ATLANTA – Legislation calling for a statue honoring the late Gov. Zell Miller to be placed on the grounds of the Georgia Capitol cleared the General Assembly Wednesday.
The state House of Representatives passed the bill 172-1 and sent it on to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature. The measure originated in the Georgia Senate, which passed it unanimously early this month.
Miller, a Democrat who served both as Georgia’s 79th governor and as a U.S. senator, died in 2018 at age 86 after battling Parkinson’s disease.
During two terms as governor in the 1990s, he spearheaded the creation of the popular HOPE Scholarship program, funded through the Georgia Lottery.
“Zell Miller has been called the governor who gave Georgia HOPE,” House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge,” said from the House floor before Wednesday’s vote. “Zell Miller had a view of this state where your opportunities were only limited by your willingness to work.”
Before ascending to the Governor’s Mansion in 1990, Miller served four terms as Georgia’s lieutenant governor.
After eight years as governor, Miller was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2000 by then Gov. Roy Barnes following the sudden death of Republican Sen. Paul Coverdell. He decided not to seek election to a full six-year term in 2004.
Senate Bill 140, introduced by Sen. Jeff Mullis R-Chickamauga, calls for a six-member committee to choose the design of the statue.
Two members will be appointed by the House speaker and two will be named by the lieutenant governor. The final two members – one from the House and one from the Senate – will be chosen by the governor.
The bill also stipulates that no public funding go toward the statue. The money is to be raised through private donations.
ATLANTA – Legislation that would take away the power of county boards of health to appoint local health directors and give it to the state public health commissioner cleared a Georgia House committee Tuesday.
Under current law, Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey selects directors of each of the state’s 18 health districts, Sen. Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge, chief sponsor of Senate Bill 256, told members of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
But county officials hold veto power over the commissioner’s choices, Burke said. That becomes time consuming in the larger districts, which contain up to 20 counties, he said.
“It’s very unwieldy to have to meet with every county to get approval of her choices,” Burke said. “We’re giving the commissioner the power to hire who she wants to work with.”
But David Will, a lawyer representing the Lawrenceville-based health district that includes Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale counties, said the bill would take away all local governance the health districts have enjoyed for 50 years.
“It has worked well. There’s no reason to change it, especially during a pandemic,” he said. “We don’t need a cookie-cutter approach to dictate how each director is selected.”
Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, the committee’s chairman, disagreed with Will’s assessment. While she praised the work of the Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale health district, she said other districts around the state have been uncooperative.
Cooper said some districts have rejected telemedicine as a treatment option, refused to provide prenatal care and balked at other state directives, including a mandate that patients getting flu shots wait 15 minutes before leaving a clinic.
“We have pockets of really functioning areas, but those are very few,” she said. “We need some oversight.”
Sherwin Levinson, executive director of Metro Reserve Corps East Metro, a volunteer organization that supplements the public health services the Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale health district delivers, suggested the legislation exempt districts that are nationally accredited.
“Some of our health districts are not working,” he said. “Don’t hurt the ones that are working and have at the ones that don’t.”
The original bill Burke introduced in the Senate would have given the state much broader powers over local health districts, including their ability to make their own rules.
“The broader reorganization is still needed,” Burke said Tuesday. “This is a baby step in that direction.”
The Senate passed the bill last week 37-14, with Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the issue. It now moves to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote in that chamber.
ATLANTA – Georgia Chief Justice Harold Melton asked members of the General Assembly Tuesday to pass legislation aimed at shrinking a serious backlog of jury trials resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
The bill, which the Georgia Senate passed overwhelmingly early this month and is now before the state House of Representatives, would allow trial courts to continue suspending statutory speedy trial deadlines during judicial emergencies such as the pandemic.
Last week, Melton ordered jury trials to resume in Georgia a year after he suspended them because of COVID-19. But so many cases have piled up that it will take two or three years to work through the backlog, he said during his annual State of the Judiciary message to a joint session of the House and Senate.
