Sen. Greg Dolezal walks through the House chamber as representatives debate his school voucher bill. (Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)
(GA Recorder) — The latest plan to expand school vouchers in Georgia was dealt a blow Thursday when the House failed to hold a vote after more than an hour and a half of debate.
A Republican lawmaker said Senate Bill 233 was tabled because it did not have the votes to pass. GOP leadership could revive the bill if they believe they have enough support to pass it, but Wednesday is the final day of the 2023 Legislative session.
Cumming Republican Greg Dolezal’s proposed law would dedicate $6,500 to the family of any Georgia public school family that decided to withdraw their child from a low-performing school and educate them at home or a private school.
Voucher bills have been popular in GOP-led states, but Georgia lawmakers have struggled to grow the state’s limited program in recent years.
Advocates say they allow state funds to follow the child rather than the school district, letting parents tailor their children’s education to their specific needs.
“Instead of a top-down, one-size-fits-all system, we can move together in a grassroots approach that is inclusive and respects the dignity and unique gifts of every single child,” said Peachtree Corners Republican Rep. Scott Hilton. “Some students need specialized attention, a different teaching method, a specific curriculum. By giving families more options, we are not only improving educational opportunities, but we’re giving every child an equal opportunity to succeed.”
Some Democrats disagreed with that last part.
Atlanta Democratic Rep. Phil Olaleye said the bill would not be much help to children in rural Georgia, where there are fewer private schools or to children from families who cannot afford the difference between the scholarship amount and tuition.
“Who really stands to benefit from this voucher program? The winners are the privileged few families who have the means to make up the tuition bill expenses,” he said. “The losers? Hundreds of thousands of families who will be presented with a choice that is virtually out of reach. The biggest loser? Georgia schools that now have the impossible task of serving a concentrated pool of our most vulnerable children, creating even more impossible conditions for improvement and success.”
Powder Springs Democrat David Wilkerson balked at suggestions that the bill would be budget neutral because the $6,500 figure is based on the average state share of funds to educate a student.
The actual state share varies by grade level and other factors, and Wilkerson said he was concerned that passing the law during an economic boom time could put the state on the hook to fund private school educations when school dollars are more scarce.
“The bottom line is, whether you like this bill or not, we need to know the cost because what we’re doing is obligating money to students, making promises to families that we will have to continue going forward forever. And if we don’t know the cost now, how do we make that promise to the families that their kids will have that funding to go to private school?”
While the difference in opinion on the bill fell largely along party lines, some Democrats offered their support for the measure, including Rep. Mesha Mainor of Atlanta.
Mainor said she grew up in an area with an undesirable school system but her mother used a different address to send her to a different school. Comparing education to McDonald’s hamburgers, she said all families should have the same choice.
“If you went to McDonald’s every day and got a burnt hamburger and burnt fries, are you going to keep going back to that McDonald’s?” she asked. “That’s what the children are saying. I don’t want to go where the burnt hamburger is. I don’t want to go where the burnt fries are. I want a fresh hamburger. I want a fresh education. I want something different. Just give me something different.”
Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill to restrict gender affirming care for transgender minors. File photo. (Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)
(GA Recorder) — Gov. Brian Kemp has signed a controversial bill into law banning doctors from providing surgical or hormone treatments to transgender people under 18 years old.
“Today, I signed SB 140 into law to ensure we protect the health and wellbeing of Georgia’s children,” Kemp wrote in a statement. “I appreciate the many hours of respectful debate and deliberation by members of the General Assembly that resulted in the final passage of this bill. As Georgians, parents and elected leaders, it is our highest responsibility to safeguard the bright, promising futures of our kids – and SB 140 takes an important step in fulfilling that mission.”
Kemp signed the bill Thursday after it was passed on Tuesday, eschewing the traditional post-session 40-day signing period and opting not to host a public signing ceremony. Doctors who violate the law could lose their licenses and, thanks to a House committee amendment, potentially be subject to civil or criminal action.
The bill is set to go into effect July 1, and transgender minors prescribed hormones before that date will be able to continue treatment. The bill will not limit puberty-blocking medications, a provision author Sen. Carden Summers, a Cordele Republican, said is intended to offer a cooling down period before young people make a decision they may later regret.
Lawmakers said they had been contacted by Georgians who transitioned at a young age and grew to regret it, but none spoke at any of the bill’s legislative hearings.
A large number of transgender youths, their parents, and other supporters did come to the Capitol to plead against passage of the bill.
One of them was Adam Phillips, 15. Phillips, who is transgender, returned from the Capitol, where he attempted to meet with lawmakers, to his home in Savannah, where he planned to keep up the fight by encouraging others to call and write Kemp’s office.
