providing such care.
“There’s many places within health insurance where certain surgeries or procedures aren’t covered,” Rep. Brent Cox, R-Dawsonville, who is carrying the bill in the House, told committee members Tuesday. “Certain things we have to pay for out of our own pocket. … This is to be responsible with the funds we have.”
Legislative Democrats have argued the bill is part of a broader Republican agenda attacking Georgia’s transgender community for political gain.
Democrats on the committee pointed to a series of lawsuits over coverage of gender-affirming care for state employees the state has lost or settled going back to 2015. Plaintiffs have successfully challenged those denials as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s equal-protection clause.
“These types of laws have been overturned by the judicial branch in multiple states,” said Rep. Jasmine Clark, D-Lilburn. “How are we saving money for the state if we’re having to spend more money in litigation?”
Rep. Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown, said the state has lost those lawsuits because there’s no state law on the books addressing the issue.
“This will correct that problem and help avoid litigation,” he said.
Dr. Cassie Ackerley of Atlanta objected to the provision extending the bill to prison inmates. She said inmates who in some cases have been receiving hormone therapy for years would be suddenly cut off.
“You’re forcing a person to de-transition while incarcerated,” she said. “That’s cruel and egregious.”
Republicans on the committee defeated an amendment Clark proposed to allow Georgians already enrolled in the SHBP to continue receiving coverage for gender-affirming care, then passed the underlying bill along party lines.
The legislation heads next to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote on one of the final two days remaining in this year’s General Assembly session.
by Dave Williams | Apr 1, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state of Georgia has won another legal case in its long-running “water wars” with Florida and Alabama.
A federal judge Monday sided with Georgia, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), and the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority in a dispute over allocation of water from Lake Allatoona.
The decision upheld the Corps’ decision in 2021 to grant Metro Atlanta’s water supply requests from the lake and allocate more of the reservoir to meet the long-term needs of Cartersville and Bartow County. The state of Alabama had challenged the federal agency’s decision, arguing it would allocate too much water from the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) River Basin to Georgia.
“Backed by thorough analysis, factfinding, and experience, the Corps determined that granting Georgia’s water-supply request would have little, if any, effect” on Alabama’s water needs, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan wrote in a 38-page decision. “The record is replete with evidence showing negligible or non-significant impacts.”
Danny Johnson, managing director of natural resources at the ARC, praised the ruling.
“We are pleased to have a final decision that brings long-awaited certainty to all ACT stakeholders after decades of litigation,” he said. “This ruling affirms our communities’ responsible management and investment in water resources. We look forward to collaboration with all of the stakeholders in our shared river basins to address water challenges together.”
In Georgia’s other long-running water wars battle with the state of Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court also sided with Georgia, ruling in 2021 that Florida failed to prove its allegations that Georgia’s water consumption from the Chattahoochee and Flint river systems caused the failure of Florida’s oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay.
Representatives of water supply systems in Gwinnett, Forsyth and Hall counties finalized an agreement with the state of Georgia the following year guaranteeing them water from Lake Lanier through 2050.
by Dave Williams | Apr 1, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A federal court judge has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to stop Georgia from using electronic voting machines.
Monday’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg ends a long-running legal dispute that predated the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which prompted a flurry of challenges from Republicans claiming widespread election fraud after Democrat Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump in the Peach State. None of those cases prevailed.
The lawsuit over Georgia’s voting machines was filed back in 2017 by several individual voters represented by the Coalition for Good Governance, a ballot-security advocacy group. When the state spent $104 million to replace its voting machines with a new system in 2019, the group transferred the case to that new system.
The lawsuit questioned the security and reliability of the voting machines. But in Monday’s ruling, Totenberg declared the plaintiffs had not shown any proof that they had suffered legal harm because of the technology.
“From day one, we knew these accusations were meritless,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in a statement released Monday night. “Our local election officials are professionals. And the voters of this state know that their votes are counted securely, accurately, and quickly.”
