Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for March 5, 2020

On March 5, 1735, James Oglethorpe presented a budget to the trustees of Georgia and proposed seeking an appropriation from Parliament, thus beginning the addiction of the Georgia government to Other People’s Money.

On March 5, 1869, the United States Congress refused to seat Georgia’s elected members of the House and Senate.

On March 5, 1977, President Jimmy Carter held the first “Dial-A-President” radio broadcast in which he fielded questions from radio listeners.

Ron Daniels brings you more on the Presidential Q&A from 1977.

Regardless of Carter’s policy positions and his answers to questions, “Ask President Carter” was a truly historic broadcast. Never before had the President been accessible via telephone on a live radio broadcast. And the questions presented to the President weren’t confined to one or two issues that he had been prepared to handle. One can argue that the American people were also fascinated with the concept of calling and speaking directly to Carter; nine million people called into the broadcast trying to reach him.

The President seemed to enjoy the broadcast as well, remarking: “[t]he questions that come in from people all over the country are the kind that you would never get in a press conference. The news people would never raise them, like the Ottawa Indian question. And I think it’s very good for me to understand directly from the American people what they are concerned about and questions that have never been asked of me and reported through the news media.”

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

The AJC looks at how seasonal virus outbreaks – like the flu or now coronavirus – stress Georgia’s health care system.

Georgia’s health infrastructure has longstanding weaknesses. The best defense against coronavirus is the good underlying health of the patient, and the best way to contain an outbreak is a quick response, but Georgians face unusual challenges in these regards. They are less likely to have health insurance than most other Americans, and some areas of the state have sparse medical care. Seven rural Georgia hospitals have closed in the last decade.

At times, even in areas where there is an abundance of medical care, there is also an abundance of patients, straining the system beyond its capacity. Atlanta’s main safety net hospital regularly rents an extra ER trailer for the flu.

The specter of a system strained to its limit, with emergency rooms so full they turn away ambulances, isn’t movie fantasy here. It’s already happening when there are big emergencies like the Grady Memorial Hospital water main break.

“Most places are always almost full,” said Adrianne Feinberg, director of emergency preparedness for the Georgia Hospital Association.

However, Feinberg said, those big hospitals do what it takes in an emergency. She recalled the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, when some metro Atlanta hospitals had ER patients with flu symptoms wait in their cars for their appointments. Other hospitals set up additional screening locations outside the main building.

The United States House of Representatives passed legislation to fight the coronavirus, according to the AJC.

The U.S. House has approved an $8.3 billion emergency spending package to combat the spread of coronavirus, including $2.2 billion to the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The House vote was nearly unanimous, 415-2. Two GOP members cast the dissenting votes; neither is from Georgia.

Under the Gold Dome – Legislative Day 25

8:00 AM SENATE EDUCATION & YOUTH 307 CLOB

8:00 AM SENATE VETERANS, MILITARY AND HOMELAND SECURITY 310 CLOB

8:00 AM HOUSE JUDICIARY NON-CIVIL 132 CAP

8:00 AM HOUSE PUBLIC SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY 406 CLOB

8:00 AM HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT 606 CLOB

8:00 AM HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS 341 CAP

8:00 AM HOUSE Resolutions Subcommittee of Transportation 415 CLOB

8:30 AM HOUSE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 506 CLOB

8:30 AM HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON ACCESS TO QUALITY HEALTH CARE 415 CLOB

9:00 AM HOUSE RULES – CANCELLED 341 CAP

10:00 AM HOUSE FLOOR SESSION (LD 25) House Chamber

11:30 AM HOUSE HIGHER EDUCATION 406 CLOB

TBD SENATE RULES UPON ADJOURNMENT 450 CAP

1:00 PM SENATE GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT 125 CAP

1:00 PM SENATE HIGHER EDUCATION 450 CAP

1:00 PM HOUSE MOTOR VEHICLES 506 CLOB

1:00 PM HOUSE JUDICIARY NON-CIVIL 515 CLOB

1:00 PM HOUSE Sales Tax Subcommittee of Ways and Means 133 CAP

1:00 PM HOUSE Academic Achievement Subcommittee of Education 606 CLOB

1:00 PM HOUSE STATE PLANNING AND COMMUNITY AFFAIRS 403 CAP

1:15 PM HOUSE EDUCATION 606 CLOB

1:30 PM HOUSE Income Tax Subcommittee of Ways and Means 133 CAP

2:00 PM SENATE FINANCE MEZZ 1

2:00 PM SENATE INSURANCE & LABOR 310 CLOB

2:00 PM HOUSE Powell Subcommittee of Public Safety and Homeland Security 406 CLOB

