Tip sheet: Here come the DeKalb city bills
The number of working days left until the end of the 2015 session of the General Assembly: 11.
With the Crossover Day deadline closing in, the House and Senate will try to crank through a pile of bills. We’re bracing for a long day.
The action will start at 10 in both chambers. The House calendar has 17 bills and that list is expected to grow.
Among the bills that made the calendar are three cityhood bills: HB 514, which would create the city of South Fulton; HB 515, which would create the city of Tucker; and HB 520, which would create the city of LaVista Hills. The first two are sponsored by Democrats; the last by a Republican. All three lawmakers voted for HB 170, the transportation funding bill, a priority for House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.
As a matter of fact, every bill that made the list was sponsored by someone who supported the bill. The House will also take up HB 259, the so-called "Kia bill" that would drop the requirement that government agencies use competitive bidding to purchase automobiles if the cars were manufactured in Georgia.
The Senate calendar has 18 bills, including SR 80, a demand by Senate conservatives to ban Advanced Placement U.S. history courses from Georgia unless the curriculum is changed away from what they call a biased, left-leaning agenda. It is a resolution, not a bill. An official statement of opinion.
A handful of committee meetings have been scheduled for the afternoon if time allows. The Senate Transportation Committee will take its first look at HB 170. The meeting will feature a show-and-tell by Rep. Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla, author of HB 170, the big transportation bill. A Senate version of the bill is expected to come next week.
About the Author
Jim Galloway, the newspaper’s former political columnist, was a writer and editor at the AJC for four decades.
