GA Legislative Watch 2025 | Week One
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GA Legislative Watch
By Molly Mcloughlin ● Jan 17, 2025
Smart Brevity™ count: 6 mins…1,638 words
Hello! 👋 The GA Legislative Watch is back, along with new district maps and new gilding on the Gold Dome. With 5 legislative days down and the 40-day legislative calendar approved:
- Crossover Day, the deadline for bills to pass at least one chamber, is March 6, and
- Sine Die, the final day, is April 4.
What we’re following. With the 2026 election cycle around the corner and several legislators eyeing higher offices, how will the current state-of-play bear out? How will the second Trump Administration and Republican-controlled Congress impact the Georgia Legislature and state politics?
The big picture. These next two years will lay the groundwork to test messaging, forge alliances, and assess the strength of potential adversaries.
1 big thing: Leaderhsip Priorities
- 👍 Gov. Brian Kemp’s top legislative priority is litigation reform, and it’s clear he’s throwing his full political capital behind the divisive issue. The specifics of the plan to limit lawsuit payouts and curb rising insurance costs is still forthcoming.
Top State for Talent Act. Gov. Kemp wants to double down on his efforts to stay ahead of the state’s rapidly growing and evolving job market by expanding the Georgia MATCH program.
- Catch up quick. Introduced in 2023, the Georgia MATCH program is a state-run admissions initiative that aligns education pathways to high-demand career fields and has driven record enrollment in the University System of Georgia and Technical College System of Georgia.
🍎 Big plans for K-12 too. Gov. Kemp intends to maintain full funding of the QBE formula for the 6th year straight and provide an additional $50M to bolster classroom safety and $10.3M for student transportation.
- He also wants to fund crisis counseling training for school staff and allocate nearly $900K to improve the ratio of school psychologists.
Rural communities’ infrastructure and water needs will be a focus as so many major companies open doors across the state. The Gov. is proposing more than $530M for freight infrastructure and $250M to expand water infrastructure, plus an additional $502M to turn up Savannah’s drinking water tap.
🩺 Sights are on major healthcare reforms this session.
- Gov. Kemp wants to make healthcare more affordable by bringing more insurance companies into Georgia, creating a more stable and competitive market.
- He’s looking to expand the Georgia Pathways program to include a new group: parents and guardians with young kids under six years old.
More than $370M will go to prisons to tackle staff shortages, aging facilities, and contraband access in response to the legislature’s study of the state prison system.
Passing a Helene relief package is likely a priority for everyone, as D’s and R’s from Valdosta to Augusta are standing with the Gov. and legislative leadership to provide resources for farmers, businesses, and homeowners devastated by the hurricane.
Speaker Jon Burns wants to correct the math of the school voucher program passed last year. A state agency’s initial analysis found that almost 400K students were eligible for the $6.5K stipend; although they removed the initial list and have yet to release a new one.
- Why it matters: Only 21K students who attend the 25% lowest performing districts are in the plan.
- Experts say the language is too ambiguous, so lawmakers are likely to be more prescriptive if revisions are made.
👪 Lt. Gov. Burt Jones wants to improve access to childcare, proposing tax credits to reduce the cost and address the reality that many families face: Pay for childcare so you can work or stay home.
- The measure came out of the Senate Study Committee on Access to Affordable Childcare, which also recommends strengthening workforce recruitment and retention and increasing funding for providers.
2. Notable legislation
- Morning Orders will go longer, but only 10 bills can be introduced by each member each year. Democrats generally opposed the latter, but the majority already decided.
- Better show up. The only excused absences will be for personal or family illness and no shows get no pay on days they’re absent.
🏥 Democratic leadership is committed to expanding access to healthcare. Whether it’s their idea of Medicaid expansion or the proposed expansion of the Gov.’s Pathways program, or something in between is TBD.
- Democrats also plan to advance gun safety measures and push back on the Gov.’s proposed litigation reforms.
What’s next: AI regulation. Lawmakers studied the many facets of artificial intelligence in the off season and came up with recommendations for regulating it.
- The first, SB 9, sponsored by Sen. John Albers (R-Roswell), criminalizes the distribution of AI-generated obscene material depicting children and enhances sentencing for crimes when AI is used to represent them.
❎ No tax on tips. Similar to proposals from the presidential campaigns, SB 2 exempts tips from state income tax and creates new reporting requirements to collect tip data from employers, effective July 1 and applicable to this tax year.
