Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry
ATLANTA – The Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT) has awarded an $8.4 million grant to Norfolk Southern Corp. to fund freight rail improvements in Henry County.
The grant will go toward an estimated $21 million project to more than double the length of a passing track at McDonough, which will allow more efficient use of the tracks and reduce road crossings blocked by trains.
Norfolk Southern’s rail line between Macon and Atlanta is an important freight rail corridor connecting the Port of Savannah’s Garden City Terminal with metro Atlanta.
“Georgia’s freight rail network is a key economic driver and a vital component of our overall transportation network,” state Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry said Tuesday. “This project will provide many benefits to Henry County and the state.”
“It’s a triple win: enhancing service for our local customers, improving mainline train access across our 22-state network, and easing congestion along the way,” added Mike McClellan, Norfolk Southern’s senior vice president and chief strategy officer.
“These infrastructure improvements will bolster our operational efficiency while driving economic growth across the region, promising enduring benefits for our communities.”
The grant is part of a freight-rail improvement program the General Assembly established in 2021, which is funded through the state’s 4% sales tax on diesel fuel used in locomotives. Both Class 1 and short-line railroads are eligible.
ATLANTA – A nonprofit public interest law firm vowed Tuesday to appeal a ruling by a Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) hearing officer condemning several pieces of property in Hancock County being sought by Sandersville Railroad for a spur line.
The hearing officer declared Monday that the spur would serve a “legitimate public purpose” even though it would benefit a private business.
Sandersville Railroad filed a petition seeking authority to condemn land owned by Don and Sally Garrett in March of last year. By last July, they had been joined by other property owners after the company moved to condemn more land for the 4.5-mile Hanson spur, which would connect a private slate quarry to existing rail tracks.
“We’re not going to sit back and let Sandersville Railroad take land that has been in our family for generations, just so a rock quarry can ship rock faster, and so a few companies can increase their profits,” said Blaine Smith, one of the affected property owners. “We’re prepared to keep challenging this for as long as it takes.”
Lawyers for Sandersville Railroad argued the company has the statutory and constitutional authority to condemn the land for a public purpose. Construction of the spur would “open a new channel of trade for the underserved businesses of East-Middle Georgia,” according to the 19-page hearing officer’s ruling.
A group called the No Railroad in Our Community Coalition argued the petition for condemnation should be denied because the company failed to provide adequate notice of the legal basis on which it sought to take the property.
The Institute for Justice, representing the property owners, will file an application seeking to have the full PSC review Monday’s ruling.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones declared Senate Bill 351 a priority for the 2024 legislative session.
ATLANTA – A trade association of internet companies is asking Gov. Brian Kemp to veto legislation requiring social media platforms to make “commercially reasonable” efforts to verify the age of users.
Senate Bill 351, which the Georgia House and Senate passed last week on the final day of this year’s legislative session, is aimed at protecting young people from cyberbullying and other negative effects of social media.
The “Protecting Georgia’s Children on Social Media Act” was a top priority of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. It was sponsored by Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.
“Social media can be a very useful tool, however there are instances in which we must rein in Big Tech in order to protect the health and safety of our children,” Jones said after the Senate passed the original version of the bill in February. “This legislation is a tremendous step forward in our effort to combat cyberbullying and protect Georgia’s children.”
But Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for NetChoice, argued such a mandated verification requirement for social media access is unconstitutional.
“While there are many good ideas in this legislation, if implemented, it will create serious vulnerabilities for Georgians and their families while violating the U.S. Constitution,” Szabo wrote Monday in a letter to Kemp. “Ultimately, Georgia would be better served by abandoning age-verification efforts for social media and instead pursuing legislative efforts to improve online literacy for minors and their parents.”
The bill’s supporters cited numerous studies that have found overuse of social media to pose a significant danger to young people, particularly girls, increasing their risk of suicide.
Senate Bill 351 would apply the age-verification requirement to minors, meaning Georgians under the age of 16.
ATLANTA – Tax cuts, private-school vouchers, and health-care reform topped the list of accomplishments for the 2024 General Assembly session, which wrapped up just before 1 a.m. Friday following a frenetic marathon of nearly 15 hours.
