Legislative Session Week 10
School Voucher Scam Barely Passes; a Historic First for LGBTQ representation
March 19, 2024
With only a handful of days left in this legislative session, the swiftness of bad legislation passing is breathtaking.
Two examples from this past week are Senate Bill 233, which would divert money from public schools in the form of a voucher to subsidize the cost of private education, and House Bill 1170, which was amended to ban hormone therapy for transgender kids and teens.
Neither bill has received final approval because the versions passed by each chamber are different. But I think it’s clear we are headed toward trouble.
I’ll discuss both bills below.
In this issue:
SB 233 - The Voucher Scam that will Divert Funds from our Public Schools
Representation Matters: Meet Rev. Andi Woodworth, District 90 Community Leader and the First Openly Trans Pastor to give “Chaplain of the Day” Remarks at the Capitol.
“Explore the Okefenokee” License Plate passes the Senate
SB 390: Undermining Libraries and our Librarians
Election Bill Update
Hope Wanes for Medicaid Expansion This Year
SB 233- The Voucher Scam that will Divert Funds from our Public Schools
By one vote, the House approved the so-called “school choice” bill that would give families $6,500 a year to subsidize the cost of private schooling.
That’s $6,500 per student that will be withheld from the public school where they would have attended if not for their enrollment in a private school.
A bi-partisan effort blocked this same legislation last year but supporters worked on rural lawmakers who had been opposed and wooed ONE democrat to pass Senate Bill 233 by the bare minimum vote count.
They got the 91 votes they needed.
You know a bill is truly bad when it has the support of the highest ranking Republicans in the state (Governor, Speaker of the House, Speaker Pro temp, to name a few), a full on pressure campaign was mounted against republican legislators and vulnerable Democrats, and it still only barely passed.
It has to go back to the Senate because some changes were made but there will be pressure on those members to approve it because Gov. Brian Kemp has said the school voucher bill is a top priority.
SB 233 is advertised as giving parents a choice, a way to help their kids escape failing schools.
But most private schools cost a lot more than $6,500 per child. So essentially the voucher provides a private school “discount” to those with means, but leaves those with the fewest resources in the public school system -- which will have less funding under this bill than it did before. Marketing the policy to struggling families is emblematic of the GOP’s fake sympathy for the poor.
This bill has the potential to truly upend our public school system as it has in other states. And that got me thinking about representation in our chamber, and whether our members accurately reflect the families of the millions of Georgia children that attend public school every day. After some back of the envelope math, I determined that of the 180 members in the House, around 14 of us have children in primary school. And of those, only six members have children attending public schools. I am one of those six. Two of my three children attend the neighborhood elementary school and my youngest is set to join them there when school starts in August.
I took the well against SB 233, and shared my perspective as one of the few public school parents in the House.
My point was that Georgia has chronically underfunded our public schools. It has for years. Let’s give schools the resources they need rather than redirecting families and resources away. Don’t starve the system and then pretend it cannot work.
Education is the great equalizer. If schools thrive, students thrive. Right now, though, we are failing our kids, and SB 233 will make that worse for the most vulnerable among us.
Meet Reverend Andi Woodworth: “We need to see others for who they are, not who we think they are.”
I was honored to host the Rev. Andi Woodworth of Neighborhood Church when she visited the House as “Chaplain of the Day.” It is a tradition in the General Assembly that each day of session, a chaplain is invited by a member of the legislature to share a devotional.
Reverend Andi was warmly received and delivered beautiful, poignant remarks. What I did not realize when I invited her was that her participation in the chamber was a historic first. Rev. Woodworth was the first transgender pastor to offer a devotion and prayer to the Georgia House.
It was heart-warming to see my colleagues take in her message to “love your neighbors as you love yourselves.”
“The labels we put on other people, even the roles we step into, can be dehumanizing,” Reverend Andi said. “I would invite all of us to see more of the people in Georgia as we are, not as we imagine us to be.”
Please, take a few moments to listen to her remarks.
But then a few hours later…
A Senate Committee changed a bill to require life-saving medications that can reverse opioid overdoses to also ban transgender teens and children from receiving puberty blockers or hormone treatment therapy or to receive surgery that would come at the end of their treatment.