Maintaining a level playing field. Backed by Republican leadership, the Lt. Gov. spearheaded the Senate’s first piece of legislation, the ‘Fair and Safe Athletic Opportunities Act,’ sponsored by Sen. Greg Dolezal (R-Cumming).
- The proposal “bans biological males from participating in women’s sports” in middle, high school and college.
- Catch up quick. The U.S. House recently passed a bill that would prohibit federal funding to schools unless they ban transgender athletes from women’s sports.
- Our thought bubble: Given the 2024 post election insights and recent polling by the AJC, will state Democrats follow several Congressional Democrats in crossing party lines to support some level of restrictions in sports?
3. Leadership Changes
There’s new minority party leadership in the House and Senate, while majority party leadership stayed the same.
- Rep. Carolyn Hugley (D-Columbus) is the Minority Leader in the House and Rep. Tanya Miller (D-Atlanta) is Minority Caucus Chair.
- Rep. Spencer Frye (D-Athens) is Minority Caucus Vice Chair and Rep. Saira Draper (D-Atlanta) is Minority Caucus Chief Deputy Whip.
- Sen. Harold Jones (D-Augusta) is the Minority Leader in the Senate and Sen. Kim Jackson (D-Stone Mountain) takes his former position as Minority Caucus Whip.
➡️ New Senate committee chairs include:
- Sen. Billy Hickman (R-Statesboro), Education
- Former Education Chair Sen. Clint Dixon (R-Gwinnett), State & Local Governmental Operations
- Sen. Sam Watson (R-Moultrie), Ethics
- Former Ethics Chair Sen. Max Burns (R-Sylvania), Higher Education
- Sen. Mike Hodges (R-Brunswick), Reapportionment & Redistricting
➡️ New House committee chairs include:
- Rep. Victor Anderson (R-Cornelia), Governmental Affairs
- Rep. Steven Sainz (R-St. Marys), Interstate Cooperation
- Rep. Clint Crowe (R-Jackson), Public Safety & Homeland Security
- Rep. Mitchell Scoggins (R-Cartersville), Special Rules
Plus, 2 new House committees:
- Rep. Brad Thomas (R-Holly Springs), Special Committee on Resource Management (focused on the impacts of data centers)
- Rep. Leesa Hagan (R-Lyons), Rural Development
4. Other political news
Meet all the new lawmakers here. With all 236 statehouse seats up for election last year, 22 new members join the General Assembly – 4 Senators and 18 Representatives.
- The Republican majority is now 100/80 in the House, down 2 from last year, and remained 33/23 in the Senate.
- While the number of Democratic female House members stayed the same, Republicans have 4 fewer female House members.
- In the Senate, Democratic women drop from 14 to 12 and Republican women from 2 to 1.
🤳 Bravo TV level drama. Speaker Burns had notified Sen. Colton Moore (R-Trenton) that his ban from the House chamber still stood, and that he wouldn’t be allowed to attend the Gov.’s State of the State address.
Notwithstanding attempts for reconciliation, tensions came to head when the Senator tried to forcefully admit himself resulting in a physical altercation. He was arrested shortly after and sent to the Rice Street jail. The Speaker reversed the ban a day later.
“There is real work to be done this session and the focus should be on delivering for the people of Georgia instead of personal grievances and egos,” said Lt. Gov. Jones.
House Majority Leader Chuck Efstration (R-Mulberry) backed the Speaker, responding,
“This senator caused a very dangerous situation, endangering law enforcement, doorkeepers, staff and individuals that were present.”
💲 Stacey Abrams’ New Georgia Project is facing the largest campaign finance violation fine in Georgia’s history at $300K. The voting rights group admitted to illegally supporting Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial campaign by neglecting to report and register as an independent political committee.Not only is Monday MLK Day and the National College Football Championship in Atlanta, it’s also the presidential inauguration. Georgia lawmakers and other supporters will head to a frigid D.C. to commemorate the second Trump administration, including both U.S. Senators.
- 🇺🇸 Despite a 30-day flag-lowering order in honor of former President Jimmy Carter’s passing, flags on Capitol Hill will be at full-staff on Monday, a request from the incoming President that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson fulfilled.
- Georgia will maintain the flag at half-staff unlike other Republican states.
5. What’s next?
- 🤷 Meanwhile, lawmakers are looking at another multibillion-dollar budget surplus, renewing the long-running disagreement between Republicans and Democrats about what to do with it.
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