Vouchers and reforms to Georgia’s Certificate of Need (CON) law came after years of unsuccessful efforts by majority Republicans to move the needle on school choice and improve access to health care by making it easier to build hospitals and provide new medical services.
Lawmakers passed a tax-cut package championed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and GOP legislative leaders, including a measure accelerating a state income-tax rollback that took effect this year, which will reduce the income tax rate from 5.49% to 5.39%. Two other bills would raise Georgia’s child-tax credit from $3,000 to $4,000 and double the state’s homestead tax exemption from $2,000 to $4,000.
Legislative Democrats have long blocked Republican attempts to enact private-school vouchers, including a House floor vote last year that stopped a bid to offer vouchers worth up to $6,500 to Georgia students attending low-performing public schools. But GOP leaders found the votes they needed to get the bill through this year, passing it along party lines.
A bill making significant changes to the decades-old CON law also finally made it over the finish line. The measure is aimed particularly at improving health-care access in rural Georgia, including an exemption from the expensive, time-consuming process of obtaining a CON for parties seeking to build hospitals in rural counties.
The legislation also would raise the state’s rural hospital tax credit from an annual cap of $75 million to $100 million.
But the General Assembly again stopped short of fully expanding Georgia’s Medicaid program as legislative Democrats have long sought. However, Medicaid expansion made more progress than ever before when it was blocked by a tie vote in a Senate committee.
Republicans argued lawmakers need to give Gov. Brian Kemp’s limited Medicaid expansion program – Georgia Pathways – more time to get up and running. Launched last summer, the program has only signed up about 2,900 enrollees despite having spent $26 million.
“We think the governor has a great plan with Pathways,” said House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington.
But Burns went on to say a new state commission the CON bill would create will consider Medicaid expansion.
“We want to take a look at every possibility,” he said.
Republicans entered the 2024 session hoping to accomplish another longstanding goal – tort reform. But Kemp announced at the start of the session that the issue needs further study before considering major changes.
“Like every major undertaking our state has tackled in the past, we will work on a Georgia-specific solution; one designed to make meaningful reforms in this area over the next several years,” Kemp said in January at the annual Eggs and Issues breakfast sponsored by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
With those marching orders, lawmakers settled for passing legislation limiting the ability of plaintiffs in lawsuits against commercial truckers to file what are known as “direct action” lawsuits against a trucking company’s insurance carrier. Another bill that passed authorizes gathering additional data on tort cases to inform future legislation.
While the General Assembly succeeded on vouchers and CON reform, another issue that’s been around for several years – legalizing sports betting in Georgia – fizzled again. A constitutional amendment the state Senate passed asking Georgia voters to weigh in on sports betting made it through a House committee on the morning of the session’s last day but didn’t reach the House floor.
Other casualties included a bid to rein in some of the state’s tax credits and an 11th-hour effort to move legislation aimed at protecting the Okefenokee Swamp from mining.
The House overwhelmingly passed a bill to put new limits on Georgia’s popular but expensive film tax credit on the last day of the session, but the Senate hadn’t taken up the legislation by the time the General Assembly adjourned for the year.
The bill also called for creating a state commission to do a deep dive on the impacts the rapid growth of energy-hungry data centers is having on the state’s power grid. The commission was offered as a fallback position after an earlier bill that would have suspended the state’s tax credit for data centers for two years failed to move.
The House passed legislation on March 26 – the next-to-last day of the session – placing a three-year moratorium on the type of mining being planned near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. But it, too, died when it failed to get a vote in the Senate.
Environmental advocates looking to stop Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals from mining titanium oxide near the swamp weren’t happy with the bill and preferred an alternative measure that has been bottled up in a House committee for the last three years.
“Mining along the swamp’s boundary will damage the Okefenokee and shouldn’t be allowed under any circumstance,” said Josh Marks, an environmental lawyer and president of Georgians for the Okefenokee.
The two legislative chambers also didn’t see eye to eye when it came to a “culture wars” agenda pushed by Senate Republicans. Bills aimed at transgender youths and the American Library Association cleared the Senate but got nowhere in the House.
The Senate passed legislation to prohibit the prescribing or administering of puberty blockers to minors experiencing gender dysphoria, require students to use bathrooms that match the gender identify on their birth certificate, and prohibit transgender male students from participating in girls’ sports.