“His office had made it seem that they were really going to look into it and work with everyone else; we were talking about ‘just keep calling his office and trying to get them to hold off until the session ends,’” he said. “But it really surprised me that he signed it so early. I wasn’t expecting that.”
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the governor’s office said the bill would “undergo a thorough review process.”
According to a 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement, surgical intervention is typically reserved for adults but can be offered to adolescents “on a case-by-case basis with the adolescent and the family along with input from medical, mental health, and surgical providers.”
The APA notes that transgender children who receive care that acknowledges their gender identity tend to experience better academic and social outcomes.
In practice, doctors say surgeries on minors are extremely rare, and hormones are not prescribed without much consideration.
“I started testosterone about a week before I turned 14, which is obviously very young, and it’s very unusual, but that was because I came out at eight years old, and I was in therapy for five years before the conversation of HRT even was brought up,” Phillips said.
“It’s very rare to start this young as there’s a lot of really long extended processes to start hormones or any type of medicine regarding your transition,” he added.
Phillips said hormone replacement therapy has improved his life, and though he may be grandfathered in, he worries for younger kids who will not be able to receive the care he did.
“Before I was on HRT, I struggled to interact with my peers. I struggled to go outside and talk to people because I was just so scared and self-conscious, and it was really negatively impacting my health and my mental well-being,” he said. “Being on HRT, it’s really just improved my well-being in every aspect and has really allowed me to thrive in school and with my peers. By not allowing people younger than me these opportunities, you’re not giving them the chance to really experience life.”
Future
Litigation is expected. Democrats have argued that the bill could violate the 14th Amendment.
“We will use every legal means at our disposal to block this bill from hurting children and families. It’s disturbing how quickly the governor acts to sign bills that take away people’s rights,” said Andrea Young, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
The ACLU is tracking 430 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation across state legislatures, 116 of which relate to medical care.
Meanwhile, right-wing groups and individuals like Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene are calling on the Legislature to go further.
In a tweet after the bill passed the House, Greene criticized the bill for not restricting puberty blockers and for its “vague language that could make it easily thrown out in the courts.”
Janae Stracke, Vice President of Field Operations for the right-wing lobbying firm Heritage Action, pledged to continue the fight to expand on the bill.
“While Heritage Action appreciates the steps taken to strengthen SB 140, we look forward to working with the Georgia General Assembly to go further in the future to protect minors suffering from gender confusion,” she said in a statement. “Toward this end, we thank the House and Senate for the effort to amend this legislation to avoid shutting the door to recourse for children suffering from the irreversible effects of medical experimentation. We will continue our work alongside grassroots Georgians to fight to protect children from dangerous cross-sex hormones and experimental surgeries.”
(GA Recorder) — A U.S. House panel grilled TikTok’s CEO for more than five hours Thursday over the social media giant’s ties to China and indicated there might be bipartisan consensus for a national ban on the platform.
Members of both parties showed an unusual level of agreement during tough questioning of TikTok CEO Shou Chew. Several members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican, said they supported banning the platform.
“Your platform should be banned,” Rodgers said in the hearing’s opening minutes.
“I agree with much of what you just said,” ranking Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey told Rodgers moments later.
Pallone said in a Fox News interview Wednesday night that he hadn’t decided if TikTok, a subsidiary of China-based ByteDance Ltd., should be banned but “it’s certainly something we’d have to consider.”
More than 150 million people in the United States use TikTok on a monthly basis, Chew said. That accounts for about 10% of the platform’s global users and 25% of worldwide views.
Chew promotes migration to U.S. servers
In his first appearance before a congressional committee, Chew emphasized his international background, telling the panel he met his Virginia-born wife at business school in the U.S. and that he and his family live in his home country of Singapore.
Early in the hearing, Chew also promoted an initiative by TikTok to migrate its data storage from Chinese servers to the United States. Dubbed Project Texas because it uses Austin-based Oracle’s servers, Chew repeatedly said U.S. user information would be stored on U.S. soil, overseen by U.S. personnel employed by a separate U.S.-based company.
TikTok itself is headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles, Chew repeated throughout the hearing.
“All protected U.S. data will be under the protection of U.S. law and under the control of the U.S.-led security team,” he said. “This eliminates the concern that some of you have shared with me that TikTok user data can be subject to Chinese law.”
Chew said the company did not remove content at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party, even when asked specifically if TikTok had removed content related to China’s treatment of its Muslim Uyghur population and the 1989 massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Efforts to separate TikTok from China rejected
But lawmakers dismissed Chew’s repeated attempts to distance the platform from China and its ruling Communist Party.
