by Ty Tagami | Mar 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation that would enhance criminal penalties for students who threaten their school passed the Georgia Senate Thursday.
Senate Bill 61 was pushed by Republicans and passed 33-22 in a party-line vote.
It would allow children aged 13 to 17 to be tried as adults for terroristic threatening. They could also land in superior court for attempting to commit, or for conspiracy to commit, terroristic threatening.
The legislation also would allow prosecutors to move other serious crimes into superior court, including aggravated assault with a gun or armed robbery.
SB 61 is among several measures GOP senators have offered in reaction to the mass shooting last fall at Apalachee High School in Barrow County.
The chief sponsor, Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, called it a school safety bill.
But Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, said he saw it as criminalizing kids.
At a committee hearing last week, critics said children’s brains are not fully developed and they sometimes do “dumb things.” If one of those things is phoning a threat to their school, it could land them in superior court, with a lifelong criminal record, they said.
Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, told reporters that SB 61 was necessary to confront “heinous” crimes like the mass shooting at Apalachee High. He noted that the legislation gives prosecutors discretion about whether to try children as adults.
“We just have to give the district attorneys the tools in order to protect the citizens of Georgia,” Gooch said.
The bill now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate adopted a measure Thursday that would ban drinks containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Senate Bill 254, which passed 42-14, originally intended to limit the amount of Delta-9 (a form of THC) per serving in gummies, tinctures and drinks. But an amendment on the Senate floor would ban all drinks with THC.
Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, sponsored the bill out of concern about the impairing effect of THC on driving and other activities.
“We are putting loaded guns in people’s hands in the form of a can or a gummy,” he said, “and we need to protect them.”
His bill originally limited the amount of Delta-9 to 10 milligrams per consumable, which, he noted, was roughly equivalent to four servings of alcohol.
SB 254 also limited the amount of Delta-9 in tincture and drinks, until Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, upped the ante with his amendment, saying Georgia was on a “bullet train” with marijuana consumption.
Robertson, the Senate majority whip, introduced his amendment to ban all beverages containing THC.
The amendment barely passed, 29-27, with several Republicans voting against it. The Senate chamber filled with chatter at the unexpected new trajectory for the bill. A maneuver to reconsider the motion failed, and then the Senate passed the amended bill with a large bipartisan majority.
Afterward, Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones, II, D-Augusta, said he was stunned by what had just occurred and by the impact on companies that make beverages containing THC should SB 254 become law.
“It basically destroys a whole industry,” Jones said.
The legislation now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
The Georgia Senate adopted legislation Tuesday that would make it a felony to distribute computer-generated obscenity that appears to depict a child, even one that isn’t real.
Senate Bill 9, which passed 46-9, would also enhance the criminal penalties for offenses that involve the use of artificial intelligence.
The penalty for depicting a child would be one to 15 years in prison. It wouldn’t have to be a child “who actually exists.”
Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, said the enhanced sentencing is necessary because artificial intelligence has become such a powerful tool.
“It’s not just about punishment,” he said. “It’s about deterrence.”
There was discussion about simulated versus actual obscene acts, and Albers said prosecutors would have discretion to use the enhanced sentencing in such cases.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Children of active duty military parents would be able to obtain one of Georgia’s new private education tuition subsidies without having to first attend an underperforming public school, under a measure adopted by the Georgia Senate Tuesday.
The state began taking applications this month for the new Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, a $6,500 annual private education subsidy, commonly known as a voucher, which was passed into law last year.
The program requires that students, except for rising kindergartners, first attend a public school performing in the bottom 25% in order to participate.
Senate Bill 124, which passed by a 37-16 vote, would waive that requirement for military families. They move frequently, so this legislation makes these kids eligible for private tuition help from the state, said the chief sponsor, Sen. Shawn Still, R-Johns Creek.
SB 124 is similar to a measure that the Senate’s Republican majority passed last week.
Under Senate Bill 152, the natural-born and adopted children of parents who have fostered a child at any point in the prior decade would be exempt from the requirement that their child attend a low-performing school.
Qualifying households under SB 152 would also be exempt from the voucher program’s income thresholds. The program prioritizes households earning 400% or less above the federal poverty line when the number of funded slots is running out.
Military families wouldn’t get that income exemption under SB 124.
One of the main critiques of the vouchers is that they will largely be used by wealthier households that can afford the difference between the $6,500 subsidy and full tuition, which often exceeds $10,000. The voucher money comes from the same state funding stream that pays for public schools, so Democrats have reasoned that the program will lead to budget cuts at public schools.
No Democrat voted last week for SB 152, the foster bill, but five crossed the aisle Tuesday to vote with Republicans for SB 124 and the exemption for military families.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Georgia courts would have to give more weight to religious custom and preference when applying the law in disputes about individual rights if legislation adopted by the Republican-led state Senate Tuesday becomes law.
The Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which passed 32-23 along party lines, reignites a fight in the General Assembly dating back a decade.
In 2016, lawmakers passed another such measure over objections by civil rights groups that it threatened the state’s LGBTQ community. Business organizations fretted over the risk of convention and sporting event boycotts, and then-Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed the bill.
The current iteration, 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, the chief sponsor, said the need is demonstrated by examples from other states that already have such a law — of a Native American youth who wanted to wear his hair long though the school wanted him to cut it and of a Muslim woman who refused to remove her veil for a photo in front of men while applying for a driver’s license.
The boy got to keep his locks, and the woman got her photo taken by a female photographer in a room with no men present, Setzler said, explaining that the courts had to balance their religious rights against local and state policies.
“People from all of your communities, no matter where you come from, need this basic protection in place,” Setzler said.
The vast majority of states have one of these religious freedom laws but nearly all of them have coupled such laws with anti-discrimination mandates, said Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta.
If SB 36 were to pass without civil rights protections, he said, hotels and restaurants could refuse to serve LGBTQ patrons, pharmacists could withhold birth control or HIV medicines for religious reasons, a venue could decline to host a Jewish wedding, and a landlord could deny housing to an unmarried couple.
Sen. RaShaun Kemp, D-Atlanta, said SB 36 would allow businesses to use religion as a reason to deny service to him, his husband and their two children.
“This isn’t about politics for me,” he said. “It’s about the ability for my family to live freely in this state.”
The measure now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives, which declined to consider a similar Senate measure last year.
