ATLANTA – Supporters say the first legislation pre-filed in advance of the 2021 General Assembly session would strike a blow for free speech on Georgia college campuses.
But opponents say the “Forming Open and Robust University Minds (FORUM) Act” could lead to discrimination.
House Bill 1, pre-filed on Monday by Georgia Rep. Josh Bonner, R-Fayetteville, reintroduces a bill the state Senate’s Republican majority passed last March 32-21 along party lines. The legislation cleared a committee in the House of Representatives but failed to get a floor vote during the final hectic week of the 2020 General Assembly session in June.
The FORUM Act would bar the practice of establishing “speech zones” effectively limiting where student groups could convene on campuses. It also would eliminate speech codes in state law by protecting what students can say and protect students’ right to free association for the expression of ideas.
“Our public universities are meant to be safe forums where ideas could be debated, but over the years, the ability of students to exercise their First Amendment rights has been greatly diminished,” Bonner said Monday. “The FORUM Act would help protect and clarify those rights and hold our government accountable if they are suppressed.
“By implementing constitutional standards on free expression, schools can minimize the risk of costly litigation and create an environment where free speech and academic inquiry can thrive.”
Bonner cited specific complaints that prompted him to introduce the bill.
In 2016, Georgia Gwinnett College officials reportedly stopped a student from sharing his Christian faith with other students on his college campus, Bonner said.
Georgia Tech’s student government reportedly denied funding for a Students for Life speaking event featuring Alveda King, the niece of civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., because her appearance would have been “inherently religious,” Bonner said.
Several Democratic senators objected to this year’s bill during the floor debate over concerns it could prevent colleges from barring organizations that promote race and gender discrimination. They also worried such broad speech protections could attract hate groups to Georgia campuses.
The Senate bill also drew opposition from representatives of the University System of Georgia and the American Civil Liberties Union.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Monday dismissed a disciplinary case against former Superior Court Judge Robert M. “Mack” Crawford, citing the state Judicial Qualifying Commission’s decision not to seek to ban him from judicial office permanently.
Crawford resigned from the bench on the Griffin Judicial Circuit after the commission recommended he be removed from office for ordering the Pike County clerk to disburse $15,672 in court funds to his personal checking account.
“Critical to our analysis of the evidence, though, is the fact that Crawford has since resigned, thereby voluntarily removing himself from office, which was the very sanction sought in the formal complaint,” the court wrote in a 10-page opinion.
“Under these circumstances, we conclude that it is unnecessary for us to decide definitively whether the evidence was sufficient to support … his removal from office.”
Justice Keith Blackwell went further by casting doubt on whether the court has the power to ban anyone from holding judicial office permanently. In a nine-page concurrence joined by three other justices, Blackwell wrote the Georgia Constitution gives that power only to the General Assembly.
“Any judge may be removed, suspended or otherwise disciplined for willful misconduct in office,” he wrote. “But a lifetime disqualification from judicial office strikes me as a greater sanction than removal or suspension from presently held office.”
Crawford, a former member of the state House of Representatives, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft last February and was sentenced to 12 months on probation. He resigned the judgeship as part of the plea deal and agreed not to seek or hold judicial office during the probationary period.
Crawford was represented before the state Supreme Court by former Gov. Roy Barnes.
Coronavirus (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday he is extending coronavirus-driven social distancing and sanitization restrictions for businesses, gatherings and long-term elderly care facilities in Georgia.
Kemp has signed an executive order, effective at midnight Nov. 16 and running through the end of the month, leaving the current set of restrictions in place.
“As COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations rise across the country, [Georgia Commissioner of Public Health] Dr. [Kathleen] Toomey and I are asking Georgians to remain vigilant in our fight against COVID-19,” the governor said.
“Continue to wash your hands, wear a mask, watch your distance, follow public health guidance, and get a flu shot. By taking these simple steps, we will protect lives – and livelihoods.”
A statewide public heath emergency first declared in Georgia last March allows Kemp to continue issuing executive orders addressing COVID-19.
The latest order keeps in place a ban on gatherings larger than 50 people in Georgia and continues to make wearing a mask voluntary at the statewide level rather than mandatory. Cities and counties have been allowed to impose their own mask mandates since August so long as their local requirements do not apply to businesses and residences.
President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to institute a nationwide mask mandate on his first day in office in January.
Kemp said the state has distributed more than 300,000 rapid COVID-19 tests across the state, stockpiled a 60-day supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and worked with hospitals and nursing homes to provide the medical staff needed to treat coronavirus patients.
Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop in Warm Springs, Ga., last month. (Biden campaign video)
ATLANTA – Multiple news outlets projected President-elect Joe Biden the winner of Georgia’s 16 electoral votes Friday, even as a hand recount of the state’s nearly 5 million votes began and lawsuits continued to surface challenging the results.
Projections putting Georgia in Biden’s column coupled with a projection earlier Friday that the Democrat also had carried Arizona gave Biden 306 electoral votes to 232 for President Donald Trump 10 days after voters went to the polls. To win the presidency, a candidate must capture at least 270 electoral votes.
