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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2009 > March > 04
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Sunday sales bill withdrawn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The sponsor of legislation allowing voters the chance to vote on Sunday alcohol sales at stores withdrew his bill when he realized he could not get it passed out of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee Wednesday.
The committee was supposed to vote on the bill Wednesday, but supporters knew by the time the meeting began that they wouldn’t have enough votes to pass it.
It marked the third consecutive year the bill to allow Sunday sales has stalled in the Senate.
Sen. Seth Harp (R-Midland), said he would bring the bill back up in the future and supporters hinted they would make it a campaign issue next year.
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House kills homestead hike
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Senate bill that would double the state homestead exemption for property owners and provide for future increases was defeated in the House on Wednesday.
The bill required a two-thirds majority to pass but the vote of 98-63 was not enough.
Rep. Ed Lindsey (R-Atlanta), the vice chairman of House Appropriations, sponsored the bill in the House and said it would provide additional and needed relief to homeowners.
“It’s good politics and good policy all over the state,” Lindsey said.
And while he said it would have limited impact on local governments, that was the concern of opponents who urged members to vote against it.
House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) gave notice that he will seek to have the vote overturned and reconsidered when the House next meets.
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House, like Senate, votes to require voters prove citizenship
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the Senate did a day ago, the House on Wednesday adopted legislation requiring people registering to vote to prove their citizenship.
HB 45, sponsored by Rep. James Mills (R-Gainesville), is similar to SB 86, which the Senate adopted on Tuesday. HB 45 passed the House 102-63.
Mills’ bill generated heated debate over the course of about two hours. Mills said it is a measure that “protects the voting systems and the integrity of the system we now have in place.”
Mills said that last year nearly 5,000 voters had their citizenship questioned by Secretary of State Karen Handel. Those voters received letters demanding proof of citizenship. The fact that only 57 percent responded, Mills said, means more than 2,700 people whose citizenship was in doubt “did not respond, yet they voted and participated in our past election.”
But, under questioning from Rep. Stephanie Benfield (D-Atlanta), Mills was able to only offer a single example of anyone being caught trying to violate existing citizenship rules for voters.
Rep. Pedro “Pete” Marin (D-Duluth) accused Mills and the bill’s supporters of “playing the race card” by pursuing legislation he said was designed to suppress voter participation by minorities and legal immigrants who gain citizenship.
But Mills and Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) rejected statements from Marin and others and said opponents were the ones injecting race into the issue.
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Bill would prohibit octuplet mother scenario in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A bill intended to make sure Georgia never has a mother like the Californian who recently gave birth to eight children is scheduled to come before a Senate committee today.
Senate Bill 169 would limit the number of embryos fertility clinics may implant in a woman. It could be among the first legislation of its kind in the nation, said bill sponsor Sen. Ralph Hudgens (R-Hull).
Hudgens said he proposed the bill after reading of Nadya Suleman’s decision to have multiple children through in-vitro fertilization when she already had six children and was on public assistance.
“I think it’s totally immoral,” Hudgens said of “I think the doctor ought to be prosecuted, and the woman should give them [the children] up for adoption.”
The bill has drawn opposition from out-of-state advocacy groups, including a Virginia organization that sought to rally opposition to the bill Wednesday by e-mail.
The McLean, Va.-based Resolve: the National Infertility Association argues SB 169 would make it much harder for infertile women to have children by limiting the number of embryos that could be implanted.
The proposal was drafted by the Arizona-based Bioethics Defense Fund, which opposes embryonic stem cell research, abortion, human cloning and assisted suicide.
It also has drawn opposition from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and Georgia supporters of abortion rights who argue that the bill is a back-door attempt to outlaw abortion.
A key reason is because the bill defines embryos conceived outside the womb as “biological human beings.”
Chad Smith, a former Snellville city councilman and father of three, said that under the proposal, his wife would have been barred from having the four embryos implanted that gave the couple their triplets.
“It’s government getting into personal lives,” Smith said. “These bills take all decisions out of the hands of the doctors. The bills are incredibly irresponsible and uneducated bills.”
Under Hudgens’ bill, women older than 40 would be limited to three embryonic implants. Women younger than 40 would be limited to two.
The bill would also limit creation of embryos to the number that would be implanted at any one time. Hudgens said this would eliminate the creation of multiple embryos that are then frozen.
Hudgens said he wants to prevent disputes between ex-husbands and ex-wives over what to do with left-over frozen embryos.
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House votes to give math, science teachers more money
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Math and science teachers in Georgia public schools could see more money under a House bill adopted moments ago.
HB 280, sponsored by Education Committee Chairman Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth), is part of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s legislative priorities for the year and is designed to encourage more teachers in what Coleman said were critical areas.
Coleman said the state’s colleges and universities are not producing enough teachers in these subjects and the bill would offer incentives.
“We’re having to go out of state to recruit,” he said. “You can’t teach what you don’t know.”
The bill would cost the state $9.5 million a year, he said, although no money for it has been budgeted this year.
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Senator introduces ethics bill on tax evasion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A bill introduced this week would let state senators more quickly investigate tax scofflaws who serve in the state Legislature.
Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) introduced Senate Resolution 452, which would allow the state’s Commissioner of Revenue to file a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee on slacker legislators.
Such a move would speed up the flow of information on legislators who don’t pay the piper and could result more quickly in a public reprimand or a recommendation for removal from office, Johnson said.
The move comes after a recent Georgia Department of Revenue report revealing that 19 Legislators have not filed their returns. The report did not name the legislators.
Johnson said three are in the Senate.
Right now the Senate can censure a member for not paying taxes only after a final adjudication is made, and that could take five or six years, Johnson said.
“They’re gaming the system,” Johnson said of legislators who don’t file their tax returns. They have plenty of time of not paying taxes before the word gets out, he said.
Johnson’s bill would change the clubby atmosphere of the Senate, opening it up to more scrutiny.
“This would allow him [the Commissioner of Revenue] to say senator so-and-so is refusing to pay his taxes,” Johnson said.
Currently, only a senator can file an ethics complaint against another senator.
Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon) opposes the legislation saying it could give birth to political persecution using personal information.
Brown offered himself as an example of someone who filed an extension on his 2007 tax return. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he technically did not pay his taxes, but he added that filing an extension is a legitimate option.
Brown cited his health from keeping him from making money in his real estate business, but added, that it is “only a reason and not an excuse.”
“It’s not that I’m not paying taxes,” Brown said. “I probably don’t owe any,” he said.
“I don’t want to give political hacks on a committee” the power to start looking into personal information about other senators, Brown said.
Brown did not know if his name was one of three senators on the DOR list.
Johnson, chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, said he, himself, is not one of them.
Revenue Commissioner Bart L. Graham is scheduled to speak before the Senate Rules Committee at 3 p.m. Wednesday to give examples of the kind of information he would explore or the kind of complaint he might file if given the power.
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