by Ty Tagami | Feb 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
People caught with a quarter gram of fentanyl would face one to five years in prison if a measure that passed the Georgia Senate Wednesday goes on to become law.
It’s a tiny amount, but it’s enough to kill 120 people, said Sen. Russ Goodman, R-Cogdell, in explaining why he sponsored Senate Bill 79.
The measure, which gained approval in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, would lower the threshold prison time based on the amount of the drug possessed.
Under the bill, possession of a quarter gram to four grams could draw a decade in prison. Also, the mandatory minimum prison sentence for trafficking would be much higher than for the same amount of a traditional drug, such as cocaine or heroin.
“If other illegal drugs are a BB gun, fentanyl is a nuclear bomb,” Goodman said. “I say that to say, if you look at the numbers, the people that were killed combined at the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima roughly equals the amount of Americans that die every year from fentanyl.”
A couple hundred thousand were killed by those atomic bombs, while the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency estimates about 107,000 overdose deaths from all drugs in 2023. Still, fentanyl poses an unprecedented threat because trace amounts can be fatal.
Gus and Beth Walters from Valdosta lost their son, Austin, four years ago at the age of 30 when he took a Xanax laced with fentanyl. In their grief, they emailed Goodman hoping to make something meaningful from his death.
Last year, the General Assembly passed Austin’s Law, which makes it a felony to manufacture or sell any substance containing fentanyl that causes a death.
“It’s really healed a wound for us that is deep,” Gus Walters said Wednesday after SB 79 passed 50-3. The bill now goes to the state House of Representatives, which last year amended the Senate’s version of Austin’s Law to exempt manslaughter that resulted from mere possession, noted Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs.
McLaurin and two other Democrats were among the three senators who voted against SB 79. He explained ahead of his vote that he was concerned that the legislation would send people to prison for mere possession and not just for trafficking.
“When you criminalize possession, you are criminalizing addiction … which is a mental health problem, it is a disease,” he said, adding that prison isn’t a great place to overcome addiction. He likened the measure to the War on Drugs in the late 20th century, which was criticized for overwhelming America’s prisons.
Goodman noted that SB 79 only would require mandatory minimum sentencing for possession of four or more grams, which he said is in the realm of trafficking. Judges could order suspended sentences or probation for convictions involving lower amounts, he said.
Gus Walters said after the vote that he’d rather his son had been convicted and jailed than lying in a grave. Beth Walters said the couple believe in addiction recovery.
“We are not saying that you should not have recovery programs. What we’re trying to do is to save lives so they can get to recovery,” she said. “We keep going down the road we’re going down right now. We’re not going to have anybody left to send to recovery.”
McLaurin said he hopes the House does to SB 79 what it did to Austin’s Law last year, downplaying the legal consequences for possession.
by Dave Williams | Feb 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate overwhelmingly passed a record $40.5 billion mid-year state budget Wednesday that prioritizes disaster relief, infrastructure needs, and prisons.
The 190-page document covering state spending through June 30, which cleared the Senate 51-1, includes $750 million to help Georgians recover from what Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery called last year’s “cantankerous” weather. The Peach State suffered two hurricanes, a tornado, three days with 10 inches or more of rainfall, and two 40-day droughts.
To increase disaster relief funding from the $615 million Gov. Brian Kemp requested in the mid-year budget he presented to the General Assembly last month, the Senate cut spending in other areas. Many of those reductions were made possible by delays in filling budgeted positions or holding off on building projects that have been funded but haven’t begun construction.
“We’ve got to deal with a problem right in front of us first, and that’s storm relief,” said Tillery, R-Vidalia.
The Senate supported Kemp’s recommendation for $501 million to increase surface water supplies in Coastal Georgia to supply the Hyundai electric-vehicle manufacturing plant now under construction west of Savannah. Another $200 million is earmarked for water and sewer improvement projects elsewhere in the state.
Also on the infrastructure front, the Senate mid-year budget set aside $500 million for the state Department of Transportation’s Freight and Logistics program, a series of highway improvements aimed at speeding up the movement of freight. Another $53 million earmarked for the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank would provide funding to local communities that apply for road improvement projects in their areas.
Senators also endorsed the governor’s request for an additional $50 million in school-safety grants, enough to provide every school in Georgia with nearly $70,000. School districts are being given the flexibility to spend those dollars on security improvements as they see fit.
The Senate agreed with Kemp’s proposal to hire more than 400 additional correctional officers to staff state prisons. More guards are needed to improve security inside a prison system that a federal audit criticized last fall for failing to protect inmates from widespread violence.
The Senate’s mid-year budget and a version of the spending plan the state House adopted earlier this month also would provide $30 million to design a new prison, $10 million less than the governor recommended.
Senators also zeroed out funding to replace QR codes from election ballots, choosing to redirect that money to other priorities.
Among those priorities is addressing a shortage of physicians, particularly in rural South Georgia. Senators earmarked $25 million for the Mercer University School of Medicine and the same amount for the Morehouse School of Medicine to expand their medical residency programs, with a focus on communities south of the Fall Line Freeway running from Augusta to Columbus via Macon.
“Where doctors do their residency, they are more likely to stay,” Tillery said.
