Georgia Legislative Watch

The full budget request by the Governor is now online at the Planning & Budget office. It’s a very large file (7MB) and 440 pages, but you can download it directly here.

The statewide water plan has cleared committees in both houses of the legislature:

The statewide water plan continued its fast-paced march through the General Assembly today, easily passing through the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee. The Senate committee approved the plan earlier this week.

Both committees passed resolutions — House Resolution 1022 and Senate Resolution 701 — to ratify the plan.

If it is approved by both chambers and the governor, the plan will launch a three-year data gathering effort to determine how much water is available in the state’s rivers, lakes and streams.

It will also create 11 water planning districts, including the existing 16-county Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District for metro Atlanta, to divvy up the water among communities, farms and industries.

The State Senate has passed the NRA’s “parking lot” bill (HB 89) by a vote of 41 to 15:

The Senate passed a narrow bill Thursday that allows some Georgians to carry their guns to work, but gives property owners the right to ban weapons from parking lots at all times.

The watered down bill applies only to those who carry concealed weapons permits — just a tiny fraction of employees in the state. It effectively ended a public two-year battle between gun lobbyists and business owners, who clashed over the legislation in last year’s session.
[…]
While the amended bill weakened the parking lot issue, it beefed up other portions of gun legislation.

Under the bill approved Thursday, those who carry concealed weapons permits also can bring firearms into state parks and historic sites. Another tacked on amendment makes it illegal to send “straw purchasers” to Georgia to attempt to buy guns in Georgia, a tactic used by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to sue gun dealers in Georgia.

The bill will now move on to the State House for final approval.

[UPDATE] You can view the roll call vote here.

State Sen. David Shafer (R - Duluth) introduced two bills today designed to bring reform to the financially-strapped Grady Memorial Hospital.

Senate Bill 353, the Public Hospital Integrity Act, would seek to prevent those individuals that may have financial ties to a public hospital like Grady or any major hospital vendor from serving on a governing board of a public hospital.

Sen. Shafer said, “This legislation will help ensure that the Grady board’s first loyalty is to Grady as an institution, not those who do business with Grady.”

State Sen. Vincent Fort (D - Atlanta), a co-sponsor of Shafer’s proposal, said the bill was a good first step.

“The conflict of interest bill is very, very important,” Fort said. “I am for stopping conflicts of interest.”

Sen. Shafer’s other bill, Senate Resolution 722, would create a Grady Oversight Committee composed of three members of the state Senate and three members of the state House. The Grady Oversight Committee would be charged with providing legislative oversight of the “operations, contracts, safety, financing, organization, and structure of the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority” along with the Grady Health System and Grady Hospital itself.

In describing the bill, Shafer said the language of the resolution was taken from the bill that created the MARTOC oversight committee.

“Those who run Grady have fought legislative oversight whenever it has been proposed,” Shafer said. “But when they inevitably get into financial trouble, they sing the same old lament of legislative neglect.”

Shafer pointed out that, in 1999, a similar bill to create a Grady Oversight Committee passed the Senate but stalled in the House.

[UPDATE] Here is a copy of the press release sent out by the State Senate on behalf of Sen. David Shafer.

Here is video of the Governor’s State of the State speech:

The Democratic response: