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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 27
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
House approves resolution on Sudan
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s House approved a resolution Tuesday calling on President Bush and Congress to press for the end of human rights abuses and violence in Sudan.
House Resolution 273 refers to the bloody civil war in Sudan’s Darfur, citing estimates that more than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict while hundreds of thousands more have been forced from their homes.
The resolution also urges the Securities and Exchange Commission to guide Georgia’s public pension fund managers in not investing in companies connected to terrorism.
“We have genocide. We have a civil war in the Sudan, particularly in Darfur,” Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta) told the House before his resolution was approved on a 165 to 0 vote. “This is more horrendous then you can imagine. Women and children are being slaughtered.”
Brooks’ resolution on Sudan now goes to the Senate for consideration.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: politics
House votes to allow larger high school classes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A substitute House bill passed Tuesday does away with the planned class reduction for high schools.
Class sizes in grades 9-12 were to be reduced to 28 students under legislation that passed seven years ago. Implementation was delayed due to concerns about the cost of making the change.
The new legislation would allow up to 32 students in a high school math, science, social studies or language arts class. The proposal says the maximum class size can be 40 percent higher than what the state funds — one teacher per 23 students.
The bill, which now goes to the Senate, was a substitute for legislation that would have delayed the 28-student cap for two years.
Rep. Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth), chairman of the House Education Committee and sponsor of the substitute, said the new proposal gives schools more control over class sizes.
Coleman, a former principal and assistant school superintendent, said small class sizes are not as important in high school as they are in the lower grades. Class size reduction already is in effect for grades kindergarten through eight.
He said meeting the 28-student cap would be costly in terms of building more classrooms and hiring more teachers.
“We should not run the schools from the House of Representatives,” Coleman told his colleagues.
Rep. Steve Davis (R-McDonough), a supporter of the substitute, said the reduction would put 800 more Henry County students in trailers and cost nearly $4 million.
But reduction supporters said the state has a budget surplus topping $500 million, so it can afford to help local schools systems fund the smaller classes.
“This vote is about keeping campaign promises,” Rep. Kathy Ashe (D-Atlanta) said. “We need to go ahead and get the job done.”
House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) backed Coleman’s proposal.
“I don’t think there is a bit of research that indicates a difference between 28, 29 and 30,” Richardson said. “That’s all this boils down to is local systems.”
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Education
Brown’s bill on names advances in Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the quirkiest bills filed this year passed the Senate with no opposition late Tuesday evening.
The original version of Senate Bill 191 would have barred the state from naming anything in honor of Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon), who introduced the legislation. Brown said serving his constituents is enough of an honor.
But several lawmakers expressed reservations, saying the bill would usurp home rule and apply to only one person.
Instead, a Senate committee revised the bill so that it would require the secretary of state to maintain a list of people who do not want any public building, road, interchange, bridge or other public property named in their honor.
Any state agency or jurisdiction seeking to name public property in honor of someone would be required to first consult the list, called the State Memorials Registry.
The Senate approved the bill 53-0, and it now heads to the House for consideration.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: politics
House endorses HERO scholarships for spouses
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A bill that would provide scholarships to surviving spouses of Georgia National Guard soldiers or reservists killed in combat unanimously passed the House Tuesday.
House Bill 131 would provide $2,000 a year for up to four years to spouses wanting to attend college. It now goes to the Senate.
The legislation would expand the HERO scholarship, which currently covers only children of soldiers.
Earlier this month, Coweta County Solicitor Robert Stokely, whose son, Michael, was killed in Iraq in 2005, told the House Higher Education Committee the legislation would help spouses rebuild their lives.
“We shouldn’t let that hope and promise for a better future die with that soldier,” Stokely said.
Permalink | | Categories: Education
Bills would make more students eligible for HOPE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bills that would make more high school students eligible for the lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship were approved separately in the state House and Senate today.
Senators also approved a resolution that would limit lottery funding to HOPE grants and scholarships and to pre-kindergarten classes, making capital projects and technology spending for grades kindergarten through 12 ineligible.
Today is “crossover day,” meaning legislation that passed crossed over to the other chamber and stayed alive.
The House passed a bill 164-1 that would allow homeschooled students, students from nontraditional schools, and holders of a general equivalency diploma to qualify for the HOPE Scholarship if they scored in the 85th percentile on a national test, such as the SAT or the ACT.
