ATLANTA – A controversial bill expanding a state-funded school voucher program created in 2007 has cleared the Georgia House of Representatives by the barest of margins.
House lawmakers passed the legislation 91-71 late Friday, largely along party lines. To gain passage in the House, bills must receive the support of a minimum of 91 of the chamber’s 180 members.
The bill, which already had squeezed through the Senate by one vote more than the minimum required, would expand a state program that allows special-needs student in Georgia to receive state-funded scholarships to attend private schools.
The legislation would grow the 13-year-old program by increasing the number of conditions that would qualify a student for a scholarship. Conditions not listed in the 2007 bill include attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, cerebral palsy, cancer and drug or alcohol abuse.
The bill also would ease restrictions requiring students to have attended a public school the year before enrolling in the program.
“Public schools are doing a good job,” Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, who carried the bill in the House, said at the start of a lengthy debate on the bill. “[But] our responsibility in this state is to ensure that every child has a chance for a quality education.”
As was the case back in 2007, House Democrats attacked the bill as a back-door attempt to put Georgia on the path toward a broader voucher program that would divert tax dollars from public schools.
“We cannot disinvest in our public schools,” said Rep. David Dreyer, D-Atlanta. “That’s what this bill does, remove resources.”
Rep. Winfred Dukes, D-Albany, said the bill’s impact would be felt particularly in rural Georgia, where private schools are in short supply.
“How does this bill help people in rural Georgia?” he asked. “We don’t have these facilities for our kids to go to.”
Wade denied Democrats’ charges that the bill was aimed at legalizing a broader voucher program for all students.
“This is not a slippery slope,” he said. “This is to help those students who are currently looking for a small option that isn’t available [in public schools].”
“I know many families whose lives have been transformed by this program, and many more would be if they eligible,” added Rep. Wes Cantrell, R-Woodstock.
Not all House Republicans were convinced. Eleven ended up voting against the bill, while three Democrats voted for it.
Because of changes the House made to the bill, it must return to the Senate to gain final passage.
ATLANTA – A resolution naming a bridge over a portion of the Port of Savannah in honor of former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., has cleared the General Assembly.
The Georgia Senate passed the resolution unanimously on Thursday, one month after the House approved it, also without opposition. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.
The bridge on Georgia 307 crosses over the Mason Mega Rail Yard, a $215 million project that, when completed, will give the port enough additional capacity to ship goods to cities in the nation’s Mid-South and Midwest regions.
While Isakson was instrumental throughout his congressional career in landing federal funding for the Mason Mega Rail Yard and other port projects, his influence spread much farther.
“Johnny Isakson worked greatly in helping people in Georgia,” Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, who carried the resolution in the Senate on behalf of House Speaker David Ralston, told his Senate colleagues before Friday’s vote.
“No matter who you are, no matter what side of the aisle you came from, no matter what side of the tracks you came from, Johnny Isakson was a man about the people, taking care of people, taking care of our state.”
Isakson, who hails from Cobb County, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999 after serving for years in the General Assembly. He moved up to the Senate in 2004, serving two terms and part of a third before retiring at the end of 2019 for health reasons.
The House resolution honoring Isakson drew bipartisan sponsorship. House Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington, joined Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, as a sponsor.
Members of the Chatham County legislative delegation from both parties signed on as cosponsors.
ATLANTA – The filing of first-time unemployment claims in Georgia was nearly flat last week, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Jobless Georgians filed 24,789 initial claims last week, up just 89 from the week before.
Meanwhile, state Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler reiterated a plea he made last week for claimants who have reached the end of their benefit year to file a new claim to continue receiving payments. With the coronavirus pandemic now more than a year old, some long-term unemployed Georgians are reaching that point.
“We are now seeing claimants who have received payments for more than 52 weeks who are reapplying for UI [Unemployment Insurance] benefits,” Butler said. “We will continue to issue payments while also working to transition claimants into the almost 222,000 jobs available on Employ Georgia.”
Since COVID-19 struck Georgia in March of last year, the labor department has paid out more than $19.9 billion on more than 4.5 million claims filed, more than during the last nine years combined before the pandemic.
Last week, the job sector accounting for the most first-time unemployment claims in Georgia was accommodation and food services with 6,535 claims. The administrative and support services sector was a distant second with 2,720 claims, followed closely by manufacturing with 2,706.
ATLANTA – Legislation creating a state commission with the power to investigate complaints against prosecutors and remove those guilty of misconduct cleared the Georgia House of Representatives Thursday.
The measure, which passed 101-66, stems from last year’s shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, near Brunswick. Three white men have been charged with murder.
While the killing too place in February, District Attorney Jackie Johnson didn’t recuse herself from the case until June, disclosing that she knew one of the suspects. She drew heavy criticism for the delay, and lost her bid for reelection last November.
While judges in Georgia must answer to the state Judicial Qualifying Commission, no such oversight exists for prosecutors, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Efstration told his colleagues Thursday.
“Elected prosecutors across the state by and large are doing hard work,” said Efstration, R-Dacula. “But when there are circumstances where prosecutors are not doing that, there needs to be accountability.”
But many House Democrats opposed the bill as unnecessary and questioned majority Republicans’ motives for bringing the legislation.
Rep. Erica Thomas, D-Austell, said elected prosecutors already are subject to oversight by county elected officials, the state attorney general, the Georgia Bar Association and local voters when they seek reelection.
Thomas charged Republicans with seeking to establish an oversight commission to ensure they have a check on the eight newly elected Democratic prosecutors across Georgia.
“Political oversight! That’s where this is headed,” added Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta.
But Rep. James Burchett, R-Waycross, said the current oversight of elected prosecutors Democrats cited is inadequate. He said the state bar only has the authority to disbar prosecutors, not remove them, while elections are not an immediate solution to a prosecutor guilty of misconduct.
“We’ve seen specific and concrete examples of the need,” Burchett said. “The solution makes sense.”
Thursday’s vote marked the second time the House has passed the bill this year. After it failed to make it through the Senate before the Crossover Day deadline, House leaders attached it another bill banning local elected officials suspended following a felony indictment from being paid while their case is adjudicated.
It now moves over to the state Senate for consideration during the final two days of the 2021 legislative session.
Paid parental leave for state employees and teachers has been a priority of Georgia House Speaker David Ralston for the last two years. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – About 246,000 state employees and teachers in Georgia would be able to take up to three weeks of paid parental leave under legislation the state Senate passed unanimously Thursday.
The bill, which the Georgia House of Representatives approved overwhelmingly last month, would apply to parents following the birth of a child of their own, an adopted child or a foster-care placement.
Full-time employees would become eligible for paid parental leave after six months on the job.
The House passed the same bill last year, a priority of House Speaker David Ralston, shortly before the General Assembly was forced to take a three-month break because of the coronavirus pandemic.
When lawmakers returned to the Gold Dome in June, the Senate essentially gutted the measure and substituted a different bill reducing legislators’ salaries in an attempt to cut costs because of the pandemic. When the House refused to go along with the change, the bill died.
Because of changes the Senate Industry and Labor Committee made to the bill, it must return to the House before it can gain final passage.
