by Ty Tagami | Mar 2, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Concern about the effects of algorithms and artificial intelligence has been driving an onslaught of legislation at the Georgia General Assembly.
Lawmakers have unleashed more than half a dozen bills that would hold companies or individuals to account for the way they deploy these computational tools, especially when used to connect children with obscenity, erode privacy or exploit identities.
“There are artificial intelligence platforms that allow a person to take an ordinary photograph of someone — your wife, your daughter, your coworker, your friend — and with a few clicks digitally remove their clothing to fabricate an explicit image,” said Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, while presenting his artificial intelligence restraint bill on the Senate floor last month. “It’s being used as a bullying tactic in schools. It’s being used for revenge, and it’s being used to destroy reputations. As a father of daughters, I cannot ignore that.”
Senate Bill 398 would make “virtual peeping” a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The maximum prison term would double when a manipulated image depicts a minor.
The Senate passed it 48-1 last month. It was a rare bipartisan vote that revealed the depth of concern about the tools that tech companies have been handing the public.
Georgia lawmakers have been trying to address child safety online since at least 2024 when they passed a law to limit social media companies’ access to children.
The industry sued in federal court in Atlanta and convinced a judge to block enforcement, asserting the law violated First Amendment speech protections.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones backed that measure. The Republican then empaneled a bipartisan Senate committee to study the issue.
Sen. Sally Harrell, D-Atlanta, co-chaired the committee with a Republican senator. She said she became concerned after watching her own children interact with social media on the smartphones they had gotten in middle school, back when the devices and platforms were new and parents were less wary.
“I think the way the algorithmic feed works is damaging to kids, and I know that it fundamentally changed my kids,” she said during a hearing last week on Senate Bill 495, her attempt to tame social media. “It leaves a pit in my stomach.”
At that hearing, Angela Flanigan, the executive director of the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said social media platforms had been linked to disrupted sleep, reduced academic achievement and weakened emotional regulation, raising the risk of anxiety, depression and eating disorders.
The algorithms must be regulated because the companies will not change their designs voluntarily, Flanigan said. “They’re irresponsible.”
SB 495 sought to regulate how platforms harvest personal data and use it to feed algorithms that then drive “addictive” usage. It would have applied special restrictions to platforms that could gauge from their user data that at least 2% of their audience comprised minors.
The committee did not vote on the bill, making passage unlikely. The deadline to move bills from the Senate to the House and vice versa is Friday. Some committees, including the one charged with reviewing Harrell’s bill, do not plan to meet this week.
Senate Bill 467 suffered a similar fate. The measure by Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, sought to give parents more control over their children’s access to phone apps.
Other bills have emerged from committee hearings and still have a chance.
Senate Bill 540 by Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, the Senate majority leader, passed a committee last week and could get a vote on the Senate floor before “crossover” day on Friday.
It would empower the state attorney general to fine owners of any “conversational artificial intelligence” application or service that fails to clarify to users that they are not communicating with a human or that fails to implement guardrails against sharing sexually explicit material with children.
Senate Bill 418 by Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, also got the nod from a Senate committee last week. Like Hatchett’s bill, it would hold people to account if they were to manipulate and distribute a person’s image in a sexually explicit way. Senate Bill 488 by Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, also passed out of committee last week. It would allow liability lawsuits against product sellers who expose minors to artificial intelligence that was “not merchantable and reasonably suited to the use intended.”
And the House could pass its own measure by Friday.
House Bill 566 by Rep. Soo Hong, R-Lawrenceville, would ban artificial intelligence knockoffs of licensed voices and likenesses.
Many of the measures found support from religious groups but opposition from free speech advocates and technology companies.
Industry lobbyists complained about cost and asserted that the legislation would put users’ private information at risk of exposure.
Justin Hill, a representative from the tech trade association NetChoice — the group that tied up Georgia’s 2024 law in court — said at a hearing about the app store age legislation that companies want to do more to protect children.
“They recognize this has been a problem,” he said. “They’re making it a priority, and I would just encourage you to allow the free market to fix this problem.”
Harrell, the Democrat who led the committee that studied how to protect children online, said the Legislature has not fielded strong enough measures.