Besides increasing spending in various priority areas, the Senate also put its stamp of approval on Kemp’s plan to dip into the state’s $16 billion budget surplus to bankroll a $1 billion income tax rebate for Georgia taxpayers. Single tax filers will receive $250, single filer heads of households will get $375, and married couples filing jointly will receive $500.
by Ty Tagami | Feb 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Georgia Senate Republicans are trying again to strip librarians of their immunity from a law against distributing pornography to minors.
A law dating back to the 1960s makes it illegal to distribute materials to minors deemed to be “harmful” to them. Librarians were exempted from the law during the 1980s.
Senate Bill 74, which the Senate Education and Youth Committee approved Tuesday, would take away that exemption. The bill is the latest of several efforts Senate Republicans have made during the last several years to apply the law to librarians.
Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, the chief sponsor of SB 74, said at a hearing on the measure that it made no sense to require staff at convenience and book stores to discern what content is harmful while absolving trained experts of that responsibility.
“I love libraries,” said Burns, who has worked as an administrator and a professor in higher education in Georgia. “I encourage people to use libraries. But it does not make any sense for us to exempt the very people who should best know what would be harmful to children.”
Although SB 74 would expose librarians to prosecution, it would afford all library staff a way to defend themselves if they accidentally allow harmful material into the hands of a minor. They must have “knowingly” let it happen to be found guilty.
The bill now moves to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full Senate.
by Dave Williams | Feb 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – For the first time since 2020, Georgia voters will elect members of the state Public Service Commission (PSC) this year.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger issued a call Wednesday for special elections on Nov. 4 to fill two seats on the PSC. Primaries will take place on June 17, with any runoffs that become necessary set for July 15.
District 2 Commissioner Tim Echols and District 3 Commissioner Fitz Johnson are currently serving terms that were extended because of a 2022 lawsuit challenging the way members of the PSC are elected in Georgia.
Four Black Fulton County residents argued that electing members of the PSC statewide rather than by district dilutes Black voting strength in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, making it more difficult for Black voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
A lower federal court agreed and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The appellate court ruling was allowed to stand when the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to take up the plaintiffs’ appeal.
The General Assembly passed a bill during last year’s legislative session scheduling the elections for PSC districts 2 and 3 this year. The election for District 5 will be held in 2026, and elections for PSC districts 1 and 4 will take place in 2028.
Under Raffensperger’s order, candidate qualifying will take place April 1-3 at the state Capitol.
PSC District 2 stretches from Rockdale and Henry counties in Atlanta’s southern and eastern suburbs southeast all the way through Chatham County. District 3 – the Atlanta district – includes Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton counties.
by Dave Williams | Feb 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Port of Savannah handled nearly 5.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units of containerized cargo (TEUs) last year, a 12.5% increase that made Savannah the fastest growing container port on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.
“Savannah is clearly the gateway port for the U.S. Southeast,” Griff Lynch, president and CEO of the Georgia Ports Authority, told an audience of more than 1,700 coastal business and elected leaders Tuesday during the annual State of the Port luncheon. “We see this pattern only continuing to accelerate.”
Lynch said the growth the Savannah port experienced last year came despite disruptions to global shipping caused by the rerouting of cargo vessels away from the Suez Canal to avoid attacks launched by Iran-backed Houthi militants as well as extended labor contract negotiations.
To keep pace with the growing demand, the ports authority is planning to add berth space at the Port of Savannah, boost container yard and rail capacity, and grow the truck gates at the port. Two new berths at the Ocean Terminal – one opening immediately and the other next year – will be used as storage space to free up room at the Garden City Terminal, allowing faster turnaround times.
Phase I of the Ocean Terminal yard renovation will be completed in mid-2027, with the second phase due to be finished by mid-2028. This will increase capacity by up to 1.5 million TEUs per year.
Longer term plans call for the planned Savannah Container Terminal on Hutchinson Island to open by 2030, ultimately adding three additional big-ship berths and 3.5 million TEUs of annual capacity. The facility is currently in the permitting phase.
“These improvements are necessary to stay ahead of growing demand and to continue providing the world-class service our customers have come to expect,” Lynch said. “With $4 billion in investments planned for Ocean Terminal and Savannah Container Terminal, Savannah will be a 12.5 million-TEU capacity port by 2035.”
by Ty Tagami | Feb 25, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Georgia public schools were short 5,300 teachers as of December, an ongoing problem state lawmakers have been unable to fix.
They have a new proposed solution, but it would take awhile to put in place: let more retired teachers return to the classroom with both pay and pensions.
Senate Bill 150 would allow former teachers to return to the classroom 60 days after they retire following 25 years of service.
It would expand on a current, but temporary law, that lets teachers return to the classroom after a year of retirement following 30 years of service.
That older law restricts this post-retirement service to a handful of high-demand academic subjects in high-vacancy parts of the state. About 450 retired teachers have been re-employed under that law, which is in its third year and expires next year.
The proposed law would expire in the summer of 2034.
“We’ve got a real issue that we’ve got to deal with,” Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, said Tuesday of the teacher shortage. He is the chief sponsor of SB 150, which he said would address the problem “on a temporary basis until our schools can gear up.”
A Senate committee voted unanimously to pass the bill on for a cost analysis. However, it likely won’t come up for further action until next year’s legislative session.
