The final piece of Gov. Nathan Deal's criminal justice reform package may also be the most controversial.
When setting bail, Senate Bill 407 would allow judges to consider a defendant's ability to pay. It would also give law enforcement officials more leeway to issue citations instead of criminal charges.
So far, Deal’s efforts to reduce Georgia’s tendency to lock offenders up have experienced no public pushback. SB 407, which now rests in the bosom of the house, passed the Senate unanimously.
In a GPB interview broadcast Wednesday, the governor gave a big thank you "to the members of the General Assembly who have been willing to follow our lead."
But an indirect challenge to Deal and his efforts may have just popped up, according to our AJC colleagues Rhonda Cook and Jeremy Redmon. Without discussion, the House Public Safety Committee on Thursday took aim at a city of Atlanta ordinance intended to prevent low-level offenders from sitting in jail when they are too poor to post bond.
The language, which applies statewide, would require all defendants, including those accused of violating local ordinances, must be brought before a judge. The vehicle used: SB 452, a bill backed by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle that would encourage local law enforcement operations to offer more cooperation to federal immigration authorities. From the AJC article:
Committee Chairman Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, said the changes that his committee made to the bill "came out of the Senate as a proposal and I said 'It ain't a bad idea to add this.'" Declining to identify who asked for the changes, Powell said too often dangerous or wanted people have been released on their own recognizance without being vetted.
A couple thoughts arise:
-- Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is no Kasim Reed, an experienced Capitol hand who would have been on the phone with all parties involved to block the measure.
-- Nathan Deal still has the line-item veto. Bottoms doesn’t.
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Channel 2 has a great interview with Georgia first lady Sandra Deal and her decision to lose her locks ahead of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and Tweet the event as well:
"I thought I really needed to get rid of this hair, and I might as well do it the right way and go to the beautician," [Sandra]Deal said.
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Georgia's two Republican U.S. senators ended up on opposite sides of the $1.3 trillion wrap-up spending measure that congressional leaders introduced and moved through both chambers of Congress in roughly 28 hours this week.
Ahead of the Senate’s overnight vote on the 2,322-page bill, David Perdue called it “irresponsible” and “beyond pathetic.” “It’s a product written by a few politicians who got in a room and decided how to spend a trillion dollars,” he said in a statement. “The result is a massive spending package projected to increase the federal debt by another trillion dollars.”
Perdue supported the recent $320 billion budget deal that laid the groundwork for this week's omnibus appropriations bill. He staked his support of the initial effort on the additional military spending it cleared the way for and its creation of a panel to study the best ways to overhaul the appropriations process. Even though the spending bill included hefty new funding for the Pentagon, Perdue said Congress needed to overhaul its budget process next. "The larger problem here is the budget process has failed again," he said.
Isakson also voted for the aforementioned budget agreement. He backed the omnibus Thursday because of its Georgia goodies, which include more money for the CDC and the Savannah harbor. "This legislation achieves many of our long-term objectives for Georgia and America," he said.
Isakson had previously expressed frustration that compromise language he helped negotiate on veterans health care was dropped from the final bill, and promised on Thursday to continue working to advance the effort.
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This was the take from Jamie Dupree of WSB Radio on the same topic:
Wow. That was fast. The 2,232 page bill was dropped just after dinner on Wednesday, and just after midnight, it zipped through the Senate. No lawmaker read this bill from start to finish. Members of both parties – but especially Republicans – grumbled at the process. Remember the Tea Party chants of "READ THE BILL!" – yeah, that didn't happen with this one. And it was way more spending than many GOP lawmakers wanted to stomach. But without 60 votes in the Senate, there's only so much you can do.
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The GOP race for second-place in the governor's contest has a new twist. Up until now, most of attacks from other candidates have been aimed squarely at Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who has a commanding lead in the public and private polls, but still falls short of the majority-vote margin he'll need to avoid a runoff.
Not any more. State Sen. Michael Williams of Cumming, who trails his rivals in most polls, sought to shake up the race Thursday with an attack on former state Sen. Hunter Hill of Atlanta.
Calling him a “fake conservative,” Williams blasted Hill over an answer in a Feb. 23 forum hosted by the State Bar of Georgia, at which he suggested he would support raising the minimum age to purchase firearms from 18 to 21.
“Georgia conservatives will not be tricked by his phony statements,” said Williams.
Hill’s campaign said the candidate “misspoke” and would like to see federal and state law set a minimum age of 18 to buy firearms across the board. Hill spokesman Cody Hall called Williams “desperate” and said he cherry-picked 15 seconds of a lengthier answer.
“The facts are, he put his life on the line overseas to defend our constitution and voted for every expansion of gun rights that crossed his desk as a state senator."
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Politico.com this morning reports the resignation of the federal official who approved charter jet flights for Tom Price when he was secretary of health and human services. That would be John Bardis, former CEO of Alpharetta-based MedAssets, who had been brought in as Price's assistant secretary for administration. The charter flights are one of the things that cost Price, a former Georgia congressman, his job.
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In an interview with Denis O'Hayer of WABE (90.1FM), Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams says she would advocate a stronger state hand in moving metro Atlanta toward commuter rail:
The state has abdicated its responsibility for decades, and the state has to come to the table with resources. I strongly believe in local control. We can have both local engagement and state investment and achieve our purposes. You set mandates for what has to be done. So, for example, that local authority can't refuse public transit, but it can decide where it goes and how deep into a community it goes.
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U.S. Sen. David Perdue will be visiting China, South Korea and the Korean demilitarized zone with Senate GOP colleagues next week while Congress is in recess. The group plans to focus on issues such as trade, intellectual property, technology and human rights.
The trip has apparently been in the works for six months, but now comes on the heels of President Donald Trump announcing new tariffs against the Chinese.
Perdue has been critical of Trump's recently-announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and has argued instead for a more targeted approach to tariffs.
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We recently gave you the details of Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Atlanta later today, which includes an afternoon stop at a Midtown hotel to tout the GOP's tax bill. Now we've gotten word that two left-leaning advocacy groups, the Georgia Alliance for Social Justice and Resist Trump Tuesdays, will be protesting outside the event. "The Vice President's appearance in Atlanta is an opportunity for us to speak out against his positions on abortion rights, LGBT rights, immigration and the environment," said Caroline Stover, one of the event's organizers.
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Add Georgia's Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia, to the list of U.S. House members pushing for Mark Zuckerberg to testify before them. Johnson, the top Democrat on a subcommittee overseeing intellectual property and the internet, wrote to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, urging him to call on the Facebook chief executive to testify in response to media reports that a conservative data analytics firm wrongfully used the personal data of roughly 50 million users from the site.
The powerful Energy and Commerce committee also requested Zuckerberg’s testimony on Thursday, a day after the Facebook founder said he would be “happy” to talk to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
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Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is one of 30 former Obama administration officials and other business leaders to join the advisory board of the Biden Institute Policy Advisory Board, the research and policy center set up by the former vice president at the University of Delaware. That's called keeping the band together.
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Tricia Pridemore has nabbed the endorsements of the other four members of the Public Service Commission for her campaign to serve on the body for a full term. We would consider this a surprise, except for the fact that all are, just like Pridemore, Republican. Also, it was Gov. Nathan Deal who tapped Pridemore, a longtime ally, to fill spot left vacant by retiring Commissioner Stan Wise earlier this year.
Pridemore is being challenged by Democrat Doug Stoner of Smyrna, a former state senator.
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