by Dave Williams | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – For the seventh time in the last 10 years, the University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents voted Tuesday to hold the line on tuition for in-state students.
Since 2016, tuition at the state’s 26 public colleges and universities has increased by less than 1% per year, Tracey Cook, the system’s chief fiscal officer, told the regents at a meeting on the campus of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.
“USG and the Board of Regents remain focused on keeping college affordable for Georgia families to ensure higher education stays within reach across the state,” system Chancellor Sonny Perdue said. “As more students than ever enroll on our campuses, we continue to prioritize reducing financial barriers and offering excellent value.”
Among the 16 Southern Regional Education Board states, Georgia is third lowest in average undergraduate tuition and required fees compared to its public peers, according to national data from the College Board. Nationally, the system has the sixth-lowest tuition and fees.
The regents did raise tuition for in-state undergraduates by 2.5% last year. Perdue cited inflation at the time.
The coming school year will see a 2% tuition increase for out-of-state students and a 3% increase for students from other countries.
The board also approved changes to mandatory student fees at eight of the system’s institutions. Among those eight, six institutions will see fee hikes ranging from $5 to $21 per semester, while two will lower their fees.
In other business Tuesday, the regents approved a plan to consolidate Georgia Southern and East Georgia State College.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Nearly 200 years of legal precedent should not apply to a 20-year-old man who wants to carry a gun, his lawyer argued before the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Thomas Stephens, who turns 21 next year, was denied a license to carry a handgun in public when he applied for one in Lumpkin County. He sued, and his case made it to the high court, which heard arguments by his lawyer and by the state attorney general’s office. The state contends in a legal brief that the restrictions on adults under age 21 are “baked into the Georgia Constitution.”
Stephens’ lawsuit goes to the heart of one of the most contentious issues in America today: how to interpret gun rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It says, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” An introductory phrase has been a complicating factor, saying that a “well regulated Militia” is needed to secure a free state.
Georgia’s constitution elaborates by saying that the legislature “shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.”
A lawyer from Attorney General Chris Carr’s office argued that the state’s age-based limitations date back to the Civil War era, when he said those under 21 were not subject to militia service.
“The court should stick with the analysis that it’s applied for 180 years,” said Zachary A. Mullinax, an assistant attorney general. “I don’t think that there is any historical evidence that an 18-year-old had the right to carry a handgun in public.”
But Stephens’ lawyer made the case that Georgia’s restrictions are rooted in a time before courts began applying a higher standard on government intrusion into personal liberties.
The state Supreme Court has based its decisions on a “reasonable” exercise of government power to limit access to guns, said John R. Monroe, the Dawsonville attorney representing Stephens.
That was before the World War II era, when the U.S. Supreme Court first developed a higher standard of “strict scrutiny” and began requiring that burdens on fundamental rights be justified by a “compelling” state interest, Monroe said. “Strict scrutiny should be applied to this case because it’s a fundamental right for people to keep and bear arms.”
It’s unclear how the state’s high court will rule. The justices peppered both lawyers with questions, although Justice Andrew A. Pinson told Monroe early in the hearing that he had an “uphill battle” to make his case. That is due to the history of Georgia’s restrictions on gun rights, Pinson said, “which we’ve said arguably is now baked into our constitutional language given that it was enacted and then we ratified new constitutions with that same language.”
by Dave Williams | Apr 15, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
SMYRNA – Gov. Brian Kemp had a pithy message as he signed two tax relief bills Tuesday.
“Tax cut bill on tax day,” the Republican governor exclaimed as he prepared to sign legislation accelerating income tax reductions the General Assembly put in place last year.
House Bill 111, which Kemp signed at an event inside the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre sponsored by the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, will reduce the state income tax rate from 5.39% to 5.19% retroactive to the beginning of the current tax year.
The second tax relief measure Kemp signed Monday will provide a one-time rebate to Georgia taxpayers. Under House Bill 112, single tax filers will receive $250. A single filer who is the head of his or her household will get $375, and married couples filing jointly will receive $500.
The rebate legislation sailed through the General Assembly during the recently concluded legislative session without a single “no” vote. But House Bill 111 proved controversial, with Democrats arguing most of the benefits of the tax cut will go to upper-income Georgians.
Kemp defended both bills Monday before a crowd of state and local business and political leaders.
“We know this is your money, not the government’s, and we know you know best how to spend it,” he said.
The Georgia House of Representatives and the state Senate passed House Bill 111 largely along party lines.
