Legislative Notebook: Senate honors Bibb County veteran
Legislative Notebook: Senate honors Bibb County veteran
U.S. Army veteran David Hubbard served in Iraq, and after that, he also served some time in the Bibb County jail.
There was a time when he came back from Iraq, he said, when he didn't care about making anything of his life.
But as of earlier this week, he is the first graduate of an innovative criminal justice program for veterans and said his life couldn't be better.
"As veterans we're all instilled with ... once upon a time in our lives ... integrity, honor, respect, duty, all those things," Hubbard said. "Somehow it sometimes disappears in life, but it's always instilled in us."
The Veterans Court of the Macon Judicial Circuit Superior Court aims to restore those things for veterans who are in trouble with the law and to keep them from reoffending. The court takes eligible veterans and helps them with things like drug addiction, therapy and anger issues. It's an intense, structured process that comes with drug tests and lots of oversight. Chief Macon Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Tripp Self, also a veteran, oversees it. Many such so-called "problem-solving" courts make a point to mark milestones.
Hubbard, his wife, a choked-up Self and other court participants were in Atlanta to mark Hubbard's graduation. He received a proclamation and a standing ovation from the state Senate.
"After 15 months I'm standing before you as a success. It does work," Hubbard said.
MARIJUANA HEARINGS ON
The people who are watching the debate on medical cannabis in Georgia are set to get something to watch next week.
A bill to legalize limited in-state growing of cannabis for making treatments for seriously ill Georgians is scheduled for a committee hearing Monday. Another hearing of the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee may follow on Wednesday.
The bill's sponsor, state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, has to keep one eye on the calendar if he wants to move his legislation this year.
It needs to pass the full House by a Feb. 29 deadline, or its chances for passage by the session's end on March 24 will be all but dead.
YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR HAT ON TO VOTE
State Senate Republicans say they want to make sure people can wear what the want to when they go vote, except for apparel advertising a specific campaign or cause.
The GOP-drafted Senate Bill 199 comes after a 2014 incident at a polling place in Douglas County. When a voter arrived there wearing a cap from the National Rifle Association, a poll worker asked him to remove it on the grounds that campaign materials are not allowed at polling places. The Douglas County Board of Elections later wrote an apology to the voter and said he should not have been asked to remove it, because it did not mention a specific candidate or issue on the ballot.
A legislator asked the state's top lawyer for an opinion, too. Attorney General Sam Olens wrote a letter saying the ban on campaign materials at polling places applies to items naming a specific candidate or issue.
But just to make sure, state Sen. Rick Jeffares, R-McDonough, filed Senate Bill 199, which he said is necessary because it goes into greater detail and "tightens the definition of campaign materials."
Democrats objected, saying Senate Bill 199 attempts to settle a question that is already settled.
The Senate passed the bill 39-15 earlier this week. It now moves to the House.
Telegraph writer Maggie Lee compiled this report. Contact her at mlee@macon.com.
This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Legislative Notebook: Senate honors Bibb County veteran ."