Currently, a student who didn’t graduate with a B average from a traditional high school cannot get the scholarship until completing 30 semester hours in college and earning a 3.0. For many of those students, getting HOPE money retroactively is a financial hardship.
In the Senate, a bill unanimously passed that would weight honors courses, helping more students qualify for the HOPE Scholarship.
HOPE eligibility changes this year to a 3.0 grade point standard rather than a numerical grade of at least 80. Unlike in previous years, the Georgia Student Finance Commission will calculate the grades.
As it stands now, honors courses will not be weighted because there are no minimum state standards for those courses. Without those extra half credits, a higher percentage of students is likely to fall below the HOPE standard than in previous years.
“Students will not qualify for HOPE as a result of their desire to challenge themselves and take more difficult courses,” Sen. Michael Meyer von Bremen (D-Albany), sponsor of Senate Bill 75, told fellow lawmakers.
Meyer von Bremen’s bill also would require the state to develop minimum standards for honors courses by the end of 2009.
He said his bill is intended to correct an “inadvertent mistake” made when lawmakers raised the HOPE eligibility standard.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Education
HOPE Chest amendment approved by Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a proposed constitutional amendment this afternoon to keep lawmakers from using lottery revenue for local pork projects.
The proposed amendment, which passed 45-8, mandates that lottery revenue be used only for the HOPE scholarships, pre-kindergarten classes, and reserves for the programs. The HOPE Chest amendment, promoted by Gov. Sonny Perdue, failed last year in part because Democrats who created the HOPE scholarship didn’t want to give him political ammunition while he was running for re-election.
Perdue originally proposed the amendment after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in late 2004 that the state had spent more than $1.8 billion in lottery proceeds for things other than HOPE scholarships and pre-kindergarten classes. Included were satellite dishes, computers, school construction and other hometown projects. Those expenditures have been discontinued under Perdue.
“This is not about the past. It is not about placing blame on what was spent,” said Sen. Joseph Carter (R-Tifton), the measure’s sponsor. “It is about the future.”
The Senate approved the proposal today after amending it to reverse part of a 2004 HOPE reform law that called for reducing book and fee payments to students if lottery revenues declined. Democrats have opposed any cuts in payments to students the past few years. However, since lottery revenues have continued to climb, student book and fee payments haven’t been cut.
Carter said that if his measure is approved, lawmakers would have to vote in the future if book and fee payments to students should be cut.
The proposal now moves to the House for its consideration.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Education
House votes to reduce PeachCare eligibility
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After a long, sometimes emotional debate, the Georgia House passed a bill today that will make fewer families eligible for the state’s health care program for the children of the working poor.
The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Glenn Richardson, R-Hiram, was approved by a vote of 101-63, over the vehement objections of every member of the Democratic leadership.
The bill would reduce eligibility standards from 235 percent of the federal poverty level to 200 percent and charge PeachCare enrollees extra premiums for dental and vision coverage, both of which are now provided.
However, no child now covered will be dropped from the rolls, Richardson said, but will be “grandfathered” into the new program.
PeachCare now covers 308,000 children of Georgia’s working class families, and Democrats argued forcefully that reducing eligibility standards would prove catastrophic, not just to families but to the state’s treasury.
Just before the vote, Richardson chided some opponents for telling “cutesy jokes” to try to make their point that changing eligibility standards would be dangerous.
“It is time to quit playing games,” the speaker said before the vote.
Consumer advocates blasted the vote.
“The House took an unnecessary step backward today, forsaking children’s health by cutting PeachCare eligibility for hard working families who cannot afford private insurance,”said Lauren Waits, policy director for the Voices for Georgia’s Children advocacy group.
“We look to the Senate now to protect those kids and hold the line, ensuring that every child who is eligible for PeachCare today remains eligible in the future, as Congress reauthorizes this valuable investment in coverage that is paying off for so many Georgia kids.”
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Health Care
Senate bill requires notaries be legal residents
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Notary publics would have to prove they are legal U.S. residents under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate.
SB 50, which passed 55-0, is designed to cut into the document fraud that allows illegal immigrants to gain public benefits in Georgia, said Sen. John Douglas (R-Social Circle), sponsor of the bill. Notaries also would have to be able to read and write English under the measure.
The Senate has already passed several other bills targeting illegal immigrants, including ones that would: increase penalties for document fraud; require a Georgia driver’s license to obtain a Georgia tag; and clarify that judges and parole board members can consider someone’s immigration status in their rulings.
