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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2009 > March > 03
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
House goes 3-for-3 on transportation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
All three transportation measures up in the House on Tuesday were — finally — approved and sent to the Senate.
HR 206, which asks voters to amend the state constitution, would levy a 1 percent state sales tax to fund transportation projects. It also changes how sales tax from motor fuels are distributed — the fourth penny of the tax from fuel sales would go to transportation rather than the general fund.
HB 277 creates a trust fund for that sales tax money and a new committee to oversee it. It also designates the DOT as the organization to receive federal transportation funds.
SB 39, as amended, would allow MARTA to use a little more of its money for operations. Current law requires half to go toward operations and half toward maintenance; the bill as adopted in the House would increase that to 60-40 operations-to-maintenance.
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Senate passes stricter voter registration requirements
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Voters would have to prove their U.S. citizenship with documents when registering to vote under a bill that passed the Senate Tuesday.
Supporters say the bill would prevent illegal immigrants from voting in Georgia and prevent voter fraud. Opponents say the measure amounts to a poll tax on poor Georgians who don’t have identification papers and would have to pay money to get them.
County voter registrars would be required to reject any voter registration application that does not include a birth certificate, passport, naturalization document, or driver’s license that proves U.S. citizenship, according to Senate Bill 86. Other documents could be accepted as well, such as a Bureau of Indian Affairs card number or tribal enrollment number. The measure passed the Senate 34 to 20 and must now go to the House.
Secretary of State Karen Handel applauded the bill’s passage, calling it “common sense legislation that will further strengthen the integrity and confidence in our elections by ensuring that only U.S. citizens are able to vote.”
Many African-American legislators argued with passion that Senate Bill 86 reminds them of tactics used in the state during the time when people were denied the right to vote because of their race.
“We’re harkening back to a time that many of us thought was a by-gone time,” said Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta).
“It will create an impediment to registering and ultimately an impediment to voting,” Fort said.
The League of Women Voters opposes the legislation, as well, saying birth certificates are easily forged. The group also argued that citizenship documents often do not reflect an immigrant’s current name.
Right now, all people registering to vote have to swear that they are a citizen, but they don’t have to prove it with paperwork.
The new procedures would take effect Jan. 1, 2010. The requirements would not apply to anyone already registered to vote in Georgia before the end of this year, so long as they remain continuously on the voter rolls.
Secretary of State Karen Handel ran into opposition last fall when her office began verifying citizenship of voters.
Voting rights groups sued Handel in U.S. District Court in Atlanta last fall to seek to halt the state’s attempt to verify the identities and citizenship of registered voters close to the Nov. 4 election.
A federal three-judge panel later ruled that Handel could continue checking citizenship, but the system ultimately would be subject to pre-clearance by the Department of Justice.
Handel celebrated the ruling at the time.
The suit came the day after the U.S. Department of Justice said the state’s actions to verify identity and citizenship appear to violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law requires states with a history of discriminatory voting practices to get approval from the federal government before making certain changes to voting and election policy.
The DOJ has requested more information about the program, said Matt Carrothers, a spokesman for Handel. Handel’s office is working with the Georgia Attorney General’s office to provide that information, he said.
Handel’s office asked counties to check the status of about 5,000 individuals statewide whose driver’s license records indicated they were not citizens, but who had registered to vote, according to Handel’s office.
The Secretary of State’s office double-checks information on all newly registered voters and also on established voters if they change their name, driver’s license number or Social Security number, Carrothers said.
Bill sponsor, Sen. Cecil Staton (R-Macon) said the legislation is necessary to prevent illegal immigrants from voting.
He could not say how many illegal immigrants may have voted in Georgia, but he said it could be “hundreds.”
Out of 599 people who voted challenge ballots in the presidential election because of questions about their citizenship, 230 ballots were rejected because of lack of documentation of citizenship, Staton said.
Sen. Steve Thompson (D-Marietta) said the bill is not about illegal immigrants but about hindering access to the polls for poor Georgians.
“This is about the poor, the elderly, the infirm, who have a hard time getting out to vote,” Thompson said. This bill would harm their ability to vote because it would be difficult to get the proper paperwork, Thompson said.
Record-keeping in Georgia is not always what it should be, Thompson said. Others argued that births were often recorded in the family Bible, not the town hall.
Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta) said Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s own mother did not have the correct documents to register to vote when she moved here from North Carolina. The elderly woman was born in a rural area and did not have a birth certificate, Orrock said.
Sen. Gloria Butler (D-Stone Mountain) rose to say that she herself did not have a proper birth certificate and had to pay money to get one. “My mother’s maiden name was spelled wrong, so I had to spend some extra money,” Butler said.
Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) added that about 300,000 Georgians didn’t even have Georgia driver’s licenses.
Sen. Gail Buckner (D-Morrow) said many people in her district would be affected by this legislation, especially the elderly, who often don’t have documents.
“The elderly see this as an affront to their honesty,” Buckner said.
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UPDATED: House approves first transportation bill; two more to go
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House has approved legislation creating a statewide 1-cent sales tax to fund transportation projects, the first bill in a series of measures dealing with roads and bridges lawmakers will consider today.
HB 277 required a simple majority to pass. The bill, adopted 149-18, creates a transportation trust fund, and a requisite oversight committee to manage the new money.
The bill also creates a wish-list of projects that features road construction and improvement, passenger and high-speed rail and smaller, more local projects. But not even the bill’s sponsors argue that the sales tax will raise enough money to fund all the projects.
Before the vote, the House adopted a pair of amendments proposed by House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin) that would have the effect of making the Department of Transportation the designated recipient of federal highway funds. The second amendment gave House and Senate Democrats each an appointment to the trust fund oversight committee.
