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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2006 > March > 13
Monday, March 13, 2006
Constitutional amendment for HOPE falters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Passage of a major piece of Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue’s election year agenda - a constitutional amendment on lottery funding of HOPE and pre-kindergarten - was hinging late Monday on an 11th hour change of heart by the Georgia House.
House Democrats early in the day blocked Perdue’s proposal from getting the required 91 votes, or two-thirds majority, required for a constitutional amendment.
But the full House later agreed to reconsider and then table the measure, leaving open the possibility that it could be brought back up for another vote in the final hours of a marathon Crossover Day.
Crossover Day, set by the GOP majority as the 30th day of the 40-day session, is generally considered the deadline for bills to clear one chamber and have a chance of becoming law.
Perdue’s bill failed in the state Senate last month, based on a similar block vote by Democrats.
In the House, where the vote was 102 to 68, supporters argued that a constitutional amendment would ensure that lottery funds are preserved for the highly popular HOPE scholarship and voluntary pre-kindergarten programs.
Opponents argued that Georgia voters already passed a constitutional amendment in 1998 that declares those two programs to be the funding priorities. Democrats also have suggested that Perdue wants to use the amendment to show he’s a champion of HOPE and to deflect criticism about his past record, particularly his proposal in 1994 to cut payments for students’ books and college fees.
House Higher Education Committee Chairman Bill Hembree (R-Douglasville) said the constitutional amendment will preserve “the greatest program in the educational history of this state.
Hembree said $1.8 billion - that could have been bankrolled for HOPE and pre-kindergarten - has been spent over the years on school metal detectors, satelitte dishes, computers, school construct and other projects of questionable merit.
“In 2002, $300,000 went to GPTV (Georgia Public Television) so our students could watch panda bears,” Hembree said.
State Rep. Kathy Ashe (D-Atlanta) argued that the amendment “doesn’t end tinkering.”
She said it does eliminate the options that voters have signed off on to use some lottery funding that doesn’t take from HOPE and pre-k for technology and school construction.
Permalink | | Categories: Breaking news
House rejects pharmacists’ “right to choose”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia House balked Monday at passing legislation that would allow pharmacists to refuse on moral or religious grounds to fill any prescription that they believe could terminate a pregnancy.
But House members later agreed to reconsider their 82 to 78 vote, which was nine votes shy of a 91-vote majority. That left open the possibility that the measure could be brought back for yet another vote in the final hours of a marathon “crossover day.”
By tradition, bills that don’t pass at least one chamber by the end of crossover day are generally considered dead for the 40-day session. A bill similar to HB 1445 has already cleared the state Senate.
On a crossover calendar packed with 60 bills, the bill by Rep. James Mills (R-Gainesville) sparked one of the liveliest debates.
Mills argued that a pharmacist or pharmacy employee “should not be put in a position to lose his livelihood over his strong moral beliefs.”
He said his bill would give pharmacists protection similar to ones offered to doctors, nurses and hospitals that object to abortions and refuse to perform them. “He [the pharmacist] should have the right to choose,” Mills said.
Opponents argued that the bill is an attempt to interfere in women’s reproductive and could be detrimental to rape victims and other women who use certain contraceptives.
“I don’t understand how this General Assembly can continue to pass legislation that infringes on women’s rights,” said state Rep. Douglas Dean (D-Atlanta).
State Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan (D-Austell) argued that, if they passed the bill, lawmakers would be interfering with private decisions made by a woman and her doctor.
“We’re injecting ourselves once again in the bedrooms,” she said. “Control seems to be the theme of this Republican legislation. Control everything.”
State Rep. Jeanette Jaimeson (D-Toccoa) said passage of the bill could create a hardship in rural areas of her state that have only one pharmacy.
Mills’ bill says a pharmacist who puts in writing his or her objections to abortion would not have to fill a prescription if he or she believes the drug would have “the effect or possible effect of terminating a pregnancy.
It states that a pharmacist who rejects a prescription on that basis cannot be disciplined or face other recriminatory action. It requires that the pharmacist “make all reasonable efforts” to locate another pharmacist who is willing to fill the prescription.
On March 2, the Senate approved three anti-abortion bills, including one sponsored by Sen. Jim Whitehead Sr. (R-Evans) that would protect from disciplinary action pharmacists who refuse to dispense medication that terminates a pregnancy. Planned Parenthood and other groups have said they favor the Senate bill over Mill’s legislation and say it would not affect emergency contraception such as Plan B.
Permalink | | Categories: Breaking news
Lawmakers busy on “crossover day”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Legislators began the marathon race this morning to push through bills they hope to pass this year. Bills must pass either the House or the Senate by the end of the day to have a shot at becoming law.
By noon, the House had passed about 11 of the 60 bills on its calendar. The Senate was moving at a faster clip and had passed 17 of the 49 bills it was scheduled to consider.
In the House, most of the bills drew few questions and no debate.
An exception was House Bill 1473, which Democrats hope to use to force a change in the state’s estate recovery plan to seek reimbursement from patients who receive long-term care through Medicaid.
The bill would raise the cap on assets that cannot be touched from $25,000 to $100,000. The state recently notified nursing home patients that it would seek their assets when they die to reimburse the government for Medicaid services .
State Rep. DuBose Porter (D-Dublin), the Democratic leader in the House, argued that a higher threshold would prevent the elderly from having to choose between Medicaid or their homes.
