by Dave Williams | Oct 9, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia Board of Regents is asking two organizations that govern collegiate sports to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
Tuesday’s unanimous vote came two years after the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) voted to require students to participate in high school sports based on their gender at birth.
The controversy over transgender women taking part in women’s sports erupted during the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships held at Georgia Tech.
Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania, who had posted respectable but not spectacular times while swimming for the men’s team, emerged into the national spotlight while transitioning to female through hormone replacement therapy, winning the 500-meter freestyle event.
Five former elite-level college women swimmers who took part in those championships testified before a state Senate committee in August that being forced to compete against Thomas was unfair. They also said they were uncomfortable having to share a locker room with Thomas.
“Biologically female student-athletes could be put at a competitive disadvantage when student-athletes who are biologically male or who have undergone masculinizing hormone therapy compete in female athletic competitions,” read the second paragraph of the resolution the Board of Regents adopted Tuesday.
The resolution urges both the NCAA and the National Junior College Athletic Association to make their policies toward transgender women in sports consistent with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which already bans transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
The issue was among the most controversial the General Assembly took up in 2022. Lawmakers considered a bill to ban transgender athletes from participating on school sports teams that align with their gender identity rather than their gender at birth.
However, the legislature stopped short of an outright ban, voting instead to leave it up to the GHSA’s executive committee, which approved a ban that spring.
Now, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Georgia Senate, is vowing to revisit transgender women in sports during the 2025 legislative session with a bill that would ban them from participating in sports at Georgia’s public colleges.
“I want to thank the Board of Regents for taking action on an issue I have stressed as a priority and the Senate has led on in Georgia – protecting women’s sports,” Jones said following Tuesday’s vote. “The work female athletes put into competing should be protected at all cost, no matter the age. This action brings us one step closer toward achieving that ultimate goal.”
During the 2022 debate in the General Assembly, legislative Democrats, transgender students and their parents argued that banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ high school sports would discriminate against students who already suffer from prejudice. They cited above-average suicide rates among transgender teens.
by Dave Williams | Oct 8, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp issued a state of emergency Tuesday for 38 Georgia counties likely to be affected by Hurricane Milton, a massive storm expected to make landfall in west-central Florida Wednesday night.
Milton intensified rapidly Monday into a Category 5 hurricane, with winds topping 180 miles an hour. The storm is expected to weaken but only to Category 3 before making landfall, but as it weakens, it is likely to become wider.
In South Georgia and along the coast, the storm is expected to bring heavy rainfall and tropical storm wind gusts. The counties covered by Kemp’s emergency declaration range as far north as Bibb and Monroe counties and include the Columbus and Albany areas in Southwest Georgia, all six coastal counties, the Valdosta area, and Bulloch, Bryan, and Candler counties along Interstate 16.
With evacuation orders in effect in many parts of Florida, traffic volumes on Interstate 75 northbound Tuesday morning were 280% higher than normal from the Georgia-Florida line north to Macon. On I-95 northbound and along I-16, volumes were 89% above normal.
The Georgia Department of Transportation announced that the I-75 South Metro Express Lanes south of Atlanta will remain only to northbound traffic only through Tuesday to accommodate Floridians complying with evacuation orders. The toll lanes can be accessed by motorists using a Georgia Peach Pass, Florida Sun Pass, or E-Z Pass.
The state Department of Natural Resources has opened Georgia state parks to RVs and campers.
Kemp’s emergency declaration for Hurricane Milton co-exists with the state of emergency he declared late last month when Hurricane Helene was bearing down on Georgia. On Tuesday, Kemp renewed the earlier order to run through Oct. 16.
Unlike Helene, which did tremendous damage as it swept through Georgia and the Carolinas, Hurricane Milton is expected to move across Florida on Thursday and into the Atlantic Ocean Thursday night.
by Dave Williams | Oct 8, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia counties are systematically denying mass voter challenges brought by citizen activists instead of investigating them as the law requires, State Election Board Executive Director Mike Coan said Tuesday.
The Republican-controlled board instructed Coan last month to look into how challenges are being handled in eight counties and report back with his findings. The list of counties included Athens-Clarke, Bibb, Cobb, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, and Jackson counties.
“The challengers by and large have more sophisticated technology than our election departments. That’s where the problem is,” Coan told board members during a daylong meeting at the state Capitol. “Thousands of voter challenges have been dismissed arbitrarily. We need to address these things.”
Coan said local election officials are reluctant to investigate voter challenges for fear of being sued by Georgians removed from voter rolls.
Citizen watchdogs have become much more active bringing voter challenges in Georgia since the 2020 election. While Republicans say the mass voter challenges activists have been filing are aimed at ensuring election integrity, Democrats say they’re targeting heavily Democratic counties to get Democratic voters off the rolls.
“There are people who are sore losers who have brought frivolous challenges in Democratic counties,” said state Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta. “That’s a nakedly partisan ploy.”
Daniel White, a lawyer representing the Cobb County Board of Elections, said counties were able to process voter challenges in the days when fewer were filed.
“The law has not been updated for people bringing 2,000 or 3,000 challenges at a time,” he said. “The legislature needs to deal with it.”
