The Georgia General Assembly enters its final stretch this week with a stack of major legislation still unresolved. Thursday is the last day for bills to make it across the finish line. Anything left behind dies and must start over next year under a new governor and lieutenant governor.
The $38.5 billion state budget remains in negotiations between the House and Senate. Speaker Jon Burns' literacy bill, unanimously passed as a compromise, would place literacy coaches in every K-3 school to address the fact that over 60% of Georgia third graders can't read proficiently.
The Senate passed a bill to cut property taxes by increasing sales taxes. The legislature also passed an HOA oversight bill and sent it to the governor's desk. Still pending: measures on synthetic hemp bans, medical marijuana expansion, data center regulation, and a controversial nonpartisan elections bill targeting the state's five largest counties.
Meanwhile, county leaders from DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, and Clayton held a press conference urging Governor Kemp to veto the nonpartisan elections bill, calling it an unconstitutional power grab targeting Democratic strongholds.
