by Ty Tagami | Mar 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Joe Salome built up his intoxicating hemp products business from one small store to six, and he got licensed by the state last year after new rules gave the industry a path into the sunlight.
Then, in a surprise move, some Republicans in the Georgia Senate tried to slam the brakes in early March, with legislation that sought to pare back the potency allowed in gummies and other consumables — and that also sought a total ban on beverages containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the intoxicating component from hemp.
It wasn’t altogether unexpected by Salome, who said he always gets apprehensive when lawmakers return to the Capitol.
“Every year during this timeframe we hold our breath,” said Salome, owner of The Georgia Hemp Company. “My daughter’s 10, and now during this time of year it’s, ‘Hey dad, anything else bad happen to your business?’ “
Products from the hemp industry with the power to intoxicate started proliferating on store shelves after Congress passed legislation in 2018 that distinguished hemp from marijuana, making hemp derivatives legal.
The two plants are the same species, but hemp flowers contain less THC. Clever entrepreneurs were able to develop products from hemp with an intoxicating effect though.
Georgia began licensing hemp-related companies last year, but Senate Bill 254 sought to pump the brakes. It passed the Senate 42-14 in early March, with Republicans and Democrats voting on both sides.
The chief sponsor of the bill, Sen Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, said the dosages appearing on shelves were hazardous.
“We are putting loaded guns in people’s hands in the form of a can, or a gummy, and we need to protect them,” he said.
Cowsert opposed an amendment that sought to go even further, banning beverages containing THC, the intoxicating ingredient from hemp. But after the amendment passed, Cowsert voted for his amended bill.
The amendment was brought by Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, the chamber’s majority whip, who said, “We are on a bullet train when dealing with marijuana.”
Despite the Senate’s efforts, it appears the train will keep moving, for this year at least.
The Senate measure hit a wall in the House of Representatives, where Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, said he was reluctant to ban a substance “that God lets grow naturally.”
Powell chairs the House Regulated Industries Committee, where Cowsert’s bill was sent for review. After Cowsert testified for it at a hearing on Wednesday, people from the hemp industry got a chance to talk about the impact the legislation would have on them.
They spoke of the investments they’d made and of the employees they’d have to let go.
Diana Padron, owner of Hemp Haven ATL, talked about older customers who come to her shop looking for an alternative to pain medications or alcohol.
Meanwhile, a representative from a group called Georgians for Responsible Marijuana Policy, spoke of health risks from hemp products, from anxiety to dependency.
That hearing ended without resolution, but the next day Powell called another one, and he introduced his own amendment to SB 254.
Powell’s substituted language deleted all of the Senate’s proposed limits, including the ban on hemp beverages. It would leave the hemp industry in status quo, with one exception. Instead of punching the brakes, the Powell amendment taps the accelerator, by expanding hemp product sales to package stores, where they are currently prohibited.
The amended bill passed from his committee unanimously.
“We’re going to be studying this in depth this summer,” Powell said.
On Friday, Salome was relieved. “We live for another year,” he said.
by Dave Williams | Mar 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation guaranteeing Georgia women struggling to become pregnant the legal right to in vitro fertilization (IVF) gained final passage in the General Assembly Friday.
The state House of Representatives voted unanimously to agree to minor changes Georgia senators had made to House Bill 428 when they passed it on Thursday, sending the measure to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
The bill was inspired by an Alabama Supreme Court decision last year that declared frozen embryos created through IVF should be treated as children. The ruling essentially banned the procedure in that state until Alabama lawmakers passed a bill protecting IVF and GOP Gov. Kay Ivey quickly signed it.
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns made the IVF bill one of his top priorities for the 2025 General Assembly session.
The bill was introduced on the speaker’s behalf by Rep. Lehman Franklin, R-Statesboro, whose wife, June, is expecting a child in June. The couple sought IVF treatment after years of unsuccessful efforts to grow their family.
“Congratulations to the Franklins and this House,” Burns, R-Newington, said from the House rostrum Friday after the bill passed.
The Senate passed the IVF bill with only one “no” vote.
by Dave Williams | Mar 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation stiffening penalties for trafficking in fentanyl in Georgia cleared the General Assembly Friday.
The Fentanyl Eradication and Removal Act, which now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature, imposes a range of mandatory minimum sentences on convicted traffickers in fentanyl. The smallest amounts covered by the bill – between four grams and 14 grams, will result in at least five years behind bars.