Permalink | | Categories: Immigration
House sends spending plan to Senate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia House issued a stinging rebuke to the state Senate over their budget standoff today before voting to send its midyear spending plan to the upper chamber.
House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans) said the Senate’s actions concerning the budget are about “politics, ambition and leverage.”
“We cannot let short-term, shortsightedness guide public policy,” Harbin told the House moments before it voted 162-0 to send the budget to the Senate. “This House has not passed an irresponsible budget. This House has passed a budget that the people of Georgia can be proud of.”
The two chambers got into a power struggle last week after Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle announced the Senate would strip House-backed projects from the plan.
The House reacted to Cagle’s announcement by yanking back the budget it had just approved, using a parliamentary technique that allowed them to ask for a vote to be reconsidered. Harbin withdrew his motion to reconsider the budget vote today and then asked the House to send the spending plan over to the Senate with a note attached: “Urgent attention required.”
Cagle issued a statement shortly after the House took action today.
“I want to commend the House for choosing the responsible course of action and moving the supplemental appropriations bill,” Cagle said. “This is positive news for the millions of Georgians who are counting on us to fund PeachCare, keep our schools operating, and provide disaster relief to several areas in our state.
“The Senate will have our version of the budget publicly available in less than 24 hours. I look forward to working closely and cooperatively with the House to resolve our different positions on state spending.”
Such budget tiffs are common late in legislative sessions, when House and Senate members stake out their positions for the biggest money battles of the session. This year the stakes are a bit higher because PeachCare and the public defender system are running out of money.
Senators say they support funding for PeachCare and public defenders, but they don’t want the midyear plan to include most other, non-emergency spending. The midyear budget for fiscal year 2007, which runs through June 30, includes $700 million in additional spending.
For instance, the House included $5 million for Gov. Sonny Perdue’s “Go Fish Georgia” fishing tourism program, nearly $6 million for several museums around the state, $1 million for the Tour de Georgia bike race, and $350,000 toward a new animal hospital at Zoo Atlanta.
In a statement Wednesday, Cagle said the Senate didn’t necessarily object to House projects. Senators just wanted to hold off funding them until next year.
The problem is that Cagle and the Senate didn’t bother telling the House or Perdue about their philosophical position on the midyear budget until the day the House approved the budget last week, only a few weeks before the end of the session.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: politics
Senate approves mental health commission
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state Senate today voted to create a commission that would study ways to improve care in Georgia’s troubled state psychiatric hospitals.
The measure, Senate Resolution 363, passed unanimously without debate on “crossover day,”; the deadline for bills to have cleared at least one chamber to be considered for final passage during this legislative session.
Sen. Johnny Grant (R-Milledgeville) filed the resolution in response to a series of articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which revealed a pattern of neglect, abuse and poor medical care in the seven state hospitals that contributed to at least 115 suspicious deaths since 2002.
The resolution would create a legislative commission that would spent two years looking at the state hospitals’; chronic overcrowding and understaffing, at diverting more patients to community-based services and at requiring insurance plans to provide the same coverage for mental health care as for other medical treatment.
The panel - consisting of legislators, a judge and citizens representing hospital patients and law enforcement agencies - also would consider reorganizing the Georgia Department of Human Resources, the agency that operates the state hospitals.
Advocates for people with mental illness applauded the Senate’s vote, which sends the measure to the House for consideration.
“I really do believe that if they do this commission the right way, they will actually see how disjointed the mental health system is,” said Ellyn Jaeger, of the Georgia chapter of Mental Health America. “It’s in serious need of fixing, and you can’t fix it until you understand it.”
Later today, the House may take up additional bills aimed at revamping the mental health system.
One, House Bill 535, would set up an ombudsman who could investigate complaints about treatment in state mental facilities and a 15-member committee to oversee that work. A subcommittee that included at least one psychiatrist and two other physicians would review deaths in state hospitals and other mental health facilities, as occurs in Illinois and New York.
Lawmakers created the ombudsman’s position in 2000 but have never approved a budget for the office.
Rep. Mark Butler (R-Carrollton), the House bills’ sponsor, said he hopes to work with the Senate during the remainder of this year’s session to craft a single mental health bill that both chambers find acceptable.
Lawmakers are working on the bills as the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department considers whether to investigate conditions in Georgia’s state hospitals, as advocates requested after publication of the Journal-Constitution articles in January. Federal intervention in other states has forced improvements in care, hospital construction and renovations costing millions of dollars. Justice Department officials have said they are reviewing the request for an investigation.
