House adjourns
After voting on 41 bills in nearly 12 hours, the Georgia House adjourned at 9:20 p.m. It next convenes on Monday.
"Leave the other body for as long as they want to stay here," Speaker David Ralston said of the ongoing Senate session. "We're going home!"
The members ended their day with a standing ovation for the four young House pages who served the entire day. Shortly after, the chamber began to clear.
House votes to lift restrictions on deer baiting
The Georgia House approved a bill that would let hunters in the southern part of the state get as close as they wanted to a bait area set up for deer or feral hogs.
State law already allows hunters to put out corn, wheat, apples or other food. House Bill 277 would remove the restriction that hunters remain 200 yards away and out of the line of sight of the feed. The bill applied only to the southern zone of the state.
The proposal passed 122-48 after more than an hour of debate.
Supporters insisted the move would cull herd and help lower the pest to peanut and watermelon crops. They said it also would increase safety, citing 43,000 car-deer collisions last year according to accident claims.
“This is a management tool. It’s not a tool to increase your hunting,” said Jason Shaw, R-Lakeland, the bill’s sponsor.
Opponents, though, said the practice is unhealthy for the animals and is bad wildlife management, noting the feed sites lure bobcats and coyotes as well.
Showing snapshots of coyote and bobcats using the feed sites to attack deer and feed themselves, they also decried the change as unsportsmanlike and a threat to private property rights.
“This bill is flawed for a number of reasons,” said David Knight, R-Griffin, noting that the restriction could be lifted statewide by a vote of the Board of Natural Resources. “This bill is full of conflict."
House debating final item on current calendar
The House is ending nearly an hour of debate on House Bill 277, that will lift distance requirements on baiting of deer and hogs by hunters in south Georgia.
But even if a vote comes soon, the day may not been done. The chairman of the Rules Committee, which sets the calendar for voting, has been meeting with Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, for the past 20 minutes.
Stay tuned to see if the day is about to be extended, again.
House renews tire fee but not for cleanup
The Georgia House OK’d a landfill bill that renews the $1 tire cleanup fee for another three years – but the cash raised won't necessarily go to cleaning tire dumps.
House Bill 274 passed 104-68 without requiring the fee be spent on clean-up. Sponsor Randy Nix, R-LaGrange, said the Legislature would need to pass a Constitutional amendment to designate the fees.
Opponents objected mostly to allowing lawn trimmings in local landfills, under the guise of green energy.
In the past nine years, about two-thirds of the $57 million the tire fee has raised has been diverted to fill holes in the state budget.
Legislation creating the tire fee, which was first collected in 1992, intended the money for the Solid Waste Trust Fund for tire dump and other cleanups. The bill renews the fee until 2014, when Nix said a Constitutional amendment should be in place for a designation.
House gives Atlanta chance for larger tourist tax
The Georgia House approved a bill Wednesday evening that lets Atlanta adopt a local law to increase the city's hotel/motel tax.
State law caps all hotel/motel taxes at 8 percent, except for in Atlanta, where the limit is 7 percent. House Bill 382 allows the city pursue local legislation to increase its cap to 8 percent, with all money raised going to the Atlanta Convention Bureau for the promotion of conventions and tourism. The bill passed 147-24.
House approves Health Care Compact bill
Just hours after setting aside a bill on health care exchanges, the Georgia House approved a bill that attempts to circumvent federal health care legislation by creating alliances with other states on health care.
House Bill 461 passed 108-63 over objections that the exchanges, not compacts, are required by last year's federal health care legislation. The push for interstate compacts is part of a national effort to promote states' rights.
House on dinner break
Halfway through discussion on House Bill 461, which would allow Georgia to create alliances with other states on health care, the Georgia House is taking a dinner break.
The chamber will reconvene at 6:30 p.m.
House keeps tax break for Delta
Delta Air Lines will continue to get a break on the sales tax it pays for jet fuel under legislation approved Wednesday by the Georgia House.
House Bill 322 calls for the state to give the airline a $20 million exemption for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and $10 million the year after that. It would expire in 2013.
The House passed the break 113-61 after a heated debate that went on for nearly an hour. Among key opponents were Democrats from Clayton County, which receives $62 million a year from Delta in sales taxes and stands to lose $26 million in the two years of the giveaway.
