by Dave Williams | Oct 13, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Republican congressional candidate Wayne Johnson criticized incumbent U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany, Sunday for losing touch with Southwest Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District during 32 years in office and said it’s time for a change.
“When you’re running for Congress, you’ve got to get in tune with the people in the district. … “[Bishop] spends 85% of his time in Washington,” Johnson said during what had been planned as a livestreamed debate with Bishop at the Atlanta studios of Georgia Public Broadcasting. Bishop, however, declined to participate.
Johnson, who worked in the Trump administration as head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Student Finance, easily defeated Chuck Hand last June to win the Republican nomination to challenge Bishop.
Johnson lives in Macon, which is outside the 2nd District. However, federal law does not require members of the U.S. House to live in the district they represent.
On Sunday, Johnson took a different position than most Republicans on the abortion issue. Having a daughter who suffered from an ectopic pregnancy in Louisiana and struggled to get proper medical care from doctors wary of that state’s strict restrictions on abortion, he said decisions on abortion should be left to women in consultation with their doctor and their conscience.
However, he added that the issue should be left to the states rather than Congress – the same position taken by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump – and opposed late-term abortions.
Johnson called for expanding the federal government’s role in education through school-choice vouchers that would supplement legislation the General Assembly passed this year providing vouchers worth up to $6,500 to parents of children enrolled in low-performing public schools who wish to send their kids to a private school.
He also said he would support a direct federal loan program that would help consumers afford down payments on houses and cars and would be willing to pilot that program in Southwest Georgia.
Johnson said he would combine his experience in Washington with 40 years in business.
“I know how Washington works,” he said. “[But] l bring common sense.”
by Dave Williams | Oct 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Even the reddest of red states can promote safe firearm storage without stepping on the Second Amendment, officials from two red states told Georgia lawmakers this week.
Republican state Rep. Steve Eliason of Utah and Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center, testified before the Georgia Senate Safe Firearm Storage Study Committee about steps they’ve taken in their states to encourage gun owners to lock up their firearms without imposing mandates.
“Safe storage is low-hanging fruit … one of the easiest things we can do,” said Volkan Topalli, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Georgia State University, who appeared with the out-of-state witnesses at a hearing Oct. 10. “Safe storage is not opposing Second Amendment rights.”
The Georgia Senate created the study committee back in March, but the issue of safe firearms storage took on greater urgency last month when two students and two teachers were shot to death at Apalachee High School near Winder.
Another student at the school, 14-year-old Colt Gray, was arrested at the scene and charged with the murders, while his father, Colin Gray, also faces criminal charges for allegedly letting his son possess the AR-15 style rifle used in the killings.
The mass shooting at Apalachee High School was among 11 gun-related incidents that have occurred on school grounds in Georgia this year, second-most in the country, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun-violence prevention organization in the nation.
“Gun violence remains the leading cause of death for children and teens in America,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps, the group’s senior director of research. “We have to do better.”
The Texas School Safety Center was established in 1999 in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Columbine High School, where two students killed 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded 21 others in less than 20 minutes, an episode that sparked a trend of mass school shootings that continues today.
Martinez-Prather said the center’s mission is to provide research, training, and technical assistance to schools looking to create a safe and secure environment. The center reviews every emergency operations plan individual schools develop and produces educational materials on safe firearm storage for distribution to the schools at least several times a year, she said.
Since preventing school violence is not what teachers are accustomed to, the center fills that role, Martinez-Prather said.
“Educators do not get into education to be emergency managers,” she said. “School safety has always been a back-burner conversation.”
Eliason said the Utah legislature has passed a series of bills aimed at safe firearm storage with strong bipartisan majorities going back to 2013.
The Utah measures have used a variety of approaches. Under some of the bills, the state has bought and distributed trigger locks and biometric gun safes. Others have established tip lines that allow callers aware that a student may be planning a school attack to notify authorities.
“They’re preventable when communities detect early warning signs and intervene,” Eliason said.
Utah’s school safety legislation also includes a mental health component. A School Safety Crisis Line lets students who feel they may become a threat to themselves or others contact someone who can help.
“Every school shooter has some sort of mental health issue in their life,” Eliason said. “Students can talk to a licensed clinical social worker 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Another bill Utah lawmakers have passed allows people suffering mental health issues to put their name on a restricted list so they can’t buy firearms for whatever period of time they feel they need.
“Preventing access to firearms and getting mental health treatment go hand in hand,” Eliason said. “If you’re not focusing on both, you’re not getting to the root of the issue.”
Eliason said the key to Utah’s approach to safe firearm storage is that it’s voluntary. Since it doesn’t involve mandates, the state’s gun lobby has supported the bills, he said.
“They realize that working together, we can save gun owners’ lives,” he said.
