Rep. Gilliard Celebrates Final Passage of the Original 33 Memorial Act
ATLANTA, Ga. (WSAV) – State Representative Carl Gilliard (D-Savannah) announces the final passage of House Bill 303, The Original 33 Memorial Act, in the Georgia State Senate, where it was unanimously approved. The legislation had previously received unanimous approval in the Georgia House of Representatives.
'I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Chairman Matt Brass for his dedicated leadership in carrying this bill through the Senate,' said Rep. Gilliard. 'Today, we honor the giants—the Original 33 African Americans elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1868. Unfortunately, they were denied their rightful place in history due to the color of their skin, with 14 of them suffering the unimaginable fate of lynching.'
The Original 33 Memorial Act aims to honor and commemorate the lives and contributions of 33 great Americans.
'With the passage of this bill, we collectively send a powerful signal that Georgia remembers and recognizes the contributions of these 33 courageous Americans,' added Rep. Gilliard. 'Finally, we can salute these great leaders and celebrate their legacy and sacrifices.'
HB 303 now heads to the governor's desk. The full text of HB 303 may be found here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


USA Today
38 minutes ago
- USA Today
Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break.
Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break. | Opinion The knives are now out inside the Democratic Party. And the party is bleeding, not only Americans' support and trust but also its last remaining drops of honesty and truth. Show Caption Hide Caption Karine Jean-Pierre talks exit from Democratic party in new book Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre talks about leaving the Democratic party in her upcoming book slated for release in October. The Democratic Party continues to self-destruct, and I am here for it. Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has teased a tell-all memoir about former President Joe Biden and the administration she served for nearly three years. 'Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines' is stoking claims that Jean-Pierre is a grifter, profiting off her time in the administration by trashing the former president and the political party that gave her prominence. Knives are out among Democrats for one of their own who has now betrayed them. Like other books that have recently exposed details about Biden's poor health, Jean-Pierre's book raises questions about the White House cover-up that attempted to hide the president's mental and physical decline from voters. It also calls into question Jean-Pierre's honesty: Why did she wait until now, when she can profit from it, to tell the truth about the former commander in chief? Former White House colleagues turn on former Biden press secretary Democrats are now a minority party in America. The GOP controls the White House, the Senate and the U.S. House along with a majority of governor's offices and state legislatures. The Democratic Party has lost Americans' trust because of its leaders' penchant for gaslighting, not just about Biden's health but also on issues like immigration, border security and the economy. Jean-Pierre, who now claims to be an independent, certainly isn't helping her former colleagues rebuild that lost trust. Details from the book are still sketchy, but Jean-Pierre should provide readers with an inside look at what happened after Biden's disastrous debate with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a year ago this month. Jean-Pierre's coworkers have already reacted to the book with contempt. "Former colleagues expressed confusion at how Jean-Pierre seemingly intends to paint Biden as a victim while pinning her own decision to leave the party on his 'broken' White House," Politico reported, citing multiple former Biden administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Opinion: Biden's cancer diagnosis raises the question: Was he ever in good enough health? Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Commerce Department's communications team during Biden's presidency, took umbrage with Jean-Pierre's assertion that the Democratic Party betrayed Biden. 'Kamala Harris and the entire Biden/Harris campaign did hero's work to avoid losing 400 electoral votes and giving Republicans a supermajority in Congress, which is what would have happened if he stayed on the ticket,' Legacki told Politico. 'It's more productive to focus on that, and thank Biden for doing the responsible thing by stepping aside, than it is to pretend this was an unwarranted act of betrayal.' But party insiders continuing to squabble over whether a now former president was or was not betrayed by fellow Democrats entirely misses the larger point. Opinion: Guess who Americans want to run the economy? Hint − it's not Democrats. Far too many Democrats, Jean-Pierre included, worked hard to deceive Americans. Their willful lack of self-awareness about their gaslighting and dishonesty is why the party has shown no signs of recovering from the last disastrous election cycle. Karine Jean-Pierre's book about Biden isn't the first Jean-Pierre's book will be far from the first to address the deception at the heart of the Biden White House. On May 20, journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson released "Original Sin," which describes in detail Biden's cognitive decline and the mind-boggling efforts with which his inner circle and the Democratic Party tried to hide the truth from Americans. Opinion: Texas woman's death would have been prevented if Biden had secured the border Conservatives had long been suspicious about Biden's health, but journalists with White House access failed to ask tough questions then. Now that it's too late to make a real difference, those who were silent when it mattered most are more than ready to profit from belated exposés about the former president's failing health. The knives are now out inside the Democratic Party. And the party is bleeding, not only Americans' support and trust but also its last remaining drops of honesty and truth. Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.


