Capitol Recap: Kemp still has faith Rivian will build EV plant in Georgia
Some Republicans consider punishing company for pausing work on factory
Gov. Brian Kemp, though unhappy with Rivian’s decision to pause construction on its Georgia electric vehicle factory, said he and the automaker remain committed to the $5 billion project.
Rivian has vowed to hire 7,500 workers by 2030 to work at the plant proposed for a site an hour east of Atlanta in Morgan and Walton counties, and it has said it still stands by those job and investment promises. If the company doesn’t meet 80% of those goals by the end of that year, it will face penalties laid out in its agreement with the state.
If it succeeds, the automaker is set to receive a package of state and local inducements valued at $1.5 billion.
Some of that money has already been spent. The state has paid for land and site prep with several road projects also underway.
Rivian announced earlier this month that it is putting on hold the start of construction of its factory. It opted, instead, to start production of its R2 crossover at its existing factory in Illinois in 2026, the year the Georgia plant had been set to open. The move is expected to save the company $2.2 billion in the near term.
But Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe said the Georgia factory remains key to the company’s growth plans.
Some Georgia lawmakers, however, remain frustrated, including Republicans who expressed interest in potentially punishing the company. For example, they urged a halt to infrastructure projects in the area until Rivian makes good on its promises.
Kemp said he understands lawmakers’ concerns. But he said Georgia does not want to signal it would renege on the commitments it made and that the state is “in a good place” with its contract with Rivian.
The state’s top jobs recruiter said that if Rivian did back out, Georgia could easily find another project for the construction-ready factory site, which is far more valuable now than when the automaker and state struck their deal in December 2021.
Altered voucher bill advances in House by slimmest of margins
With the bare minimum of 91 votes in favor, the House approved a private school voucher bill after it saw significant change to appeal to 16 Republicans who helped Democrats defeat it last year.
Seven of those Republicans returned to the fold this time to support Senate Bill 233, which would still allow parents to use the $6,500 vouchers for tuition and fees at private schools or for costs associated with home-schooling.
The program would also still be limited to students at schools performing in the bottom 25% for at least a year.
Changes to SB 233 include:
- Requiring private schools to test voucher students and submit the results to the state.
- Prioritizing families that earn less than 400% of the federal poverty level — about $120,000 for a family of four.
- Allowing students who transfer to a new school district to take their state funding with them.
Some opponents worry that vouchers could mean less money for public schools.
Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones added language to temporarily protect public schools by ensuring state funding tied to students who use the vouchers would still flow to the schools for a brief period.
Looking to help homeowners, senators favor their proposal over speaker’s plan
State senators on their chamber’s Finance Committee took a look at Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns’ proposal to double the state’s homestead exemption on property taxes and decided they like their own idea better.
They took another tax measure and turned it into Senate Bill 349, which would cap how much home assessments can go up each year at 3%.
The senators determined that Burns’ proposal, which would raise the state homestead exemption from $2,000 to $4,000, wouldn’t do enough to help ease the tax load on homeowners because it would apply to taxpayers in only one-third of Georgia’s counties. The others already have homestead exemptions that are higher than the standard state exemption.
“I think we need to do more than this,” Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said referring to Burns’ proposal. “Basically, (people in) two-thirds of counties don’t get a dollar of tax relief.”
A homeowner’s property tax bill is mostly made up of two elements: the tax rate and the assessed value of the property.
School districts, cities and counties have watched their revenue surge without taking the unpopular step of raising tax rates because the assessed values of homes and businesses in some areas of the state have risen sharply.
A cap on assessments could mean local governments and school districts would have to raise tax rates, but some lawmakers say that would make the process more transparent to homeowners who don’t understand how their properties grew so much in value.
Meanwhile, Burns’ proposal — aimed at lowering the taxable value of a home — remains on hold.
Earmarks for Georgia exceed $250 million
Georgia landed more than $250 million in earmarks as part of a funding package President Joe Biden signed earlier this month to avoid a partial federal shutdown.
Democratic U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock played a part in obtaining most of the earmarks, often working with Republicans in Georgia’s U.S. House delegation.
For example, Warnock joined Republican U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter in getting $38 million for modifications, operations and maintenance of Brunswick’s harbor.
