Legislative Session Week 11
Fighting for Democracy in DeKalb, anti-union bills, protecting IVF, and more
March 27, 2024
We are in the final days of the 2024 session and things are happening fast.
One of the high points of the past week was how you, my friends in House District 90, showed up when I said I needed your help. Your calls and emails helped me secure an amendment to a GOP bill. If the bill passes, the amendment attached to the bill will help over half a million DeKalb residents who would otherwise have reduced or no County Commission representation for months.
There is much to discuss in this issue of the Draper Paper.
In this issue:
Fighting for DeKalb residents - Can we fill the County Commission vacancies in May?
SB 362 - Anti-labor union bill passes the HousE
School voucher bill moves to the Governor’s desk for signature.
The Medicaid Expansion Betrayal
The GOP is coming after IVF
Fighting for DeKalb Residents - Can we fill the County Commission Vacancies in May?
The residents in HD 90 responded to my call to action and it made a difference.
Last Monday, when the DeKalb Board of Elections and Registrations (BOE) met to certify the results of the Presidential Preference Primary and to take care of other business, they were greeted by a room full of angry residents from DeKalb Commission Districts 3 and 7.
Earlier this month, the commissioners for those districts resigned from their commissioner posts (which is constitutionally required since they are both running for DeKalb CEO). As a result, residents are down a voice on the DeKalb Board of Commissioners until those vacancies are filled.
The folks who are most impacted are the DeKalb residents who live in the area where District 3 and Super District 7 overlap– they have no County Commission representation at all right now.
Residents wanted the BOE to schedule a special election to fill those two vacancies on the earliest possible date: May 21. But because of a quirk in state law, the BOE members were forced to make a hard decision and set the special election for November.
A November election means half of DeKalb’s residents will be under-represented or have no representation at the county level for nine months (10 if there is a runoff!). That’s a long time to go without your representative on issues of code enforcement, public works, animal control, and much, much more.
After learning of the issue at one of my town halls, I got to work to try to figure out if there was anything I could do to get the special election held in May. My background in elections and law helped me see a solution, but I knew I had to act quickly: we were too close to the end of the legislative session to introduce a new bill, but there could be time to add an amendment to an existing bill…
I made the case to my GOP colleagues who control the flow of legislation at the Capitol. They understood the issue and said they were amenable to my proposal. Yet, for about two weeks, other issues (their issues) kept taking precedence, and I was told to wait.
But time was running out, and I knew we had to force the issue. That’s when I called on you to help.
Many of you heeded that call and reached out to Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Max Burns to ask that the Draper Amendment be added to moving legislation. And it worked. During the committee meeting last Thursday, Chairman Burns specifically said he heard from many HD 90 constituents. Thank you!
The committees voted unanimously to adopt the Draper Amendment. Check out the presentation here.
The legislation with the Draper Amendment language must pass by tomorrow, Thursday, the last day of session. Then it has to be signed by the Governor right away.
DeKalb will have to hold candidate qualifying right away. At least 2.5 days of qualifying is required under Georgia law, and I don’t think we have time for any additional days. Why the rush? Because the first vote-by-mail ballots go out in early April.
So there are many things that have to happen – and have to happen quickly – before the elections can be moved to May.
Is it a long shot? Maybe. Are the voices of over half a million DeKalb residents worth fighting for? Absolutely.
Democracy is fundamental.
SB 362 - Anti Labor Union Bill Passes the House
Republicans like to say Georgia is the number one place to do business. But SB 362 will tie the hands of employers who wish to voluntarily recognize employee unions, and that will come with many unintended consequences.
Republicans claimed Senate Bill 362 would protect workers’ privacy. What it would do in actuality is make it harder for those workers to organize and harder for companies facing unionization to take a conflict-free path to willingly accept organized labor into their businesses.
Georgia has been a right-to-work state since 1947, and there is no requirement that workers at a unionized business join and pay dues. Federal law says there are two paths a company can take if a union wants to recruit members: either companies can voluntarily recognize unions through a check of signed union cards, or businesses can insist on a secret-ballot election on the question of allowing a union in.
SB 362 would punish companies that decide to simply accept union cards and not require an expensive and time-consuming vote. SB 362 says companies that voluntarily recognize unions cannot receive tax credits the state often dangles to entice big employers to locate here; this bill targets mega-projects that create 1,000 jobs or more.
