by Ty Tagami | Mar 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia taxpayers will pay a little less after Gov. Brian Kemp signs two tax relief measures following their approval Thursday by the state Senate.
“The final passage of these two measures today brings us one step closer to eliminating the state income tax, while providing tax relief for Georgia families and businesses,” said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who thanked Kemp for leading the effort.
House Bill 112, which passed unanimously, seeks to give one-time rebates equaling $250 to single tax return filers, $375 to heads of household and $500 to married couples filing jointly.
But a tax cut bill – House Bill 111 – was as controversial in the Senate as it had been in the state House of Representatives, with Democrats calling it a sop to the rich that would reduce funding for services to the poor and Republicans labeling their criticism “class warfare.”
The bill, which passed 30-23 with mostly Democrats opposed, would reduce Georgia’s income tax rate from 5.39% to 5.19% retroactive to the beginning of the current tax year.
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, said it amounts to $10 off the taxes for earners in the bottom 20% but at least $3,000 for the top 1%.
“That is a finger in the eye of everyone who struggles to afford gas, eggs and rent,” she said. “When you make $2 million a year, you’re probably not worried about $3,000.”
Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, said a large portion of those top earners are actually small businesses. They’ll notice $3,000, he said, adding that it’s enough to pay their internet bill.
In conjunction with the tax cut, Republicans said, a low-wage family of four will owe nothing.
“You won’t pay a dime in state income tax unless you make over fortyish thousand a year,” said Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, adding that he’d like to see the state income tax eliminated altogether.
The two Republicans who sided against HB 111 did so accidentally.
One of them, Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, asked to reconsider the vote before withdrawing that request. A spokesman later explained that he and Sen. Clint Dixon of Buford, the other Republican ‘no’ vote, had pushed the wrong button at their desks and had intended to support HB 111.
Both later filed clarifying statements with the secretary of the Senate. (Something similar happened last month when Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, accidentally voted with two Republicans against a measure to ban cockfighting.)
The Senate also on Thursday gave bipartisan approval to House Bill 161, which would empower the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to issue subpoenas in investigations into domestic terrorism. The GBI must get court approval for subpoenas, but this legislation would bypass that process to expedite investigations of crimes like swatting.
HB 161 now returns to the House for approval of Senate amendments.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A marathon hearing about legislation to enshrine religious freedom in Georgia law produced no outcome but clarified the fears of those on both sides of the issue.
The Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed the state Senate along party lines earlier this month. A committee of the House of Representatives spent four hours vetting the proposal on Wednesday, then ended without final action on the measure.
Democrats, with the help of a Republican, nearly succeeded in derailing the GOP bill, but it survived for possible passage in a future hearing.
Senate Bill 36 says government “shall not substantially burden” a person’s exercise of religion except “in furtherance of a compelling government interest.”
Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, said he drafted it with help from Gov. Brian Kemp’s office.
It is a necessary protection against government intrusion into religious practices and would bring Georgia in line with 39 other states with a similar statute, Setzler and his supporters said.
Twenty-nine people testified for and against the bill, many of them religious figures such as Bishop John E. Citizen, a Pentecostal pastor in Powder Springs.
He said he supported the legislation because he didn’t want the government dictating whom his church must hire and serve.
“I want to be left to do my worship my way, the way God intended me to do it,” he said. “I’m not going to push my agenda onto you, but don’t push your agenda onto me.”
Opponents noted that only a handful of states have such a law without counterbalancing safeguards for marginalized groups. And Setzler’s refusal to include an anti-discrimination clause in SB 36 was evidence for them that the intent was to wield religious freedom as both a shield against government and a sword against gays, lesbians, transgender people and others outside the heterosexual mainstream.
They said the lack of an anti-discrimination clause would allow private actors to refuse services on religious grounds, including landlords, adoption agencies, and medical dispensaries.
“We want to be protected by the state of Georgia and we’re asking you to add that language to the bill,” said Michael Schulte, a Lutheran pastor in Decatur who said nearly half of his congregation identifies as LGBTQ+.
“They are the people who will be discriminated against if this bill is passed,” he said. “And that is so unfair and it’s so unjust, and to me it is not Christ-like.”
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, pressed Setzler for evidence that religious freedoms were being violated in Georgia and that such protections were needed. She asked him five times to cite specific cases.
Setzler could only produce examples from other states, though an advocate he brought to testify with him offered a couple of local instances.
One involved a Gwinnett County student who was prohibited from distributing religious literature on campus. Another involved a counselor at Augusta State University who asserted that her religious rights were compromised by having to counsel LGBTQ students.
The students complained, then the university put her on a remediation plan and she sued in federal court. The court sided against her.
A lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union said religion had been used to justify atrocities in America’s past, including the massacre of Native Americans and the enslavement of Black people.
Racial discrimination has been prohibited by federal law since the 1960s, but no such protections exist for those with sexual identities outside the mainstream, except on a local basis. Eighteen jurisdictions in Georgia have passed ordinances protecting the rights of LGBTQ people.
Opponents of SB 36 fear that a statewide religious freedom law would pre-empt those local protections, despite Setzler’s assurances that it would not.
One Republican, Rep. Deborah Silcox from Sandy Springs, pressed Setzler on that issue, and later sided with Democrats in a vote against passage.
Opponents briefly had the upper hand. With at least one Republican absent and the acting chairman abstaining, SB 36 failed to pass in that first House Judiciary Committee vote. But Republicans rallied and with the help of Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, the acting chairman, they approved a motion to reconsider SB 36 before adjourning the meeting.
That means the committee can revisit the measure at a future meeting.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Republican measure that seeks to weed out state government rules that are burdensome or no longer relevant is closer to becoming law after passing a committee in the Georgia House of Representatives Wednesday.
