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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 19
Monday, March 19, 2007
Committee favors relaxing rules for construction crews
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Construction crews would no longer need to be trained in keeping dirt out of nearby streams under a bill that passed the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee today.
Rep. Tom McCall (R-Elberton) introduced House Bill 463 on behalf of a constituent who is president of the state plumbers association. He said his bill protects small businesses.
McCall also wants to make sure “the guy running a backhoe for 40 years and can’t read or write wouldn’t lose his job.”
Environmental groups oppose the bill, saying it breaks a promise made to them four years ago when they agreed to help the development industry reduce the red tape.
Neill Herring, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, said “Obviously its a controversial bill. Its chances of passage on the House floor in its current form are not that good. There’s some attempt at compromise being talked about by both sides.”
The state’s Environmental Protection Division director has spoken out against the bill.
In 2003, the two groups collaborated on amendments to the state erosion and sedimentation law. In return for less paperwork and fewer requirements to monitor nearby streams, home builders and other contractors agreed to educate their workers on how to properly install silt fences and retention ponds, and use other devices to prevent mud from running off construction sites.
By January, more than 30,000 architects, landscape designers, electricians, plumbers, backhoe operators and other contractors had attended one or two-day seminars and passed the test for state certification. The state spent $900,000 creating the curriculum and setting up the classes.
Under McCall’s amendment, most of those workers would not need the certification. Only one person in charge of the residential or commercial construction site would need the certification, and that person would not have to be at the site.
Rep. John Heard (R-Lawrenceville), an architect, said he was certified and found the course helpful.
“The intent is to keep silt contamination out of streams,” Heard said. Plan designers and construction crews are “the front-line source of defense.”
Heard and Reps. Bob Holmes (D-Atlanta) and Brian Thomas (D-Lilburn) offered amendments to McCall’s bill that would have required trained professionals be on site whenever crews clear cut trees, dug trenches or moved dirt, but all failed by votes of 10 to 11. The bill passed by a 13 to 7 vote.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Environment
Committee backs concealed guns bill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A bill allowing motorists to conceal weapons anywhere inside of a vehicle cleared another legislative hurdle today.
Current Georgia law requires that loaded weapons inside motor vehicles be placed in a glove box, center console or exposed to plain view, unless the motorist holds a firearms permit.
House Bill 89, sponsored by Rep. Timothy Bearden (R-Villa Rica), would allow anyone eligible for a permit — including those with no felony criminal record or history of mental illness — to hide a firearm anywhere inside of a motor vehicle.
The Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police is opposing the bill, and some of its members testified against it in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The committee voted 7-4 to move the bill forward to the Senate Rules Committee, which decides which bills go on to a vote of the full Senate. The bill has already passed the House.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: politics
King portrait action delayed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A proposal to hang a portrait of Coretta Scott King in the state Capitol could come up for a vote in a House committee as early as next week.
A vote was scheduled for today, but it was canceled after Rep. Roberta Abdul-Salaam (D-Riverdale) didn’t show up to present the measure at a House Special Rules Committee hearing.
Committee chairman Calvin Hill (R-Canton) said Abdul-Salaam left a telephone message for him this morning, saying she could not make it to the hearing because of an illness.
The committee “very likely” would have passed the resolution had Abdul-Salaam showed up to present it, Hill said. He added that he might schedule a new hearing for the bill next week.
Abdul-Salaam’s resolution calls King a hero who “played a leading role in advocating social change across the nation.” The measure calls on the Capitol Arts Standards Commission to authorize hanging a portrait of her on the second floor of the Capitol building next to one of late husband Martin Luther King Jr.
Similar legislation died in the House last year after critics raised concerns about hanging portraits of people who are not elected and not from Georgia in the Capitol building.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: politics
Exonerated prisoner closer to compensation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s House of Representatives has approved $1.2 million in compensation for Robert Clark, who was exonerated by DNA evidence after spending more than 23 years in Georgia prisons for a rape he did not commit.
The money — to be paid to Clark over the next 15 years— is meant to compensate him for the time he spent in prison, his lost wages and emotional distress.
Clark, 46, who spent time in the state’s toughest prison in Reidsville, has said he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia as a result of his incarceration. He also contracted Hepatitis C while getting a tattoo in prison, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.
Clark watched the vote in the House of Representatives chamber from the balcony. “I feel great,” he told reporters as he left Capitol after the vote. “I’m adjusting. It’s slow, but I’m adjusting.”
Clark told reporters he intends to buy a house now. He also plans to continue working in construction despite the state compensation, so he can save for his retirement, said Lisa George, communications director of the Georgia Innocence Project, which is helping Clark adjust to life after prison.
“It’s a struggle every day,” George said about Clark’s efforts to get on with his life after prison. “The guy was 21 years old and an eighth-grade drop out when he went into prison. Obviously, he didn’t get the skills he needed in prison to walk back out on the street in 2005 and function the way both personally and professionally a middle-aged man would.”
Clark’s case stems from the brutal robbery and rape of a 29-year-old woman outside in 1981. She was abducted outside an East Atlanta fast food restaurant and then taken to Cobb County where she was raped repeatedly.
