Crossover day was the deadline for proposed laws to be approved in either the State House or State Senate so they can be considered in the other chamber this year. The dust is still settling from our marathon day–we managed breaks for lunch and dinner but worked well into the night and voted on 74 bills and resolutions.

I called it “a day of possibility” (begins at 37:30) – It was exhausting but adrenaline was driving us to vote on as many bills and resolutions as possible.

But crossover day doesn’t mean certain death for legislation that didn’t make it. There is still the possibility that text from bills that weren’t considered could be incorporated into another that did make the cut.

It’s an old and successful legislative work around.

Want to know more? The next town hall in my series is happening this Wednesday at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center on Briarcliff. Join us!

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In this issue:

HB 1105 and HR 780: The Session Takes a Xenophobic Turn
My Legislation Progresses
Hold Tight for the Voter Challenge Onslaught (SB221)
Crossover Day Highlights
More Town Halls

HB 1105 and HR 780: The Session Takes a Xenophobic Turn

This crossover day took an ugly xenophobic turn on crossover day when the House debated and then passed mean-spirited and unnecessary anti-immigration legislation.

The attitude was to cast the broadest possible net to sweep up all undocumented immigrants in Georgia because of the possibility that a few might pose a safety threat. This is despite the fact that the statistics show that undocumented immigrants have a substantially lower rate of committing crimes than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses. A recent Department of Justice study focused on Texas found that relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.

One bill, House Bill 1105, came after a tragic incident on UGA’s campus that shook the community to the core: an alleged undocumented Venezuelan man was charged with beating to death nursing student Laken Riley.

HB 1105 says that all of Georgia’s local law enforcement agencies MUST verify citizenship of suspected non-citizens, alert federal authorities if they discover they have encountered an undocumented foreigner, and drive them to a federal lockup if necessary. Currently these actions are discretionary choices on the part of local law enforcement.

Local police are authorized to arrest undocumented immigrants, even those not suspected of a crime. It’s an open license to discriminate and racially profile.

The craziest part? HB 1105 would defund the police if they choose not to bring in ICE. You can’t make this stuff up.

That’s a big threat for local agencies that are already operating on few resources and juggling many demands. We should not micromanage these agencies, nor take away their discretion to allocate time and resources to the cases they assess as most pressing. As I like to say, Republicans are all for local control, unless they are not in control locally.

A Republican colleague took to the well to speak in favor of HB 1105. He said “even one murder is too many” as justification for the overly broad legislation. I couldn’t help but think, why don’t we adopt that sense of urgency when a black mother dies during childbirth, or when a toddler finds a gun and accidentally kills himself? Or when a cancer patient dies without treatment because they do not have health insurance? Is that one death one too many?

I voted no on HB 1105, but it passed the House on a party line vote.

We also considered House Resolution 780 on crossover day, which just like HB 1105, stinks of political posturing.

House Resolution 780 seeks to change the Georgia Constitution to say only US citizens are allowed to vote.

Why do we need this change? We don’t, since that’s already the law in Georgia. Talk about solving problems that do not exist.

So what is this bill really about? It’s about forcing Democrats to decide between standing up for immigrants, minorities, and truth, or facing harsh political headwinds during an election year. It’s about Republicans creating a record they will point to when they misrepresent Democrats’ position on this issue and say “Democrats want non-citizens to vote!”

More election year antics.

Since Georgia law is already clear that non-citizens can’t vote, my “no” was an easy choice. HR 780 didn’t get the required two-thirds vote of the House required for it to be adopted, and on cue, Republicans have started their dishonest messaging campaign:

It’s not the vote that’s shameful. It’s leveraging tragedy to score political points.

My Legislation Progresses

Several of my election bills were passed out of committee last week. Even though they have not passed the House, some may be included in the election omnibus bill that will be released sometime this month.

After my request for help in the last Draper Paper, many of you called Chairman John LaHood and asked him to give me a hearing on HB 559– my bill that would allow voters with babies and toddlers to go to the front of the voting line. Thank you, IT WORKED! My bill received a hearing and passed out of committee. I think I gave some persuasive remarks, but JJ, daughter of voting rights lobbyist Lana, sealed the deal!

I was also able to pass out of committee my bill to protect election workers, HB 1118. I was thankful for all the support, this op-ed piece highlighting my bill (OPINION: Election workers are under attack. That means democracy is, too), and for the election administrators who took time away from early vote to testify in favor of the bill. Our election officials have faced all kinds of intimidation and harassment since 2020, and we can’t allow that to happen in 2024.

See the debate and passage of the bill here.

Hold Tight for the Voter Challenge Onslaught (SB221)

The most perceptive Draper Paper readers will have noticed that Republicans added some surprise language to my election worker protection bill via amendment (minute 15:13 in the video). The language they lobbed on to my bill is a disturbing harbinger of what’s to come. Check it out.

What does this language do? It says that if a lawyer represents a client for the purpose of filing voter challenges–even mass, meritless voter challenges–they cannot be held liable.

You know what else prevents you from getting sued? Not filing frivolous voter challenges.

To my knowledge, no attorney has ever been sued for representing a voter challenger. So it’s chilling they feel the need to include this layer of insulation.

Their amendment suggests to me two things. First, they intend to file more voter challenges with the assistance of counsel. And two, given that they are worried about getting sued, the challenges will be made in bad faith.

Coupled with the language in SB 221 which makes it easier to file successful voter challenges off of dubious data, we need to brace ourselves for a voter challenge onslaught in 2024.

I shared some thoughts with GPB lawmakers last week.

And I appreciate the kind shout out from esteemed political commentator Tharon Johnson calling me a rockstar!

