For a second time, a bill that would cut unemployment benefits for Georgians gained approval from the state Senate, a move that came amid concerns that the first vote had jeopardized the GOP-led effort.
How long Georgians can receive unemployment benefits would be cut by as much as half under the bill that passed late Tuesday.
The Senate originally approved Senate Bill 447 last month. At the time, Senate Democrats sought an opinion from legislative counsel Wayne Allen about whether the bill's sponsor, Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, had overstepped his bounds by introducing the bill in the Senate.
It was a suspicion Allen endorsed in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Tucker. Allen said the bill essentially involved raising revenue, in this case to pay back millions of dollars borrowed from the federal government. Such a bill, he said, must originate in the House as required by the state constitution.
Those concerns remained as the bill wound through a House committee. Leadership solved the problem this week, essentially gutting an unrelated House bill and substituting the unemployment bill in its place. The new House Bill 347, as the unemployment bill is now known, gives it a House number to allay Allen's constitutional concerns.
The Senate passed the new unemployment bill on a 35-14 vote. Sen Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, said the maneuver was being done to allow both chambers to form a conference committee to work on the bill.
The bill is being pushed because Georgia needs to repay more than $700 million it borrowed from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits during the Great Recession. Supporters of the bill say they are trying to do that without putting too much pressure on businesses still trying to recover.
Opponents of the legislation said the state created the problem by giving unemployment insurance cuts to businesses. Now, they said, the state is trying to make up for its mistake by taking money from the unemployed.
The proposal is to delay distributing the first unemployment check by a week, starting July 1. Payments would then drop from 26 weeks to a sliding scale of 12 to 20 weeks. It also would increase the amount taxed for unemployment insurance.
Georgia's unemployment rate stands at about 9.1 percent, above the U.S. jobless rate of 8.3 percent. The funding for unemployment insurance benefits comes from taxes paid by employers. Those already receiving benefits would be grandfathered in, but anyone making new claims would be affected.
When a person becomes unemployed, he or she files for state unemployment benefits. Once the state benefits are exhausted, the federal benefits kick in. Last month, President Barack Obama signed a federal extension of unemployment benefits that would take them through the end of 2012.
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