White accused Coan and the board of trying to “set a narrative” that counties are mishandling voter challenges rather than seriously investigating complaints.
But board member Janelle King, one of the Republicans on the board, denied playing partisan politics with the voter rolls. She said the counties the board asked Coan to investigate were based on complaints from citizens attending board meetings.
“I will not allow anybody to stand up here and mischaracterize what we’re doing,” she said.
Board Vice Chair Janice Johnston said the problem of voter rolls bloated with the names of voters who have died, moved out of the county where they registered, or moved out of state is real. Both statewide and in some counties, there are more registered voters than the voting-age population, she said.
Mark Davis, an election data specialist, said his research from 2020 showed 35,230 Georgia voters who had moved to another county cast ballots in their previous county, a felony offense. He suggested Georgia lawmakers enact a bill modeled after a Virginia law requiring residents to update their driver’s licenses after moving to another jurisdiction. Most Georgians register to vote through the state Department of Driver Services.
“The way to fix this problem is helping voters not become unqualified voters in the first place,” Davis said.
Johnston asked Coan to prepare a written report the board could use to develop uniform guidelines for handling voter challenges and recommend legislation to the General Assembly.
by Dave Williams | Oct 8, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s high-school seniors posted a record graduation rate of 85.4% this year, up from 84.4% in 2023, the state Department of Education reported Tuesday.
The statewide graduation rate has increased by 18 percentage points since the state began using the adjusted cohort calculation first required by federal law in 2011.
“These students faced great challenges throughout their school careers,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said of the Class of 2024. “They were in middle school when the pandemic hit in 2020. We have worked to provide the resources and supports needed to ensure they could still succeed and thrive.
“The efforts of Georgia’s educators, families, and all those who have taken the time to invest in students are paying off.”
A total of 115 Georgia school districts recorded graduation rates at or above 90% this year, and 44 districts achieved graduation rates at or above 95%.
Georgia uses a federally required method to calculate its graduation rate: The number of students who graduate from high school in four years is divided by the number of students who entered ninth grade. That ninth-grade enrollment number is adjusted to reflect the number of students who transfer in or out of a school over the next three years.
The record high-school graduation rate is among several indicators of success announced in recent weeks. The Class of 2024 also beat the national average on the SAT and showed strong improvement on the Georgia Milestones tests.
by Dave Williams | Oct 7, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Monday reinstated Georgia’s six-week abortion ban while the state appeals last week’s Fulton County Superior Court decision declaring the law unconstitutional.
Judge Robert McBurney ruled the Living Infants and Equality (LIFE) Act the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed in 2019 violates women’s privacy and equal protection rights. The law prohibits abortions in Georgia after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, typically about six weeks into pregnancy, with exceptions including rape, incest, and threats to the life of the mother.
McBurney’s decision came in a lawsuit filed by plaintiffs including the reproductive rights group SisterSong and Planned Parenthood two years ago after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The Georgia law had not been allowed to take effect until the high court ruling in the Dobbs case.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr quickly asked for last week’s decision overturning Georgia’s abortion ban to be stayed pending the state’s appeal.
“Elected officials in our state continue their disrespect of Georgia women, treating our bodies as state-owned property,” Andrea Young, executive director of ACLU of Georgia, said following Monday’s ruling.
“Today, the Georgia Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion extremists,” added SisterSong Executive Director Monica Simpson. “Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer. Denying our community members the lifesaving care they deserve jeopardizes their lives, safety, and health.”
Six of the nine justices on the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of staying last week’s lower court decision. Justices Nels S.D. Peterson and Andrew Pinson did not participate.
Justice John Ellington concurred in part and dissented in part. In Monday’s seven-page ruling, Ellington wrote that he saw no urgency for the high court to act while the underlying merits of the case have yet to be decided.
“The state should not be in the business of enforcing laws that have been determined to violate fundamental rights guaranteed to millions of individuals under the Georgia Constitution,” he wrote. “The ‘status quo’ that should be maintained is the state of the law before the challenged laws took effect.”
by Dave Williams | Oct 7, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – More than 137,000 Georgia high school seniors will receive a personalized direct college admissions letter this month, as the GEORGIA MATCH program begins its second year.
Each letter will list the public colleges and universities in Georgia that are holding a spot for the recipient. The 23 University System of Georgia (USG) institutions participating in the program will waive application fees next month for students who used the GEORGIA MATCH dashboard at gafutures.org/GEORGIAMATCH.
“GEORGIA MATCH removes the uncertainty and anxiety association with the college application process,” said Lynne Riley, president of the Georgia Student Finance Commission. “The GEORGIA MATCH letter shows students the public colleges and universities where they meet the academic requirements for admission.”
The 22 Technical College of Georgia institutions also take part in GEORGIA MATCH. However, the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia College & State University do not participate in the program because they have more stringent admission requirements.
During the first year of GEORGIA MATCH, more than half of the 132,000 students who received a letter applied for the 2024 fall semester to an institution on their letter.
USG schools reported a 10% increase in applications and a preliminary enrollment increase of 6.2% for the fall semester. The results were even better at the technical colleges, which reported a 26% increase in applications and a preliminary 9.3% rise in enrollment.