“Federal funds help cover the often large, upfront costs that can be insurmountable or beyond the smaller budgets with which some communities must work,” said U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, a Democrat from Albany who brought in $15.7 million to fund 15 projects in his southwest Georgia district.
Four Georgia Republicans did not request earmarks: U.S. Reps. Rick Allen of Augusta, Andrew Clyde of Athens, Rich McCormick of Suwanee and Austin Scott of Tifton.
State’s tax collections remain slow
Georgia tax collections continued to slow in February, down 4.3% from the same month in 2023.
Collections are up 1.1%, or $223 million, for the first eight months of the fiscal year that began July 1, but that comes with an asterisk. If you exclude fuel taxes — which the state did not collect for half of fiscal 2023 — collections are down 3.4%.
The slowdown isn’t a surprise: Gov. Brian Kemp projected a drag in revenue growth for the next year.
The biggest loss was income tax collections, the state’s largest source of revenue. They were down 19% from the previous February.
Sales tax collections, the second-largest source of revenue, were up 3%.
The state’s finances remain in good shape after starting this year with $16 billion in “rainy day” and undesignated reserves due to the money taken in during the post-COVID-19 shutdown recovery and conservative budgeting.
Senator seeks ban on puberty blockers to aid gender transition for minors
Minors in the process of gender transition would face a new obstacle under an amendment a state senator attached to an opioid bill.
Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Ben Watson, R-Savannah, has proposed banning puberty blockers to aid in a minor’s transition.
The move comes after the General Assembly voted last year to ban minors from receiving certain hormones and prevent doctors from performing surgeries on children to align with their gender identity. That measure, however, allowed those under 17 to receive puberty blocking medication.
Watson’s amendment, unlike last year’s legislation, does not include a “grandfather clause” to allow minors already receiving puberty blockers to continue taking them. It also would remove an exemption in last year’s law that allowed minors on hormone replacement therapies to continue receiving the medication as long as they began treatment before the law took effect July 1.
The measure was tacked onto House Bill 1170, which would make medications that reverse opioid overdoses more publicly available.
The gay rights group Georgia Equality slammed the amendment as “extremely dangerous” and said “it’s important for parents to make decisions about health care that are right for their families and allows their kids to grow up healthy and safe.”
“This amendment,” it said, “puts politicians between parents and providers, and could ban access to essential medical care for transgender young people.”
Feds send $157.6 million grant for building Stitch over Downtown Connector
The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a $157.6 million grant to pay for the first phase of construction of the Stitch, a 14-acre greenspace that would be built over a stretch of the Downtown Connector in Atlanta.
The Stitch, one of several projects that seek to reconnect Atlanta neighborhoods cut off by construction of interstate highways, would cost an estimated $713 million. The first phase of construction is expected to be completed by 2029.
It would cover three-quarters of a mile of the connector between Ted Turner Drive and Piedmont Avenue, with space available for affordable housing and other new development.
The grant is funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law Congress approved in 2021.
Political expedience
- New state House member: Former Columbia County Commissioner Gary Richardson defeated C.J. Pearson, a 21-year-old social media influencer, in a special election runoff between the two Republicans to fill a seat in the Georgia House. Richardson ran with the backing of Gov. Brian Kemp, while Pearson aligned himself with former President Donald Trump. Richardson will complete the term of former state Rep. Barry Fleming of Harlem, who accepted Kemp’s appointment as a superior court judge.
- An apparent first: The Rev. Andi Woodworth this week served as Pastor of the Day in the Georgia House, becoming what’s believed to be the first transgender minister to speak to the chamber during its morning devotional prayer. Woodworth, a pastor at the Neighborhood Church, a Methodist church in Candler Park, advised members to heed Scripture in the New Testament and “love your neighbors as you love yourselves.”
- Oxendine in court: A trial was set for April 15 in federal court for former Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine. Oxendine served as insurance commissioner for 16 years before launching an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010. He was indicted in May 2022 and pleaded not guilty to single counts of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Capitol Recap: The 2024 Legislative Session
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About the Author
Jim Denery is a premium editor who mostly handles stories involving Georgia politics and government.
