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LYNN'S LIST

 

LYNN’S LIST FOR APRIL 5, 2021


There will be no advocacy this week. Instead, here is a recap of what happened under the Gold Dome: the good, the bad and the ugly.  The bills that were part of our advocacy are marked with an asterisk.  The bills that were part of our advocacy that failed to pass out of committee or never “crossed over” because they never received a chamber vote are listed at the end.

 

The Good:

 

House Bill 479. The overhaul of Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law was PASSED unanimously by the House, which sent the repeal of the 1863 law to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk. The bill was on the books allowing citizens to arrest and detain escaped enslaved people. Georgia is a leader on the law’s repeal.  Only two other states (NC and WA) prohibit citizen’s arrests.

 

House Bill 218, the gun “reciprocity” bill FAILED to pass. The proposal to loosen gun restrictions passed the Senate. House Speaker David Ralston is a big gun rights proponent but said the timing for the bill, two weeks after mass shootings in Atlanta and Colorado, wasn’t right.  Be on the lookout for this bill to be on the 2022 agenda.

 

Senate Bill 115, which would have given new Georgia drivers instructions about interacting with police during a traffic stop, FAILED in the Senate 23-26. This was a terrible bill.  Opponents of this bill said that it was putting the responsibility of police behavior in the hands of the citizen, not the police.

 

HB 146, paid parental leave, PASSED. This grants three weeks of paid leave to “all eligible” state employees and local board of education employees in the event of the birth of a child or the placement of an adopted or fostered minor child. Eligibility and time allowed are specified by length of time of employment. Applies regardless of whether the person is eligible under federal law. Approximately 250,000 state employees will be affected by this bill. The work Georgia Women did on this for County employees has become law for state employees.

 

*HB 163, Medicaid Eligibility PASSED.  This law automatically enrolls and renews into Medicaid the many children who apply for and are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP-- food stamps).

 

*HB 276 FAILED to pass. This bill would require transgender students to compete in sports according to their "reproductive biology and genetics" identified at birth. Just another bad idea born of misunderstanding of science, fear, and lack of compassion for transgender teens. In fact, all the antitransgender bills failed to advance or pass.

 

*HB 511, trust fund honesty, formally dedicates fees collected to plan and carry out remediation of legacy hazardous sites and provide consistent funds for local governments to address scrap tire dumps and problems arising at local solid waste handling facilities. This law has been ten years in the making.

 

 

The Bad:

 

HB 286 Police Department Budgets

Restricts the ability of local governments to reduce police budgets by limiting the reduction to no more than 5% in one year or 55 cumulatively over the course of five years. A response to the idea that cities and counties will try to defund police entirely. This is a power grab that takes local control away from communities that are best what their communities need.

 

The Ugly:

 

*By now you have read many articles and seen TV reports about SB 202 changing Georgia’s election laws. 

There are a few good aspects of the bill:

  • No excuse absentee voting remains in place. Anyone can request to vote by absentee ballot.

  • Automatic Voter Registration remains. When you apply for a drivers’ license, you are registered unless you opt out.

  • Early voting in person on weekends remains with 2 mandated Saturdays and 2 optional Sundays. The Sunday provision helped alleviate those wanting to conduct “Souls to the Polls” voting events.

  • Overseas and military voters will receive two absentee ballots, one for the election and one for a runoff and use ranked choice voting for the runoff ballot.

  • Election offices can begin processing (not tabulating) absentee ballots in advance of election day.  This was allowed under emergency authorization for the 2020 election and 2021 runoff but it is now incorporated into law.

Not so good aspects of the law:

  • Use of ID requirements may disenfranchise voters who lack correct forms of ID or for whom obtaining those forms is difficult.

  • The absentee ballot request period has been cut by more than half. And the last chance to request has been moved from 3 days to 11 days before the election.

  • The time period for a county to mail out an absentee ballot has been cut almost in half.

  • Drop boxes now are limited to a minimum of 1 per county and a maximum of 1 per every 100,000 active voters in the county. DeKalb County had 32 drop boxes in 2020. It will now have 8. 

  • Drop boxes will be located only inside early voting locations and only during voting hours and they must be guarded by an election official or law enforcement. 

  • The time period between an election and a runoff has been reduced from 9 weeks to 28 days.

  • Early voting is expanded in a lot of small counties, but probably not in more populous ones.

  • Offering food or water to voters waiting in line now risks misdemeanor charges. How cruel is that in the Georgia heat?

  • As punishment for the Secretary of State’s office mailing out absentee ballot applications to all registered voters, it’s now illegal for election officials to do so.

The very bad aspects of the law which takes power away from local Boards of Elections and gives it to the state:

  • An individual may protest an unlimited number of those registering to vote.

  • The General Assembly will elect the chair of the SEB. Secretary of State, SOS, will be a non voting ex-officio member, giving the legislature more control of elections.

  • The state election superintendent will be appointed by the State Elections Board, (SEB) instead of the elected Secretary of State being the chief election official.

  • SEB may suspend a county election superintendent and appoint a temporary replacement.

  • SEB has the power to suspend the election superintendent if there is evidence of 3 violations of law or rule in the last two general election cycles.

  • The Attorney General may establish and maintain a hotline for voters to file complaints and allegations of voter intimidation and illegal election activity anonymously. Currently, the SOS maintains a hotline. 

  • Election officials can no longer accept third-party funding. The grants funding the 2020and 2021 elections were a godsend in helping fund local elections without a burden on the taxpayers.

  • Mobile voting centers are essentially banned, punishing populous Fulton County for huge voter turnout.

 

 

Bills that did not pass out of committee, did not get a committee hearing, failed to pass the appropriate chamber or failed to be taken up by the other chamber:

 

HB72 a bill to expand Medicaid from six months to one year after birth died in committee.

 

HB57 a bill to provide free breast pumps by the Department of Health to incarcerated women died in committee.

 

HB120, a bill to allow instate tuition for DACA recipients died in chamber.

 

SB15, a bill to require a new category of coursework in the history of Black people and their contributions to society for high school students died in committee.

 

 HB272, a bill to raise the age of majority for juvenile offenders died in chamber.

 

HB145, a bill to ban chokeholds by police died in committee.

 

HB233, a bill banning no-knock warrants died in committee.

 

HB228, a bill to redesign driver’s licenses to include “NOT A US CITIZEN--NOT VOTER ID” died in committee.

 

HR52, a resolution to allocate funding to study the effects of childhood lead exposure died in chamber.

 

There are 83 weeks until the 2022 midterm elections. As always, it’s a marathon and not a sprint.There will be no Lynn’s List next week.  Lynn is taking a well deserved break.

 

The link to your legislators is here

Stay safe and wear your mask, even if you are fully vaccinated.

 

 

 

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