This version does not include exceptions for children and teens 17 or younger who are already taking hormone treatment. Those in the midst of treatment would find themselves suddenly without, regardless of how far along they are.
Backers of the bill suggest that lawmakers need to protect minors from themselves. They say these kids are confused.
I believe their parents are in a better place to protect their kids than are Georgia Legislators.
Since this House bill was changed it will have to come back to us for another vote if it passes the Senate.
If it does find its way to the House, I hope we do the right thing by standing up, and loving these children for who they are and not for who we think they are.
Thank you, Reverend Andi, for a timely and compassionate message.
“Explore the Okefenokee” License Plate passes the Senate
There is nothing new to report on efforts to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from damaging mineral mining but at least we may get a special license plate to call attention to this national treasure and drum up efforts to save the nation’s largest blackwater swamp.
A bill that clumps together several good causes – and one questionable one – includes one special license plate that urges people to “Explore the Okefenokee.” I worked with two of my Republican colleagues to make this plate a reality, and this week it passed through the Senate.
This special plate will cost an additional $45 on top of the annual registration fee with half of that going to the Okefenokee Swamp Park.
Other special plates included in House Bill 1303 are for the Shepherd Center to benefit the rehab facility, a special license plate promoting “strict interpretation of the United States Constitution” with funds going to the Foundation for Moral Law, Inc., another plate for Samford University with money going to the Samford University Alumni Association and, finally, one honoring the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, with money for that special plate going to the Delta Life Development Center.
Let’s call attention to the swamp.
SB 390: Undermining Libraries and our Librarians
Many of you have reached out to me to vote no on SB 390, which would cut funding to any programs tied to the American Library Association. I visited with many DeKalb librarians last week, and I hear your position loud and clear. I am grateful for your work and what you do to serve the public.
If it comes to a vote in the House – which I am hopeful it will not – I will vote no.
SB 390 was brought by Republicans after a leader in the American Library Association made some questionable tweets. I’m incredulous that Republicans would push sweeping policy changes in reaction to, and in punishment of, tweets. Tweets! There is so much more to an organization than one member. Policy as retaliation is no way to govern.
Election Bill Update
So many good and nefarious bills to change how we run elections have been introduced at the Legislature, but have gone nowhere. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are dead for the 2024 session.
Negotiations continue to lump many election – and voter-protection bills into one huge bill.
I’m hopeful that an omnibus bill could include my proposals. One would protect election and poll workers from violence. Another would allow parents with babies and toddlers to move to the front of the line to vote. A third would let county election offices recoup most of the cost of processing and researching future voter challenges. As in past years I expect tens of thousands of these challenges, mostly in counties that favor Democrats.
But it is more likely an omnibus bill will contain damaging aspects, such as language to make voter challenges easier, and language to make voting less accessible.
The new omnibus election bill may get dropped this week. I’ll keep you posted.
Expand Medicaid. Probably not this year?
The chances for Medicaid expansion this year have followed the track of a yo-yo.
For weeks it looked like we would actually expand Medicaid to cover all our poorer citizens who do not have insurance, just as 40 other states have done. That was part of a trade; Medicaid expansion in exchange for an overhaul of hospitals’ Certificate of Need (CON) regulations.
The CON issue was a top priority of Lt. Gov, Burt Jones, whose family is interested in building a hospital in his hometown of Jackson. Jones earned support from once-skeptical Democrats and got a vote of 43 to 11 on House Bill 1339.
HB 1339 could make it possible for the Morehouse School of Medicine to have its own teaching hospital in Atlanta though no money for the high cost of opening a hospital has been provided.
HB 1339 also includes a mandate for a study committee to consider Medicaid expansion.
Just no actual expansion provision.
To me, we cannot give on CON without getting Medicaid in return. For too many people, Medicaid expansion is the difference between life and death. With the last day of session (Sine Die) around the corner, the time to close this deal is running out.
Thank you for letting me serve you these past two years. As you know, I hope to be re-elected to this seat in the May 21 primary. There is much left to be done.
Yours in service,