Another Senate-backed bill called for prohibiting city, county, and regional libraries from using tax dollars on any materials offered by the American Library Association, an organization that has fallen into disfavor among conservative culture warriors for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the selection of library materials. The House Higher Education Committee held hearings on the bill but didn’t bring it up for a vote.
Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, called the defeat of bills targeting the LGBTQ community a major victory.
“It’s undeniable that the tides are shifting, both here in Georgia and across the nation,” Graham wrote in an email to Capitol Beat. “Anti-LGBTQ actors are losing their political power, and more and more Georgians who know and love LGBTQ people are standing up against their baseless fear-mongering.”
The end of the legislative session means the start of bill-signing season. Kemp now has 40 calendar days in which to sign or veto bills lawmakers have passed during the last three months.
ATLANTA – Controversial legislation prohibiting the prescribing or administering of puberty blockers to minors experiencing gender dysphoria died in the General Assembly on the final day of this year’s session when the Georgia House declined to take it up.
The state Senate passed the Republican-backed bill 32-19 Thursday, voting along party lines. But the measure failed to reach the House floor for a vote before the gavel fell on the legislative session shortly before 1 a.m. Friday.
The bill aimed at puberty blockers for minors was part of a Republican legislative agenda pertaining to transgender youths that Democrats derided as politically motivated to appeal to GOP base voters. Earlier this week, the Senate passed legislation that would require students to use bathrooms that match the gender identify on their birth certificate and prohibit transgender male students from participating in girls’ sports.
“Surgery is irreversible. Puberty blockers are irreversible,” Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, chairman of the Senate Health and Health Services Committee, told his Senate colleagues before Thursday’s vote. “By participating in an unproven treatment, (doctors) may do real harm.”
But Senate Democrats argued that prohibiting puberty blockers for minors would let the government interfere with decisions that ought to be left to young people uncomfortable with the mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity, their parents, and their doctors.
“We have no business stripping parents and health-care providers of the right to save children,” said Sen. Sonya Halpern, D-Atlanta.
Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, said gender-affirming health care is supported by every credible medical organization in the nation.
But Watson said several European nations have tightened their laws governing puberty blockers for minors out of concern over their potential long-term effect. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service limits puberty blockers to clinical trials.
“They are not innocuous,” he said. “They have side effects.”
State Rep. Saira Draper spoke out against sweeping changes to Georgia election laws
ATLANTA – The Republican-controlled General Assembly approved sweeping changes in Georgia’s election laws early Friday, one of the final actions of this year’s legislative session.
The state House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 189 101-73, with the Senate adopting the bill a short time later 33-22. Both votes fell along party lines.
The legislation cobbled together a series of election-reform bills that were introduced separately earlier in the 2024 session. Some of the provisions were not controversial, including the elimination of QR codes from paper ballots – which tended to confuse voters – and tightening the chain of custody of ballots on Election Day.
But other parts of the bill drew fire from legislative Democrats, who accused Republicans of suppressing the vote by making it easier for citizens to challenge voters’ eligibility. Mass challenges have been filed in some Georgia counties in recent years, gumming up the operations of local elections offices with meritless challenges, the vast majority of which ended up being dismissed.
“I can’t believe we’re still bending over to accommodate election deniers and conspiracy theorists,” said Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta. “There’s a very vocal minority out there who will never be satisfied with our elections if they didn’t win.”
Republicans countered that ensuring “clean” voter rolls will provide the election integrity voters want.
“We’ve taken steps to give Georgians confidence in our elections,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, told reporters shortly after lawmakers adjourned the 2024 legislative session just before 1 a.m. Friday.
The bill now goes to GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, who is expected to sign it.
In other action on the final day of the ’24 session, lawmakers passed a Republican-backed measure requiring local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration authorities by notifying the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when they have a suspected illegal immigrant in custody. Those that don’t comply would face the loss of state funds.
The General Assembly also gave final passage in the wee hours Friday morning to legislation doubling the state’s homestead tax exemption to $4,000 and protecting teenagers from cyberbullying and other negative effects of social media, a top priority of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.
