by Ty Tagami | Apr 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in cases that could decide in the near term whether large waterfront houses can be built on a sleepy island while in the long term reverberating far from the coast.
The dispute is over the preservation of the Gullah-Geechee way of life lived in small bungalows on Sapelo Island, where officials in McIntosh County have voted to allow the construction of larger houses.
But it’s also about whether Georgians everywhere can overrule their local governments on what is often a hotly contested topic: zoning.
The justices heard arguments in three cases Wednesday, but two are ancillary, concerning the local probate court judge who agreed to let voters hold a referendum to potentially overturn the county zoning decision.
The core case, Bailey et al. v. McInstosh County, asks whether the Georgia Constitution grants counties exclusive authority over zoning and, thus, immunity from referendums.
For the residents of Sapelo Island, it boils down to whether they can keep a longstanding zoning ordinance that restricts homes to a maximum of 1,400 square feet. They want to maintain a local culture that stretches back to the period when slavery ended for ancestors who then became small landowners and built modest houses.
The McIntosh County Commission voted to eliminate that size limit. Sapelo residents responded by securing approval from the probate court judge for a referendum on whether to restore the restriction. A superior court judge agreed to a county petition to halt the referendum but also paused enforcement of the zoning law pending the outcome of this appeal to the high court.
The state Supreme Court opened the door to challenging local government decisions by referendum two years ago by deciding that voters in Camden County could use one to prevent the purchase of land for a spaceport. The facility would have lobbed commercial rockets over the Cumberland Island National Seashore, prompting concerns about the health of the coastal marsh and about the quality of life for nearby residents.
In the McIntosh County case, the justices are tasked with deciding whether their authorization of that Camden County referendum also applies to zoning decisions.
To answer that question, they’ll have to interpret ambiguity in the state constitution.
“The referendum power applies to zoning ordinances because all potentially relevant legislative power for counties to pass ordinances, resolutions, and regulations emanates from the home rule section of the constitution,” said Philip M. Thompson, the attorney for the referendum proponents.
But Ken E. Jarrard, the attorney arguing for the county, said the state constitution grants counties special power over zoning that is separate from the constitutional basis for other local authority.
“The power of zoning and the home rule power are absolutely different, and there’s a reason that they are different,” he said. “It’s on purpose, it’s borne out in the evolution of the constitution.”
The paragraph of the constitution that is in question:
“The governing authority of each county and of each municipality may adopt plans and may exercise the power of zoning. This authorization shall not prohibit the General Assembly from enacting general laws establishing procedures for the exercise of such power.”
Does that mean the state’s authority to intervene in local zoning matters is limited to procedure? And what is meant by home rule anyway?
“Generally speaking, anyone who uses the phrase ‘home rule’ generally isn’t entirely sure what they mean by that,” Chief Justice Nels S.D. Peterson quipped midway through Thompson’s presentation, eliciting guffaws in the courtroom.
Thompson, who’d used the term at least a dozen times by then, responded in kind, drawing a laugh from Peterson:
“Counsel at the podium included your honor.”
The high court did not make an immediate decision in the case. Rulings typically come one to five months after oral arguments.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Federal law enforcement officials announced a major drug bust Tuesday, seizing more than 100 pounds of fentanyl and arresting 22.
The takedown involved two Mexican drug cartels, but two kingpins remain on the loose.
The federal government has issued a cumulative $8 million reward for information leading to the capture of Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga, known as “Pez,” and his brother Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, who goes by “Fresa.” They are both believed to be in Mexico, said Michael Herskowitz, who oversees narcotics and dangerous drug prosecutions for the U.S. Attorneys’ Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
“It is our hope that these multi-million dollar rewards will encourage people to come forward with what they know” about the brothers, he said, “both here in the United States and in cities and towns in Mexico.”
Some of the arrests involved a money-wiring operation in Gwinnett County that authorities said was sending drug proceeds to Mexico in small sums that would minimize attention. The practice, called “smurfing,” involves transactions below $10,000, a threshold for federal reporting.
Jae W. Chung, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta division, said the amount of fentanyl seized — 47 kilograms — would probably sell for around $1.5 million on the street and that it was enough to kill at least 23 million people. That’s more than two times the number of people in Georgia. (Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage, according to the DEA.)
“For Atlanta DEA, that’s probably the single largest seizure,” he said.
Chung said the investigation had been ongoing for years.
Herskowitz said the U.S. State Department had labeled the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which helped with the investigation.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Nearly 200 years of legal precedent should not apply to a 20-year-old man who wants to carry a gun, his lawyer argued before the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Thomas Stephens, who turns 21 next year, was denied a license to carry a handgun in public when he applied for one in Lumpkin County. He sued, and his case made it to the high court, which heard arguments by his lawyer and by the state attorney general’s office. The state contends in a legal brief that the restrictions on adults under age 21 are “baked into the Georgia Constitution.”
Stephens’ lawsuit goes to the heart of one of the most contentious issues in America today: how to interpret gun rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It says, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” An introductory phrase has been a complicating factor, saying that a “well regulated Militia” is needed to secure a free state.
Georgia’s constitution elaborates by saying that the legislature “shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.”
A lawyer from Attorney General Chris Carr’s office argued that the state’s age-based limitations date back to the Civil War era, when he said those under 21 were not subject to militia service.
“The court should stick with the analysis that it’s applied for 180 years,” said Zachary A. Mullinax, an assistant attorney general. “I don’t think that there is any historical evidence that an 18-year-old had the right to carry a handgun in public.”
But Stephens’ lawyer made the case that Georgia’s restrictions are rooted in a time before courts began applying a higher standard on government intrusion into personal liberties.
