WEEKLY LEGISLATIVE REPORT – March 27, 2009

Major decisions due as 2009 session comes to an end

By Rep. Alan Powell

By the time this report is published, only one day will remain in the 2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly – Day 40, Friday, April 3. Final approval of the annual state budget for fiscal year 2010 and major decisions on transportation funding and oversight will still be at the top of the agenda, as they were on Day 1 back in January.

As I reported last week, the House of Representatives majority passed an $18.6 billion budget proposal on March 19, but the Senate had yet to send its plan back to the House as of the beginning of this week.  When the Senate does finalize its budget, the Appropriations Conference Committee will have only a short time to work out differences between it and the House plan before final adjournment.

Meanwhile, there are still major disagreements on the issues of transportation funding and governance. The House and Senate have each passed separate sales tax increase proposals – on a statewide basis in the House and a regional basis in the Senate – and both sides were, for the most part, adhering to those positions at the end of last week. The House did appear to be ready for a compromise, passing an amended version on March 25 that provides if the statewide referendum fails, then counties would be authorized to implement the regional sales tax. But the Senate rejected that compromise the next day, setting the stage for conference committee negotiations this week.

The governor’s proposal to strip the state Department of Transportation (DOT) board of its authority and replace it with a new State Transportation Authority, whose members would be hand-picked by the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker, has yet to reach the House floor for a vote. Many lawmakers feel moving away from the current process of the legislature electing the DOT board members by congressional districts would weaken the voices of many areas of the state, and this particular plan appears to be losing support in the House as the session draws to a close.

The House Transportation Committee passed a bill on March 27 that would allow the governor to appoint a “planning czar” and give the leadership of the General Assembly more control over the financing of transportation without creating a new authority. Whether that plan would win approval on the House floor or in the Senate remained in doubt.

As the session wound down toward its final days, the following legislation originating from the Senate was approved by the House last week:

• SB 13, which would allow a sentence of life without parole to be imposed, even when prosecutors do not seek the death penalty. Currently life without parole is allowed only as an option in death penalty cases.

• SB 14, which would prohibit anyone on the national or state sex offender registry from being eligible for election to or service on local school boards.

• SB 44, which would require school systems to give preference to products manufactured in Georgia when purchasing supplies, equipment and food.

• SB 61, which would establish the Life Settlements Act, providing oversight and regulation of life settlement contracts and requiring brokers to be licensed and regulated by the Georgia Department of Insurance.

• SB 69, which would require citizens to report suspicions of sexual exploitation of children.

• SB 155, which would remove buffer zones from streams carrying mostly rainwater.

• SB 165, which would authorize the Department of Community Health to obtain income eligibility verification from the Department of Revenue for Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids applicants.

The 2009 session has seen some good bills pass both houses and go to the governor for his signature, including HB 233, which will freeze property valuation reassessments for the next two years and create transparency in government. We have also seen some not-so-good legislation adopted, such as SB 31, which implements a statutory electric rate increase and threatens the future water supply in Lake Hartwell for the building of two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle.

Perhaps the biggest failure of the legislative leadership this year was not dealing with the systemic budget problems that have plagued our state for seven years now. By using federal stimulus/bailout funds to balance this year’s budget, the majority leadership has put a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

My concern is that we have not moved past the failed policies that have brought us to this point of job losses, furloughs, reductions in vital services and shifting the tax burden to the local property owner. My prediction, as the House speaker recently agreed, is that we may very well return to the Capitol later this year to deal with more economic fallout.

• Rep. Alan Powell (D-Hartwell) represents the 29^th District (Franklin, Hart and Madison counties) in the Georgia House of Representatives. Contact him at 507 Coverdell Office Building, Atlanta, GA  30334; by phone at 404-656-0202 or by e-mail at alanpowell23@hotmail.com. For more information, visit www.alanpowell.net.