Clark was found guilty — after being identified by the victim — during a 1982 trial and sentenced to two life sentences plus 20 years in prison for rape, kidnapping and armed robbery.
Clark, who maintained his innocence from the day he was arrested, filed a petition for DNA testing under Georgia’s post-conviction testing law. The test concluded his DNA did not match the sperm from the victim’s rape kit.
Nationwide, 197 people have been exonerated by DNA to date, according to the Georgia Innocence Project. Six of them are from Georgia. Clark would be the third to be compensated by the state.
The House gave Clark a standing ovation before voting 132-25 for the resolution, which was sponsored by Rep. Larry O’Neal (R-Bonaire). The resolution now goes to the Senate for consideration.
“I am most amazed by Mr. Clark’s demeanor and attitude,” O’Neal said. “He is not angry. He is not bitter. And he is not vindictive. He is just grateful to be alive, free, working and back with his family.”
Immediately after the House voted for his compensation, Clark said: “This is so great. I just wish my mother were here to see it,” according to George, who was sitting next to him in the balcony.
Clark’s mother, George said, passed away at age 88 in 2004 while Clark was still in prison seeking his exoneration.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: politics
HIV tests for pregnant women backed by House
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia doctors would be required to offer HIV tests to pregnant women under a bill that won approval in the House of Representatives today.
House Bill 429 would also require doctors to refer infected women to counseling and medical services.
Women would have the option to refuse the HIV tests. But their refusals would be recorded in their medical records.
Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta) told the House she is sponsoring the bill to protect babies from HIV. Her bill passed on a 140-14 vote. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.
Permalink | | Categories: politics
House OKs plan on ultrasound for women seeking abortion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A woman seeking an abortion in Georgia would be offered the chance to view an ultrasound image of her fetus under a bill passed by the state House today.
The chamber approved House Bill 147 by a vote of 116 to 54 after a lengthy debate by lawmakers.
“If all of us — no matter where we’re at — if we hate to see an abortion take place no matter what, why not support a bill that gives a woman all the facts before she makes such a critical decision?” said state Rep. James Mills (R-Gainesville), the bill’s sponsor.
Lawmakers have changed the bill’s language significantly since Mills introduced the measure. Initially, the bill would have required doctors to perform an ultrasound and then offer a woman the chance to see the images. The ultrasound is no longer mandatory under the bill.
At another point, lawmakers included language that would have required a woman to have 15 minutes of reflection time prior to an abortion. That language was removed.
State Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Atlanta) thanked Mills for working with lawmakers on the bill’s language but spoke against the measure, arguing that it interferes with the doctor-patient relationship. She said her main concern is that the bill may be confusing to women.
“I don’t think this bill prevents unintended pregnancies,” Benfield said. “In my opinion this is not going to have a big impact. Let’s work on making birth control less expensive and more widely available. Let’s fully fund family planning clinics in Georgia.”
Georgia Right to Life has lobbied in favor of the bill since last year, while abortion-rights groups such as Planned Parent of Georgia have opposed the measure and argued for lawmakers to support comprehensive sex education and family planning services as a more effective way of preventing abortions.
A similar proposal sponsored by Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) is in the Senate Rules Committee. Senate Bill 66 also may come to the floor for a vote soon. The Senate last year approved a more restrictive ultrasound measure that would have required women to have a sonogram prior to an abortion.
Permalink | | Categories: politics
House to vote on mid-year budget today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A mid-year budget that bails out both the PeachCare health insurance program for children and the indigent defense system won approval from the House Appropriations Committee this morning.
The $19.4 billion mid-year spending plan, which runs through June 30, is expected to win approval of the full House Tuesday.
It contains $73 million to fill a shortfall in PeachCare, which provides health insurance to about 300,000 children of working poor families. It also includes an extra $8 million for the program because of a sudden increase in the number of children on PeachCare. That run-up occurred when the Department of Community Health said it was shutting off new enrollment earlier this month because of the funding shortfall, said House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans).
Harbin said the state is hoping Congress will act in coming weeks to reimburse the state for the original $73 million shortfall. PeachCare is a joint state-federal program. Lawmakers delayed the end of the 2007 session in hopes Congress would act, but so far, that hasn’t happened.
“Hopefully, this is going to settled before we get out of here,” Harbin said.
The mid-year spending plan also includes almost $9.6 million to keep the state’s public defender system afloat. The shortfall had threatened to derail murder trials across the state.
While solving two major funding problems, the mid-year budget also provided money for pet projects for key lawmakers.
For instance, the spending plan adds an extra $300,000 Harbin supported for the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame in Augusta and $5 million in design money for a new Medical College of Georgia dental school facility in Augusta. Harbin represents suburbs of Augusta. The mid-year budget includes $19,000 for library equipment on St. Simons Island, home of House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island), as well as $1 million to build a new driver’s license facility in nearby Brunswick.
The plan has $125,000 for the Historic Chattahoochee Commission, which promotes tourism and historic preservation along the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley. The money was requested by House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain). Another $100,000 would go to Robins Air Force Base’s aviation museum, spending backed by House Ways & Means Chairman Larry O’Neal (R-Bonaire).
After passing the House, the measure will head to the Senate for its consideration.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Budget