The outcome sets up a showdown with the Senate, which has adopted its own transportation funding plan. The Senate chose a regional approach, allowing regions to vote to add a new sales tax. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has called the House plan a huge tax increase.
If a lot of this sounds familiar, it should. That’s because last year the House approved a similar funding plan (although that was a regional approach the House wanted, while the Senate wanted a county-by-county approach), but it died in the waning days of the session.
UPDATE: The second one is down now, too, as the House voted 151-15 to approve HR 206, constitutional amendment that actually levies the 1-cent sales tax. the vote was never in doubt, after all. But it sure is interesting to note that Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) was standing in the back of the chamber when teh vote took place.
HR 206 also included a Democratic-proposed amendment, one that captures $180 million in sales tax from the sale of motor fuels and takes it from the general funds and puts it toward transportation.
While the vote was anti-climatic, it is one of the House leadership’s top priorities.
UPDATE: Chaos has descended on the House. SB 39, which gives MARTA greater flexibility in spending its revenues, was on the track toward passage.
But then Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta) proposed an amendment preventing the system from investing its money in speculative stock market or real estate development deals. Chambers, who chairs a MARTA oversight committee, was concerned over past investments.
Her amendment passed, but then several lawmakers began to realize her amendment could prevent MARTA from building new stations, expanding rail lines or investing in park-and-ride lots.
Chambers’ amendment was reconsidered and confusion set in. Finally, lawmakers agreed to table the bill and come back to it some other time. But House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) said it won’t be today.
UPDATE: OK, we’re back on the Yo-Yo and we’re back on SB 39. Don’t ask how or why. We just are.
Chambers pulled her offending amendment and replaced it with a substitute that makes clear she only wants to prevent MARTA from risking public funds on the stock market or speculative real estate deals. It allows the system to build stations or parking lots, etc.
Her amendment was approved and now we’re on to more amendments.
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Dems force changes to transportation overhaul
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Democrats have won concessions from majority Republicans on a series of major transportation bills.
The House Rules Committee, which decides what bills are considered on the House floor, moments ago met and agreed to a series of amendments suggested by the Democratic leadership. Those concessions would give Democrats two seats at a new transportation funding table, designate more state sales tax to transportation and designate the Department of Transportation as the recipient of federal funding.
The House was set to consider three pieces of legislation today dealing with transportation: HR 206, which would levy an additional 1-cent state sales tax; HB 277, which would create a new oversight committee for spending the money; and SB 39, which would free MARTA from state-mandated requirements that it spent half its money on maintenance and half on operations.
SB 39 was considered to be the “Democrat-friendly” bill in this package, because it’s an issue that many urban Democrats wanted as it would allow the beleaguered transit system to spend a greater percentage of its money in places it believes it needs it. However, there is going to be an amendment to SB 39 considered on the House floor, sponsored by Rules Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs). Democratic leaders said that amendment would not eliminate the split, but change it to allow 60 percent for operations and 40 percent for maintenance.
But it became clear as the House gathered this morning that Republicans had a head-count problem; specifically, it did not have the Democratic support necessary to gain the two-thirds majority necessary to approve HR 206, which requires a constitutional amendment.
That resolution is a centerpiece of House leadership’s agenda for the year.
Thus, the new concessions became necessary.
The amendments give the House minority leader and Senate minority leader an appointment to the oversight committee created in HB 277, require the fourth penny in the state sales tax — but only the money raised from the sale of motor vehicle fuel — to go to transportation uses, whereas currently it now goes to the general fund.
Finally, the compromise requires that all funds go to the agency designated by the federal government as the recipient — which is the Department of Transportation, and not the state tollway authority.
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Perdue to announce stimulus budget
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue will make one of the biggest announcements of the session this afternoon: he will likely detail how much federal stimulus money he’ll include in the fiscal 2010 budget.
He’ll also likely lower the state tax collection estimate for fiscal 2010, which begins July 1.
The state is expecting to receive $6 billion in federal stimulus money over the next few years.
With tax collections slowing due to the recession, Georgia state officials are in desperate need of money to help avoid catastrophic spending cuts.
Agencies are already slashing spending 10 percent of more this year, and 25,000 state employees are either taking furloughs or will be taking them in coming months. Perdue has said he may not accept some of the stimulus money with costly strings attached. This afternoon at 3:30, he is expected to give a clearer indication of what the $20 billion fiscal 2010 spending plan will look like.
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UPDATED: Dems make gains on transportation bills?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The House moments ago agreed to send the three major transportation bills that were to be debated on the floor today back to the Rules Committee.
The move was made, Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) said, to allow new amendments to be considered to the bills, which would create a new 1-cent statewide sales tax to pay for transportation projects and change how MARTA is allowed to use its revenues.
Word in the House is that the bills were returned to Rules as a deal made with House Democrats. What those Democrats want we don’t yet know, but we will soon, as the Rules Committee will meet in 15 minutes — 11 a.m. — to consider new amendments.
The likely outcome is that the compromise versions of these bills will come back to the floor today and still be debated, and most likely adopted, in the House some time today.
UPDATE: Rules Committee is about to meet. They are expected to approve an amendment giving House and Senate Democrats each a seat at the table with the new transportation fund oversight committee.
Also, it is expected that the amendment will require all four cents of the state fuel tax to go to DOT, whereas currently one penny now goes to the general fund.
Finally, the compromise is said to require that all funds go to the agency designated by the federal government as the recipient — which is the Department of Transportation, and not the state tollway authority.
More to come …
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