GA Legislative Watch 2025 | Week Five

February 15, 2025
Friendly Amendment, GLW, In the News

GA Legislative Watch

By Molly Mcloughlin ● February 15, 2025
Smart Brevity™ count: 5 mins…1,338 words

Happy Valentine’s Day! 😍 Legislative days 14-17 are behind us, kicked off with a late Monday night hearing on Gov. Kemp’s litigation overhaul.

Keep on the Sonny side. The Senate passed a resolution naming the new and yet-to-be-built legislative office complex the “Sonny Perdue Legislative Center.”

🙏 Situational awareness: Former Chief of Staff for Gov. Nathan Deal, Chris Riley will serve temporarily as Chief of Staff for Speaker Jon Burns in place of Terry England, who is on medical leave after suffering from an accident on his farm. Our thoughts and prayers are with Terry and his family.

1 big thing: A place to live

🏡 Housing is at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Local governments want to address homelessness and a growing workforce.
Developers are coping with exorbitant labor and construction costs.
And consumers just want a safe and affordable place to live.

The issue is statewide and has caught bipartisan attention from the General Assembly in recent years.

Last year, the Legislature passed the landmark Safe at Home Act, requiring rentals to be “fit for human habitation.” But some believe habitability should be legally defined, which the bill left to the courts.
Housing advocates are working with Rep. Terry Cummings (D-Mableton) to define habitability and build on HB 404.

This year several bills have dropped that address access, accountability, and affordability problems for renters, owners and developers.

📝 Rental registries. State law currently prohibits local governments from requiring rental properties to be registered with them.

HB 374 would repeal the state’s ban and allow for localities to create databases of residential rental property owners required to register if they have 5 or more rentals in one jurisdiction, helping to keep them accountable.
It also bars fines for registering and requires disclosure of foreign adversary ownership.
Big picture: Local governments have found it difficult to track down who owns many rental properties when issues arise, sometimes finding layers of companies with no contact information.

🚫 Institutional landlords. HB 305, the Protect the Dream Act, would prohibit large-scale real estate investors from acquiring interests in single-family dwellings.

Prohibited businesses would be those that hold $6.25M in total assets or interest in at least 25 single-family homes in a single county.

📈 Incentivizing density. HB 400, the Community Housing Options Increase Cost Efficiency (CHOICE) Act has resurfaced and would create incentives for local governments to adopt policies that increase housing supply, putting those that do on a priority list for grants and loans from state agencies.

Scaling up. HB 317 would allow for the creation of “Workforce and Residential Infrastructure Districts” (formerly known as Community Development Districts).

A district would serve as a finance and governing structure to develop large scale housing communities, especially in rural areas.
🌴 Think of Florida’s massive housing communities that manage their own infrastructure, services, and financing.
Yes but: These developments typically start from scratch and require hefty capital upfront — which residents would bare over time.

Though there is bipartisan support for these measures, with Rep. Joseph Gullet (R-Dallas) and Rep. Dale Washburn (R-Macon) joining Democrats on several, we’re uncertain if they’ll gain traction.

Why it matters: Wall Street and institutional investors have scooped up housing supply in record numbers across the country, but at particularly high rates in Atlanta with 25% of single-family homes owned by them.

2. Notable legislation

⚖ One hour for each side. Gov. Kemp’s omnibus civil litigation package, SB 68, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 8-3 along party lines. It was amended to allow more flexibility in awarding pain and suffering compensation.

Proponents say the plan will halt rising insurance costs and improve economic competitiveness by rebalancing a civil litigation system that’s out of hand.
Opponents say it will restrict plaintiffs’ access to the courts, benefit insurance companies, but not contribute to lower rates.

Insurance Comm. John King has studied the issue over the past year and testified when asked if rates would drop, “I can’t guarantee that, I think it would be wrong for me to tell you that, but I can guarantee you that they will go up if we don’t do something about it.”

Passing the same committee 10-1, SB 69 would limit third-party funding of lawsuits, require them to register with the Dept. of Banking, and restrain their ability to influence plaintiffs.

Minority Leader Harold Jones, a former prosecutor and solicitor general, carried the one ‘no’ vote.
Go deeper.

🎒 Foster kids may soon get a school voucher, adding to the growing list of eligible students.

Backed by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, SB 152 would give biological or adopted children of foster parents a $6.5K state-funded scholarship for private school tuition or other education expenses.
Yes, but: Currently, there’s not an accurate count of eligible students, with a previous analysis finding 400K students could be eligible – far from the 21K students originally budgeted.
The state removed the initial list and has yet to release a new one.

🤳 No more phones in schools would be the mandate if HB 340 passes. Rep. Scott Hilton (R-Peachtree Corners) introduced “The Distraction-Free Schools Act” prohibiting personal phones in public schools for grades K-8, leaving implementation plans up to each district.

Separation of church and state…except for the classroom, according to HB 313, which would mandate the Ten Commandments be posted in schools with specific size and location requirements – aligning with numerous other red states.

You can run but you can’t hide. The Senate passed SB 21 that would do away with legal immunity for localities that act as “sanctuary cities.”

Opponents say opening up local governments to a potential flurry of lawsuits would impose a huge administrative and cost burden that would eventually be felt by the residents.
Proponents say local governments shouldn’t have any issues if they follow current immigration laws, such as detaining illegal immigrants at the request of DHS.

💳 Swipe fees. After studying the issue with stakeholders in the off season, Rep. Todd Jones (R-South Forsyth) is back with HB 431, another attempt to limit the fees charged by credit card companies and banks to process transactions.

The plan doesn’t follow the study committee’s recommendations, so we expect another, more closely aligned version to drop as well.

Cryptocurrency. Sen. Greg Dolezal (R-Cumming) introduced SB 178 to allow the state to invest in Bitcoin, limited to only 5% of any fund – following a trend in many states.

3. Other political news

🧑‍⚖ Trump will get his pick for chief judge of the largest federal trial court in Georgia, since Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten Sr. announced he will retire in May.

The post represents the Northern District of Georgia, which covers 46 counties, including metro Atlanta.

🎯 The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) released a Target Map identifying battlegrounds across the country, including the Georgia House where Ds picked up two seats last cycle.

Why it matters: Rep. Shea Roberts (D-Atlanta) created the Georgia Women PAC last year, raising over $500K to achieve the same mission – win back the majority in the House or at least make significant progress.
National party investment and attention could make House Rs double down on their efforts to maintain a steady 100-80 majority.

Bottoms making a promise? Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms launched a PAC called “Georgia’s Promise,” hinting a run for governor.