Driving Toward the Finish Line

Who’s In the Driver Seat?

Sine Die is one week away and major proposals still hang in the balance. So, you might ask, “Who’s in the driver’s seat?” So far it’s been Governor Kemp who put the pedal to the metal, accelerating his campaign platform. But now it’s clear that the Speaker of the House has his hands firmly on the wheel and will be the one who determines which bills make it to the finish line. And much of that depends on what happens with his mental health bill, HB 1013.

Driving in the Slow Lane: Bills Get a Yellow Light

Starting late last week, the number of House bills passing the Senate slowed significantly. My guess is that Speaker Ralston gave a yellow light to Senate bills until his mental health bill passes the Senate, and that the Senate responded by not passing House bills. It is typical at this point in the session for the House & Senate to get rather testy with one another, but fortunately, it doesn’t usually rise to the level of road rage.

HB 1013 is moving in the Senate, just not as quickly as it did in the House. Unlike the House members who are much more reticent to question their Speaker’s bill, the Senate is giving it more careful scrutiny through an appointed subcommittee. The subcommittee is busy making clarifying changes while leaving the substance of the bill intact. Although the Speaker might like a rubber stamp on his bill, the system is designed so that bills can be improved every step of the way.

Unfortunately, this week I began to see protesters brandishing signs saying, “Stop HB 1013,” which surprised me because the Speaker’s mental health bill has been such a good example of a bi-partisan effort. Turns out they’ve decided the bill protects pedophiles, increases crime, takes people’s guns away, etc. I have to feel a bit sorry for some of my Republican colleagues for having to deal with these naysayers, except that a few of them ARE them.

A Bill on a Wild Ride: Paying Workers What they Deserve

This week, I took a very interesting journey with SB 610, my bill to ensure we don’t fall behind paying the workers who care for intellectually and developmentally disabled (IDD) adults. 

Picking Up Speed. Early in the week, I presented my bill to the House Human Relations & Aging Committee where it got a unanimous green light. It was a rare kum-ba-yah moment as several people spoke of the long-time need for this bill, and Committee Chair Jesse Petrea, who has years of professional experience with home and community-based care, enthusiastically embraced the bill. Chairman Petrea even agreed to carry the bill in the House, which means he will be the one to present it on the House floor. 

Navigating Foreign Terrain. Midweek, I ventured into the House Rules Committee for the first time, a necessary pit stop to get SB 610 to the House floor. When I stopped by to visit with the House Rules Chair the day before, he told me I had a minute-and-a-half to present my bill. So in the Rules Committee I kept my presentation brief, but the Chairman, in a teasing way, scolded me for going over my allotted 60-seconds. Evidently the 60-second rule is a big deal in House Rules. Now I know.

Making a U-Turn. The very next morning, Rep. Scott Holcomb texted me that SB 610 got sent back to Committee, so I ran over to the House to find out what was going on. Unfortunately, that morning I had forgotten my Senate name badge, so the House Doorkeeper wouldn’t let me in. I showed him my security badge with my name, photo and the word, “Senator” but that wasn’t good enough. So I had to run over to the Secretary of the Senate’s office to pick up one of my “extra” name badges they keep on hand just for these situations. I finally got in.

Catching a Ride: It turns out my bill was sent back to Committee because they want to attach two other bills to it before final passage. It’s very common at the end of session for legislators to look for “vehicles”  or “riders” to shortcut the process. For this to work, the “vehicle” bill must be in the same code section and the attached bill has to be shorter than the original bill. This is because the attachment technically should be an amendment — not an entirely new bill.

Fork-in-the-Road Decisions: I found myself at a fork-in-the-road. They could attach bills to my bill that I don’t agree with, and my name would be forever tied to bad laws, or they could attach good bills and I’d forever get credit! 

I spent the rest of the day and the weekend trying to learn as much as I could about these two amendments. Turns out one is good and one has very bad unintended consequences. So I reached out to various mental health groups and the House Committee Chair for help. We will all meet together on Monday morning, but the House Committee Chair assured me this weekend he will oppose anything that jeopardizes my bill. 

I’ll catch you up on how the story unfolds next week. But I’ll say one thing now. This is actually what I love about politics — analyzing policy, reaching out to people and groups who care about the issues, building relationships and negotiating across party lines, and ultimately, standing up for what’s right.