The state Supreme Court has based its decisions on a “reasonable” exercise of government power to limit access to guns, said John R. Monroe, the Dawsonville attorney representing Stephens.
That was before the World War II era, when the U.S. Supreme Court first developed a higher standard of “strict scrutiny” and began requiring that burdens on fundamental rights be justified by a “compelling” state interest, Monroe said. “Strict scrutiny should be applied to this case because it’s a fundamental right for people to keep and bear arms.”
It’s unclear how the state’s high court will rule. The justices peppered both lawyers with questions, although Justice Andrew A. Pinson told Monroe early in the hearing that he had an “uphill battle” to make his case. That is due to the history of Georgia’s restrictions on gun rights, Pinson said, “which we’ve said arguably is now baked into our constitutional language given that it was enacted and then we ratified new constitutions with that same language.”
by Ty Tagami | Apr 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Out-of-state investors own tens of thousands of houses in Georgia, and lawmakers tried to limit the number due to concerns about decaying properties and diminished options for would be homeowners.
A bill that sought to cap each big owner at 2,000 properties didn’t get far after constitutional concerns were raised. But a measure that requires these companies to hire Georgia brokers did pass, and some lawmakers are waiting to see whether it will become law.
House Bill 399 also requires tenants of houses or duplexes to give code enforcement officers the contact information for the property manager.
First, the tenants have to know who manages their property, which is one reason Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, gave for bringing her bill.
“It requires out-of-state investors, hedge fund type entities to have a local broker and a local property manager,” Oliver said last week. She said local officials often cannot identify the owners of properties that have deteriorated to the point that they are violating local ordinances.
Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, carried the bill through the Senate, which had just passed the measure 41-9 when the two talked about it with reporters.
“The renter has to have someone that they can call and talk to and resolve any problem,” Burns said, adding that investors had acquired whole subdivisions in suburban Augusta near his hometown.
“They all go into the rental market. And that undermines the single-family home buyer, especially that first-time homebuyer,” he said.
Seven corporations own more than 51,000 single-family homes in the 21-county metro Atlanta region, according to a blog by the Atlanta Regional Commission late last year.
Paulding County in northwest metro Atlanta was a hotspot for this ownership model, with as much as a fifth of the single-family homes in some census tracts there owned by investors, the ARC reported, using data provided by Parcl Labs. Overall, 6.5% of the houses in Paulding were corporate-owned.
Rep. Martin Momtahan, R-Dallas, said he has constituents in Paulding who don’t know how to contact their out-of-state landlords.
“They have a lot of issues with just getting things fixed,” he said. “Imagine a septic tank is leaking in your backyard.”
Momtahan voted for HB 399 and also was among all but one of the lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee who voted for a more aggressive bill last month. House Bill 555 sought to limit companies from having an ownership interest in more than 2,000 single-family residences or 10 multifamily residences in Georgia.
Former state Attorney General Sam Olens testified against the bill as a representative of the National Home Rental Council, calling it “constitutionally unfirm.” He said investors who buy houses are doing Georgians a favor by renting them out at a lower monthly price than renters would be paying if they bought a house under current mortgage rates.
A representative of the Georgia Association of Realtors also opposed the bill, saying investor home ownership is a problem but that HB 555 wouldn’t fix it. Corporate owners would just create a network of subsidiary companies that would each own fewer than 2,000 properties, she said. She also said her group opposed a bill by Momtahan that would have required companies to disclose the properties they own, so local governments could keep track.
The vice chairman of the committee, Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, said creating subsidiary companies to hide properties would be illegal.
“If a company large or small does a transfer of an asset to avoid the law, that’s fraudulent,” he said. “Give the American Dream back to individual homeowners in Georgia. That’s what this bill is trying to do.”
HB 555 passed that committee on March 3, but didn’t get a vote by the full House of Representatives. It will remain in play when lawmakers return next year though.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are waiting to see whether Gov. Brian Kemp will sign HB 399 into law, opening a new channel of communication with these big property owners.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The annual federal child tax credit will shrink in half at the end of the year, falling to $1,000 if Congress does not intervene.
Most of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate, including Georgia’s Raphael Warnock, are calling not only to prevent that from happening but also to permanently expand the credit.
Legislation introduced Wednesday by Sen. Mchael Bennet, D-Colo., would increase the annual credit to $4,320 for parents with a child aged 5 and under and to $3,600 for each child aged 6 through 17. It would also offer a one-time $2,400 “baby bonus” to parents of newborns.
“This is about attacking poverty in our country and ensuring that the government isn’t taxing people into poverty,” said Warnock, who is among more than 40 other Senate Democrats co-sponsoring the bill.
Crucially, no members of the Senate’s Republican majority have signed onto the measure.
The tax credit was temporarily expanded in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan, which got no votes from Republicans in Congress.
But last year, J.D. Vance, then running for vice president, floated the idea of doubling the credit. And Republican state lawmakers in Georgia demonstrated that the GOP can get behind such policies when, in bipartisan votes, they passed House Bill 136 this year to establish a $250 per child state credit.
Child tax credits are growing in popularity as an effective way to support families, according to the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a left-leaning group.
After Congress temporarily expanded the credit in 2021, the child poverty rate for children under 6 fell nearly in half, from 9.8% to 5.3%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The poverty rate for older children fell to 5.2% from 8.9%.
When that temporary expansion expired, child poverty shot back up, with 5 million more children living in poverty in 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank.
Unlike the existing federal credit and the state credit in HB 136, the national Democrats’ proposal would establish a “refundable” credit, meaning low-income families who owe less in taxes than the value of the credit would actually get money from the federal government. Currently, they lose out on the difference between the credit and their tax bill, so higher earners are more able to take full advantage.
