Observers at the Capitol on this first day of the 2010 session of the Georgia General Assembly witnessed history in the making as the House of Representatives elected Representative Jan Jones (R-Alpharetta) as the first female Speaker Pro-tem (second in rank in the House only to the Speaker of the House) in its history.  Representative Jones succeeds fellow Republican Mark Burkhalter, who stepped down after serving a ten-day "term" as Speaker of the House following the resignation of former Speaker Glenn Richardson.

Representatives then chose Representative David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) to serve as Speaker of the House, effective immediately and for the remainder of this session.  In his acceptance remarks, Speaker Ralston described his vision of a House of Representatives that will be cooperative, respectful, free of scandal, and "about the business of the people of Georgia."  All of those things will be welcomed by the citizens of this great state.

The Senate was in session for only a brief period of time on this day (all the "action" was in the House), as they took care of routine business and called it a day well before the lunch hour.  They, like the House, will likely begin a more formal work schedule on Day 2.

Superintendents and others were made aware late last week of a series of education bills that have been pre-filed in the House, many of them intended to give local school systems maximum flexibility during this time of fiscal crisis.  GSSA has reviewed and analyzed those bills, and readers of this site may view GSSA's summary (as well as the bills themselves) by clicking on the hot links below:

HB 904 -- a bill which contemplates a different method of distributing equalization grants when the appropriation for the equalization grant program is at a level which is less than "full funding"

HB 905 -- an extension of the sunset dates for capital outlay programs, needed due to a last-night-of-the-session mixup in 2009

HB 906 -- extends the annual teacher contract issuance date until May 15 for the next three years

HB 907 -- changes the definitions for "middle school program"

HB 908 -- suspends, among other things, expenditure controls on local systems for three years