About 40,000 Georgians have received letters from the state telling them it will launch the asset collection program in May.
Debate also started at 11:40 a.m. on one of the other big measures on the calendar, Gov. Sonny Perdue’s bill to protect HOPE scholarship money.
The Senate’s Republican leadership had predicted a fairly smooth day instead of the usual frenzy that characterizes “crossover day.”
“It appears that we’re on track to finish our business today,” said Preston Smith (R-Rome), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Most of the controversial bills introduced in the Senate this year have already been debated - such as a bill requiring voters to show a government-issued photo identification at the polls - leaving today’s calendar relatively non-controversial.
Early in the day the Senate approved a proposal for a constitutional amendment that would give the state’s senior citizens a tax break by a vote of 49-2.
Senate Resolution 1085 would give people age 70 and older a tax exemption for the first $100,000 of all income beginning Jan. 1, 2009. The measure also excludes retirement income up to $75,000 from income tax for Georgians between 62 and 70 years of age.
Sen. Casey Cagle (R-Gainesville), who is running for Lt. Governor this year, sponsored the original bill, and Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna) and Tim Golden (D-Valdosta) offered two amendments, which were accepted by the Senate. Their amendments raised the cap on non-taxable income from $50,000, the limit in the original bill.
The resolution now goes to the House for approval. The measure also needs the governor’s signature and then must be approved by Georgia voters in a referendum to become law.
The Senate’s GOP leadership also decided to delay until next year a vote on a potentially controversial bill to create the City of Dunwoody. Sen. Dan Weber (R-Dunwoody) said Saturday that the postponement of Senate Bill 568 would give voters more time to consider the pros and cons of incorporating the north DeKalb community, which has an estimated population of 40,000.
Weber’s bill, if approved by the Legislature and Gov. Sonny Perdue, would have let voters decide in a referendum whether they’d like a city government of their own with a mayor and council.
The Senate approved a resolution creating a North Fulton Boundary Commission to study the boundaries of Alpharetta, Mountain Park, Roswell, and if approved by the General Assembly this year, the cities of Milton and Riverside.
Lawmakers also approved the creation of a Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission and a Georgia Broadband Education Task Force to educate citizens about the new technology and encourage its use in the state.
A proposal to create a newborn umbilical cord blood bank at one or more of the state’s public universities sailed through the Senate shortly before noon with a vote of 54-0.
Senate Bill 596 initially set off a firestorm of debate among lawmakers, scientists, advocates for patients with degenerative and debilitating diseases, and conservative Christian groups because of a provision that would have banned some forms of embryonic stem cell research.
Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), the bill’s sponsor, ultimately decided to remove the controversial language.The measure encourages non-embryonic stem cell research through the use of the by-products of pregnancy such as umbilical cords, placenta and amniotic fluid, but does not in any way ban, prohibit or criminalize research in Georgia on stem cells derived from human embryos.
On Monday, Shafer renamed his bill, “Keyone’s Law” in recognition of a young Georgian who was treated with non-embryonic stem cells for sickle cell anemia.
The Capitol hallways were bustling throughout the morning, with lobbyists huddled near blaring TVs tuned to the goings-on in the House and the Senate, teenage pages scurrying around and the usual crowds of schoolchildren and other visitors.
Anthony Hines, who runs the shoeshine stand, was expecting a busy day and customers who are more fretful than usual. “It’s an important day. It’s crossover day. Everybody’s concerned about their own issues.”
Unlike lawmakers and lobbyists, Hines said he planned to go home at 5 p.m. “Last year, I stayed on crossover until 6:30 or 7, but I didn’t get a shoeshine after 5.”
Nearby, labor lobbyist Rickey Crawford Sr. stood against a rail reading the Macon Telegraph. He’d already had his shoes shined.
“It’s just a real tense day,” he said. A tax-break bill he has been working toward never made it out of committee, he said, but he hoped it would get attached Monday as an amendment to another bill. Crossover day is “long, frustrating,” he said. So he was killing time. “You walk around and go to the snack bar and talk to people, read the newspaper, keep from getting bored.”
Reita Mendum, director of the House page staff, was busy keeping 37 pages organized. “Some of them get overly exited,” she said, peering at a row of neatly dressed middle and high school students fidgeting as they waited on benches outside the House. Most pages work only one day at the Capitol. Mendum said she expected to stay until about 10 or 11 p.m. “Some will stay with me, I hope, until the bitter end.”
Permalink | | Categories: Breaking news
Wineries could get break with “tasting” permits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wine tasting could become more prevalent at the various festivals held annually around Georgia under legislation that cleared the House Monday by a vote of 142 to 15.
House Bill 1168 would allow wineries to obtain a single annual permit that would allow them to set up tasting rooms at festivals held throughout the year. They currently have to get a separate permit for each festival.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Breaking news
Legislative Homestretch
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Has the Legislature addressed any issues of substance so far? Today is “crossover day” in the Georgia Legislature - the 30th of 40 days of lawmaking. Any bill that hasn’t “crossed” from one chamber to another after today has a slim chance of becoming law. So far, key bills on abortion, immigration, eminent domain and self-defense have passed either the House or the Senate. Are there any key issues still out there that you’d like to see make it to the governor’s desk for signature?
