GA Legislative Watch 2025 | Week eleven

March 29, 2025
Friendly Amendment, GLW, In the News

GA Legislative Watch

By Molly Mcloughlin ● March 29, 2025
Smart Brevity™ count: 5.5 mins…1,448 words

😬 It was a tense week. From the floor to committee hearings, friendly and unfriendly amendments were tossed around with contentious and prolonged debates.

Exhausted after the heavily disputed tort reform vote and the traditional final stretch, lawmakers had to contend with bait and switch bills and a flurry of “culture war” issues.

❌ Booters get the boot. A friendly amendment was added to a vehicle registration bill to ban parking lot monitoring and regulate the infamous vehicle booters.

HB 551 also bans “kickbacks” from booters to property owners and allows for civil lawsuits for unlawful booting.

1 big thing: Friendly amendment link

The week before Sine Die always brings horse trading, and this session was no different. If a bill that didn’t crossover is within the same code section or is deemed germane by committee, it can be inserted into a bill that made it past Crossover Day.
🏫 The school safety proposal, HB 268, looks different after passing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee than it did when Speaker Jon Burns first proposed it.

Reacting to privacy concerns, it no longer creates a statewide database to track students, but requires schools to maintain student behavior records and share them when a student transfers.
Reimbursements for hiring student advocacy specialists is included, and it establishes suicide awareness and violence prevention programs.
It creates a felony offense in adult court for kids accused of terroristic threats at school.
If it passes the full Senate, it goes back to the House for approval.

DEI ban is back. A Senate committee replaced HB 127, originally allowing more sick days for teachers, with SB 120 and its ban on DEI policies in all schools, including higher education, which passed along party lines.

If it passes the Senate, it goes back to the House for approval.

🗳 Two election overhaul bills emerged from committee, SB 175 and HB 397:

banning absentee ballot drop-off the weekend before Election Day,
prohibiting last-minute State Election Board rule changes, and
withdrawing the state from the voter registration accuracy organization, ERIC.
Although proposed, neither bill mandates hand counting of ballots.
Zoom out. The new proposals move as the state prepares to purge nearly 455K voter registrations, the largest in U.S. History.

The “Anti-Squatting Act” was revived and passed out of a Senate committee via HB 61, establishing a process for law enforcement to remove people accused of illegally staying in a residential property, hotel, or car without the owner’s permission.

Those convicted of misdemeanor unlawful squatting would pay restitution based on fair market rent to the property owner.

📲 AI deep fake. SB 9, originally intended to criminalize AI-generated obscene material depicting children, now deals with misleading AI-generated political ads.

It criminalizes political campaigns’ publishing of certain audio or AI-made materials within 90 days of an election with the intention of influencing the race.
The original language dealing with obscene images of children is still alive via HB 171, which is awaiting a Senate vote.

Raise the pressure, not taxes. HB 92, giving local governments more time to decide whether they want to opt-out of the voter-approved property tax break, received a change in the Senate, adding pressure for localities to stick with the break.

Now, if they opt-out, they would have to note on property tax bills that leaders “chose to opt out of property tax relief for homeowners” and urge homeowners to call elected officials if they have concerns.
With the House approving the Senate changes, the next stop is Gov. Kemp’s desk.
Zoom out. Many local governments — some of the state’s largest — have opted-out, arguing it would cost school districts $ millions a year.

2. Other notable legislation

💵 “We’re paying with cash,” said the Senate Appropriations Chair before advancing the $37B FY26 budget, adding $141M to fund private school vouchers and curbing deficit spending for expensive construction projects.

Next, the House and Gov. Kemp will hash out the differences to come up with an agreement before next Friday.

🚦 Not dead yet. Shortly after the Senate Public Safety Chair cancelled his final meeting which was supposed to hear the House’s school zone camera bills, the Senate voted to recommit HB 225 and HB 651 to the Senate Rules Committee.

We’ll find out whether the ban or a compromise will surface from a hearing scheduled for Monday.

⚖ Part II of Gov. Kemp’s litigation overhaul package limiting third party-funding of lawsuits, SB 69, passed the House 98-69 and received final passage in the Senate.
🚍 The Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit line is opening at the end of the year, and HB 638, which passed a Senate committee, will help keep those lanes clear of parked cars.

With a 5-year sunset so lawmakers can amend later if needed, the bill allows cameras on the buses to ticket violators.

Unknown fate for your data. SB 111, aimed at protecting consumer data privacy, passed the House Technology Committee, but was then re-committed by the Rules Chairman to be heard in the House Judiciary Committee.

No North Fulton Development Authority. A House committee passed and amended SB 151 to allow North Fulton municipalities to opt out of working with the Fulton County Development Authority, instead of creating an entirely new authority.

🚫 Pay raises. The House disagreed with the Senate amendment to increase pay for statewide elected officials, including bumping the Gov.’s salary to $250K from $182K and others to $200K.

It sent HB 86 back to the Senate in its original form, which was judicial pay reforms.
🤔 One Rep. noted the coincidence that the Senate added the changes when so many have hinted at running for higher office.
But wait, there’s more. Almost at the same time, the Senate added but voted down an amendment to HB 85, which deals with Superior Court judicial pay, to increase state lawmakers’ pay.
What they’re saying: Some senators advocated for increased pay to encourage more “everyday Georgians” to run for office, while several noted they opt to take pay cuts to serve.

🎓 Foster caring. The Senate passed SR 310, creating a Study Committee on Additional Services and Resources for Transition Age Youth in Foster Care.

Additionally, the House passed SB 85, establishing a grant program for foster youth and former foster youth to attain postsecondary education.

3. Other political news

🔬 10K HHS workers cut. The Department of Health and Human Services will be losing 10K workers – half of the total lost when counting the “fork in the road” offers – and closing down 5 regional offices, as announced by the Trump administration.

Streamlining will include consolidating the 28 divisions of HHS into 15 divisions, including a new “Administration for a Healthy America.”
It’s not been confirmed whether Atlanta’s regional HHS office is among those that will close, but the CDC will cut about 2,400 jobs.

Speaking of the CDC, Susan Monarez, the acting director of the CDC has been appointed to the permanent position.

Her appointment comes after Pres. Trump withdrew his first nomination, David Weldon.
Monarez came from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, part of HHS.

📡 DOGE listens to public radio. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the House Oversight DOGE subcommittee she chairs met with the NPR and PBS CEOs to “hear why [they] think they should ever again receive a single cent from the American taxpayer.”

By the numbers: Currently, federal funding amounts to 1% of NPR’s budget and 15% of PBS’ budget, but the chair dug into claims of their political bias.

Days later, state Sen. Randy Robertson (R-Cataula) noted “Citizens’ tax dollars should not be used to fund public broadcasting,” during FY26 budget discussions – suggesting GPB funding be cut in the final version.

🏞 State’s first national park. Legislation was reintroduced in the new Congress by Georgia’s two senators and two South Georgia representatives to establish the Ocmulgee Mounds – the ancestral home of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation – as the state’s first national park.

4. What’s next?

👋 Not goodbye, but so long. Legislative days 38-40 are next week, the final stretch of the first half of the 2025-26 biennial, then Sine Die.

Explain. Sine Die literally means “will adjourn without a day,” signifying the legislative body has concluded its meeting without setting a day or time to reconvene.

Committee work days are Tuesday and Thursday.