[January 08, 2024] | The Georgia General Assembly starts on Monday the 8th. It's pretty exciting to be under the Gold Dome and represent the fine folks of this area. I am always asked, "What are you going to work on, Rick?", "What's important?", "What do you think about this and that? When preparing for the session in the last few weeks, I jotted down some of the issues we may see.
The budget will be one of the big issues. It's not glamorous and doesn't get most folks riled up, but how we wisely spend the state's normal revenues and especially the surplus revenues will be worth watching. Many, like me, love sending it back to the folks who created it, our taxpayers. This past year we sent back nearly 4 billion; look out for more. Raises for state employees are being discussed.
School vouchers for private education will be an issue to watch. The bill last year only affected students who are enrolled in a failing school for two terms. Last year's idea did not affect Pickens, Cherokee, or Forsyth counties.
Election confidence improvement will always be looked at, and there are a couple of bills that can help do that. The Secretary of State would also like to do away with Runoff elections, and some members would like to do away with all or parts of the Dominion machine voting system we use today.
There will be another look at sports betting. Some state senators tried to barrel the language through in a last-minute scramble in the 2023 session, attaching it to a bill on soap box derbies - to no avail. Some really want this, but at what social cost?
There will be a bill increasing the penalties for those engaged in "swatting," which are false reports of criminal activity that send police to the homes or offices of targeted and harassed victims, disrupting normal law enforcement work.
The CON or Certificate of Need for Hospitals will be a big one. Those in favor of doing away with it are trying to put together a package to gain support from some legislators by including some modified Medicaid expansion ideas. Those against changing CON, know the change would hurt rural hospitals viability.
Other bills in Health are always trying to change the laws to improve the numbers of providers and increase the access to rural health care providers.
There will be continued work on a bill that would increase the regulation of school zone traffic cameras which have proliferated in the state the past few years.
I have worked on a bill that would fix a problem our technical schools have in paying high-demand technical teachers enough to keep them to educate our students in these technical fields. The bill would allow donations to the education foundations the technical schools operate, and the schools could then improve the salaries of these teachers.
The bill that creates a prosecution oversight of district attorneys that don't do their jobs prosecuting bad guys will be revisited to get that much-needed system in place.
It does get pretty busy in the days ahead; my number one job is to be your voice at the Capitol. I encourage you to visit me at my Capitol office, or call me if you have any questions or concerns regarding the bills, the legislative process, or any other measures considered under the Gold Dome.
My Capitol office number is 404-656-7153. My email is rick.jasperse@house.ga.gov.
As always, thank you for allowing me to serve as your State Representative.