CNBC
2 hours ago
- CNBC
Why the U.S. tax bill's Section 899 could push European firms to list in the U.S.
The decision by U.K. fintech firm Wise to move its primary stock listing to the U.S. is the latest in a series of blows to the London market — and a new provision tucked inside a U.S. tax bill could make things even worse. Section 899 of President Donald Trump's spending bill, which passed the House of Representatives in May, threatens to penalize foreign-owned firms domiciled in countries with "unfair foreign taxes," and experts say it could accelerate the trend for European companies to hop the pond. The provision introduces retaliatory tax measures against corporations and other entities from countries that have levies such as the Digital Services Taxes and the OECD's global minimum tax rules. The list of affected nations would include most European Union members, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Switzerland, among others. For publicly traded companies, Section 899 imposes a new withholding tax on U.S.-sourced income for any foreign corporation that is more than 50% owned by non-U.S. entities. The tax would start at 5% and escalate by five percentage points annually to a maximum of 20%, on top of existing taxes, which vary by country and tax treaties. That could dent earnings for companies in the Stoxx Europe 600 index, for instance, by up to 2% in the first year, and as much as 5% over four years, according to Goldman Sachs analysts. How can European firms avoid Section 899? The Wall Street bank has identified a U.S. re-listing as one of many measures that companies could take if the bill becomes law. A listing in the U.S. would provide a direct path to increasing a company's base of American investors, according to Goldman. This would help companies push their non-U.S. ownership below the critical 50% threshold, taking them out of Section 899's scope. While there are many U.K. companies with high exposure to the U.S. with a majority-U.S. shareholder base, Goldman Sachs identified consumer credit rating firm Experian and Hikma Pharmaceuticals , among others, as two FTSE 100 companies with more than half their group revenues in the U.S. but falling below the 50% threshold for U.S. ownership. The Wall Street bank suggested that such companies could use a U.S. listing as one avenue to avoid taxes imposed by Section 899. Tax experts cautioned that to avoid the impact of Section 899, it would require significantly more work than simply relisting in the U.S. with an attempt to gain U.S. shareholders. "I'm not sure that listing alone would be sufficient," said a senior executive at a large European firm with extensive operations in the U.S., who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to comment on the issue. "The proposed language [in the bill] includes a vote or value test for U.S. ownership, including publicly traded companies, and seems to say that if a company [falls under Section 899 tax] for even one day then it is for the year." The executive also questioned whether companies will be able to identify beneficial owners — or the actual owners that control a business — "with any degree of confidence." That's because the tax bill includes "a look-through concept" — which means U.S. fund managers investing on behalf of foreign clients would not count toward the exemption requirements. "The monitoring [of the shareholder register] alone would be resource intensive," the executive added. Others point out that if European governments dropped what Trump calls their "unfair foreign tax" policies, their companies would automatically be exempted from 899. "Hill Republicans see section 899 not as a revenue-generating measure, but as a tool that gives the Treasury Department additional leverage in negotiations with other countries to encourage changes in behavior," Pat Brown, a tax expert at the consultancy PwC U.S., told CNBC. "Foreign-headquartered companies considering changes in their capital structure to reduce the impact of section 899 would need to consider that the government of their home country could, with the stroke of a pen, eliminate the need to consider section 899 as an issue," Brown added. Exacerbating a corporate-migration trend Goldman Sachs also highlighted that Section 899 could also act as a powerful incentive to a corporate migration trend that is already underway. For years, European and U.K. companies have felt disadvantaged by their home markets, a sentiment that has led to a steady flow of buyouts and re-listings elsewhere. Companies have repeatedly pointed to the valuation discount that European equities suffer compared to their U.S. peers to justify their decisions to move their listing to the U.S. Wise debuted on London's stock market in 2021 in a direct listing that valued the company at £8 billion ($10.84 billion) at the time. It is now valued at £11.07 billion, according to LSEG data. Since then, London has been mired in doubts over whether it can play host to major tech listings. The market is often criticized for lacking the depth of liquidity and industry expertise from investment analysts to accommodate such transactions. Doubts over London's stock market haven't been limited to tech, though. Last week, Glencore -backed metals investor Cobalt Holdings announced it was scrapping plans to go public in London. The IPO was expected to be the largest listing in the U.K. capital since early 2024. A spokesperson for London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) told CNBC last week that London remains the top European exchange in terms of capital raised and the total market cap of the companies listed. They added that they had seen a "noticeable increase in interest from international companies in coming to London with many starting to prepare." — CNBC's Ryan Browne contributed reporting.


The Hill
6 hours ago
- The Hill
Harris calls Trump's LA response ‘dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos'
Former Vice President Harris criticized President Trump's deployment of the National Guard in her home city of Los Angeles and stressed the importance of the right to protest. In a statement on the social platform X, the former California attorney general and U.S. senator said she's 'appalled at what we are witnessing on the streets of our city.' 'Deploying the National Guard is a dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos,' she continued. 'In addition to the recent ICE raids in Southern California and across our nation, it is part of the Trump Administration's cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division.' 'This Administration's actions are not about public safety — they're about stoking fear,' she added. 'Fear of a community demanding dignity and due process.' Harris said she supports the protesters, who, she said, have been 'overwhelmingly peaceful.' 'Protest is a powerful tool – essential in the fight for justice. And as the LAPD, Mayor, and Governor have noted, demonstrations in defense of our immigrant neighbors have been overwhelmingly peaceful,' Harris said. 'I continue to support the millions of Americans who are standing up to protect our most fundamental rights and freedoms,' she added. Her statement comes as tensions mounted in Los Angeles on Sunday, as police clashed with protesters and made dozens of arrests. Trump made the extraordinary decision to deploy 2,000 National Guard members, about 300 of whom have already been deployed in the city, as of Sunday afternoon. Trump said they were deployed to counter what he called 'insurrectionist mobs.' The administration's response to the protests has drawn widespread condemnation from Democrats. All 23 Democratic governors issued a joint statement pushing back against the federalization of National Guard units without Gov. Gavin Newsom's request or consent.