After lying dormant for nearly a year, and in the middle of the Delta/NRA fracas, a bipartisan gun bill is now scheduled to make an appearance in a House Public Safety Committee this Tuesday morning, one day before the Crossover Day deadline.
House Bill 541 lists Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, as the lead author. He has moved on to the Senate. But the bill also includes the names of state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, and former state Rep. Stacey Evans of Smyrna, now a Democratic candidate for governor.
The bill would prohibit “persons convicted of misdemeanor crimes of family violence from receiving, possessing or transporting a firearm.”
We’re not sure what to make of this – but we’re sure it bears watching.
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More from that unpleasant mix of Delta Air Lines, the NRA, Georgia Republicans and school massacres: Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a GOP candidate for governor, has upped the ante on his opposition to a Delta tax break. He said Tuesday that, rather than back the jet fuel tax exemption, lawmakers should pass a sales tax holiday for guns and ammunition that corresponds with the Fourth of July.
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Republican Hunter Hill stayed silent about the Delta snub over the weekend, even as other GOP contenders for governor criticized the airline. Late Monday, though, the former state senator became the fifth and final leading GOP contender to oppose the lucrative tax break that would benefit the company. "Unlike Lt. Gov. Cagle, I believe Delta's tax break was bad before they abandoned NRA members," Hill said.
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U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Monroe, is the only Georgia member of Congress who says he'll boycott Delta because of the airline's move to cut ties with the NRA. "I look forward to when Delta changes their policy," Hice said. Very likely, so does the staffer who books Hice's flights home.
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It's important to keep in mind that this Delta/NRA flap is occuring in the context of yet another school massacre -- this one killing 17 in a south Florida high school. In the Covington News, Rob Levin has a powerful column on the physics of a high-velocity round fired from an AR-15. Read the entire thing here, but we'll offer a taste:
In Florida and elsewhere, in the cases where the 1.7-inch-long bullet missed a direct fatal hit on the heart or perhaps the head, it's likely the children died instead from the resulting blast zones created by the stunningly powerful pressure wave of the speeding bullet. In essence, the children were given a pop quiz in the lethal physics stew of kinetic energy, mass and velocity—and they failed.
The projectile's pressure wave means the bullet only has to ramble around in the anatomical neighborhood, not necessarily make a direct hit on an organ—pure physics borne out of out the labs at ArmaLite, where the AR-15 was born. Even grading the quiz on a curve, the students all fared poorly on the test that was administered by the business end of America's Rifle, and their scores were written in red splatter across the classroom whiteboards.
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Two of the early victims of Crossover Day appear to be Senate Bill 418 and House Bill 948, an identical set of bills intended to block local governments from prohibiting the retail sales of dogs and cats in pet stores.
Many jurisdictions have instituted the bans in order to encourage adoptions from animal shelters, and discourage "puppy mills."
If neither bill wins approval by at least one chamber by the 28th day of the session, i.e., Wednesday, then they will be considered dead. But only mostly dead.
A similar fight over retail animal sales is underway in the Florida legislature, and is meeting similar opposition. In Florida, the primary bills have been abandoned and a Plan B enacted – which is the attempted insertion of the following language into various tax bills:
"Except as otherwise provided by law, a county, municipality, or other entity of local government may not prohibit the sale or offering for sale of tangible personal property subject to the tax imposed by (state law) which may be lawfully sold in this state. Any such ordinance or rule is void."
Opponents of SB 418 and HB 948 are warning that the same tactic is likely to come here.
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The Gwinnett Post reports this morning that a fifth legislative seat in Gwinnett County will be open this year. State. Rep. Joyce Chandler, R-Grayson, told the newspaper in an email that she won't seek re-election. House District 105, in southeast Gwinnett, has a majority-minority population of 53.5 percent.
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We told you last week about the surprise appearance of HB 961, a bill pitched by state Rep. Meagan Hanson, R-Brookhaven, to do away with the post of DeKalb County CEO, now occupied by Democrat Michael Thurmond.
The bill was abruptly passed out of a House committee last week, but hasn’t been seen since. Even if it makes it past Crossover Day, it faces some homegrown opposition.
State Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, gave us his two thoughts on the matter: 1) A change in DeKalb County’s government should require a referendum, which Hanson’s bill does not provide; and 2) Thurmond appears to be doing a decent job. Millar very specifically said he wouldn’t support any bill that disturbed the current occupant of the office.
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Post-Crossover Day, the contest over SB 375 will begin in earnest. The measure would offer legal protection to child placement agencies that refuse to do business with same-sex couple. SB 375 passed the Senate last week. Now the question becomes whether it will move in House Speaker David Ralston's chamber.
“Walking Dead” actor Daniel Newman is among those who have already commited to participating in a Thursday afternoon rally against the bill. The rally will be held at the Central Presbyterian Church, capping a day of lobbying across the street at the state Capitol.
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Bobby Kaple, a former TV news anchor and one of several Democrats challenging Republican Karen Handel for her Sixth District congressional seat, has won the support of one of his former competitors. Fellow Democrat Richard Keatley, a college educator who dropped out of the race to run for Georgia labor commissioner, endorsed him on Monday.
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The U.S. Senate easily advanced the nomination of Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Elizabeth Branch to be a judge on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Branch's nomination cleared a key procedural hurdle on Monday 72-22. A final confirmation vote is expected by Wednesday.