Driving With Their Eyes Closed and Asleep at the Wheel: Another Bad Voting Bill

Despite the Governor’s promise of no significant voting bills this session, we now have a new 40-page voting bill. HB 1464 gives the GBI the authority to investigate voter fraud (without being requested by the Secretary of State). It makes ballots public record, making it easier for anyone to examine them for any reason. It requires that private grants made to local election offices be approved by the State Elections Board to determine partisan intent and allows the State Elections Board to reallocate the funds anywhere in the state however it sees fit. 

In Committee, the bill authors skirted the questions of committee members. I expressed concern that “When you call a surgeon, you get surgery. When you call the GBI, you get a crime.” Having law enforcement involved in what are often misunderstandings or mistakes could blow these cases out of proportion. But the bill authors were unconcerned, as this is likely their intent. 

As the Democrats questioned the bill author, I noticed that two of our Republican Committee members had fallen asleep. One was snoring. It has been a long, hard session and the Senate Ethics Committee almost always meets at the crack of dawn or at the end of a long legislative day. But it was clear that these Senators had already made up their minds about HB 1464 without having to tune into the debate. Hopefully they’ll stay awake for public testimony at 4 pm on Monday. 

Kicking into High Gear: The FY 2023 Budget

The Senate hit a major milestone this week when it passed the 2023 budget. Next year’s budget includes things everyone can feel good about like long overdue raises for teachers and state employees, expanded Medicaid coverage for new mothers, and cost of living adjustments for state retirees.

I decided early in the session to focus my work on the budget process, and the budget we passed reflects that work. It eliminates the “temporary” Special Institutional Fee that the university system has charged students since the Great Recession, a recommendation that resulted from the University Study Committee I passed last year. And it includes funding for more than 500 community support Medicaid waivers — five times more than what was originally proposed by the Governor. This increase would not have happened without the hard work of constituent Philip Woody. Whenever I needed Philip to tell his story to a legislator, he’d drop everything and come down to the Capitol.

On Friday I learned that the Senate budget included some of the money I had requested for a new satellite campus of Piedmont Technical College in North Dekalb. But since the House had not put in any money, and partial projects cannot be funded, I had to scramble over to the House to enlist Representative Scott Holcomb to help me convince House Appropriations Chair Terry England to include money in the House budget. 

The final budget, including whether or not we get the Technical School funding, will come down to the Conference Committee made up of six members of the House and Senate, who will work out budget differences. It will be a nail biter.

“Are We There Yet?” The City of North Decatur 

While many cityhood bills moved through the process this year, there were not enough votes within the local DeKalb delegation to move forward with the City of North Decatur. I will say, however, that the conversations moved forward and I believe we will be able to hit the ground running at the beginning of next session. This will give time for the community to review the City Charter, which outlines the city governance structure, and the City Map, including city boundaries and city council district lines.

Save the Date — Arrival Time

Please join me and several of my House colleagues for a virtual Town Hall meeting, tentatively scheduled for the evening of Thursday, April 6th. It has been a whirlwind of a session, but I look forward to telling you about the final outcomes and answering your questions about what it all means for you. Stay tuned for more details. 

The Georgia Midterms Take Shape 

There was a celebratory atmosphere at the Capitol this week as candidates came to qualify to be on the ballot for this year’s midterm election. Tuesday was an especially exciting day as I qualified the same day that Stacey Abrams qualified for her bid to become the first black female Governor in Georgia’s history. 

It appears I have a Republican opponent as do most metro area legislators. We will have to fight hard to protect our hard-earned wins from 2018 as Republicans are clearly fired up just like Democrats were after Donald Trump was elected. 

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

While a few good bills moved Georgia forward this week, I noticed a disturbing trend of bills that move us backwards, unraveling progress we’ve recently made on several issues. 

Bills that Move Us Forward

Medicaid Disability Waivers. The House added funding for 225 more Medicaid waivers on top of the Governor’s proposed 100 in the FY 2023 budget. Last year I set a bold vision with SB 208 to fully fund the 7,000 member Medicaid waiting list in five years. Obviously, this number will not get us there, but I’ve learned we also need to address workforce issues to help make it possible.