Kemp was flanked by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, House Speaker Jon Burns, other Georgia lawmakers and state constitutional officers as he put his signature to the bills.
by Dave Williams | Apr 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – An energy watchdog launched a nonprofit organization Monday aimed at bringing transparency and accountability to energy regulation in Georgia.
The goals of Georgia Utility Watch, the brainchild of Patty Durand, a former candidate for a seat on the state Public Service Commission, is to advocate for fair electric rates, a more transparent PSC, and more accountable state leadership on energy issues.
“Decisions are made with complete disregard for the state mandate to set rates that are just and reasonable,” Durand wrote in her new organization’s inaugural newsletter. “Never, ever are people prioritized or protected.”
Durand cites an unprecedented 23.7% increase last year in the rates Georgia Power’s residential customers pay that she says went unchecked by either the commission or the General Assembly. Specifically, she pointed to the legislature’s failure for two years in a row to pass a bill that would have reestablished the state Consumer Utility Counsel, disbanded in 2008 amid budget cuts brought on by the Great Recession.
She also criticized Gov. Brian Kemp’s veto last year of a bill that would have temporarily suspended a state sales tax exemption aimed at attracting data centers to Georgia after business interests objected to the measure. Another measure introduced this year to prohibit Georgia Power from passing on the costs of providing electricity to data centers to residential and small business customers cleared the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee but failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote.
Durand also noted that nearly 200,000 Georgia Power households were disconnected last year, an alarmingly high rate.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Out-of-state investors own tens of thousands of houses in Georgia, and lawmakers tried to limit the number due to concerns about decaying properties and diminished options for would be homeowners.
A bill that sought to cap each big owner at 2,000 properties didn’t get far after constitutional concerns were raised. But a measure that requires these companies to hire Georgia brokers did pass, and some lawmakers are waiting to see whether it will become law.
House Bill 399 also requires tenants of houses or duplexes to give code enforcement officers the contact information for the property manager.
First, the tenants have to know who manages their property, which is one reason Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, gave for bringing her bill.
“It requires out-of-state investors, hedge fund type entities to have a local broker and a local property manager,” Oliver said last week. She said local officials often cannot identify the owners of properties that have deteriorated to the point that they are violating local ordinances.
Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, carried the bill through the Senate, which had just passed the measure 41-9 when the two talked about it with reporters.
“The renter has to have someone that they can call and talk to and resolve any problem,” Burns said, adding that investors had acquired whole subdivisions in suburban Augusta near his hometown.
“They all go into the rental market. And that undermines the single-family home buyer, especially that first-time homebuyer,” he said.
Seven corporations own more than 51,000 single-family homes in the 21-county metro Atlanta region, according to a blog by the Atlanta Regional Commission late last year.
Paulding County in northwest metro Atlanta was a hotspot for this ownership model, with as much as a fifth of the single-family homes in some census tracts there owned by investors, the ARC reported, using data provided by Parcl Labs. Overall, 6.5% of the houses in Paulding were corporate-owned.
Rep. Martin Momtahan, R-Dallas, said he has constituents in Paulding who don’t know how to contact their out-of-state landlords.
“They have a lot of issues with just getting things fixed,” he said. “Imagine a septic tank is leaking in your backyard.”
Momtahan voted for HB 399 and also was among all but one of the lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee who voted for a more aggressive bill last month. House Bill 555 sought to limit companies from having an ownership interest in more than 2,000 single-family residences or 10 multifamily residences in Georgia.
Former state Attorney General Sam Olens testified against the bill as a representative of the National Home Rental Council, calling it “constitutionally unfirm.” He said investors who buy houses are doing Georgians a favor by renting them out at a lower monthly price than renters would be paying if they bought a house under current mortgage rates.
A representative of the Georgia Association of Realtors also opposed the bill, saying investor home ownership is a problem but that HB 555 wouldn’t fix it. Corporate owners would just create a network of subsidiary companies that would each own fewer than 2,000 properties, she said. She also said her group opposed a bill by Momtahan that would have required companies to disclose the properties they own, so local governments could keep track.
The vice chairman of the committee, Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, said creating subsidiary companies to hide properties would be illegal.
“If a company large or small does a transfer of an asset to avoid the law, that’s fraudulent,” he said. “Give the American Dream back to individual homeowners in Georgia. That’s what this bill is trying to do.”
HB 555 passed that committee on March 3, but didn’t get a vote by the full House of Representatives. It will remain in play when lawmakers return next year though.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are waiting to see whether Gov. Brian Kemp will sign HB 399 into law, opening a new channel of communication with these big property owners.
by Dave Williams | Apr 11, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – President Donald Trump’s decision on Wednesday to pause a huge hike in tariffs on dozens of countries for 90 days gave the slumping stock market a bump.