What comes to mind is auto manufacturers who often recognize unions. Georgia has been chasing automakers since Ford Motor Co. closed its Hapeville plant and General Motors shut down its Doraville factory in the mid-2000s. Both plants employed thousands of union employees.
SB 362 received final passage in the House with a party line vote – 96-78 – and is now headed to the governor for his signature. Gov. Brian Kemp has made this bill a priority.
It looks like it will become law in Georgia even though SB 362 violates federal labor laws. For decades, the courts have upheld the choice employers have to voluntarily recognize unions. If the governor signs SB 362, as is expected, it will end up costing taxpayers in legal fees defending this misguided law.
Senate Bill 362 is a pathetic attempt to prevent Georgia’s working families from organizing their workplace. When workers are asking for basic rights and those demands are supported by their employer, the state government stepping in to ban that recognition simultaneously harms workers and takes away individual freedoms from business owners.
See my remarks on the House floor here.
School Voucher Bill Moves to the Governor’s Desk for Signature
The Senate gave final approval to Senate Bill 233 after the House signed off on it earlier this month so it’s on its way to the governor, who supports it.
SB 233 would provide $6,500 for private school or homeschooling for students attending public schools that rank in Georgia’s bottom 25 percent for academic achievement.
This bill will hurt our public institutions by taking way from neighborhood schools that need every penny to serve their students
I’m in discussions with our School Boards about how we will approach this issue collaboratively. My goal is to support the school boards in their strategies to mitigate the impacts of this bill, and to provide parents and students with the information they need to make the best decisions for their families and communities.
The Medicaid Expansion Betrayal
Georgia has long resisted expanding Medicaid, even though it would cover more Georgians for less money than we are currently spending.
It is all about political optics and Georgia Republicans not wanting to appear to be endorsing the signature achievement of Democratic President Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act, which offered the additional Medicaid money. Even as their districts suffer from closing hospitals.
The Medicaid expansion carrot was offered initially because Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones desperately wanted to change Georgia’s certificate of need (CON) law so his father could build a 100-bed hospital on family land in rural Butts County.
For much of the 2024 session, Democrats negotiated with Republican legislators; they would expand Medicaid to all Georgia’s uninsured, and in exchange Democrats would agree to changing Georgia law that requires state approval of new construction or expansion of hospitals.
It’s been a cycle of hope and despair all session. We thought we were getting closer to a compromise just to have our hopes dashed over and over again.
But we never got closer to success than we did last week.
A Senate Regulated Industries Committee voted on a compromise bill last week. A coalition of Democrats and Republicans gave the bill the votes to pass by one.
Then, in a stunning development, the Republican chairman of the committee lodged a no vote to make the vote a tie. Usually, chairmen only vote to break a tie, not to create a tie.
Then, the GOP found a GOP senator in the hall, and brought him inside the room to cast another no vote, effectively killing the bill.
From my understanding, we had the votes we needed in the House and the Senate to expand medicaid. If the bill had gotten out of committee, we could have expanded medicaid this year.
My understanding is that the bill was killed in committee at the direction of Governor Kemp. He has a pitiful Georgia Pathways to Coverage program that he wants to promote instead. So far Pathways has cost taxpayers at least $26 million, with more than 90% going toward administrative and consulting costs rather than medical care for low-income people.
Letting ego stand in the way of saving lives is not leadership.
I’m heartbroken this was not the year we expanded medicaid.
The GOP is Coming after IVF
The GOP continues its assault on women’s bodily autonomy. Just last month, the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling declaring that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. This position has all sorts of wide-ranging and concerning implications– for IVF patients, doctors, clinics, and scientists.
I mean, what happens if you drop a petri dish? Will you be charged with involuntary manslaughter of a child?
Pushing this is an unforced error by the GOP. How many parents do you know who have IVF to thank for their family?
I am proud to co sponsor HB 1497, the Right to Contraception Act, which will protect IVF, and by extension, basic family planning. The bill says that a human egg or human embryo that exists outside of a uterus is not considered an unborn child or natural person.
Sine Die in Sight
The last day of session is tomorrow, Thursday March 28. We call this day Sine Die.
Thank you for the honor of serving you this session and last. We accomplished as much as we did because of your calls and emails and overall support.
Just because the session ends, it does not mean my representation of you stops.
So please share with me your thoughts and upcoming community events.
Yours in service,