“We did nothing to help parents monitor their kids’ online activities, we did nothing to make social media and gaming less addictive for kids, and we did nothing to address design features that promote connecting kids with adults who might use them for sexual exploitation,” she said. “There is so much more to do, but we are up against some serious monied interests.”
At a hearing last week, Anavitarte was clear-eyed about the opposition to his bill and the others that would restrain the tech industry. He was the lead co-sponsor of the legislation that established the 2024 law that NetChoice blocked with a lawsuit.
“All these laws are going to get caught up in federal court just like when we wrote Senate Bill 351,” he said. “If I think that it’s not, then I’m being foolish.”
by Ty Tagami | Feb 27, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — No blood was shed, but it will go down as one of the longer conflicts in memory.
Last week, Alabama finally raised a white flag after nearly four decades of legal battles with Georgia in one front of what came to be known as the “Tri-State Water Wars,” which included Florida.
The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta granted Alabama’s request to dismiss its appeal that challenged water use in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin.
“For the first time since 1989, there is no litigation between the states in this basin,” said Anna Roach, the executive director and CEO of the Atlanta Regional Commission, a party in the case.
“This agreement heralds a new era of cooperation that will benefit both states and all stakeholders,” Roach said in her statement after the Feb. 19 court order by a three-judge panel.
The cessation of legal hostilities between the two states, the commission, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other parties resolves the decades-long dispute over the Corps’ management of the basin’s water.
The compromise will maintain metro Atlanta’s supply from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River while giving Alabama what it sought, the commission said.
Although the war with Alabama is over, some skirmishes continue.
Florida environmentalists appealed a 2021 federal court ruling affirming the Corps’ 2017 management plan for water from the lake and the Chattahoochee River below the Buford Dam.
And Alabama still has a pending federal court challenge in Washington, D.C. against a 2021 Corps water plan.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 27, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — After approving one-time income and property tax rebates for Georgians earlier this week, the state House returned with four more affordability measures, this time aimed at insurance costs.
The legislation passed by the House Thursday aims to curb excess insurance industry billing and profits while increasing what’s covered and punishing drivers for inadequate insurance.
“Georgia is leading the nation in tackling affordability and driving down the cost of living for our neighbors — from energy and healthcare to housing and now insurance,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said in a statement after the insurance bills passed with commanding bipartisan majorities, one of them unanimously.
This was one day after the House and Senate approved a midyear budget that returns $2 billion to taxpayers in the form of one-time property and income tax rebates.
The insurance measures now headed to the Senate take several approaches.
House Bill 1262 would increase fines against insurance companies for surprise billing, failure to cover mental health treatment, and other violations. House Bill 1263 would reduce the amount of time companies can take before seeking refunds for premium tax payment errors.
House Bill 1274 would require rate decreases by insurance companies that notch profits exceeding 5% of projections for three straight years.
House Bill 1344 would increase nearly 40 outdated insurance fines in state law, and it would hand the Office of the Insurance Commissioner John King more authority to levy fines. It also would amend uninsured motorist laws by allowing police to cite drivers who operate a vehicle while “excluded” from the owner’s insurance. Owners who give excluded drivers the keys would face a misdemeanor charge that could result in up to a year in jail, plus a $1,000 fine.
Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, introduced the latter two bills. He also led a study committee on insurance rates that Burns appointed last year and that shaped the House’s new approach to insurance.
Reeves said King asked for some of the measures, adding that the insurance commissioner told him a Florida bill like HB 1274 had resulted in a $1 billion rebate to customers there.
It might be a while before something like that happens in Georgia. Insurance companies would need to be highly profitable first.
During a hearing in mid-February on HB 1274, a fellow Republican asked Reeves to remind him the last time a Georgia insurer had profits over 5%.
“For three straight years?” Reeves asked him.
“For three straight years,” responded his colleague, Rep. Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, a member of the House Insurance Committee.
“That’s been a while,” Reeves said.
Williamson said insurance company profitability was the problem in Georgia. He said he applauded the goal of limiting profits. “But I do want to point out for the benefit of the audience that this has not happened in a very long time.”
