Outside In and Inside Out
Typically, actions taken inside the Capitol are meant to impact people outside the Capitol. But this week things felt backwards. Events happening outside the Capitol drove the action inside the Senate chamber.
Outside In
Murder in Minnesota: I wish you could have heard all the speeches made on the Senate floor this week by members of the Senate Democratic Caucus. For two days, we hammered our Republican colleagues. We poked at their souls, we begged them to rise and speak up with us, we called out their hypocrisy and their cruel indolence. In this patchwork of voices, I heard the spirits of my colleagues emerge, all shaped by their own unique life experiences and the communities they represent. It was real, it was authentic, and it was raw.
It’s unusual for Republicans to actually sit in their seats listening to speeches delivered by Democrats. But this time they did. Few rose to take the microphone themselves, but those who did were angry.
They called our speeches “chatter.” They told us that we had no right to speak about events in Minnesota because we weren’t there. They accused us of reacting to viral videos and rhetoric. They scolded us, telling us that what happens in Minnesota does not concern us, and that we should stay in our lanes.
Every act of intimidation in Minnesota has only strengthened the resolve of Minnesotans. Hearing the resolve of my colleagues this week gave me hope that the resolve of the American spirit will prevail over tyranny and our democracy will survive.
The FBI in Fulton County: By late Wednesday afternoon we were all pretty exhausted. That’s when we found out the FBI was raiding Fulton County’s elections offices, seizing roughly 700 boxes of ballots and records from the 2020 election. We would need to write more speeches (a task most of us must do ourselves, or with the help of committed volunteers, since we don’t have money to hire professional speech-writing staff).
Voter Rolls Showdown: In the midst of the tragic events in Minnesota, a group of Republican senators busied themselves by pushing through Senate Resolution 563, urging Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to turn over sensitive, private voter data to the Trump administration in response to a DOJ lawsuit. Raffensperger has refused, rightly pointing out that Georgia law protects voters’ private information.
So Thursday morning we got busy writing even more speeches. Arguments were lined up. But before the resolution came to the floor, Senate leadership abruptly adjourned. After a morning spent forcefully condemning the FBI raid, leadership knew we were prepared to fight this next front as well. For now, the resolution is stalled — and we’ll take the win.
Take Action
A new ICE office has opened in College Park, and we may see increased ICE activity in the Atlanta area. In DeKalb, the immigrant communities in Clarkston and the Buford Highway corridor could be at risk. This week, my office began coordinating with local groups that support immigrants and their families — many of which need volunteers to observe ICE, provide legal counsel, and deliver meals. If you’d like to help, please contact my Chief of Staff, Amy Swygert, at amy@sallyharrell.org for more information.
Also, I recommend you sign up for emails from Galvanize Georgia (click here). These emails are written by one of my Brookhaven supporters, Rich Levy, and they are very good on local and state issues. He’s following ICE issues closely, in addition to many other current events that will help you stay informed in our ever changing landscape.
Lastly, because we’re in the second year of the legislative cycle, bills that have gotten stalled along the way are often tacked onto bills that have moved. While that can help in a short session, it also means parts of a bill may skip the usual committee process — limiting vetting, transparency, and public input. So you have to be careful. When advocating, talk about issues rather than bill numbers.
Inside Out
This week I had the pleasure of spending time with some of the younger members of the Georgia House at a reception for the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. We were sharing how the nuts-and-bolt work we are doing inside the Capitol seems so trivialized by what’s happening outside the Capitol. One of the newer House members responded, “Yes, but it’s important that we keep doing it.” He’s so right. Here are a few of the issues I voted on this week on the floor and in committees.
Bills on the Floor: We voted on several bills this week, including SB 148, a catch-all education bill that allows schools to offer hunting safety courses, launches a pilot program for outdoor learning spaces, requires schools to have an automated external defibrillator (AED) and an emergency response plan, and increases teachers’ personal leave days from three to five (four bills merged into one).
Committee Work That Counts: I’m thrilled to have some good committee assignments back this term, after having been kicked off of several committees when the new Lt. Governor took the gavel in 2023. I’m serving on Children and Families, Health and Human Services, Higher Education, and State Institutions & Properties. The Standing Committee schedule was finally published this week, and several committees have begun their work. Here’s what my committee work looked like this week:
Children and Families
- Improving Child Fatality Review Boards: SB 383 ensures every child death is reviewed promptly, focuses the work on prevention, and improves transparency for the public.
- Autism Pilot Program for Foster Kids: SB 402 expands a pilot program to provide autism screenings and evaluations for children in foster care. The program will start in select regions and expand statewide, with training and support for caregivers and professionals and regular reporting to state leaders. Children with autism are disproportionately represented in the foster care system, and early screening and intervention can make a real difference — for children and for the families caring for them.
Health and Human Services
- Fixing Georgia’s medical cannabis program: SB 395 ensures doctors certifying patients for medical cannabis have a real doctor–patient relationship, simplifies reporting, and allows limited information-sharing — with strong privacy protections — so regulators can stop bad actors.
As always, thank you for staying engaged, even when it isn’t easy. Next week, we’ll be in session Monday through Friday for legislative days 10 – 14. I certainly hope for a return to relative calm, but if not, we will raise our voices again to bring attention once more to the reality that we are not living through normal times.