Change in tax refunds could save state millions
Georgia would no longer send out tax refunds of less than $1, unless the taxpayer asks for it, under a bill approved Wednesday by the Georgia House.
House Bill 133 also would end the state from sending out tax bills for less than $1.
Supporters say the change will eliminate the need for postage and printing, saving the state several million dollars a year.
The bill passed 165-7.
House approves new fee to fund JQC
The Georgia House added a new fee for judicial candidates to help the chronically underfunded Judicial Qualifications Commission.
House Bill 262, which passed 134-36, adds a 1 percent qualifying fee for judicial posts to help fund the JQC. That moves the fee from 3 percent to 4 percent for those offices until Jan. 1, 2015,
“We’ve come up with a partial solution,” Tim Bearden, R-Villa Rica, said of the measure.
The goal is to use that money for the commission while the state tries to figure out other funding sources. The commission has just one investigator for 1,800 judges statewide.
House back in session after break
The Georgia House is about to take up 13 measures to round out its Crossover Day. Extended debate is expected on House Bill 277, which lets hunters in the southern part of the state get as close to a bait area as they want when pursuing deer or feral hogs, and House Bill 322, which extends a sales tax break to Delta for buying jet fuel.
Tax refund bill fails in House
The Georgia House defeated a measure Wednesday that would have limited how much money businesses could collect in interest when they overpay sales tax.
House Bill 389 required that interest on overpayments could not go into effect until businesses applied for the refund. Some firms, knowing the state has a three-year statute of limitations on the claim, wait until the last minute to file and collect 12 percent interest a year on their overpayment. The state has paid $16 million interest on such claims in the past three years, said sponsor David Knight, R- Griffin.
Opponents, led by Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, argued the change would punish businesses that make honest mistakes. The measure failed 82-92 and 83-89 on reconsideration.
Health Care Exchanges out, Health Compact might be in
The Rules Committee, meeting midday to add what the House will vote on Wednesday, did not again send out a bill on health care exchanges, which are required by last year's federal health care legislation.
Instead, the House will soon vote on House Bill 461, which would allow Georgia to create alliances with other states on health care, as a way to defy federal law. The push for interstate compacts is part of a national effort to promote states' rights.
Rules calendar done -- for now
The House completed its 29-item calendar for the day at 2:49 p.m.
But the Rules Committee, which sets the agenda, called a meeting for 2:55 p.m. to add more items to the day's agenda. Stay tuned for what measures make Part Two of Crossover Day.
The House reconvenes at 3:15 p.m.
Health Exchange bill sent back for consideration
The House unanimously sent back for consideration a bill that would have have allowed for the creation of large pools of insured patients, spreading risk and lowering costs. By sending House Bill 476 back to the Rules Committee, it makes it unlikely the measure will be voted on by Crossover Day on Wednesday.
Tea party members met with various leaders on Tuesday to oppose the health care exchanges, which are mandated by last year's federal health care legislation. Supporters of the measure have argued that without the bill, the federal government will be able to step in and set up such exchanges without state input.
House approves Criminal Justice Reform Council
House members overwhelmingly approved setting up a committee to review the state's criminal justice and corrections system over the next year, the first step of major criminal justice reform in Georgia.
House Bill 265, which passed 169-1, is part of Gov. Nathan Deal's agenda to have a council analyze the entire system, including penalties for nonviolent drug offenders, to address how to lower incarceration rates.
Jay Neal, R-LaFayette, noted that one Georgian in 13 is under some form of correctional supervision, making Georgia's the fourth-largest prison system in the nation.
"This is not an area we want to be a leader on," Neal said.
Democrats lauded the GOP leadership on the issue, noting plans extend beyond curbing costs to also helping make crime victims whole and addressing non-violent offenders.
"We want to punish people and make them accountable, but the notion we want to make the keys out of cheese and throw the keys to the rats is over," said Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus.
The council would meet for the next year and make recommendations next year to a special joint committee for possible legislation next year. The model could be Texas, which has saved more than $2 billion and reduced its recidivism rate by adopting a series of measures designed to bring corrections costs under control, reduce crime and help make victims whole.