Fentanyl is so deadly that just four grams of the drug would be enough to kill 2,000 people, House Majority Whip James Burchett, said before Friday’s 131-31 House vote to pass the bill.
“This drug has medicinal value,” said Burchett, R-Waycross. “But it is being illegally imported and utilized by our youth. We have a silent epidemic here.”
The bill’s opponents agreed that fentanyl is a major problem affecting Georgians. But they argued that mandatory minimum sentences have proven ineffective in multiple studies dating back to the 1990s.
“Fentanyl is a scourge. It has caused heartbreaking loss,” said Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta. “(But) mandatory minimums do not work. … They don’t deter the conduct on the front end, which is purportedly what we’re trying to do.”
But House Majority Leader Chuck Efstration countered that adopting mandatory minimum sentences for members of drug gangs who bring fentanyl into Georgia would convince them to take their deadly business elsewhere.
“This measure does a tremendous amount to deter fentanyl operators from operating in our state,” said Efstration, R-Mulberry.
The bill, which had passed the Senate 50-3 last month, cleared that chamber on Friday unanimously. It had gone back to the Senate to agree to changes the House had made to the measure.
by Dave Williams | Mar 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate passed a $37.7 billion fiscal 2026 state budget Friday that will require some compromises with the state House of Representatives on state spending, particularly on prisons and education.
The budget, which cleared the Senate 48-7, provides $170 million in additional spending to hire more correctional officers, give the current prison staff a pay raise, and provide technology upgrades to improve security. Inadequate staffing and deteriorating infrastructure were key factors in an audit the U.S. Justice Department released last fall that criticized the state prison system for failing to protect inmates from violence.
“We’re asking (correctional officers) to do a job very few of us would be willing to do,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, told his Senate colleagues before Friday’s vote.
The $170 million the Senate version of the budget recommends for the prisons represents a middle position between the $250 million in the House version of the spending plan and the $125 million Gov. Brian Kemp requested when he presented his budget proposals in January.
That’s one compromise the House and Senate will have to work out when their respective budget negotiators meet to come up with a final version of the budget before the 2025 legislative session comes to an end next week.
Another major disagreement between the two chambers is over funding to launch Georgia’s new private-school vouchers program the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved last year. The Senate budget would fully fund the program at $141 million, the amount Kemp recommended, while the House is proposing to cut the program to $40 million.
Senate Democrats who voted against the budget bill objected to putting any money into private-school vouchers.
Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, said funding for vouchers is coming at the cost of reducing state support of public schools.
“We are cutting programs that help kids who are struggling emotionally, economically, and academically, at a time when they need us the most, so we can spend $141 million on private-school vouchers,” she said. “Let’s call it what it is: a transfer of public money into private hands.”
But Tillery said school vouchers are needed when many Georgia students are reading below grade level. The vouchers program, which takes effect July 1, allows students in low-performing public schools to transfer to a private school.
“Kids have to be given the ability to do something better,” he said. “Parents have to be given an option to take their kids somewhere else.”
The fiscal ’26 budget also would include $302.3 million to cover student enrollment growth, fully funding Georgia’s Quality Basic Education per-pupil funding formula, and provides a $14 million increase to reduce the size of pre-kindergarten classes from an average of 22 pupils to 20. Another $18.4 million would fully fund a new literacy program by hiring 116 literacy coaches.
The Senate version of the spending plan would provide $600,000 to help the State Election Board carry out additional duties intended to let it operate more independently from the secretary of state’s office. A controversial election reform bill currently before the General Assembly would accomplish that goal of Republican legislative leaders.
The spending plan calls for funding building projects with cash instead of borrowing the money. Tillery warned that the current climate of economic uncertainty means lawmakers should get used to a smaller annual project list.
Highlights of the fiscal ’26 building package include $44.5 million to complete the renovation of the state Agricultural Building in Atlanta and $31 million for a new STEM building at the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 28, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – In a last-minute legislative maneuver, Georgia Senate Republicans have revived a measure that seeks to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the state’s schools and colleges.
These programs, known by the acronym DEI, were well-intentioned but have been abused, said Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, the author of Senate Bill 120 to ban such programs.
His bill stalled in the House of Representatives, so Burns and fellow Senate Republicans stripped House legislation that had passed to the chamber and replaced it with Burns’ measure Thursday evening.
The Senate Education and Youth Committee then passed House Bill 127, which had been aimed at increasing the number of sick days that teachers can take.
