by Dave Williams | Nov 20, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s two U.S. senators urged their colleagues Wednesday to approve a federal disaster relief package for victims of Hurricane Helene.
Democrat Jon Ossoff testified Wednesday morning at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on a supplemental spending request from President Joe Biden for nearly $100 billion to help Americans impacted by several hurricanes and other disasters. Later Wednesday, fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock took to the Senate floor to push for senators to act on Biden’s request before the end of the year.
Helene rampaged through South Georgia and north through the Augusta area on Sept. 26-27, causing heavy rainfall and widespread flooding as well as extensive power outages.
Ossoff said much of the damage occurred to Georgia farms.
“Hurricane-force winds and torrential rains destroyed fall crops in the field, knocked down pecan orchards that growers spent decades cultivating, and damaged a million and a half acres of timberland,” he said. “Without our help, many family farms will fold. If they go under, our rural communities go under.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has allocated $229 million thus far in assistance to Georgians impacted by Hurricane Helene. But Warnock told his Senate colleagues said more needs to be done.
The storm killed 34 Georgians – including six children – and left more than 200,000 homes damaged.
“As we pray with our lips for those we lost, we must pray with our legs to help those still reeling from this devastation,” Warnock said. “The time to act is now.”
The pleas for disaster relief from Ossoff and Warnock came one day after Georgia’s other top elected official, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, sent a letter urging the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees to approve $12.2 billion in relief aid for Georgians impacted by Helene.
by Dave Williams | Nov 20, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp is asking for $12.2 billion in federal assistance to help Georgia recover from the impacts of Hurricane Helene.
The storm killed 34 Georgians when it cut a swath across South Georgia north into the August area in late September, causing heavy rainfall and flooding as well as widespread power outages. Ninety-six of the state’s 159 counties are still under a major disaster declaration.
“Hurricane Helene wrought unparalleled damage across our state, leaving thousands of families displaced, businesses shuttered, and our farmers facing catastrophic losses,” Kemp wrote Tuesday in a letter to the four chairs and ranking members of the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations committees.
“Georgia’s agricultural sector, a cornerstone of our economy and cultural identity, was hit particularly hard. Specialty crops, livestock operations, and small farms have suffered widespread devastation, many without sufficient insurance coverage to recover independently.”
The Georgia State Financing and Reinvestment Commission voted early this month to redirect $100 million from a state capital projects fund to provide financial support for farmers and timber producers affected by Helene.
But Kemp wrote that the scale of the damage necessitates federal assistance. He asked that the federal relief package include an agricultural block grant component.
The governor’s request to Congress includes $200 million to $300 million for debris removal and emergency protective measures, $40 million to $50 million in emergency hospital funding, $35 million for an emergency housing voucher program, and $32 million to repair damages to University System of Georgia campuses.
by Dave Williams | Nov 19, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday suspended former state Court of Appeals Judge Christian Coomer’s law license for two years.
The suspension will expire in August of next year, two years after the state Supreme Court removed Coomer from the Court of Appeals based on the recommendation of the state Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC). A commission hearing panel had found Coomer’s misuse of campaign funds and dealings with a client before he became a judge undermined public confidence.
Coomer, a Republican and former state legislator, was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2018 and elected to a full six-year term in 2020. Later that year, the JQC charged him with violating the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct, and he was suspended from the bench with pay in January 2021 pending the outcome of the case.
The JQC recommended removing Coomer from the bench following a three-month hearing.
The charges against Coomer stemmed from his relationship with James Filhart, an elderly client he began representing in 2015. Filhart hired Coomer to pursue an action for guardianship of Filhart’s girlfriend, according to the court ruling.
After the matter was resolved successfully, Coomer continued to represent Filhart in other legal matters, including drafting a will that named Coomer and his heirs among the beneficiaries and Coomer as executor and trustee.
Coomer also accepted several loans from Filhart, including a loan of $130,000 in 2018 to a business Coomer controlled that lacked assets, the ruling stated. The loan was not secured, and Coomer provided no personal guarantee.
