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What just happened at the Georgia legislature? It’s not that easy to figure out. We have to wait until the flurry of paper settles, see what the governor signs, and what lawsuits are resolved. However, some overall observations are already clear, and we have some lessons for future sessions.
Law making is always difficult for the minority party and the activists who align with them. But this session was particularly frustrating. “The thing that has stuck with me the most of this session is the sheer quantity of bad bills we've had to fight. I have lost count of the number of bills that in any other session would be THE bill that all of us would coalesce around and fight together. But there are so many of them this year that we're all just spread so thin trying to fight each of them,” said Megan Gordon the Public Affairs Manager and Lobbyist for Feminist Women’s Health Center.
A number of groups and media are doing debriefs over the next week about what passed and failed. This good article gives a quick list of some of the major bills that either passed or failed. But there are some bills worthy of early comment.
The Mental Health Care bill HB 1013 passed by huge margins with much fanfare, tears and cheers, with just cause. Access to mental health care and substance abuse treatment are vitally important. This bill requires insurance companies in the state of Georgia to cover these treatments to the same degree that they cover other health care costs. It bears noting, however, that this requirement is only for people who actually have insurance either through a place of employment, the ACA or the private market. If Georgia had fully expanded Medicaid to low income people, they would automatically have been receiving health care coverage including mental healthcare and substance abuse treatment free or at very low cost for the past ten years! The same benefit Georgians will receive under HB 1013 could be available to around 400,000 Georgians with full Medicaid expansion.
Election issues were again a focus of this session. After the debacle of last year’s HB 202, which implemented a number of restrictions on voting access and requirements for election workers, more election meddling this session seemed unlikely. But the “stop the steal” crowd just couldn’t control themselves. HB 1464 contained a number of questionable provisions, many of which would affect procedures for main-line county election workers. But unlike in the 2021 session, as this bill wound its way through the committee process, county election officials from both parties testified strongly against this bill. All the objectionable provisions were stripped until the final hours of the session when a requirement to task the GBI with investigating “election fraud” was slipped into a different bill. Advocates fear involvement of the GBI will add to voter intimidation and suppression of votes.
Former lobbyist and now policy consultant Larry Pellegrini says, “These legislators are listening to the demands of the people claiming election fraud and they are passing all these requirements without understanding how it will all work or how it will get paid for."
Another disappointment from the session was the Flat Tax bill, HB 1437, which helps the rich and hurts the poor. According to an analysis by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (GBPI), the math just doesn't add up. The bill that passed out of the Senate included a state Earned Income Tax Credit that would have, according to GBPI, actually delivered meaningful relief to low and moderate income families. But this provision was dropped by the House in the late hours of the session.
A little under the radar were some environmental bills that failed. “This session we saw a number of good bills to expand clean energy and lower energy costs. These bills were introduced from an informed perspective and some had bipartisan support, which bodes well for future sessions,” says Brionté McCorkle, executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters. A disappointment was HB 1150, which passed and makes it harder for existing neighbors to sue if new farm operations, such as large scale chicken houses, become a nuisance. This issue of the Peach has details on this bill.
HB 1084 was the anti-critical race theory bill that passed in the last minutes of the session. Unfortunately, it was not disclosed by the sponsors that a provision has been tacked onto the end of this bill creating a new oversight committee of the Georgia High School Association to decide on transgender participation in girls’ sports. This good article from the Georgia Recorder and this from the AJC detail the frustrating late night drama.
All in all, it was a frustrating session. Senator Sally Harrell echoed feelings of other legislators and progressive activists. “It was the most exhausting session that I’ve had in my ten years in office. It started with the special redistricting session in November. Then we spent half of this session fighting over local redistricting, and I’ve never had to vote on something like the last minute CRT bill with the transgender language that we didn’t have written in the bill before us.”
Also, it seems that a number of bills are already becoming talking points for the governor’s reelection campaign including the transgender and the flat tax bills. The perennial complaint about the legislature was again apparent in spades this session: the lack of transparency and disregard of rules of procedure. A somewhat related issue is how the public is treated. One sad example that got press attention was when a group of high school students traveled from Savannah to testify against the anti-CRT bill but were not allowed to speak to the bill. It seems that the majority party believes in the democratic process only when it suits them.
But progressives can point to some wins in this session. The voting restrictions could have been much worse. The abortion pill ban did not pass. Neither did SB 504, which would have required cash only for felons to be released on bail, nor SB 171, which would have placed restrictions on protests.
One of the reasons behind these successes this session was the incredible, well-trained bank of progressive advocate lobbyists at the capitol. Many of these folks have worked at the capitol for numerous sessions now, and they are developing skills of working in collaboration on a number of bills. “I've been here long enough that I remember when there were like, five progressive lobbyists,” says Megan Gordon. “And that wasn't that long ago. And so whenever I think of how hard this is, it's also paired with gratitude for the fact that the movement is big, and has been big enough for us to spread out and fight all of these bad bills.”
These lobbyists and activists will be around for future sessions and will grow in skill and number. They will face a somewhat different legislature next year. Around 25 percent of the current legislature is not returning because they are running for higher office or retiring. Also some of the incumbents may lose their races either in the primary or the November general election. This means that more than a quarter of the legislature will be new. The Democrats will not gain the majority in either chamber for the 2023 session, but it is likely that they will gain some more seats in both chambers.
A tweet from Cindy Battles of the Coalition for People’s Agenda who seemingly lived at the capitol this session, neatly sums up the legislative session. “At the end of the day, we beat two bad election bills, an anti-protest bill, an awful ‘crime bill’, an anti-abortion bill, and more. We made bad bills better and sometimes mitigating damage is a win. Sine Die y'all. The fight continues.”
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