by Dave Williams | Apr 17, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers will be focusing this summer and fall on some unfinished business left over from this year’s General Assembly session.
House Speaker Jon Burns Thursday announced the creation of three “blue-ribbon” study committees that will consider further reforms to Georgia’s election procedures and examine the state’s hemp policies and insurance rates.
“During the 2025 legislative session, members of the General Assembly considered a number of bills aimed at providing clarity on these issues that directly impact the lives of our fellow Georgians and the future of our state,” said Burns, R-Newington. “During the interim, these study committees will meet to gather the facts, hear from stakeholders, and determine a path forward for 2026.”
For the first time since 2020, when President Donald Trump claimed without proof that widespread election fraud had occurred in Georgia in that year’s presidential election, Georgia lawmakers did not approve major changes in the state’s election laws this year. The state House and Senate were unable to agree on provisions in a comprehensive election bill, and the measure died when lawmakers adjourned for the year early this month.
Likewise, legislation aimed at banning beverages containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the intoxicating component from hemp, did not make it past the finish line.
The study committee on insurance rates involves an issue the legislature did act on during the recently concluded session. Gov. Brian Kemp is scheduled to sign a comprehensive tort reform bill next week with restrictions on civil litigation aimed at curbing the rise of liability insurance premiums. The panel’s work could lead to recommendations for protecting consumers from predatory pricing to make sure Georgia’s insurance market operates fairly and transparently.
by Dave Williams | Apr 17, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The recently completed multi-year overhaul of Georgia 400 at Interstate 285 is starting to pay off.
The heavily trafficked interchange has moved down the American Transportation Research Institute’s rankings from the nation’s ninth-worst freight traffic bottleneck to 29th, Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry told members of the State Transportation Board Thursday. Peak-hour speeds at the interchange have increased by 12 miles per hour, he said.
“We’re moving in the trajectory we want to move in,” he said.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has been working since 2016 on an ambitious plan to improve major highway corridors across the state to ease the flow of freight. The Georgia 400/I-285 overhaul is the first to be completed, although crews are still working to add toll lanes along 400 in Fulton and Forsyth counties.
McMurry said work is well underway on improvements to the interchange of I-20 and I-285 east of Atlanta, while a planned overhaul of the I-20/I-285 interchange west of Atlanta is about to enter construction. The DOT also is converting reversible toll lanes along I-75 south of Atlanta into non-reversible lanes, the commissioner said.
“We’re working toward solutions on many of these,” McMurry said. “It takes time to get there.”
by Dave Williams | Apr 17, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate held steady at 3.6% last month, six-tenths of a percentage point lower than the national rate.
The number of jobs rose by 6,900 in March to 4.98 million.
“Georgia’s job market is full of opportunity, with nearly 5 million jobs and three openings for every Georgian,” said state Commissioner of Labor Barbara Rivera Holmes, who took over the reins of the agency at the end of last month.
“As labor commissioner, I’m committed to working alongside the governor, lawmakers, and job creators across the state to connect talent with opportunity.”
The job sector with the most gains in March was health care and social assistance, which gained 3,100 jobs. The information sector was next, posting a gain of 2,400 jobs.
The transportation and warehousing sector lost 3,200 jobs last month, while accommodation and food services was down by 1,100 jobs.
Also on the down side, Georgia’s labor force declined by 6,619 in March to 5.38 million, the number of employed fell by 6,654 to 5.19 million, and the state’s jobless ranks rose slightly – 35 jobs – to 192,143.
However, first-time unemployment claims declined by 1,168 during the month to 12,296.
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 Dave Williams | Apr 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Student enrollment at Georgia’s public colleges and universities reached 345,823 this semester, an all-time record for the spring, the University System of Georgia’s vice chancellor of research and policy analysis reported Wednesday.
The spring enrollment numbers at the system’s 26 institutions increased for the second year in a row after declining in 2022 and 2023 as the system emerged from the pandemic, Angela Bell told members of the system’s Board of Regents meeting on the campus of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.
“We outpaced the nation again in growth,” system Chancellor Sonny Perdue added.
The largest enrollment growth this spring occurred among undergraduates, whose ranks increased by 14.1% over last spring. The number of students enrolled in master’s degree programs grew by 12.6%.
Enrollment at the system’s four research universities – including the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech – rose by 6.5% compared to last spring, while enrollment at the system’s comprehensive universities – including Georgia Southern and Kennesaw State University – was up by 6.1%.
As university system campuses have become more diverse, white enrollment as a percentage of the student population has declined from 47% to 42% during the last five years, Bell said.
Hispanic enrollment has increased from 10% of the student population to 12% during that same period, while enrollment among Asian American students is up from 11% to 14%.
Perdue said he’s concerned by the rapid growth in the number of students taking classes online. The number of online courses being offered shot up during the pandemic, and the trend of more students taking a full course load online or a mix of online and in-person instruction has continued.
“I’m not sure if it’s driven by teacher demand or student demand,” Perdue said. “If it continues, we won’t need new buildings in the university system.”
Perdue said the growing popularity of dual enrollment students – high school students taking college courses – has stirred discussion among Georgia lawmakers of establishing three-year degree programs in the university system.
In other business Wednesday, the regents voted to name Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy after Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. The late former president from Plains, who died last December at the age of 100, attended Georgia Tech in 1942.
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.
