89 new laws passed by the General Assembly during the last session go into effect today.
Among them are laws allowing commercial advertisements on transit vehicles owned by local government, the ‘Move On When Ready Act’, changes to the HOPE grant structure, emailed court proceedings, changes to the criminal definition of kidnapping, and many others. The [...]
State Rep. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) has been selected as the new GDOT Commissioner. His first day will be June 25th, meaning that there will be a special election in House District 129.
Creative Loafing reports that Rep. Robbin Shipp (D-Atlanta) has resigned due to a potential conflict-of-interest:
Robbin Shipp, who’s served one term in the Georgia General Assembly, submitted her resignation to Gov. Sonny Perdue this morning.
Georgia law prohibits lawmakers from also working in state government. The Fulton County district attorney’s office is an arm of the state’s [...]
Rep. Bobby Parham (D-Milledgeville) has resigned from the legislature to assume his appointment to State Transportation Board.
A special election will be held in House District 141 to fill his seat before the 2010 session.
Tax collections took another dive in March:
State tax collections were off $167 million in March, the fourth consecutive bad month for a government already trying to deal with the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression.
Collections were off 14.5 percent from March 2008. For the fiscal year, which ends June 30, tax collections are down [...]
Travis Fain notes that lobbyists spent $856,898 on legislators during the session. You can view the full report here.
Neither chamber is budging from its position on transportation funding:
With all members at last appointed to a conference committee on transportation funding, the House and Senate are sprinting toward Day 40 of the Legislative session.
[...]
The Senate approach to paying for transportation improvements would allow multi-county regions to form and tax themselves. The penny sales [...]
The Senate passed legislation allowing for the adoption of human embryos:
Human embryos could be formally adopted by people who want to become parents, under a bill that passed the Senate Wednesday.
House Bill 388 is intended to clearly relinquish rights to a human embryo and allow the parents who try to bring the embryo to life [...]