The Parent Press: Week 2 of the 2021 Legislative Session
Greetings!
During the second week of the Legislative Session, we saw movement on several important issues, including the contents of the budget, which passed the House on Thursday and will most likely be passed in the Senate early next week, as well as voting rights and public health funding.
Public Health Funding
On Tuesday, I voiced my concern in the Senate about the lack of public health funds included in Gov. Kemp's budget proposal.
Over the last decade, our leaders have chipped away at the Department of Public Health’s budget. Our health departments are understaffed and under-resourced, which left our state unprepared to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, despite the severity of the pandemic, our government refused to adequately fund the Department of Health – the very agency that would be responsible for controlling the spread of the disease and the administration of the vaccine.
A once-in-a-lifetime public health crisis called for an expansion of our public health infrastructure. But that expansion didn't come, and Georgians suffered because of it.
According to the AJC, Georgia spends 13% less on public health today than we did during the Great Recession.
The state’s COVID-19 data task force had to stand down in August because it ran out of money.
We haven’t been able to create a centralized vaccination scheduling system, in part because we don’t have the money.
Our vaccine reporting system (GRITS) is outdated and unworkable, which has led to delays and confusion.
DPH doesn’t have enough employees to run a widespread vaccination program, and has had to rely on volunteers instead
Despite all of this, the budget the governor proposed last week would cut public health from pre-pandemic funding levels. He proposes that we rely on federal money instead, suggesting that those in charge of Georgia government don’t believe that COVID-19, or public health in general, is a Georgia problem.
This is concerning but not surprising. Our government hasn’t prioritized the health and well-being of its citizens for several decades. Instead, ensuring that we have no new taxes, even as our vaccine rollout is botched and more people get sick and die, is the priority. There’s even talk of further tax cuts. This ideology explains our dismal performance.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and because of across-the-board budget cuts, the state actually added $489 million to its already near-record reserves at the end of 2020, leaving Georgia’s rainy-day savings account with a $2.7 billion balance. Right now, we are in the midst of a crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Georgians have lost their jobs. Families are going hungry. People are sick, and dying. If there was ever a moment to use our rainy-day savings, that moment is now. Lives depend on it.
Budget Developments: Good News!
Democrats in both the Senate and House, myself included, repeatedly spoke out against the absence of additional funds for public health in Gov. Kemp's budget proposal. And I have good news: our activism, and yours, worked!
The preliminary budget, which will fund the government through the end of June, emerged from the House on Thursday. Even if the Legislature restored the entirety of the 10% budget cuts enacted last year (which it didn't), Georgia still wouldn't be spending enough on healthcare, public education or social programs. However, the House – facing pressure from Democrats and the public – did break with the Governor and provide additional funds for public health programs.
The additional funds include:
Money for a chief medical officer, deputy commissioner and a chief data officer
$18 million to modernize and replace the computer system used to track immunizations statewide (GRITS), which wasn't designed for a pandemic
$15 million more to combat AIDS/HIV and provide necessary medications to low-income people
$19 million for nursing homes
The budget will restore 60% of the cuts to public education funding, adding an additional $567 million to K-12 schools. Public schools desperately need the boost, and they will be grateful for this lifeline. My optimism remains limited: Georgia hasn't adequately funded public education for over a decade. Thus, we should restore 100% of these funds. Even then, we would be spending less per student than most states in the country. However, our schools desperately need help, and I hope that restoring a percentage of last year's cuts will be a good start.
Independent Redistricting Commission
I've been a vocal opponent of partisan redistricting, i.e. gerrymandering, for many years, which is why I recently introduced a constitutional amendment calling for the creation of an independent redistricting commission.
Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around. Georgia Republicans rely on their tripartite control of state government to protect and expand their power and their seats – even though the November and January elections confirmed that a majority of Georgians reject their party's priorities and values. Advocates for fair districts share a common belief that the solution to this anti-democratic system is the creation of an independent redistricting commission, which would take redistricting – a process that defines how, and by whom, citizens are represented – out of the hands of partisan actors, who are prone to manipulate the process to their advantage.
I urge all of you to continue your hard work when it comes to advocating for fair districts. We are joined in this fight by many local and national organizations – All on the Line, Fair Fight, Fair Districts and the ACLU, among others – who share my commitment to creating a more just and democratic system of representation.
Voting Rights
Protecting Voter Access
Republicans in Georgia have made it clear to us that they intend to use this legislative session to push through measures that would strictly curtail access to the ballot. This week, a preliminary step was taken in this direction with the introduction of SB 29, a bill that would require Georgia voters to make copies of their photo IDs and mail them to election officials twice before being allowed to cast an absentee ballot.
My colleagues and I have been warning the public about the anti-democratic intentions of Republicans in the Legislature for several months. SB 29 is problematic and I strongly oppose it. Fair Fight spokesman Seth Bringman articulated some of my concerns when he said: “By requiring access to a printer, which many Georgians obviously do not have, Republicans are attempting to purposely take away the ability of many Georgians to vote by mail simply because they believe too many Democrats and too many people of color voted by mail."
That being said, SB 29 may not be the bill that we're gearing up to fight. The first two weeks of the Legislative Session have been centered around budget discussions. Once we move past the budget and start passing legislation, Republicans will introduce similar, but more extreme, bills designed to restrict access to the vote. We can and will continue to speak out against SB 29. But we must also keep our eyes on behind-the-scenes moves by Republicans, who are likely to drop a raft of more restrictive legislation in the coming weeks.
Expanding Absentee Voting
This week, I introduced SB 38, a bill which would create a permanent absentee voter list that every Georgia voter could sign up for.
Under current law, most Georgia voters are required to apply for an absentee ballot for each election in any given cycle, which is confusing and time-consuming for voters, and doubles (or even triples) the workload and financial cost to county election offices. My bill would reduce the burden our current system places upon voters and election workers alike, by allowing voters to sign up once and automatically receive an absentee ballot for each election.
Of course, during the 2020 election cycle, access to mail-in voting was particularly urgent. In the early, scary days of the pandemic, we couldn't ask voters to choose between their lives and their right to vote.
However, it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for us to expand absentee voting. My Democratic colleagues and I have been fighting for greater access to mail-in voting for years. The truth is simple: expanding access to mail-in voting allows more Georgians to exercise their constitutional right to vote, so that those in power truly do represent the will of the people.
The right to vote is sacred. And access to the vote is a right – not a privilege for politicians to decide whether to grant or withhold.
The creation of a permanent absentee voter list would also dramatically reduce the administrative burden we place upon election offices. Each time a voter submits an absentee ballot application, an election worker has to process and validate that application before sending a ballot in return. There are 7.3 million registered voters in Georgia. If only 10% of those voters requested absentee ballots for an election cycle, it would result in 2.2 million applications.
If we adopt SB 38 and create a permanent absentee voter list, elections would be open to more citizens and cost counties less time and money – a "win-win" for everyone!