By 2019, the relationship between the two men had soured, and Filhart e-mailed Coomer demanding that the judge return the money he had borrowed. Coomer repaid the loan in 2020 after Filhart filed a lawsuit against him.
Coomer also was accused of transferring campaign funds to his law firm’s operating account and, in two instances, failing to report the transfers on his campaign contributions disclosure report. A third instance involved a trip to Hawaii before Coomer left the General Assembly that he said was for legislative business but ultimately was found to have been for leisure, according to the ruling.
Coomer reimbursed his campaign account for expenses from the trip after the state Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission began investigating him.
The State Bar of Georgia agreed that the two-year suspension of Coomer’s law license was “appropriate and sufficient,” according to the 24-page ruling the state Supreme Court handed down Tuesday. Coomer had agreed to the suspension by entering a petition for voluntary discipline.
by Dave Williams | Nov 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state is laying the groundwork for a private-school vouchers program by launching a website with details on the initiative.
The new site, mygeorgiapromise.org, includes information on the Georgia Promise Scholarship, which the Republican-controlled General Assembly created this year to provide eligible K-12 students in lower-performing schools up to $6,500 in annual funding for private school tuition, tutoring services, and other qualified expenses.
“Mygeorgiapromise.org will make it easy for families, schools, and providers to learn about eligibility and the application process as we work toward the program launch in July 2025,” said Mitch Seabaugh, the program’s senior vice president.
The Georgia Education Savings Authority has partnered with Odyssey, an experienced technology provider, to create a user-centric financial services platform for families to use the vouchers.
The program is open to students who reside in a public school attendance zone that is in the lower 25% of all public schools in the state for at least one academic year or are a rising kindergarten student. Parents must have been Georgia residents for at least a year, with exceptions for active-duty military personnel.
Private-school vouchers have been a hot issue in the General Assembly for years. Legislative Republicans tried unsuccessfully over many sessions to pass a vouchers bill until this year, when the House and Senate approved the measure largely along party lines.
In an effort to get the bill through the legislature, Republicans made concessions that set spending limits on the program.
The legislation prohibits spending more than 1% of Georgia’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) fund on vouchers, a cap that is currently set at $140 million a year.
But Democrats argued the bill will divert money from public schools while not truly serving the needs of students from low-income families. Among other things, opponents said $6,500 is not nearly enough to pay the tuition at most private schools.
by Dave Williams | Nov 18, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s medical cannabis program has hit an important milestone.
Enrollment in the registry of patients eligible to receive the drug hit 25,000 during the weekend. That growth means the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission, the state agency that operates the program, is authorized to open additional dispensaries.
As a result, the six production companies licensed by the commission to grow marijuana and produce medical cannabis products from the leafy crop now are operating 13 dispensaries across Georgia.
“Patient access continues to be our mission and purpose,” commission Chairman Sid Johnson said. “Expanding Georgia’s medical cannabis program, especially providing service to patients, is why the commission exists.”
The General Assembly first legalized possession of low-THC cannabis oil to treat a wide range of diseases back in 2015 but failed to provide patients a legal way to obtain the drug. Adult patients and parents of ailing children were forced for years to travel out of state to get cannabis oil or buy it illegally in Georgia.
It wasn’t until 2019 that the legislature passed a bill setting up a licensing process for production companies to grow marijuana indoors under close supervision, convert the leafy crop to cannabis oil, and sell the product to patients with a doctor’s prescription who signed up for the state registry.
Under the legislation, the number of dispensaries will increase by an additional dispensing license for each of the six production companies with every increase in the registry of 10,000 patients.
“We anticipate things are going to pick up in pace quickly from here,” said Andrew Turnage, the commission’s executive director.
Part of the growth in patients enrolling in the medical cannabis registry stems from a recent series of listening sessions the commission conducted at Valdosta State University, Georgia Southern University, Kennesaw State University, and Middle Georgia State University. The tour will wrap up this week at Lanier Technical College in Gainesville.
“We have heard from patients, caregivers, health professionals, veterans, researchers, and students with an interest in or need for medical cannabis,” Johnson said. “Their willingness to share their personal stories and feedback for improvement is invaluable to the betterment of the program.”