The Budget and Fiscal Affairs Oversight Committee voted along partisan lines to advance Senate Bill 28, called the “Red Tape Rollback Act.”
There are about 150,000 state agency rules on the books, said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, the chief sponsor of the measure.
“I don’t think these agencies are going through their existing laws with a fine-tooth comb with an eye toward making life easier on Georgia citizens,” he said. “I’m not telling you they’re intentionally making it more difficult, but what I am telling you is that, naturally, if left unchecked, government layers itself on top of each other.”
SB 28 would address that layering by requiring agencies to review their rules every four years with an eye toward trimming.
Agencies make rules to implement laws created by the legislature. The rules often go through a public vetting process, with hearings where the public can comment.
Dolezal’s legislation would affect proposed rules by requiring an impact analysis of any that could cost the public or local governments at least $3 million to comply with during the first five years.
And it would empower lawmakers to call for a review of the impact of any proposed legislation on businesses with 300 or fewer employees.
Dolezal’s fellow Republicans saw it as a pragmatic measure to keep bureaucracy in check. Democrats saw it as an assault on government that would cost taxpayers money.
At least 100 state agencies would be affected by the measure, and Rep. Lisa Campbell, D-Kennesaw, wanted to know how much the rules reviews would cost, in terms of both money and staff time.
When Dolezal responded that the cost was something that couldn’t be measured, Campbell said he’d just made her point.
“One of the things that I hear you saying is it’s impossible to account for the level of impact,” she said, “which is ironic because isn’t that exactly, essentially what you’re asking every single agency in the state of Georgia to do?”
Some agencies, such as the Department of Revenue, are exempted from the measure.
The House committee tacked on several changes, which means the bill must return to the Senate for final approval if the full House passes it as is.
One amendment, by Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, would reduce the measure’s scope. The version that passed the Senate last month had set the threshold for a compliance impact analysis at $1 million, but Dolezal agreed to her request to raise it to $3 million, and House Republicans on the committee went along.
Despite getting their GOP colleagues to approve that change and another about posting impact analyses online, Democrats voted against the final bill. SB 28 now goes to the House Rules Committee, which will decide whether to put it to a vote of the full House.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A bill that would ban cellphones in all of Georgia’s public elementary and middle schools has cleared another hurdle toward becoming law.
House Bill 340 passed a Senate committee on Tuesday and could get a vote by the full Senate soon.
The House of Representatives approved the measure two weeks ago amid rising frustration with social media and other distractions.
Experts had testified in prior hearings about the impact of smartphones on student behavior, mental health, and academic performance. Relentless notifications are a constant distraction and can lead to fighting and other misbehavior, they said.
As with earlier hearings, there were two main concerns expressed at the Senate Children and Families Committee on Tuesday.
The first: how do parents reach their kids during an emergency, a rising concern as school shootings become more common?
The answer, said the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners: experts say smartphones are a distraction during emergencies too, and a dangerous one. Students should be following their teacher’s lead rather than phoning or texting their parents, he said. The legislation requires schools to have policies for parent communication once an emergency has ended.
The second concern: why not ban cellphones in high schools, too?
That could be coming in a couple of years, Hilton said. Once middle schoolers get used to the absence of phones in their classrooms, it’ll be easier to remove the devices from the high schools that those kids will later attend, he said.
A half dozen states have already banned cellphones in schools, with at least a half dozen others enacting partial restrictions.
Miranda Williams, a former education policy advisor for Gov. Brian Kemp who is now a lobbyist for ExcelinEd, an advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said half the states are considering such legislation this year. She also said existing bans have produced positive effects on mental health and academic performance.
HB 340 passed the Senate committee on a 4-1 vote and now heads to the Senate Rules Committee, which will decide whether to place it on the Senate floor for a vote on final passage.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Farmers may soon get more tax relief under a decades-old program designed to keep agricultural land out of developers’ hands.
The Georgia Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation from the House of Representatives that seeks to double the acreage farmers and other agricultural producers can place under a protective covenant in return for smaller property tax bills.
The final passage of House Bill 90 in a 47-3 vote comes as farmers, timber producers, poultry growers and other agricultural producers are reeling from the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene last fall.
The legislature has considered other ways to help them, including the passage by a 50-1 vote Tuesday of House Bill 223 offering temporary tax breaks and tax credits related to the recovery.
But the protective covenant legislation is a play for the long term. It could encourage more property owners to keep working their land for years to come by bolstering their bottom line.
“It’s a tool to allow family farms to continue to grow and expand,” said Sen. Sam Watson, R-Moultrie.
HB 90 would only take effect if voters agree to amend the state constitution in November 2026. The Senate also passed HR 32, a companion measure that adds a ballot question asking if the existing conservation tax program should cover 4,000 acres per owner, twice the amount of land currently allowed.
The Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA) Program was adopted decades ago. It lets each landowner put up to 2,000 acres under a protective covenant. The land must be used for farming, growing timber or other agricultural production. The property is then valued and taxed at less than what it might sell for as plots for a new subdivision or office park.
Properties are instead assessed and taxed using a formula based on current use, annual productivity, and real property sales data of other conservation use properties.
A similar measure stalled last year, leading to a special legislative committee that studied the problem of vanishing farmland.
Three out of four of Georgia’s 159 counties — and one in seven jobs — rely on agriculture and forestry, the Senate Study Committee on Preservation of Georgia’s Farmlands learned. Their final report noted a conundrum, though: if lawmakers expand CUVA to preserve those economic pillars, they also could undermine potential growth in the local property tax base due to unrealized development.
Counties and local governments may push back as land is taken off their tax digest, Katherine Moore, president of the Georgia Conservancy, told the committee when it met last year. Other states, such as Florida, have responded by paying local governments for their foregone taxes.
