by Ty Tagami | Mar 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Republicans managed to push three school safety measures through the GOP-led Senate just before the Crossover Day deadline to keep bills alive in this year’s legislative session.
The only controversial measure was Senate Bill 61, which would let prosecutors try teens as adults for threatening violence at school. That would create criminal records that would dog the students into adulthood, unlike sealed records in juvenile court.
Two other measures received broad bipartisan support.
Senate Bill 179, which passed the Senate with just one ‘no’ vote, would impose a 10-day deadline for the sharing of disciplinary records when students in seventh grade on up transfer schools. It would establish a misdemeanor offense for parents who fail to disclose felony convictions against their children and give police seven days to tell schools when a student has been charged with a felony.
The legislation would also create a hotline for anonymously reporting potential violence on school property, and it would mandate annual suicide and violence prevention training for students in public middle and high schools.
Senate Bill 17, which passed unanimously, would require public and private schools to implement mobile panic alert systems and digital school maps integrated with police networks.
It’s called “Ricky and Alyssa’s Law,” after Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the students killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and assistant football coach Richard Aspinwall, who was among those killed at Apalachee High School in Barrow County last fall.
“Seconds count, minutes count,” said Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, the Senate’s majority caucus chair and the chief sponsor of SB 17. “Nothing will ever change what happened in Parkland or Barrow County. But I think we all agree we can make our systems better, our schools better, and make sure that our schools are as safe as they humanly possibly can be.”
Although Democrats backed the measure, they have been critical of the broader Republican reaction to the Apalachee mass shooting.
In February, Democrats opposed Senate Bill 47, which passed the Senate in a party-line vote. The measure would establish an annual 11-day sales tax break on firearms during the October hunting season. One Democrat remarked that her Republican colleagues were “tone deaf” to push such a measure through while parents in Barrow County were grieving.
Democrats would prefer gun locks, gun safes and other restrictions. Republicans noted that safes would also get a tax break under SB 47.
The measures are now sitting in the state House of Representatives. To become law, the House would have to approve the bills by the scheduled end of the legislative session on April 4.
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.
