The Parent Press: 2020 Session is suspended, plus legislative updates

The General Assembly Session has been suspended. 

The Coronavirus has hit Georgia, and yesterday the Speaker of the House and Lieutenant Governor suspended the 2020 Legislative Session until further notice.  We did finish Crossover Day.  We will need to reconvene before June 30 to pass the 2020 - 2021 budget, but right now I don't know if we will resume the Session or just look at the budget.  Like everyone else, our state government wants to keep people safe until the Coronavirus danger passes. I'll also apparently be homeschooling my children during this time, so be patient with me regarding responses to emails, etc. now that I am homeschooling and my interns from Emory have had to move out of their dorms and return to their hometowns!

Here are some legislative updates from the last few Session days.

 Vista Grove  

On Crossover Day, Senator Sally Harrell and I introduced a bill that would provide for a referendum on the incorporation of Vista Grove. Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver has joined us in this too, although she is obviously not a sponsor as it is a Senate bill. (A House version filed by Vernon Jones last year remains in existence.)

 What follows is the statement I emailed to many on why we took this step:

As many of you know, I have voted against every city that has come before me in the General Assembly.  I filed this legislation for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, the annexations by existing cities -- especially Brookhaven -- have increased.  With Emory annexing into Atlanta and Brookhaven's recent annexation of the entire LaVista Park neighborhood, which is barely north up Briarcliff from my home in Druid Hills, I fully realized that there is no certainty that north DeKalb will remain unincorporated long term.  In addition to the LaVista Park neighborhood, several other neighborhoods on the Briarcliff Road/I-85/North Druid Hills corridor are looking at annexation.  Moreover, Brookhaven has continued to move east annexing commercial property along North Druid Hills Road.  The county has objected to one of those I believe, and Commissioner Jeff Rader has shared his thoughts that Brookhaven is offering self-enriching tax abatements which are providing some incentive for commercial properties to come into Brookhaven.  (I have not independently studied these tactics as to all recent commercial annexations by Brookhaven, but I do know they have done that in the past.)  

So here was my thinking.  If the area isn't going to stay unincorporated long-term, I want my constituents to consider that a new city that the General Assembly delegation has more control over and that has pledged to keep  DeKalb police and work with the county in a productive way is less damaging to the rest of the citizenry of DeKalb than having Brookhaven and Chamblee, two more full-service cities, annex the territory.  The CVI study showed that there is a lot of damage to the unincorporated area from the formation of VG with police.  Without police, the effects are still there but mitigated.  If Brookhaven or Chamblee annexes everything, that damage is at a higher level.  Because of the state government's failure to show leadership and set up any sort of city creation process that made sense, we cannot have an official "township" type entity, which would have made a lot more sense for big urban counties like DeKalb versus creating all these new cities.  (Perhaps that could still be done before this happens to other counties, but I have very little hope.)   In the meantime, one of the reasons I voted "no" on every new city is that we as a state government were not requiring any examination of the effects on existing governments.  Because we no longer have Fran Millar or someone else shoving their vision down our throats, Sen. Harrell, Rep. Oliver and I were able to consider what we thought a more fair process would be.  We have provided in this bill our intention that VG would utilize DeKalb police for a minimum of 10 years, that they retain all unfunded pension liability, and the city only passes with a 53% affirmative vote.  So, for the first time, we've been able to consider the areas we would include and leave out and the conditions we would put on a city movement so that those remaining in unincorporated DeKalb were not unduly harmed. 

I am not advocating FOR Vista Grove.  But I do think given the rapid annexations it is something that should be considered by neighborhoods.  Perhaps people prefer a different city.  Perhaps there isn't enough appetite to get to a 53% vote.  But these annexations and conversations aren't ceasing, and we felt the need to show leadership in advancing the conversation.  We look forward to everyone's input, and will announce a town hall to discuss the issue (perhaps virtually) in the coming days.

SB 386 - Private School voucher legislation 

On Tuesday, I voted no on SB 386, a bill that would expand Georgia’s Special Needs Scholarship by using state money to help special needs students attend private schools. (Please watch the speech I made regarding the bill here.) Although on its face SB 386 generates support, in actuality it would be highly problematic. The legislation would only provide about $3,000 to each student (through vouchers) to attend a private school. The unfortunate truth is that the cost of private education is significantly greater than $3,000. It would almost exclusively be wealthy families in who are able to cover the immense costs of having their child attend private school -- and truthfully, there aren't very many options in most of rural Georgia, so the bill does nothing for most kids in our state.  

The result of this would be that public school students with special needs run the risk of being left behind even more than under the current wealth gap. In addition, the legislation’s broad language could leave the door open to providing these vouchers to students who may not have special needs at all or have ones that don't affect learning. The state would be obligated to subsidize those kids' private school tuition for their entire schooling career, and worst of all, as the kids age they would actually be getting more state money than the kids who stay in public school.

I pointed out that instead of funding this program, we should be improving special education, including beginning our instructional program for kids with dyslexia, across the state.  We aren't doing that --- and are instead spending taxpayer money and time carving out vouchers for a select group to go to private school.  It's a real shame.

Tort Reform Update

This week, we voted 27-26 to table SB 415, a massive tort reform bill that I had several problems with. There was an attempt to bring the bill up again yesterday, but only 18 Senators voted in favor of doing that.

So why did the bill fail? For one, it was deliberately assigned to a committee with no attorney members, who would have fully understood the impacts of the legislation. As a result, the Senate never got the proper kind of assessment we needed to determine its potential effects. Senator Jesse Stone (R-Waynesboro) said it best: “Folks, this bill has not been properly vetted.”

Likewise, this bill was biting off way more than it could chew. There were simply too many proposed changes to the procedures that govern litigation to give it a serious analysis, especially when it didn’t get adequate scrutiny in committee. If tort reform is going to return in the future, it should be in a slower, more thoughtful manner rather than all at once.

New Voting Changes

New voting legislation from the Secretary of State's office, SB 436, passed yesterday.  Among other concerns that I have heard from voter protection advocates, an issue is that the legislation would permit splitting large precincts between primary and general elections.  (This was actually something the Senator presenting the bill seemed not to realize.)  The rationale given is to cut down on wait times, a worthy goal, but changing voters' precincts in between the primary and the projected huge turnout for the November election could cause a lot of voter confusion and suppress the number of people able to vote. I voted no.

Speaker Ralston Proposes New Tax Cut

 The General Assembly is still dealing with a significant budget crisis, one that will probably be worsened by the Coronavirus.  That hasn't stopped House Republicans from proposing a new tax cut against all common sense.  On Monday, Ralston, citing his previous promise to lower income taxes for all Georgians, announced his desire for an additional tax cut to a rate of 5.375% from 5.75%.

 While there has been discussion of offsetting these tax cuts in other ways, such as by eliminating “double deductions” people often take on state income tax returns, I am not convinced these measures will be enough to make up for our many current problems.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted all kinds of issues with this tax cut in this article. First, these tax cuts may not be universal. In fact, some could even see their taxes go up. The Georgia Budget & Policy Institute has been adamant that the vast majority of savings will go to the wealthiest Georgians. Therefore, it’s no surprise an AJC poll found that only 38% of Georgians want tax increases. Half of Georgians, on the other hand, don’t want any changes to their taxes. I agree that ordinary folks’ taxes should stay just as they are and that we should get serious about finding ways to raise revenue for our budget shortfall now, not focus on economic pipe dreams that will benefit only a few Georgians at the expense of the common good.

 As always -- thank you for the opportunity to represent you in the State Senate! It is a great honor.