Read the AJC series: Danger and Death in Georgia’s Mental Hospitals
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Health Care
Private cities measure fails
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A resolution that would allow Georgians to decide whether private “development districts” can tax homeowners in new planned communities to pay for roads, sewers, and other improvements failed by one vote in the state Senate today.
Lawmakers voted 37-15 in favor of Senate Resolution 309 —- one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to send the proposed constitutional amendment to the House for consideration.
Initially, the Senate seemed poised to pass the two private development district proposals up for debate today. The Senate voted 37-17 in favor of Senate Bill 200, a measure that lays out the rules and regulations for the private development districts. But SR 309, the proposed constitutional amendment that Georgia voters would have to approve for the development districts to exist, received only 37 votes - one less than the 38 necessary for passage.
Sen. Johnny Grant (R-Milledgeville), the bill’s sponsor, argued that the proposals, if approved, would be a benefit to cash-strapped governments because development districts allow for infrastructure to be paid for by private developers instead of taxpayers.
“It should be one of the tools available to local governments,” Grant said.
The legislation had the backing of several of the state’s largest private developers, home builders, real estate agents and contractors. Development districts lower the costs of building out large planned communities, and allow developers to transfer those costs to homeowners.
Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon) spoke against the bill and resolution.
“This bill is a radical departure from the way people have done development business in Georgia,” Brown said.
“It does not kill this bill to hold it over. As it stands now, we are moving rapidly on a bill that I think potentially could do a lot of harm to the people of Georgia.”
The Senate at 1 p.m. voted in favor of reconsidering SR 309. Typically, a bill or resolution that is up for reconsideration goes back to the general calendar for a vote the next legislative day. However, because today is the deadline for a bill or proposed constitutional amendment to pass one chamber, the Senate voted in favor of suspending a procedural rule to allow for a reconsideration vote on SR 309 today. Sen. Steve Thompson (D-Powder Springs), who supports the development district legislation, made a motion to table the bill for the moment, because it appeared the resolution still did not have the 38 votes necessary for passage.
The reconsideration vote could come up at any time today.
Similar legislation failed last year.
Senate begins long day with skirmish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 30th day of the 2007 Legislative session kicked with off with a political skirmish in the Senate between metro Atlanta’s Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
Several Democrats raised concerns about two measures that were not expected to create debate. Yet, the Senate spent about 30 minutes arguing over the proposals - before taking up the main calendar, which is jam-packed with nearly 70 bills.
Today is “cross-over day” in the General Assembly, the legislative deadline for a bill to pass one chamber. Lawmakers are expected to work late into the evening debating and voting on a crush of legislation.
SB 306, sponsored by Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), creates a Fulton County Water Authority. Several lawmakers, including Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta) and Sen. Horacena Tate (D-Atlanta), said they did not have enough time to review the bill. The proposal would take the water and sewage distribution and treatment services handled by the city of Atlanta and Fulton County and turn it over to a new authority.
“It is going to ruin the city’s water system,” Sen.Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) said after the vote. “It will take away $70 million from the city of Atlanta. It’s not good for the city, or ultimately,the region.”
The measure passed 32-24, and heads to the House.
SB 312, also sponsored by Shafer, would give Fulton County Superior Court judges a raise. Sen. Fort said he did not think judges wanted such a back-door approach to pay raises. That measure also passed and heads to the House for consideration.
A few minutes later in the morning, the Senate approved several non-controversial resolutions, including: SR 47: Expresses profound regret for Georgia’s participation in eugenics; SR 270: Urges the Capitol Arts Standards Commission to authorize the placement of a statue honoring former governor and U.S. Sen. Zell Miller on the Capitol grounds; SR 246: Creates a Joint Study Committee to review and offer recommendations to improve the state’s indigent defense system, which is facing a funding crisis; and SR 355: Creates a Joint Study Committee to look at overhauling the state’s Medicaid program.
Author=Sonji Jacobs
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Miscellaneous
Payday lending falls short in House
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia lawmakers today rejected a bid to legalize payday lending.
The state House voted 82-77 for House Bill 163, but that was short of the 91 votes needed to send the measure on to the Senate.
Georgia legislators shut down the payday lending industry with a tough law passed in 2004.
The industry markets high-interest loans that are advances on a worker’s next paycheck. The cost of borrowing is usually greater than 300 percent annually.
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