Georgia Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, the study committee’s chairman, said he was impressed with the Texas firearm safety program and may propose something similar for Georgia. The panel is due to make recommendations, including any legislation it might introduce, before the General Assembly convenes for the 2025 session in January.
by Dave Williams | Oct 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections fell by 2.8% last month, resuming a downward pattern that has taken hold for much of this year, the state Department of Revenue reported Friday.
After posting a one-month gain in August compared to the same month last year, state revenues declined by $91.2 million in September compared to September 2023.
However, tax receipts were up slightly for the first three months of fiscal 2025, increasing by 0.4% compared to the same period last year.
Individual income taxes actually rose by 3.6% last month, primarily resulting from a huge 27.9% decrease in refunds issued by the revenue agency. That more than offset a slight 0.3% decrease in tax payments.
Net sales tax collections fell by 6.4% in September. Corporate income tax revenues also were down 13.1%, as refunds rose by $29.7 million compared to the same month a year ago and payments decreased by $47.2 million, or 10.9%.
Despite the sluggish revenue numbers, the General Assembly adopted a $36.1 billion budget for fiscal 2025, which began in July, with raises for teachers and state and University System of Georgia employees as well as record spending on education and mental health. The state could afford to be generous because of a healthy surplus built up during the last three years.
by Dave Williams | Oct 10, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Hurricane Helene caused at least $6.46 billion in losses to Georgia farmers, according to preliminary estimates released Thursday by the University of Georgia College of Agriculture & Environmental Science.
That represents direct crop losses, losses to businesses that support agriculture and forestry, losses to workers in those related industries, and estimated recovery and restoration costs that agricultural businesses will face.
Those losses could well go higher, as it will take months to understand the full scope of the damage.
“The future is uncertain for thousands of Georgia farmers who were devastated by Hurricane Helene,” state Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler Harper said in Soperton Thursday during an update on agricultural damage from the storm. “We are working around the clock with state, federal, and industry leaders to deliver federal aid to Georgia farmers to help them recover and bounce back stronger than before.”
The third named storm to hit Georgia in the last 13 months rampaged through South Georgia and the Augusta region Sept. 26-27, leaving 34 dead, causing catastrophic damage to homes and businesses, and destroying crops. Helene hit as Georgia farmers already were facing economic challenges from inflation, high input costs, and depressed commodity prices.
Gov. Brian Kemp Thursday called on Congress to act quickly to appropriate federal disaster relief funds to hurting farm families, including block grants like those provided following Hurricane Michael in 2018.
In addition, more than 40 agriculture industry organizations have joined to create a hurricane relief fund. All of the money donated to the fund will go to help impacted farmers recover from Hurricane Helene. More information is available at www.supportgeorgiafarmers.org.
by Dave Williams | Oct 10, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers should enact safe firearm storage legislation to reduce an epidemic of gun violence most dramatically illustrated by last month’s school shooting in Barrow County, two parents of teens killed by guns said Thursday.
“It is a pain that never goes away,” said Julvonnia McDowell, whose14-year-old son JaJuan was shot and killed in 2016 by another teen playing with an unsecured firearm while visiting family in Savannah. “That’s why I advocate for secure storage laws. Our children deserve in a world free of gun violence.”
“We want securing your firearm to be as instinctive as securing your children in a car seat,” added Kristin Song, whose 15-year-old son Ethan was accidentally shot and killed in 2018 by an unsecured gun at a neighbor’s house in Connecticut.
His death spurred Ethan’s Law, legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate that would require gun owners to safely and securely store their firearms.
“Georgia failed those killed in the recent high-school shooting,” Song told members of a state Senate study committee. “But you have the power to change that.”
The study committee was formed after two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School near Winder were shot and killed early last month. Another student, 14-year-old Colt Gray, was charged in the murders, and his father, Colin Gray, faces charges for allegedly allowing his son to possess the weapon.
On Thursday, Song testified that 76% of school shooters used unsecured firearms they obtained at home. Most youth suicides and unintentional shootings also are carried out with unsecured firearms, she said.
Twenty-six states have child-access prevention (CAP) laws that allow prosecutors to bring charges against adults who intentionally or carelessly allow children to have unsupervised access to firearms, said Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center.
Texas lawmakers passed a bill following the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, with an education component that requires school districts to inform parents of safe storage policies.
“Schools can play an effective role in helping reduce gun violence,” she said.
Committee members acknowledged that crafting safe firearms storage legislation without curbing Second Amendment rights is a challenge.
But Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, the committee’s chairman, said it can be done.
“This is not about taking anyone’s gun,” he said. “It’s about trying to protect our kids against senseless gun violence.”
Thursday’s meeting was the last for the study committee. Jones said he expects the panel will come up with safe firearms storage legislation for the full Senate to consider during the next General Assembly session starting in January.