But that surge was short-lived amid investors’ fears that tariffs remained historically high – 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% for nearly all other nations. Of even greater concern is that Trump has ratcheted up the tariff on Chinese imports to 145%, with China retaliating in kind in a full-blown trade war.
It’s the volatility of the economy that has business owners in Georgia and elsewhere most worried, said Chris Clark, president and CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
“Businesses need and want consistency,” Clark said. “A lot of the anxiety right now in the Georgia business community comes from that uncertainty.”
“We don’t know what to charge our customers,” said Felipe Arroyave, president and CEO of Atlanta-based Spectrum International, a manufacturer of contact lenses. “We’re just in limbo.”
Throughout U.S. history, tariffs have been used to raise revenue for the federal government. In fact, until a federal income tax was established early in the last century, tariffs were the government’s primary source of revenue.
Tom Smith, an economics professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, said tariffs essentially are a tax.
“These tariffs are not paid by other countries,” he said. “They are paid by our businesses and our consumers. … Georgia companies will have to pay the tax, and they will likely have to pass some of that on to consumers.”
While higher prices will be felt broadly throughout Georgia’s economy, the businesses likely to feel the most impact are those that rely heavily on imports or exports.
Joseph Cortes, executive director of the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild, said his industry imports aluminum primarily from Canada to produce beer cans and imports steel that goes into brewing equipment. The tariff on both is 25%.
“If these tariffs continue, we’re going to see a continued slowdown in growth and investment,” he said.
Cortes said it’s not simply a matter of raising prices to cover the cost of the tariffs because beer is not an essential product.
“This is a discretionary spending item,” he said. “The last thing our small breweries will do is raise prices.”
On the export side, poultry is one of Georgia’s top agricultural products, Mexico being the top market. The industry exports about 17% of the broilers produced in Georgia.
China was a key market for Georgia poultry in the past. But that’s no longer the case, a result both of high tariffs and non-tariff related steps China has taken including banning Georgia poultry following outbreaks of bird flu.
“Exports are an important part of the success of Georgia’s poultry industry,” according to a statement from the Gainesville-based Georgia Poultry Federation. “Georgia poultry can compete in any market in the world when the terms of trading are fair.”
While Georgia’s auto manufacturers are high on the list of industries that will be affected by the tariffs, confusion over how that will play out illustrates the complexities of enforcing the tariff hikes. Clark said cars produced in Georgia cross U.S. borders an average of seven times during the manufacturing process.
Ironically, the Georgia Ports Authority is enjoying a booming business with high tariffs looming. The Port of Savannah set a monthly record last month for containerized cargo traffic for the second month in a row, while the Port of Brunswick also broke its monthly record for autos and heavy equipment in March.
That success was due in part to customers front-loading orders in anticipation of the new tariffs, short-term gains that likely will go away once the tariffs set in.
Clark said large companies have the resources to make such adjustments in their orders.
“I worry about the small businesses,” he said. “They don’t have the capital to go out and buy everything. They’re going to take a hit.”
The president has stated the main goal of raising tariffs is to encourage manufacturers to move their overseas operations to the United States.
Smith said that’s a lofty goal but one that couldn’t begin to pay off in the short term because of the time it takes to acquire land, find workers, and build new plants.
“Those facilities couldn’t be open any time in the next year, or the next two or three years,” he said. “The idea of bringing manufacturing back to the United States is very impractical, at least in the short run.”
Clark sees a silver lining in the ramping up of tariffs. The Trump administration has announced that leaders of more than 70 counties have called to express an interest in negotiating tariff deals rather than retaliating against the U.S.
“If this administration is able to reduce existing tariffs, you could see new markets,” Clark said.
In its statement, the Georgia Poultry Federation also expressed reason for optimism.
“While we are monitoring these negotiations closely for impacts on our members, we support the administration’s goal of bringing balance and fairness to the international trading landscape,” the statement read.
For now, however, uncertainty remains the driving factor in how businesses are responding to the tariffs.
“A lot of business decisions, large and small, are on hold until we have a better understanding of what the tariffs set,” said Jeff Humphreys, director of the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. “I don’t think we’ll get a lot of new project announcements. … A lot of projects will be on hold.”
Clark said he’s advising Georgia Chamber members not to panic.
“I tell them to be calm, plan ahead, and don’t make rush decisions,” he said. “That’s really the best play now.”
