What’s left
Decision day for the 2014 legislative session means key issues remain undecided. Among them:
Guns: House Bill 60 is now the main proposal for expanding gun rights in Georgia. It was amended late Tuesday in the Senate. If the House agrees to the changes, the bill goes to Gov. Nathan Deal’s desk. Otherwise, House and Senate negotiators will try to hammer out an agreement.
Medical marijuana: HB 885 is poised for its first Senate vote, although it might not be its last vote of the day. The Senate amended it to include a mandate that insurance companies cover autism treatments, which means the bill would have to go back to the House if the Senate approves it.
What to know:
The House gets started at 9:30 a.m., the Senate at 10 a.m. Both must gavel out by midnight.
Watch live streaming of both chambers at www.legis.ga.gov/en-US/default.aspx and watch for live updates all day on ajc.com and MyAJC.com.
Sit tight, Georgia. Thursday may be a bumpy ride as state lawmakers wrap up this year’s legislative session with contentious issues still in play, including child welfare, medical marijuana and guns.
The final day of the 2014 legislative session is also the last of the General Assembly’s two-year cycle, meaning it’s do or die time for dozens of bills. Anything that doesn’t pass this year is officially dead and must restart the process in 2015.
Lawmakers must finish before the clock strikes midnight. Many big issues could come down to the session’s final hours, something leaders said early this year that they did not want.
Among the biggest is House Bill 60, which would be one of the broadest expansions of gun rights in the state’s recent history. The Senate made changes and sent the bill back to the House just before midnight Tuesday, seemingly aiming to provoke a conference committee in which three members from each chamber would try to negotiate a final compromise.
“Is this not an example of the upper chamber leading?” asked Senate Majority Whip Cecil Staton, R-Macon. “Not name-calling … but working together” to make the bill better?
The bill, as changed, would allow guns in churches but make the provision an “opt in” — meaning church leaders don’t have to act unless they want to allow guns in their houses of worship. Original wording by the House would have lifted the state’s ban of guns in churches unilaterally unless leaders vote to prohibit them on individual church properties.
According to language added by the Senate, someone caught with a gun in a church that didn’t allow it would face the equivalent of a jaywalking ticket: a misdemeanor and a $100 fine.
The changes to HB 60 also seek to tighten permission to carry a gun in unsecured areas of Georgia airports, including Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. They do not address language in the House version that would appear to allow convicted felons to avoid prosecution for the use of deadly force by invoking Georgia’s “stand your ground” self-defense laws.
The only public agreement the chambers have come to on the bill has been to nix the House’s efforts to allow guns on the state’s college campuses. The House has also softened its stance on forcing local authorities to allow weapons into “nonsecure” government buildings, although the Senate is pushing for more local control on the issue.
The back-and-forth could have national implications, with the bill’s push already making national news and catching the attention of high-profile gun control groups including Americans for Responsible Solutions. The group, founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., and her husband, has dubbed HB 60 the “guns everywhere” bill and is campaigning to defeat it.
Separately, a push to legalize a form of medical marijuana used to treat seizure disorders could be in limbo. Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, the original sponsor of HB 885, decided Tuesday to seek a study committee on the issue although he’s still pushing the measure as a full bill.
A Senate committee, however, has attached language to HB 885 that would also require health insurance policies sold in Georgia to cover behavioral therapy for children age 6 and under who have been diagnosed with autism. Key House leaders, including Rules Chairman John Meadows, R-Calhoun, oppose the autism measure, which hurts the bill’s chances for passage.
Then there is a controversial push to privatize Georgia’s child welfare system, despite efforts by Gov. Nathan Deal to scuttle it. The House passed a version of Senate Bill 350 on Tuesday that calls for a two-year pilot program to test the privatization of child welfare services — including foster care and adoption — in certain parts of the state. The move came after Deal announced a new Child Welfare Reform Council to make recommendations about what needs to be changed.
Senate leaders, who wanted the state to start bidding out all child welfare services by 2017, are now sitting on two separate bills — House Bills 913 and 914 — to which they’ve attached that language.
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