David Ralston is in his fourth session as speaker of the Georgia House, and the Blue Ridge Republican spent a few minutes with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday, the day after Crossover Day, to discuss the final 10 days of the 2013 legislative session. He discussed what Georgians should expect and what he expects from the Senate.
On how the House will proceed with Senate bills, including gun legislation:
“I really haven’t focused on their agenda. We’ve been focused on ours, particularly in the days leading up to Crossover Day. The reason we have Crossover Day is so we have adequate time to look at what the other chamber is working on. We’ll be doing that. We passed a gun bill, too, yesterday, as well as some other measures. My primary focus between now and the end of the session is going to be on the budget. That’s the most important thing we do each year.”
On his plan to ban lobbyist gifts to individual lawmakers, which passed the House and is now in the Senate. The Senate has yet to schedule a committee hearing on the proposal: "We've had discussions with leadership over there generally on that issue and others. I don't think there is anything unusual about the fact that the day after Day 30 there hasn't been a hearing scheduled. I doubt there are many hearings scheduled on Senate bills in the House or House bills in the Senate right now. Everyone is letting the dust settle from (Thursday). We'll get back to work on Monday. I'm not sure what their timetable is for dealing with the issue."
On the Senate apparently settling its leadership dispute that in years past caused friction with the House and bogged down the process. Proof of the improved atmosphere came last week as the House and Senate settled differences on a bill dealing with car taxes:
“We tried to have a good relationship under the previous arrangement they had, and now certainly in terms of the issue of who you have to deal with or need to deal with has been consolidated, and that on the whole is a good thing. There wasn’t so much a dispute over that bill, it was just a disagreement over how we got to the same place. We were able to work that out. I anticipate we’ll be able to work other things out. We have a good working relationship with the Senate. That’s what Georgians expect.”
On what he expects to be able to tell constituents were the key achievements of the 2013 session once lawmakers finish for the year:
“We passed a responsible budget that was balanced, that did not have tax increases, that’s No. 1. And two, I’m optimistic we’ll be able to point to more measures that make Georgia competitive as a state and we didn’t lose our focus on growing jobs.”
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