2:00 PM HOUSE TRANSPORTATION 506 CLOB

2:00 PM HOUSE Welch Subcommittee of Judiciary Civil 132 CAP

3:00 PM SENATE REGULATED INDUSTRIES & UTILITIES 450 CAP

3:00 PM SENATE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY MEZZ 1

3:00 PM HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS 606 CLOB

4:00 PM SENATE JUDICIARY 307 CLOB

4:00 PM SENATE TRANSPORTATION 310 CLOB

5:00 PM SENATE NATURAL RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT 310 CLOB

5:00 PM SENATE INTERSTATE COOPERATION 125 CAP

SENATE RULES CALENDAR

SB 313 – Pharmacy Benefits Managers; regulation and licensure; extensive revisions; provide (Substitute)(I&L-11th)

SB 248 – Georgia Firefighters’ Pension Fund; monthly dues, tax on premiums and maximum monthly benefit amount payable; increase (Substitute)(RET-56th)

SB 249 – Peace Officers’ Annuity and Benefit Fund; amount of monthly dues paid; increase; amounts collected from fines; revise (Substitute)(RET-56th)

SB 431 – Annual Performance Evaluation; definition of “on-time graduation rate”; provide (ED&Y-50th)

SB 336 – License Plates; eligibility for certain members of the military to receive special license plates; expand (PUB SAF-51st)

SB 306 – “Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact”; enter into compact; licensing provisions; revise (Substitute)(H&HS-34th)

SB 355 – Professions and Businesses; certain boxing, wrestling, and martial art associations and federations; provisions; change (RI&U-21st)

SB 370 – Public Utilities and Public Transportation; compliance with certain safety and permit requirements; electric easements are utilized for broadband services; provide (TRANS-51st)

HOUSE RULES CALENDAR

Modified Structured Rule

HB 488 – Commerce and trade; prevent organized retail crime (Substitute)(JudyNC-Momtahan-17th)

HB 576 – Courts; distribution priority of partial payments of fines, bond forfeitures, and costs; provide (Substitute)(JudyNC-Williams-145th)

HB 641 – Georgia Bureau of Investigation; grant powers and duties to identify and investigate violations of the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act and other computer crimes (Substitute)(PS&HS-Lumsden-12th)

HB 847 – Hemp farming; definitions, penalties and criminal background checks; provide (Substitute)(A&CA-Corbett-174th)(Rules Committee Substitute LC 44 1462S)

HB 855 – State Board of Education; determine eligibility criteria for foster care students to receive special education and related services;provisions (Substitute)(Ed-Wiedower-119th)

HB 859 – Motor vehicles; tinting of windows or windshields; provide maximum monetary penalty (Substitute)(PS&HS-Pirkle-155th)(Rules Committee Substitute LC 39 2591S)

HB 885 – Penal institutions; certain information within inmate files of the Department of Corrections shall not be classified as confidential state secrets when requested by the district attorney; provide (Substitute)(JudyNC-Petrea-166th)

HB 1054 – Health; newborn screening for various disorders; revise provisions (Substitute)(H&HS-Cooper-43rd)

HR 1094 – Property; granting of non-exclusive easements; authorize (SProp-Dunahoo-30th)(Rules Committee Substitute LC 50 0077S)

HR 1167 – Property; conveyance of certain state owned real property; authorize (Substitute)(SProp-Greene-151st)(Rules Committee Substitute LC 50 0078S)

Structured Rule

HB 815 – Sales and use tax; local authorities providing public water or sewer service; exempt (W&M-Gaines-117th)

Governor Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr are warning residents against coronavirus scams, according to WRDW.

“The Coronavirus Task Force is working around the clock to prepare for any scenario that might arise,” said Governor Brian Kemp. “It’s a shame, but all too often, con artists will use headlines to prey on the fears of consumers and trick them.”

Websites are using the coronavirus to sell unreliable products and offer treatment advice through fake emails, texts and social media posts. Some scam emails also ask for donations to help victims of the virus or contain malicious attachments that could harm computers.

“Scammers like to seize on whatever is making headlines, particularly when it is an emotionally charged issue,” said Attorney General Carr. “Now they are taking advantage of people’s fears about contracting this virus to try to con them out of their money. Georgians should be extra cautious about unsolicited contacts or offers and report any suspicious activity to our office.”

According to Governor Kemp, the Office of the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division is set up to investigate scams. “So if you see something that doesn’t seem right, give them a call. It’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said.

Investigators found no evidence to confirm claims made by then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp regarding attempted hacks of state computers, according to the AJC.

Just two days before the 2018 election for governor, Republican Brian Kemp opened an explosive investigation, accusing the Democratic Party of Georgia of trying to hack voter registration systems.

Sixteen months later, the attorney general’s office released a report Tuesday finding no evidence of a hack and closing the investigation Kemp had launched.