Instead, HB 127 would now withhold state funding from public schools with DEI programs and withhold state funding or state-administered federal funding — including scholarships, loans and grants — from colleges with such programs.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, said DEI has morphed into “neo-Marxist” ideology that has “infected” the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. It “squelches” academic freedom, he said,
The legislation targets terms such as “allyship,” “cultural appropriation,” “gender ideology,” “heteronormativity,” “implicit bias,” “intersectionality” and “racial privilege.”
It also targets “antiracism,” a term popularized by the author Ibram X. Kendi in the book “How to be an Antiracist” first published in 2019.
Democrats on the committee pushed back, especially against the idea of punishing schools for teaching antiracism. “So you think we should have a position in support of racism?” asked Sen. RaShaun Kemp, D-Atlanta, who is Black.
Burns, who is white, responded that he believes everyone should have “equal opportunities.” But he accepted an amendment by Kemp to ban the proper noun “Antiracism” rather than the lower-cased “antiracism.”
The amended HB 127 passed the Senate’s education committee in a vote along partisan lines. This was the last meeting of the committee in this legislative session and thus a last opportunity to alter a bill in this manner, though there is still time to make major amendments in the Senate Rules Committee, where this bill is now headed, or on the Senate floor, where the Rules Committee might send it.
For a DEI ban to become law, HB 127 would have to pass the Senate, and then the House would have to agree to the amendments.
The original author of HB 127, Rep. Brent Cox, R-Dawsonville, did not welcome the gutting of his bill, so the House might not appreciate the Senate’s changes.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 27, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A sweeping school safety bill in reaction to the mass shooting at Apalachee High School last fall cleared a Senate committee Thursday, keeping it in play just ahead of the deadline for final passage this year.
The Georgia House of Representatives had already approved House Bill 268 with broad bipartisan support. Now, the measure, a priority for House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, is eligible for a vote by the full Senate before this legislative session ends next week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee amended the bill Thursday evening, trimming it to 57 pages from the plump 65 that had come from the House in early March.
It still covers a lot of the same ground though, maintaining the focus on the early identification of potentially harmful students and intervening with mental health services.
School shooters are “really sociopathic-type personalities most of the time,” said Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, who shepherded HB 268 through the Senate and said he worked with the House on the amendments.
Cowsert’s team sanded away a couple of features that had drawn the most criticism.
The first involved a database that would have served as a repository of information about students who seemed suspicious. One state official said it might contain records on 1% of Georgia’s 1.7 million public school students. Parents and their advocates feared such data would be inaccurate, prejudicial and stigmatizing — and follow students into adulthood, with potentially harmful consequences.
Given the trajectory of brain development into early adulthood, teens tend toward reckless behavior, they noted, and sometimes say inappropriate things they don’t really mean.
The committee deleted the database idea and also struck a provision requiring school systems to establish threat assessment teams. Some schools already have them, but a mandate was deemed to be too complex and cumbersome, Cowsert said.
Other major elements of the House bill remain.
Schools would have to maintain student records on behavior that sends up red flags, from regularly skipping school to disciplinary infractions and police encounters (police would have to inform the schools when they apprehend their students), and they’d have a short deadline to share those records when a student transfers to a different school.
“That will help the new administration know what to do when a new kid comes there,” Cowsert said.
School districts would also have to maintain an around-the-clock anonymous tip line staffed with trained people who can field reports about students who might be planning a violent act.
The help would come in the form of specially trained student advocates. Each school system would get up to three state-funded positions, one for every 18,000 students.
There would also be annual behavioral training for teachers and students about recognizing mental health warning signs such as contemplating suicide.
Finally, HB 268 would treat teens sternly if they threaten violence on campus, sending them into adult courts if they are charged with attempted murder or terroristic threats.
That means a conviction for a bomb threat would tag a child aged 13-17 with a misdemeanor on their permanent record, with a felony punishable by up to five years in prison for a second offense.
“Zero tolerance,” is how Cowsert characterized the approach, prompting questions from Sen. Elena Parent of Atlanta, the chair of the Senate’s Democratic Caucus.
But she also said she had received many pleased emails about the bill, and the committee then passed it unanimously, less than a day ahead of the deadline to keep it in play.
HB 268 now goes to the Senate Rules Committee, which will decide whether and when to put it to a vote of the full Senate. If it passes there, the House would need to agree to the changes for it to become law.
