Georgia lawmakers head home after votes on guns, taxes, medical pot

In the hurried final hours of their annual legislative session, Georgia lawmakers sent Republican Gov. Nathan Deal bills on everything from tax credits and medical marijuana to guns on college campuses.

Many decisions came late as Thursday turned to Friday, legislative rules were suspended to allow last-minute votes, a thunderstorm soaked the Gold Dome, and news came that a portion of Interstate 85 a few miles northeast had caught fire and collapsed.

Deal addressed both the state House and the Senate Thursday night, inviting lawmakers to discuss any concerns about their bills, but also warning that he could unleash some vetoes.

Taxes

Lawmakers approved several tax credits, amid some grumbles. Tax credits are like coupons that companies or people can use to pay some of their state taxes. Some of them are capped at a certain amount of money per year, and some aren’t. Supporters say tax credits help grow industries and create jobs, but critics say it’s not clear whether the credits are a good value.

For example, lawmakers approved a tax credit program for companies that do postproduction work in Georgia — things such as editing TV shows after they’re filmed. The tax credit is a little higher in the counties where unemployment and poverty are highest.

Those poorer areas include some of the counties represented by state Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, and he voted for House Bill 199. He said those counties need all the help they can get.

“But remember when we take it out (of the budget), we got to figure a way to put it in,” he said, to make up for what’s gone.

By a tiny margin, a Senate vote also advanced a complex tax credit program for investors who put money in enterprises in counties with a population below 50,000.

State Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, carried the measure in his Senate Bill 133. He said it would help get private investments into Georgia’s hinterlands. It took two recorded votes late on Thursday to get passage, as critics argued that the credits might not mean jobs in Georgia at all.

Lawmakers also approved tax credits for music recording and tour productions, as well as a tax break for the repair of yachts.

But the legislative year ended without House and Senate agreement on a proposal to flatten Georgia’s state income tax at 5.4 percent. House Bill 329 as first filed would have been a cut for high earners and an increase for low earners, though those with low incomes would qualify for a tax credit.

Marijuana

The state House and Senate agreed to open the state’s medical cannabis registry to patients who have six more diagnoses, as well as people in hospice programs.

The bill was a compromise between a House that sought to add more diagnoses and a Senate that sought fewer.

But Macon Republican state Rep. Allen Peake didn’t hold a hearing on one of his own bills — one that would set up a public referendum on authorizing cultivation of medical marijuana.

He said the House Medical Cannabis Working Group, which he chairs, meant to focus on what it could get done this session and will hold hearings on House Resolution 36 in the coming months.

“What I’m hoping is this issue is going to be a very central topic in the 2018 governor’s race, because it should be,” Peake said.

Health

Both sides also voted to sweeten a tax credit for people or companies that donate to financially struggling rural hospitals. Instead of a 70 percent tax credit, lawmakers want to offer a tax credit of up to 90 percent of the donation.

“We think that those dollars are sitting on the edge of the counter ready to flow in,” said state Rep. Geoff Duncan, R-Cumming, speaking on Senate Bill 180 earlier in the week.

The idea is to extend a lifeline to places such as Monroe County Hospital, one of 49 hospitals that qualified for the program based on a state assessment of assets, liabilities and other financial information.

The program opened in January. As of March 24, according to Navicent Health, donations to the Monroe County Hospital totaled $9,834, and to the Putnam General Hospital, $65,921.

Lawmakers also approved new rules for methadone clinics — centers that offer patients that drug to help them beat addiction to opioid drugs like heroin or black-market prescription painkillers.

Such clinics would face tighter state oversight under Senate Bill 88. Supporters of the new regulations argued that without new rules, Georgia’s door is open to clinics that fail to offer quality services to their customers.

Things done and left undone

Over the 40 working days of the annual legislative session, one of the most-watched bills was one that would allow licensed, concealed gun carry on Georgia’s public college campuses. Deal vetoed a broader so-called campus carry bill last year, writing that it was unclear that it would make campuses safer.

Proponents of this year’s House Bill 280 said that students need to be able to protect themselves. The House and Senate compromise bill still bans guns on many parts of campuses, and the question now goes back to the governor.

And lawmakers are trying to make it clear that sneaking pictures or video under another person’s clothes is an illegal invasion of privacy. Two so-called “upskirting” bills came after a Georgia Court of Appeals ruling last year in a Houston County case that such creepy behavior is not technically illegal. One of those bills got amended to an unrelated Senate Bill 104 in one of the last votes in the session.

Also of interest in Houston County is lawmakers’ approval of a state program meant to help military communities get ready to impress any inspectors that may be sent in any future round of federal Base Realignment and Closure.

House Bill 470 would see the state eventually contribute cash to locally led projects. That might include, for example, state money to buy up land that bases want cleared of buildings and residents. That process is already underway around Robins Air Force Base.

Lawmakers also approved a bill that says children who live in military housing must be allowed to attend any school where there’s space available in the area’s school system. House Bill 224 also requires that military parents be informed of that school choice.

But lawmakers didn’t come close to hearing or voting on the hundreds of bills they filed.

Among the things they didn’t send to the governor’s desk are a casino gambling proposal and an update of Georgia’s generation-old adoption law.

But all those bills could still come up for debate when the Legislature next meets in January 2018.

This story was originally published March 31, 2017 at 12:31 PM with the headline "Georgia lawmakers head home after votes on guns, taxes, medical pot."