The machines the state bought from Dominion Voting Systems in 2019 feature touchscreens and optical scanners that record a paper print-out of a voter’s completed ballot. The General Assembly passed legislation last year to remove QR codes – which had been found to confuse some voters – from those paper backups.
by Dave Williams | Mar 31, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Controversial legislation banning transgender student athletes from participating in female sports in Georgia cleared the Republican-controlled General Assembly Monday.
Senate Bill 1, which the Senate’s GOP majority passed early last month, passed the House 100-64 virtually along party lines early Monday afternoon. The Senate then gave the bill final passage several hours later, voting 34-20 also along party lines to approve several changes the House had made to the measure.
The legislation prohibits Georgia public school and college students from competing on teams that do not match the sex on their birth certificates. It also applies to private institutions that compete against public schools and colleges.
Noncompliant public schools would risk loss of state funding and exposure to lawsuits.
During Monday’s House floor debate, Republican supporters said transgender students born male enjoy an unfair competitive advantage over women in sports to the point of threatening female athletes’ safety.
“It is a narrowly tailored commonsense bill that eliminates the potential for male advantage,” said Rep. Josh Bonner, R-Fayetteville, who carried the Senate legislation in the House. “Allowing that advantage on the field puts females at risk.”
Democrats countered that the bill targets transgender students, already a vulnerable group of young people studies have shown are particularly susceptible to mental health problems.
“This bill does not make our children safer,” said Rep. Jasmine Clark, D-Lilburn. “It’s a license to harass, bully, and harm.”
Other opponents said the bill isn’t necessary because no transgender males are currently competing in women’s sports in Georgia. House Democrats accused their Republican colleagues of seeking to score political gains at the expense of a tiny minority of Georgians.
“This is not about fairness. This is not about safety. This is about politics,” said Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates. “It’s a manufactured crisis designed not to solve a real problem but to create division and fear.”
But Rep. Chris Erwin, R-Homer, chairman of the House Education Committee, said the bill’s purpose is to promote “fairness, safety, and integrity” in school and college sports.
“This legislation does not target individuals,” he said. “It targets inequity.”
After the votes, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones – who presides over the Senate – called the bill a “historic step toward achieving a critical goal” for the 2025 legislative session.
“Since I took office in 2023 as lieutenant governor, the Senate has led the way to make protections for females competing in athletics on any level a reality,” Jones said.
“Today, the General Assembly sent a clear message – biological men are not welcome in girls’ sports or spaces here in Georgia,” added House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington. “The House was proud to support this measure, which builds on prior protections championed by the House.”
The bill now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
by Dave Williams | Mar 31, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the Justice Department to drop a lawsuit the Biden administration filed in 2021 challenging an overhaul of state election law passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.
Senate Bill 202 replaced the signature-match verification process for absentee ballots with an ID requirement. It also restricted the location of ballot drop boxes and prohibited non-poll workers from handing out food and drinks within 150 feet of voters standing in line.
The Justice Department under then-President Joe Biden claimed the law violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by intentionally discriminating against Black voters.
Georgia Republican leaders praised Bondi’s decision to drop the case, which had been widely expected since then-former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris last November to win back the White House.
“Georgia is one of the top states in the country for early voting and experienced record voter turnout in multiple elections since the passage of the Elections Integrity Act,'” Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday. “I am grateful that under the leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Trump, the DOJ has followed the truth.”
“The Biden administration used legally and factually false information provided by Stacey Abrams and her affiliated entities to file frivolous and costly lawsuits defaming the state of Georgia,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr added. “Georgia’s law makes it easy to vote and harder to cheat, just as we saw in 2022 and 2024, which is exactly why we requested that the Department of Justice withdraw this politically motivated lawsuit.”
The General Assembly passed Senate Bill 202 several months after Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry Georgia since Bill Clinton. Republicans claimed widespread voter fraud and launched a series of lawsuits challenging the outcome. None proved successful.
The 2021 legislation prompted a backlash. After Kemp signed the bill, Major League Baseball announced it would move that year’s All-Star Game from Truist Park to Denver.
“Our commitment has always been to ensure fair and secure elections for every Georgian, despite losing an All-Star game and the left’s boycott of Georgia as a result of commonsense election law,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said following Monday’s announcement by Bondi.