Service providers on average are making $10 an hour, so many are leaving the field. In order to get provider pay increased, the state must submit to the feds a comprehensive rate study and it’s been 7 years since the state’s last rate study. To address this deficiency, I introduced SB 610, a bipartisan bill requiring the Georgia Department of Community Health to conduct a rate study every three years so that we never get behind again. The bill unanimously cleared the Health and Human Services Committee this week and will be in the Senate Rules Committee next week.

K-12 Public School Accreditation. Hold on to your hat, I’m doing a deep dive here. But it’s really important, if you care about democracy and our public schools, so take a few minutes to dive down with me!

A few weeks ago, Sen. Lindsey Tippins asked me if I would sign his bill, SB 498, that proposes major changes to how accreditation works for Georgia’s K-12 public schools. I was the first Democrat to sign his bill.

Back when Clayton county lost its accreditation, and DeKalb was put on “probation,” 

I started keeping an eye on K-12 accreditation. What bothered me at the time was how the loss of accreditation seemed based on governance issues rather than what happens in the classroom. High school students in the upper grades became innocent victims when they had to list an unaccredited high school on college applications. This just didn’t seem right.

Through the years, I’ve had a hunch that the constant threat of losing accreditation has had a chilling effect on the action of school board members. Recently I learned that this actually might have resulted from statutory changes regarding the role of school board members (OCGA 20-2-61) made by the legislature in 2010. In this statute, it states (paraphrased) that the local school board shall not micromanage the superintendent, but also shall hold the superintendent accountable. An amendment to this language last year had to clarify that requesting financial data does not constitute micromanaging. Clearly there’s difficulty in determining what is “micromanaging” versus “holding accountable.”

More recently, I’ve watched parents file complaints directly to the accrediting agency, triggering investigations, media attention, and once again fear among families of high school seniors. This leaves me wondering why these complaints are being filed with private accrediting agencies rather than elected school boards.

At the heart of Sen. Tippin’s bill is the private non-profit accrediting agency called Cognia. In 2006, three regional accrediting agencies, including the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) which accredited Georgia schools, merged together, calling the new agency AdvancedEd. Then in 2018, Advanced Ed merged with a testing and assessment company called Measured Progress. Through all these mergers, Cognia has become a 120 million dollar, 500 employee agency that has dominated the market.

Cognia is not only in the business of accreditation. They also offer school improvement services, assessment and professional development — a behemoth of a company, in which deficiencies documented as part of accreditation can bring in additional revenue through “improvement solutions.”

The same week Sen. Tippin’s bill was heard in the Senate Education Committee, Cognia changed its mind about deficiencies they had documented as part of a “Special Review” conducted last August in Sen. Tippin’s home of Cobb county as a result of complaints filed by board members, residents and teachers. In a letter written by longtime President & CEO Mark Elgart, he explained that the “special review teams,” made up of volunteers, were never fact-checked by the company’s professional staff since no adverse action had been recommended. Cognia, however, stood by their assessment of the school board’s dysfunction, pointing out that the board usually votes along partisan lines, and that members should put their personal agendas aside.

Should a private accrediting company be telling elected board members they need to get along better, or else they might lose their accreditation? Sen. Tippin’s bill says no. Accreditation, says SB 498, should be based 80% on academic evaluation and 20% on financial evaluation. In addition, the bill states that accrediting companies should never offer contracts for remediation services for the schools it accredits, and that complaints be subject to open records (Cognia has refused to release complaints to the Cobb school system). Finally, SB 498 proposed that only high schools be accredited by a third party, while elementary and middle schools should be accredited by the state using data that is already available.

Based on years of observation, I have come to the conclusion that a single, unaccountable private company should not hold this much power over a school system. According to Pew, many states do their own accreditation. I commend Sen. Tippins for bringing this bill forward. After I signed the bill, three more Democrats signed on, and the bill passed out of the Senate Education Committee unanimously.

Bills that Move Us Backwards:

“We’re heading to some places that we don’t want to go.”
— Senator Harold Jones

Divisive Concepts in Schools (aka anti-CRT). Perhaps the most divisive bill to move through the legislature is ironically named the “Divisive Concepts” bill. SB 377 takes a restrictive approach to how race is discussed in K-12 classrooms. While Republicans claim this bill will not prohibit schools from teaching history, I find the bill confusing and contradictory, and I believe teachers will too. This bill couldn’t come at a worse time when our already overburdened teachers and administrators are under fire and exhausted from their heroic efforts to keep kids learning through the pandemic. 

