Gold Dome Live is moving!
Our new spot will allow us to get the news to you even faster and make commenting easier. Please bookmark the new site and sign up for our rss feed:
http://blogs.ajc.com/gold-dome-live/
AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2006 > March > 13 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USLawmakers 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