Bill calls to notify police departments when officers under POST investigations
The Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council would have to notify an agency if it was investigating one of the officers in that department under a bill passed by the Georgia House Wednesday.
House Bill 203 also requires the council to notify the department and the local district attorney and solicitor if the certification is suspended or revoked of any officer.
"We had an officer whose POST certification was revoked and he was out writing tickets," Mack Jackson, D-Sandersville, said of the bill, his first as a freshman lawmaker.
The measure passed 173-0.
Bill limits what jails pay for inmate emergency care
County jails could soon end up paying smaller hospital bills for inmates under a bill approved by the House on Wednesday.
House Bill 197 requires that hospitals that treat jail inmates brought to them for emergency treatment not charge more than the Medicaid rate for that treatment. It passed 168-1with no debate.
Burn centers added to trauma designation
Resuming its agenda after a lunch break, the House quickly approved a bill that will qualify two burn centers to receive trauma center funding.
House Bill 307 requires a burn center be approved by the Department of Community Health and admit at least 300 patients a year. Only Grady Hospital's burn center in Atlanta and the Still Burn Center in Augusta meet those requirements. The bill passed 165-2.
Presidential primary bill approved
House members passed a bill to empower the secretary of state to set the date for the 2012 presidential primary, in an effort to give Georgia the flexibility to move the date earlier than Super Tuesday if the political parties allow.
That flexibility concerned some who worried the state might flout party rules in the race to have the earliest primary date. Florida and other states lost some of their delegates to the 2008 conventions for ignoring party mandates not to move their primaries.
“What assurance can we have that the primary will not be set before March 6?” said Rep. Stephanie Benfield, D-Atlanta.
“We don’t want that to happen,” said Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, sponsor of House Bill 454.
Hamilton said the bill would allow state leaders to choose a different date, if the parties agree, without passing a new law.
The bill passed by a vote of 153-21. The bill would require the secretary of state to schedule the primary date no later than Dec. 1 in the year preceding an election year. The date must be set at least 60 days in advance.
The House has recessed for lunch and will return at 1:45 p.m.
House passes ‘kiddie games' exemption to coin-op games fees
House members overwhelmingly approved a bill to exempt skee ball and other coin-operated amusement games from fees and taxes applied to more adult-oriented games found in bars and gas stations.
Rep. Matt Ramsey, R-Peachtree City, sponsor of House Bill 164, said the House erred in not excluding those “kiddie games” from legislation passed last year.
Rep. David Lucas, D-Macon, said the bill also would allow for winners at coin-operated games to receive their prize in the form of a retail gift card worth up to $5. That would benefit the state, he said.
“We get the sales tax,” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is close to a $300 million deal.”
Initial bills passing by wide margins
The House unanimously passed a bill to fund medical examinations for victims of sexual assault.
The bill is one of a half dozen noncontroversial measures that House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, has called to start a long day of legislative action.
Other bills passed by near-unanimous margins so far include a measure to update sales tax definitions to conform with federal standards and one that would prohibit the release of feral hogs in unfenced areas. Another measure that sailed through would extend a sales tax exemption on airplane engines and parts, a tax break that would benefit Gulfstream Aerospace's Savannah plant.
The Gulfstream measure was the most contested, passing 128-42, with some representatives objecting to extending the tax break during a difficult budget year for the state.
Crossover Day begins
Members of the Georgia House of Representatives have a lot of work to do today. More than two dozen bills are on the House calendar for debate on Crossover Day, the final day most bills can move from one chamber to another this session.
But first representatives went through their daily routine of guest speakers, pledging to the American flag and "morning orders," a free-for-all when members can take a moment to recognize groups who have come to the Capitol today. House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, warned House members he would hold them to their allotted minute for speeches.
"We're only moments away, literally moments away, from the Rules calendar," he said.
The first bill will be House Bill 396, creating a charter for the proposed city of Peachtree Corners in Gwinnett County. Rep. Tom Rice, R-Norcross, urged passage of the bill, which would put a referendum on the city on the Gwinnett ballot in November.
“All we want is for the people to have the opportunity to have a vote," he said.
The bill passed 153-1
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