by Ty Tagami | Jun 22, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Democrats in the Legislature on Monday closed the door on Republican proposals to implement new local sales taxes to offset homeowner property tax bills.
On the fourth day of their special session, Republicans got a redo of a vote Saturday that nixed the tax swap.
Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate, but the sales tax legislation required a two-thirds majority for passage, which would have put the question to voters in local referendums.
The House handled scores of local bills together in one vote. The Senate voted on several similar bills of its own with the same result.
House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said the failure to pass the bills on a motion to reconsider meant the legislation would not be brought up again and was dead for this session.
Gov. Brian Kemp called lawmakers to the Capitol to address the sales tax issue and to consider redistricting, ratification of a previous gas tax suspension and resolution of a pending deadline that will make Georgia’s current voting machines illegal effective July 1.
Republican lawmakers said as the special session was starting last week that they would not be redistricting. The latter two issues — the gas tax and the voting machines — remained unresolved as of Monday evening.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 22, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia radio host and state school board member Martha Zoller died Monday, House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said in a speech on the House floor.
“We lost a great Georgian today: Someone who was a great conservative, but she was also a friend to all Georgians,” Burns said Monday afternoon during the Legislature’s special session.
Burns said she had suffered from heart conditions.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week that Zoller was leaving her daily talk show on Gainesville news/talk station 102.9/550 WDUN on June 26 due to what she described as a “stress-related heart attack.”
Zoller appeared on various national broadcasts and also made a name in politics, running for Congress in 2012.
She lost the Republican primary runoff for U.S. House that year to Doug Collins in northeast Georgia, a seat now held by Rep. Andrew Clyde, also a Republican.
In 2019, Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, appointed Zoller to a three-year term on the State Board of Nursing Home Administrators. The next year, Kemp appointed Zoller to the state Board of Education, a position she still held Monday.
She earned respect across party lines.
“Martha was a respected stalwart of Georgia’s civic community, an accomplished broadcaster, and a formidable activist,” U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said in a statement Monday.
Burns said Zoller was a direct but kind, straightforward and trustworthy interviewer on her radio show.
“Georgia has lost a leader in the communications business and the business of life,” he said.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 20, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate passed a measure Saturday that would delay a prohibition on the use of QR codes to tally votes until 2028 and also require hand-counting of the two top races on ballots.
Democrats opposed the measure, in part because they would not have an automatic seat at the table on the committee that will set the standards for new voting machines.
The current machines, which rely on QR-code tallies, will become illegal July 1 under a law passed by the Legislature two years ago.
In the meantime, lawmakers failed to adopt or pay for an alternative system, creating an emergency that led Gov. Brian Kemp to call them back to the Capitol for a special session.
Senate Bill 3EX passed the Senate 33-19, after Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, the majority leader, said, “We’re going to continue to stand with the citizens of Georgia, every citizen, no matter where they’re from, no matter what their walk of life is, no matter their view of election integrity or otherwise.”
Lawmakers had approved removing QR codes from Georgia’s election procedures after backlash following President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election and mistrust among some in the way the state conducts elections.
“They are grappling with the reality that they are going to be forced to toe the MAGA line on elections for the rest of time,” Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, said of his GOP colleagues after the vote. “They’re going to litigate this 2020 election over and over again.”
The bill would establish a nine-member legislative committee to set the specifications, standards and requirements for a new voting system. Members would be appointed by the governor and by legislative leaders, currently all Republicans.
Democrats wanted their own appointments, though Republicans noted that GOP leadership has traditionally appointed Democrats to such study committees.
On the Senate floor Saturday, Republicans added an amendment that would require hand counts of votes in the two races atop a ballot before official certification of the results.
That would require a hand count of presidential and gubernatorial elections, which do not occur in the same cycle, plus another race, usually for U.S. Senate.
Garland Favorito, a vocal critic of Georgia’s digital voting process, said the hand-count mandate would be a first in the state’s history of electronic voting.
“It’s not a perfect solution,” said the co-founder of VoterGA, “but it’s a step in the right direction.”
by Ty Tagami | Jun 20, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — For a second time this year, Democrats in the Georgia House rejected a Republican plan to reduce homeowner property tax bills.
The Democrats’ argument was unchanged from their refusal to support a similar GOP tax plan earlier this year: a sales tax to subsidize homeowner property tax bills would have raised prices on everyone for everyday necessities, from baby formula to school supplies.
“The no-vote today is a vote for no new taxes,” said Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, on Saturday, the third day of a special session. She called the Republican proposal, which would have let 67 communities put a 1% sales tax on the ballot, a “bait and switch.”
Republicans contended that fast-rising property tax bills have become unaffordable and that their approach would have helped.