“Not only will we have significantly more cases, but the process of moving them through the system at least initially will go more slowly due to all the safety protocols,” he said. “As we resume jury trials, if we’re only able to move at a third of the pace, we will be relieving some of the pressure, but the backlog will continue to grow.”
Melton praised judges and court staffs across the state for adjusting quickly to the new conditions the pandemic forced upon them, as in-person proceedings went virtual.
“This past year, I have witnessed first-hand that your judges and courts are remarkably resilient, flexible, creative, and committed in their mission to uphold the law and mete out justice fairly and equitably,” he said. “Justice and the rule of law cannot wait on a pandemic.”
But while the courts have remained open, jury trials had to be put on hold to protect public safety, Melton said.
“The decision to open jury trials is different from opening private businesses,” he said. “Unlike when individuals choose whether to visit a store, or a gym, or a restaurant, when a citizen receives a jury summons, that’s not an invitation, it’s an order. We compel people to come to court.
“It has therefore been critical that when we resumed jury trials, we did it right – with the necessary safeguards in place.”
Melton thanked members of a task force he appointed last May that developed those safeguards to protect court employees and the public.
The chief justice also noted that Tuesday’s appearance before the General Assembly was his last. He announced last month he would be stepping down in July after 16 years on the Georgia Supreme Court.
The justices unanimously elected Presiding Justice David Nahmias last week to succeed Melton as chief justice and selected Justice Michael Boggs to assume the role of presiding justice.
“There are no two more able,” Melton said. “Our state is extremely fortunate to have them in those roles.”
ATLANTA – Legislation adding new protections for patients being sedated for certain medical and dental procedures in outpatient settings cleared the Georgia House of Representatives Monday.
The bill, which passed the House 160-5, requires the Georgia Composite Medical Board to establish regulations for administering sedation to patients by the end of this year. The regulations would cover such subjects as proper equipment and training, separation of surgical and sedation monitoring functions during procedures and care and transfer protocols in case of an emergency.
The legislation excludes licensed dentists, registered nurse anesthetists and physician assistants who have completed an anesthesiologist assistant program.
One section of the bill adds new language in state law defining “medispas,” facilities that offer outpatient cosmetic surgery including liposuction, laser procedures and injection of cosmetic-filling agents.
The bill originated in the state Senate, where it passed unanimously last month. It was introduced by Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta.
The legislation was carried in the House by Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville. Because of changes the House Health and Human Services Committee made to the bill, it must return to the Senate to gain final passage.
ATLANTA – Georgia House Speaker David Ralston is continuing to lobby the federal government not to attach strings on the $350 billion in the American Rescue Plan earmarked for state and local governments.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dated Thursday, Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, cited language in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill Congress passed this week that prohibits states from using any of the aid money to “either directly or indirectly” offset reductions in net tax revenue.
Thursday’s letter followed similarly worded missives the speaker sent on Wednesday to President Joe Biden and members of Georgia’s congressional delegation.
The American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law on Thursday, threatens two bills now before the General Assembly, Ralston wrote.
One of the measures would give Georgians a tax cut of $140 million by raising the standard deduction on state income taxes. The other would extend a tax credit for families who adopt a child out of foster care.
“As secretary of the treasury, it will fall to your department to interpret this act and promulgate rules and regulations,” the speaker wrote. “I pray you will protect the states by ameliorating the impact of this flawed law and respect our right to budget responsibly.”
In the letter, Ralston cited an editorial in The Wall Street Journal criticizing the provision as potentially a violation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “anti-commandeering” doctrine, which prohibits Congress from using federal funds to coerce states.
“Even if the tax cut ban doesn’t meet the court’s legal test of coercion, it’s still an egregious affront to constitutional federalism,” the paper’s editorial board wrote.
The relief bill includes $8.1 billion for Georgia. The state will receive $4.6 billion of that directly, while the rest is earmarked for local governments.
Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators voted for the legislation, as did all six Democrats in the state’s U.S. House delegation. All eight of the delegation’s Republicans opposed it.