With Biden leading Trump in Georgia by the narrow margin of just more than 14,000 votes, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has ordered a hand recount of the presidential ballots, a first for the state. The recount got underway Friday morning and is due to be completed by midnight next Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a Houston-based group became the latest to sue the state over the handling of last week’s election. True the Vote filed suit Friday against Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, demanding that the state launch an investigation to determine the number of illegal votes cast in Georgia.
“The election inconsistencies displayed in Georgia deserve a thorough investigation in order to ensure that the voting rights of legal voters in the Peach State are defended,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, True the Vote’s founder and president.
“The events surrounding Georgia’s elections are a disgraceful representation of the election system in the United States. Our litigation seeks to follow the law, to find the facts, and to discover the vulnerabilities that exist in order to do a thorough investigation of voter rolls to determine if actual illegal votes were cast and to ensure fair results of the most recent presidential election.”
The lawsuit targets eight counties: Chatham, DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton, Gwinnett, Cobb, Richmond, and Henry.
Georgia’s two U.S. senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, also accused the secretary of state’s office of mishandling the ballots earlier this week and demanded Raffensperger’s resignation.
The secretary of state said he would not step down and has defended Georgia’s elections process in repeated news conferences updating the public on the progress of the ballot counting.
Biden is the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992. Republicans carried the Peach State in the last six presidential contests.
Biden’s 306 electoral votes are the same number Trump piled up in winning the presidency over Democrat Hillary Clinton four years ago.
An aerial view of Plant Scherer in Juliette. (File photo)
ATLANTA – Legislation requiring all coal ash in Georgia to be stored in lined landfills died in this year’s General Assembly session without so much as a committee vote.
But the bill’s backers are vowing to reintroduce it this winter, citing among other things a lawsuit filed by residents of the small community of Juliette alleging an ash pond at Georgia Power’s coal-burning Plant Scherer nearby is polluting their drinking water.
“There will definitely be a continuing discussion on coal ash,” said Georgia Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, a cosponsor of this year’s bill and one of the Democrats who will assume leadership on the issue from House Minority Leader Bob Trammell, D-Luthersville, who lost his bid for re-election earlier this month. “It’s a front-burner issue.”
Coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal at power plants, contains contaminants including mercury, cadmium and arsenic that can pollute groundwater and drinking water as well as air.
Georgia Power has been working on a multi-year plan to close all 29 of its coal ash ponds at 11 power plants across the state to meet federal regulations for handling coal ash as well as a stricter state rule. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clamped down on pollution from ash ponds in response to a 2008 spill of 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash at a plant near Kingston, Tenn., that smothered about 300 acres of land.
While Georgia Power’s plan calls for removing the ash from 19 ponds and closing the other 10 ponds in place, environmental groups are calling for the Atlanta-based utility to excavate all 29 ponds.
Fletcher Sams, executive director of Altamaha Riverkeeper, cites Georgia Power’s Plant Branch near Milledgeville as an example. The ash pond there was originally scheduled to be closed in place, but Georgia Power later decided to excavate it.
“All we’re asking for is the same thing that happened at Plant Branch,” said Sams. “There’s no justification for leaving half of this ash in groundwater while you’re excavating the rest.”
Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft said the company decides whether to excavate an ash pond or close it in place on a case-by-case basis.
“Federal and state rules specify two approved methods for closing ash ponds, closure in place and closure by removal, with the EPA determining both options are safe and protective of the environment,” he said.
The General Assembly took some action on coal ash during the 2020 legislative session.
Lawmakers passed a bill increasing the fee for landfills receiving coal ash from $1 per ton to $2.50, matching fees charged for other items. The measure was intended to discourage an influx of coal ash being transported to Georgia from power plants in surrounding states.
Another bill tightens rules requiring Georgia Power to give advance notice before it carries out plans to dewater ash ponds in preparation for closure.
“The increase of the fee for dumping coal ash in a landfill was a positive step,” Oliver said. “But we didn’t pass any bills related to cleanup.”
Trammell’s bill requiring coal ash to be stored in lined landfills failed to gain traction in the legislation despite lobbying by a group of Juliette residents who brought their contaminated water with them in jugs to the state Capitol last February as the measure was being considered.
The residents subsequently filed a lawsuit during the summer claiming the storage of coal ash in an unlined ash pond at Plant Scherer has contaminated groundwater around the site.
Sams said Georgia Power’s plan for closing the ash pond in place would leave concentrated ash in an area where it would be subject to infiltration from a creek.
“You’re going to have a creek moving through the waste footprint in perpetuity,” he said. “It’s going to cause an issue. We don’t know when, but it’s going to cause an issue.”
Georgia Power officials have called the lawsuit without merit and vowed to defend the utility against the residents’ allegations.
Kraft said nothing above a state or federal drinking water standard has been shown leaving the company’s property.
Meanwhile, a second lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club set for a hearing in Fulton County Nov. 23 is challenging a decision by the state Public Service Commission (PSC) to let Georgia Power recover $619 million from customers to pay for its coal ash cleanup program.
“GPC [Georgia Power] customers cannot be required to pay for GPC’s coal ash cleanup because the cleanup is needed because of GPC’s imprudent, unreasonable and unlawful coal ash handling,” the Sierra Club declared in a legal brief filed Oct. 30.
Georgia Power argues its costs for cleaning up the ash ponds are reasonable, citing the PSC’s vote to approve those costs as part of a rate increase the commission granted the utility late last year.