A penny-on-the-dollar sales tax would have saved homeowners in Gwinnett County $250 million and homeowners in Forsyth County at least $60 million, said Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
It is “the kind of relief that could have helped some residents stay in the homes they own,” he said.
Blackmon was in charge of crafting the chamber’s approach to affordability during an election year when the issue is a top concern.
During the regular session, he had proposed House Resolution 1114, which would have put a constitutional amendment on the ballot statewide asking voters if they wanted to pay more in sales tax so homeowners could pay less in property tax.
Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate, but constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority. Democrats rejected HR 1114.
Then, in the waning hours of that regular session, the Senate devised Senate Bill 33, which splintered the same idea into local votes by each community. The bill passed because it did not require a two-thirds majority, and Gov. Brian Kemp signed it into law in May.
Kemp then called lawmakers back to the Capitol to deal with lingering election issues and added the local sales tax question to their agenda.
The catch: although SB 33 did not require a two-thirds majority, each local bill it authorized did. Democrats remained opposed on Saturday when local legislative delegations brought their measures to a vote as a package in the House.
There were only three such measures in the Senate, and Democrats there denied each one a two-thirds majority, as well.
The sales taxes would have driven up costs for shoppers, Senate Minority Whip Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, said after the vote. “Whereas only those who are lucky enough to afford a house will see any relief,” she said.
Republicans had pointed out that tourists pay sales taxes too. They did not point out, however, that the revenue would have subsidized only the local government portion of the tax bill and not the school portion, which is typically the largest share.
The disagreement promises to be a potent election year issue.
Democrats will argue that the scheme was illegal from the start.
Miller, one of the Democrats who spoke against the measure in the House, is her party’s nominee for state attorney general. She argued after the vote that as a product of the Senate, SB 33 was unconstitutional because tax legislation must originate in the House.
But Republicans contended that Kemp signed it, so it’s legal. And Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, said the Democratic Party “deep down knows” the sales taxes would have been popular among voters if the measures had appeared on their ballots.
“But voters are being denied that chance right now. Denied the chance to have a more affordable life, to be able to afford their home, to stay in their homes,” he said. “Today, Democrats have denied that chance.”
by Ty Tagami | Jun 19, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The federal government has halted plans to convert a warehouse into a massive immigration detention center that would have overwhelmed services in the tiny town of Social Circle.
The city of about 5,500 east of Atlanta announced the decision by the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday evening, attributing the information to multiple agency sources and to U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican who represents the area.
Collins’ office did not immediately respond to queries seeking confirmation. But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) media representatives offered an indirect response to an email query by Capitol Beat, saying Homeland Security “is moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners.”
ICE is under new leadership after Todd Lyons stepped down in May as acting director.
The agency, now led by David Venturella, said in its response that “heinous criminals, once arrested, should be removed at lightning speed, not housed on American soil at the taxpayer’s expense.”
Collins is running for U.S. Senate, aiming to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in November. Collins is endorsed by President Donald Trump, who made immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his policy — a policy that Collins supports.
Both Ossoff and fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock heralded the policy reversal in Social Circle, attributing it to their own efforts as part of a public pressure campaign.
“Officials in the Trump administration got nervous because the people stood up and began to speak out,” Warnock said in a call with reporters on Friday.
The 1 million-square-foot facility would have held as many as 10,000 detainees, tripling the population of Social Circle.
That would have overwhelmed local water and sewer systems, according to an engineering analysis for the city. The analysis estimated that an infrastructure expansion capable of serving the facility would have cost $44 million and taken more than two years to build.
In the meantime, the federal government planned to truck in water and haul out the byproducts of wastewater treatment, according to a March 24 letter that Warnock and Ossoff sent to the leaders of Homeland Security and ICE. This would have increased local traffic and damaged the roads, the senators wrote.
Their letter also raised safety concerns for the city with 15 patrol officers. The ICE warehouse is less than 1,000 feet from a subdivision and within a mile of an elementary school.
The federal government bought the warehouse for more than $128.5 million, The Covington News reported in February.
Warnock said the amount was twice the market value, labeling the purchase “waste, fraud and abuse.”
ICE said the agency paid fair market value after preparing an appraisal that it said was independently reviewed.
Social Circle said in its announcement that it was unclear whether the government would sell the property or transfer it to a different agency.
The federal government does not pay property taxes, so the purchase was a blow to Social Circle’s finances.
“The City is hopeful that the property will ultimately return to the local tax base and once again contribute to the economic vitality and long-term success of the Social Circle community,” the city’s announcement said.
ICE did not answer Capitol Beat’s question about that issue.
Social Circle thanked Collins, Ossoff and Warnock in its announcement, crediting them for intervening with the Trump administration.