No election information was damaged, stolen or lost, according to the report, and there was no evidence of computer crimes.

A spokeswoman for Kemp said his office did the right thing by asking law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and GBI, to investigate.

“We appreciate the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and attorney general’s office for investigating a failed cyber intrusion before the November 2018 election,” said Candice Broce, a spokeswoman for Kemp. “More importantly, we are grateful that the systems put in place by Brian Kemp as Georgia’s secretary of state kept voter data safe and secure.”

House Bill 105 passed the Senate after receiving transplant surgery that added a 50-cent excise tax on rideshares, according to the AJC.

The Georgia Senate Wednesday approved a 50-cent fee on Uber, Lyft, taxi and limo rides to replace sales taxes that ride-share company customers would be charged starting April 1.

The ride-share fee was attached to House Bill 105, which was filed to offer farmers a state income tax exemption on disaster relief aid. The measure passed the Senate 51-2.

The General Assembly passed and Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law House Bill 276 last month as a means to collect sales taxes from customers of internet-and app based businesses, including Uber and Lyft. Taxi and limo customers have long paid sales taxes.

Under the new version of HB 105, ride customers wouldn’t pay sales taxes, but instead a fee of 50 cents per trip or 25 cents per pooled ride. The fees would go into effect April 1 if the measure is approved by the House and Senate and signed into law.

Customers in Atlanta would pay the highest sales taxes on Uber and Lyft rides in the country without HB 105, said Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, who was pushed the ride fee.

Local governments, which now get sales tax money from taxi rides and would get some from Uber and Lyft under HB 276, could lose up to $26.5 million next year if the measure goes into effect because they won’t get a share of the fee and would lose the sales tax revenue.

The Georgia State Senate passed its version of the budget reconciliation for the current fiscal year, retaining most of the House changes to the Governor’s proposed budget, according to the Valdosta Daily Times.

The Senate agreed with the House of Representatives and added back funds for food safety inspections, rural medical education initiatives, public defenders, accountability courts, among other budget line items. The budget was passed in a 52-1 vote.

“In a difficult year, we have done our best to carry on vital services and yet meet our fiscal responsibilities,” Sen. Jack Hill, chairman of the Appropriations committee said on the floor. “Governor Kemp has done his best, the House has done its best and I believe the Senate has also done its best to meet the needs of our citizens as best we can given the revenue situation of the state.”

No reserve funds were used in the Senate’s amended budget, he said.

Hill said the Senate appropriations subcommittees agreed with the House on many of its “thoughtful” restorations.

“This is a budget with few real adds,” he said on the floor. “But what we tried to do was look at service reductions and where we could restore services that directly affect children, the elderly, the disabled and essential public safety and judicial responsibilities.”

House Bill 479 by State Rep. Heath Clark (R-Warner Robins) would continue efforts to extend the statue of limitations for some child sex abuse charges, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

State lawmakers are mulling whether to broadly expand the statute of limitations in Georgia for people to sue who were sexually abused as children by members of businesses and nonprofit groups like the Catholic Church or Boy Scouts of America.

Since 2015, victims in Georgia have been able to sue their abusers and organizations that covered up the abuse before they turn 23 years old or within two years after those victims realized what they suffered was in fact abuse.

House Bill 479, dubbed the “Hidden Predator Act,” would expand the age range and timeframe for many more adults in Georgia to file lawsuits for sexual abuse they suffered as children.

Sponsored by Rep. Heath Clark, R-Warner Robins, the bill would let anyone between the ages of 23 and 52 file suit before July 1 of this year if they were abused as children. It would also extend the time people have to file suit from two years to four years after they realized they were abused.

Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are in the crosshairs of Georgia legislators, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.

Legislation aimed at tightening rules on third-party companies that play a role in negotiating pharmaceutical drug prices between insurers and local pharmacies in Georgia passed the state House Wednesday.

Three bills cleared the House by near-unanimous votes Wednesday to increase regulations on pharmacy benefits managers. They now head to the Georgia Senate.

House Bill 946, by Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin, would require pharmacy benefits managers to set prices within 10% of a nationally used average and require them to undergo financial audits by the state Department of Insurance.

Knight’s bill mirrors separate legislation filed in the Senate by Sen. Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge. That measure, Senate Bill 313, drew support from hospital and pharmacy groups as a way to keep smaller pharmacies in Georgia from going out of business amid increasing drug costs. It cleared the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee on Tuesday.

A separate bill by Knight passed unanimously on the House floor Wednesday that would require the state Department of Community Affairs, which administers Medicaid in Georgia, to study whether to remove prescription drug benefits from the state’s Medicaid managed care system.

The House also unanimously passed a third measure, House Bill 918 by Rep. Sharon Cooper, that would bolster rules on steering and relax some penalties for pharmacies that are audited by PBMs.