Reeves agreed.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 26, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Students with too many unexcused absences would be barred from playing sports and could lose their driver’s license under legislation approved by the state Senate Thursday.
“These are privileges,” said Sen. Jason Dickerson, R-Canton. “And this bill reinforces the connection between responsibility and opportunity.”
He carried the bill to address “chronic” absenteeism in public schools, defined as missing a tenth or more of the school year.
A legislative study committee learned last summer that more than one in five students had missed more than 15 days of school in 2024, nearly double the rate in 2019. The rate missing six to 15 days climbed to 42%, six points higher than in 2019.
The study committee heard proposals to address the problem, such as prohibiting participation in extracurricular and interscholastic sports and suspending driver’s licenses. Those are the punishments present in Senate Bill 513, co-sponsored by numerous senators, including several in leadership posts.
The punishment would only be a last resort.
Schools would have to first identify students at risk of missing too many days, then they would have to craft attendance intervention plans with the student and parents.
The student would have to sign the plan, and noncompliance would trigger the sanctions.
The measure was popular with both Republicans and Democrats.
“If we do not have kids’ butts in seats, they are not going to learn,” said Sen. RaShaun Kemp, D-Atlanta, who was a high school principal and now serves on the board of an Atlanta charter school.
One lawmaker had an issue with it, though.
Sen. Jaha Howard, D-Smyrna, who served on the Cobb County school board, said the idea was “wonderful,” but he also thought it burdensome for teachers, since the state would not help fund the mandates.
Among the requirements are that school districts assemble systemwide attendance review teams, with school-based teams required at schools with at least 15% of students chronically absent.
The measure passed 46-1, with Howard opposed. It now heads to the state House.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 25, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers reached a compromise on the mid-year budget Wednesday, fulfilling priorities of the three main players with a little help from extra money.
To overcome an impasse after the state House and state Senate took money from each other’s priorities — and from Gov. Brian Kemp’s — to pay for their own projects, Kemp dug up an extra $1.4 billion in surplus funds.
So, the amended fiscal year budget for 2026 that was a $42.3 billion is now nearly $43.7 billion.
A chunk of that is for one-time givebacks to taxpayers.
The House put $850 million into the budget for property tax rebates to homeowners.
Kemp had put $250 income tax rebates ($500 for couples filing jointly) into his budget request. The House and Senate liked the idea and set aside over $1 billion to pay for it.
“Between the two relief initiatives, this body is returning $2 billion dollars back to the citizens of our state,” said Rep. Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin.
Hatchett, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers will approve the income tax rebates later.
“The winners in this budget are the taxpayers of Georgia,” said Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee who was, with Hatchett, a member of the conference committee that negotiated the final line items in House Bill 973.
Several of Kemp’s big-ticket items that were raided earlier in the budgeting process were fully restored.
The Senate had cut his $2,000 bonus to state employees nearly in half, but the conference committee restored the more than $600 million needed to pay for the full one-time supplement.
The $325 million Kemp wanted for a need-based scholarship program called Georgia DREAMS got back into the budget after it was trimmed by the House and nearly eliminated by the Senate.
It returned with the help of $145 million in surplus funds from the state lottery, which also funds the HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships and pre-kindergarten.
Lawmakers also restored Kemp’s $50 million in community grants to address homelessness, although the budget now earmarks $5 million of that for homeless veterans.
The Senate got the big item it had added: $409 million to build a regional hospital for the mentally ill, who often wind up housed in local jails. The House got $150 million to expand prison bed capacity.
One of Kemp’s big-ticket projects remained but got trimmed a bit. He asked for $1.8 billion for new dedicated express lanes on I-75 south of Atlanta and got $1.68 billion. He wanted $200 million to add interchanges to state Route 316 connecting Athens to metro Atlanta, and the General Assembly gave him $185 million.
Cities and counties will get another $250 million in grants for road maintenance and improvement, and the state will invest $100 million to repair and replace rural bridges, prioritizing those most vital to agribusiness and timber projects.
HB 973 passed the House 169-2, and it passed the Senate unanimously.
Next, lawmakers must craft the full budget for fiscal year 2027, which will dictate spending starting July 1.