Crossover Day Highlights

We passed a lot of legislation through the House on crossover day. Here are a few of the highlights. If you want to see a list of everything that was considered (and what wasn’t), you can find it here.

A step in the right direction with gun safety

It’s a small step, but it's a remarkable one. For the first time in a long time, we passed a bill on gun safety. And the bill received broad, bi-partisan

support. HB 971 permits a $300 tax credit for Georgians who purchase gun safes or gun safety accessories or who take a firearm safety course. It’s modest, but it’s progress. And it’s progress in no small part due to the daily efforts of activists who come to the Capitol and advocate for change. Thank you. The bill moves over to the Senate now.

This bill provides some balance to a Senate Bill now in the House that establishes a sales tax holiday for gun buyers.

Senate Bill 344 says that there is no sales tax on the purchases of guns, ammunition and firearm accessories for five days in October. Sort of like the sales tax holiday offered just before the start of each school year.

Supporters claim temporarily suspending sales tax on guns and ammunition would encourage hunting and help control Georgia’s deer population.

Yes, you read that right.

SB 344 is in the House Ways and Means Committee and may come to a vote soon.

Help for rural hospital facilities

We aren’t going to expand Medicaid this year but at least we are doing something to address the dearth of medical options in rural Georgia.

The House voted 166-1 to lighten the regulations that limit construction and expansion of hospitals in small communities; the process is called a certificate of need or “CON.”

Current law says new hospitals can be built/existing hospitals can be expanded only after demonstrating that they meet a need that cannot be met elsewhere. The rules were created decades ago to control the costs of government reimbursements for Medicaid and Medicare but the federal requirement for a CON was abandoned in the mid 1980s.

While other states abandoned CON, Georgia continued the practice.

The current CON process makes it virtually impossible for patients in rural areas to find good, comprehensive medical care. As a result, those residents have been forced to seek care in other communities, often hours away from their homes.

House Bill 1339 would allow hospitals in counties with fewer than 50,000 residents to expand the number of beds available for people with serious mental health and substance use disorders without getting a certificate of need.

It also would help address Georgia’s unacceptably high maternal mortality rate by encouraging more obstetric facilities to open.

One other benefit offered by House Bill 1339 is a rural hospital tax credit program that offers taxpayers a credit toward their state tax bill if they donate to qualifying medical facilities.

I’m frustrated by the incremental step that is not full Medicaid expansion. But I voted yes because it was the option on the table now.

End pay discrimination against workers who are disabled

I am proud that House Bill 1125 received unanimous support to phase out the allowance in Georgia law that “certain persons with disabilities” can be paid less than the federal minimum wage.

I appreciate the advocates in the Capitol who have been tirelessly fighting for this long overdue change.

More on the swamp

A bill signed by more than 90 House Democrats and Republicans wanting to protect the Okefenokee Swamp is still stuck in a House Committee.

But another that purports to also protect the nation’s largest blackwater swamp–but would actually facilitate nearby mining in the long run–did not survive crossover day.

House Bill 1338 was crafted in response to the Department of Natural Resources decision to allow an Alabama company to mine for titanium dioxide (a mineral used to tint paint white) three miles away from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Georgia. Twin Pines Minerals wants to dig in a 582-acre area at the Trail Ridge, the prehistoric barrier island that helped create the swamp by holding back its waters.

HB 1338 wouldn’t have stopped the Twin Pines project but it would have prevented Twin Pines from expanding its footprint for at least three years. And it would have blocked the state from accepting any new applications for dragline mining in areas where permits have not previously been issued.

Just before crossover day, the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife asked lawmakers to extend the moratorium to 10 years, not limit it to three years. The federal agency said a decade would allow scientists to gather more reliable data on the impact drilling would have on the water flow into two rivers that go into the Atlantic Ocean.

If we aren’t going to stop this project, we at least need to study the potential damage to this jewel that attracts tourists from all over and is being looked at as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Symbols of Georgia

There were many other weighty issues we discussed on crossover day, but we also took time to address Georgia’s symbols.

The House approved a bill to make the white shrimp the official state crustacean, an idea that grew from a competition of Effingham County school children.

One of the bill’s sponsors spoke of the importance of the shrimping industry to Georgia and the need to recognize it and he promised a shrimp feast later in the day.

We had barbecue.

More Town Halls

There was standing room only at our townhall at Gresham Library last week and the conversation was spirited. We ask those coming to the townhall what they want to discuss. This time it was education and public safety at the top of mind.

The next town hall will be Wednesday, March 6, 6:30-8 p.m. at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, 980 Briarcliff Road NE, Atlanta.

If you can’t meet us at Callanwolde we have a few more townhalls planned.

– March 13, 6-7:30 p.m. at Bessie Branham Recreation Center, 2051 Delano Drive, Atlanta.

– March 14, 6-8 p.m. at Neighborhood Church, 1561 McLendon Avenue NE, Atlanta.

– March 15 at Beulah Missionary Baptist Church, 2340 Clifton Springs Rd, Decatur.

– March 20, 6-7:30 p.m. at McNair High School, 1804 Bouldercrest Road SE, Atlanta.

As usual, we’ll have popcorn and drinks available for attendees.

Advocates and Constituents at the Capitol

I love seeing folks at the Capitol advocating for important issues – please say hello if you come by!

Always good to see Pastor Andi and Tamara. Pride Day at the Capitol was focused around the Senate this year, as it should be!

Vonda and Chandra came for the hearing on HB 559— Thank you for your support!

Sam, thank you for your Okefenokee advocacy!

In service,

Legislative Session Week 8 (Crossover Day)

Local tragedy spurs reactionary, discriminatory policy making

March 4, 2024