“We have to put a stop to corporations running medicine,” said Cooper, R-Marietta. “They’re going to put pharmacists out of business.”

From the Associated Press via AccessWDUN:

[HB 946] would require so-called PBMs to pass along any discounts they receive from drug manufacturers for a particular medication to consumers and forbid PBMs from denying coverage or requiring prior authorization for a lower cost drug. It would also subject them to surcharges for ordering patients to use an affiliated pharmacy to get their prescriptions and require them to cover the cost of prescriptions at other pharmacies.

Supporters of the measure are concerned that PBMs viewed as middlemen by critics are overcharging patients, squeezing pharmacies and stifling competition that could bring down drug costs.

“Please stand up with me against these heinous, heinous practices by these large companies,” said state Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin, as he outlined provisions of the bill on the House floor.

PBMs say drug makers are responsible for setting initial prices, and they use their purchasing power to achieve savings.

“Pharmacy benefit managers are working on behalf of patients to reduce prescription drug costs,” said Greg Lopes, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, in a statement. The association represents PBMs.

The Gainesville Times spoke to local legislators about a bill to extend paid parental leave to state employees.

Speaker David Ralston is among the influential GOP lawmakers supporting a bill that would grant paid parental leave to nearly 250,000 state workers, including public school teachers and employees of state-run universities. Private employers would not be affected if the measure becomes law.

Currently, state employees in Georgia are eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave when they have a new child, as required by federal law.

State Rep. Matt Dubnik, R-Gainesville, said Wednesday he supported the proposal.

“We have to remember that the state of Georgia is an employer, and with record low unemployment, everybody, the government included, is fighting for workers,” Dubnik said. “Wages, benefits, etcetera I believe all play into people choosing between which job offer to take and not to take. I certainly think this keeps us, us being the state of Georgia as an employer, competitive in the marketplace.”

State Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville, said he also believes it could make the state more competitive as an employer.

“We have some very, very bright and hard-working employees in the state that we’d sure like to keep,” Hawkins said. “It would put us on equal footing with what (private) companies are doing, and I think it’s very reasonable.”

Republican Carden Summers won the special runoff election for Georgia State Senate District 13, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

From the AJC:

A former Crisp County commissioner will head to the Georgia Senate after defeating a fellow Republican in a runoff special election.

Carden Summers, who is a real estate broker, received about 500 more votes than his opponent, former Leesburg Mayor Jim Quinn, according to unofficial results from the Georgia Secretary of State. Both are Republicans.

Senate District 13 covers Crisp, Dodge, Dooly, Lee, Tift, Turner and Worth counties, as well as parts of Sumter and Wilcox counties.

The seat will be back on the ballot again for a regularly scheduled election in November.

Murray County Sole Commissioner Greg Hogan (R) will face a primary challenge from former Sheriff Howard Ensley, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen News.

For sheriff, Republicans Dakota Boling, Jimmy Davenport, Brian Ingle and Keith Pritchett have all qualified and are seeking to replace incumbent Gary Langford.

A pair of Republicans qualified on Wednesday for the 14th Congressional District seat currently held by Tom Graves, R-Ranger, who stated last year he wouldn’t run for another term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Rome’s John Barge and Bill Hembree, a Dallas insurance agent, join Republicans Ben Bullock, an Air Force veteran and small businessman; Kevin Cooke, a state representative from Carrollton who is the associate athletic director at Shorter University and who has been a member of the legislature since 2011; John Cowan, a neurosurgeon at Rome’s Harbin Clinic; Dalton’s Clayton Fuller, an attorney; and Rome’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, co-owner of Taylor Commercial Inc., in the race. The 14th Congressional District includes Whitfield and Murray counties.

Bibb County District Attorney David Cooke is seeking a judicial declaration that several area hotels are public nuisances, according to the Macon Telegraph.

Civil complaints filed by Cooke’s office on Monday seek to have a court order that the motels, as he put it in simplest terms, “get right or a judge can shut you down.”

Cooke said the motels in question — the America’s Best Value Inn & Suites across from Middle Georgia State University on Romeiser Road, the similarly named America’s Best Inn and Suites across the freeway on Harrison Road and the EconoLodge Inn & Suites on Chambers Road — “are well-known centers of frequent criminal activity.”

His office’s complaints contend that the motels’ operators have “allowed, participated in and condoned” their businesses being “an annoyance to the public” and that they are also “injurious” to “public health or safety.”

Cooke cited a total of 46 incidents in which the police were called to the three motels in his civil complaints.

“We’re asking the judge to make them act better, whatever that takes,” he said. “And the judge has broad powers in a case like this to make a nuisance stop. I mean, he can basically shut them down, he can make them take whatever action is necessary to stop this behavior.”