Regressive Tax Cut. In 2018, just before the last midterm election, Republicans passed a tax cut in anticipation of a windfall from the federal government that never came. That led to major revenue shortfalls and massive state budget cuts that have yet to be restored. Despite having record revenues and lots of federal pandemic relief funding this year, the Governor asked all state departments to keep their budgets flat.

But with the Governor facing a tough primary challenge and all legislators up for reelection again this year, House Republicans passed a major overhaul of Georgia’s tax system that will cost the state $1 billion/year in revenue. It eliminates our progressive tax system in favor of a flat tax and makes several changes to allowable deductions. Much like 2018, it feels like a major gamble with markets still recovering from the pandemic and the uncertain situation in Ukraine. 

This tax plan heavily favors the top 20% of Georgia earners, while offering minimal benefit to Georgians in greatest need. Nearly 100% of Georgia’s top one percent of earners will receive tax savings from this plan, while less than half, about 44%, of Georgia’s lowest earners will receive a tax cut. There are other ways to provide tax relief to low and middle income that don’t risk Georgia revenues. For many years, Georgia Democrats have proposed an Earned Income Tax Credit, tax credits for low and middle income families based on earnings and number of children. But with Republicans in charge, that proposal has gone nowhere. 

Criminal Justice Reform. During his time in office, despite push back from his own party, Governor Nathan Deal drove a number of criminal justice reforms to reduce Georgia’s costly prison population, including reduced sentences for non-violent offenders and expanded accountability courts to reduce recidivism. Republicans are starting to unravel those reforms by increasing prison sentences for certain categories of offenders. This week, the Senate passed SB 381, a bill to increase penalties on pimps and human traffickers and SB 359, a bill that covers a variety of offenses including instituting mandatory minimums for violent felony offenders and senior abusers. While most Senators voted for these bills, some worry that reverting back to mandatory minimums is moving in the wrong direction. 

Ethical Hunting. All of Georgia’s creatures are considered in the Natural Resources Committee. This week, we had a vigorous discussion about possums, raccoons, wild turkeys, and ground nesting birds. Georgia has a good reputation for ethical hunting and wildlife management. Our laws protect native animals from hunters during breeding season so they can repopulate. But as raccoon and possum hunting has become less popular, these critters have become common sights on private property where they can wreak havoc on everything from nesting birds to garbage bins. On a bill to allow raccoons and possum hunting year round, I joined team raccoon/possum when the head of the Georgia Wildlife Federation testified that this bill would likely make little to no difference in solving the problem because there are no longer enough hunters interested in targeting raccoon and possums to control the population. But the bill passed 5-4 with the Chair casting the deciding vote. 

Some Bad Bills Got Stopped

Cell phones in Cars. It’s very unusual for a bill to be killed on the Senate floor. But this week, the Senate voted down SB 206, a bill that would allow drivers to touch cell phones in mounted devices while stopped at traffic lights and stop signs. This bill would have weakened Georgia’s “Hands-Free law” passed in 2018 that prohibits drivers from using their cell phones while driving. The Republican bill author argued that this was not a partisan bill. He was right — both Republicans and Democratic Senators voted against it!

Crossing Over!

Next week, Monday is a committee day and Tuesday is Crossover Day, the last day for bills to pass at least one chamber in order to continue on the journey to becoming law this year. If a bill does not pass in either the House or Senate, it is considered dead until it is re-filed next year. 

Crossover Day is always one of the longest of the session, often lasting well into the evening hours. It is anyone’s guess how long we’ll be on the Senate floor that day! You can always tune in to the House or Senate floor sessions via the Georgia General Assembly website here: https://www.legis.ga.gov/.

Links

• https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/208613765
• https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-06-26-advanced-to-merge-with-assessment-maker-measured-progress-to-form-120m-nonprofit
• https://www.ajc.com/education/accreditation-agency-reverses-most-criticism-of-cobb-county-schools/PB2TZSQ4DRACHBC5YAGSCNMIAY/