Culture war bills, election tinkering left behind as Georgia lawmakers abruptly leave Gold Dome

Yahoo

05-04-2025

House lawmakers celebrated the end of the 2025 session by ripping up and tossing paper in the air after the Senate had already said peace out to making laws. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
The 2025 legislative session ended abruptly Friday when the Senate suddenly adjourned earlier than usual, catching many people in the bustling Georgia Capitol off guard and throwing the House into disarray.
The last day of the 40-day legislative session, when the House and Senate usually crank out legislation right up until midnight and celebrate at the end of the night by throwing torn-up pieces of paper into the air, ended with a whimper.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones sent senators home a little after 9 p.m. Friday. Senators seemed to be taken off-guard – the floor of the chamber was littered not with the customary shreds of paper but entire crumpled up sheets.
'We'd already gotten all our priorities done, and I've been saying all day, of course, I've been leading up to the last two days saying we're going to adjourn early,' Jones told reporters after the Senate gaveled out. 'I actually was trying to get done earlier than now, but there were a few more priorities that we went ahead and got some 'agrees' on and everything, but it was a good session, and we got a lot of things done.'
Not all of Jones' top priorities were successful, including the Red Tape Rollback Act, also known as Georgia's DOGE, aimed at cutting government bureaucracy.
The abrupt ending to Senate business seemed to surprise House lawmakers. After a break, the chamber gaveled back in to pass a few more bills and resume the ceremonial thank-yous to House staff and the throwing of the paper scraps.
Speaking to reporters after the final gavel, Newington Republican and House Speaker Jon Burns said the House had accomplished what it had set out to, with the exception of efforts to rein in the use of school zone speed cameras.
Dozens of bills were left in limbo Friday but will still be active when lawmakers return for the second half of the biennium next January.
Burns also lobbed a jab at the other chamber.
'I just think it shows that the House is focusing on its priorities and getting the job done, and we're not worried about moving on to some kind of higher office. We came here to do a job and we did our job, and that's what drives the House,' Burns said.
Jones is widely expected to announce a run for governor in 2026, and other high-ranking senators are reportedly mulling runs for other top positions like lieutenant governor and attorney general. At least one senator, McDonough Republican Sen. Brian Strickland, who is running for attorney general, has filed his papers to run for statewide office.
Friday night was a peculiar end to a session that had been dominated by debate over new limits on lawsuits, a slate of culture war bills largely focused on transgender Georgians and efforts to improve security on Georgia's campuses after last year's Apalachee High School shooting that left two students and two teachers dead.
Lawmakers passed a budget for the next budget year on the final day of this year's legislative session as economic uncertainty looms on the national level.
The $37.8 million budget notably includes spending boosts for the state's prisons and schools, and it's slightly larger than the one Gov. Brian Kemp unveiled when the legislation session began. The governor, who sets the spending level, added $50.4 million to next year's revenue estimate Friday.
The budget, which takes effect July 1, was sent to the governor as the Trump administration's historic tariffs upset the global economy and as economic forecasters say the U.S. economy could be heading toward a recession.
The S&P 500 has dropped 10% over two days after Trump unveiled his tariff plan.
'Our budget is predicated on a revenue estimate, and I think it's fair to say that since we reconvened in January, the macro-economic picture has changed pretty dramatically in just over the last few days,' Rep. Scott Holcomb, an Atlanta Democrat, said to the House's top budget writer, Rep. Matt Hatchett.
'How comfortable are you with the probability that the revenue estimates that make this budget will hold throughout the year?' Holcomb said.
Hatchett, a Dublin Republican, responded that if there are 'huge swings' then lawmakers would likely need to return to Atlanta for a special session to adjust the spending plan.
But Hatchett and other House Republican leaders told reporters later that they do not think that is likely.
'Certainly, a good businessperson is always looking forward and trying to be ready for what's coming next,' Burns said. 'If we don't do that, then we're not doing our job. So, we're conscious of those possibilities, and we're in a very, very strong position when it comes to reserves.'
Hatchett said Friday that the state has over $12 billion in reserves. Although he said he thinks it's unlikely that lawmakers will need to be summoned back later this year, he said he thinks a 'correction' could be on the horizon.
A bipartisan bill intended to hold out-of-state landlords more accountable for managing single-family homes across Georgia is awaiting the governor's signature.
Decatur Democratic Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, who is the sponsor of House Bill 399, called the measure a good first step to deal with investor-owned homes that are popping up all over metro Atlanta. Under the legislation, landlords with single-family homes or duplexes have to hire Georgia brokers or other in-state management to handle tenant maintenance and other housing issues.
Both chambers passed the bill before this year's session ended late Friday, with the Senate passing it with a 46-9 vote.
Advocates for housing rights point to the significant economic hit caused by fewer single-family homes available for first-time buyers.
'We know that the local property owners, the local property managements, are struggling with this competition that's coming from the hedge funds, the out-of-state investors who are impacting our market in a bad way,' Oliver said following Friday's Senate vote on her bill.
Oliver's bill was carried in the Senate by Sylvania Republican Sen. Max Burns, who said the problem is more widespread than Atlanta.
'It's an issue in our smaller, urban areas as well as our metropolitan areas,' Burns said. 'It'll impact rural Georgia when it gets down to Bulloch County, Statesboro, Valdosta or Macon. You're not seeing it just in Metro. If you look at the districts where there's more than 25% of available rental housing owned by investors, that creates a challenge.'
The first year of the two-year legislative session concluded without the final passage of one of Jones' top priorities, a so-called red tape rollback bill as coined by Jones to be a state-level version of the Elon Musk-led federal Department of Government Efficiency.
Senate Bill 28, which cleared the chamber in February by a 33-21 vote that fell along party lines, failed to make it to the House floor for debate Friday. This is the second year Jones' red tape rollback had not made it out of the House.
The most significant GOP election bill for the session also failed to get a final vote Friday in the House.
The House adjourned before legislators were presented with a substitute version of House Bill 397 that cleared the Senate after the addition of several proposals such as expanding State Election Board powers and banning Georgia from being a member of multi-state voter rolls sharing databases. Instead, the House passed a resolution Friday creating a study committee that will examine election rules later this year.
A pair of firearm-related bills were also left unfinished. The House had spent more than an hour Friday debating a proposal that targets a Savannah ordinance penalizing gun owners who leave their firearms in unlocked vehicles. Under the proposal, someone facing a fine would be able to sue the city for as much as $25,000 in damages.
And a House proposal that originally aimed to encourage safe gun storage through an income tax credit stalled after a compromise version limited the tax credit to gun safety training and spliced it with a Senate bill creating a four-day sales tax holiday for firearms, ammunition and other accessories, like scopes and magazines – as well as gun safes.
This year, lawmakers passed a ban on transgender athletes in girls' sports and signed off on another bill seeking to block inmates from receiving gender-affirming care. This also proved to be the year that legislators passed a so-called religious freedom bill, which Kemp signed Friday over concerns that it would lead to discrimination against LGBTQ people and religious minorities.
But other controversial red meat bills were left behind for now, including a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs or policies from all state public schools and universities. Other stalled measures would have banned gender-affirming care for state workers and made it harder for minors to be treated with puberty blockers for gender dysphoria.
Georgia Recorder freelancer Maya Homan contributed to this report.
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