ByteDance, like all Chinese companies, is beholden to the Chinese government and must turn over records and data on command, they said. Those concerns separated TikTok from other, mostly U.S.-based, social media platforms that collect extensive data from users.
“I still believe that the Beijing Communist government will still control and have the ability to influence what you do,” Pallone told Chew. “This idea, this Project Texas, is simply not acceptable.”
The U.S. Senate sponsors of a bill to effectively ban TikTok, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner and South Dakota Republican John Thune, said in a statement shortly after the House hearing adjourned that they were unmoved by Chew’s appearance.
“All Chinese companies, including TikTok, whose parent company is based in Beijing, are ultimately required to do the bidding of Chinese intelligence services,” Warner and Thune said. “Nothing we heard from Mr. Chew today assuaged those concerns.”
TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter criticized the panel’s “political grandstanding” in a statement to States Newsroom after the hearing.
“Shou came prepared to answer questions from Congress, but, unfortunately, the day was dominated by political grandstanding that failed to acknowledge the real solutions already underway through Project Texas,” she wrote.
First Amendment concerns
Chew characterized TikTok as a platform that encouraged creativity and free expression.
“TikTok will remain a place for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government,” Chew said.
Though none spoke up at the Energy and Commerce hearing, some progressive Democrats and outside groups have expressed uneasiness with a government ban on a private service, especially one used to share and consume media.
“Our First Amendment gives us the right to speak freely and communicate freely,” New York progressive Democrat U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman said at a Wednesday press conference. “TikTok as a platform has created a community and a space for free speech for 150 million Americans and counting.”
“This TikTok hearing is giving me major (McCarthyism)/Red scare vibes,” American Civil Liberties Union senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff tweeted Thursday. “I don’t think history will look favorably upon this as a justification for violating the First Amendment.”
Content problems
Lawmakers also raised issues with the videos that appear on TikTok and the company’s ability to control them. Members said the platform includes videos encouraging violence, suicide, eating disorders, and other unhealthy behaviors, noting that ads are targeted to users as young as 13.
Chew said that many of the issues members raised were industry-wide challenges.
“The potential security, privacy, content manipulation concerns raised about TikTok are really not unique to us,” Chew said. “The same issues apply to other companies.”
Rep. Darren Soto, a Florida Democrat, agreed that the problems facing TikTok were also common on other platforms and proposed wider regulations across the industry.
“Violence, adult themes, drug and alcohol, sexualization, suicide — all major issues on TikTok,” Soto said. “But also Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms. So the solution as I see it is to regulate TikTok and other social media platforms.”
Threatening video shown
TikTok CEO Shou Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, 2023. (livestream image courtesy of C-SPAN)
But, with Chew the only witness before them, lawmakers focused at Wednesday’s hearing on TikTok’s shortcomings.
Florida Republican Kat Cammack played a video posted to TikTok weeks before the hearing — and well before the hearing was noticed to the public — showing a gun firing with the words “Me … at the House Energy and Commerce on 3/23/2023” appearing next to it. A caption mentioned Rodgers by name.
“I think that is a blatant display of how vulnerable people who use TikTok are,” she said.
“You couldn’t take action after 41 days when a clear threat, a very violent threat to the chairwoman of this committee and the members of this committee, was posted on your platform,” Cammack said, as her time to question Chew ran out. “You damn well know that you cannot protect the data and security … of the 150 million users of your app.”
In an exchange that was repeated among Chew and different members throughout the hearing, Chew asked to respond to Cammack, but Rodgers declined, saying the hearing had to move on.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were aggressive in their questioning of Chew and unusually skeptical of his answers.
At least three members reminded him that it was a federal crime to make false or misleading statements to Congress. Others asked yes or no questions and took Chew’s attempts to answer with more context as a negative.
As the hearing entered its fourth hour, Chew showed his own frustration in an exchange with Florida Republican Neal Dunn.
“You have not given us straightforward answers,” Dunn said. “We don’t find you credible on these things.”
“Congressman, you have given me no time to answer your questions,” Chew responded. “I reject the characterizations.”
Another exchange with Dunn forced a clarification.
Dunn asked if ByteDance had spied on U.S. users on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Chew responded, “No.”
But when Dunn repeated the question, Chew said, “I don’t think spying is the right way to describe it.”
Chew later said the correct answer was a simple “no” and that the pace of questioning had caused confusion.
TikTok’s communications department posted a tweet that highlighted Chew’s initial response.
Athens-Clarke County police are investigating the death of a woman whose body was found in a wooded area on the northwest side of town.
Tuesday morning, police located the body of 38-year-old Adriana Castaneda in a wooded area near Maple Forge Drive and Lavender Road.
Castaneda was reported missing on March 7. An autopsy will be conducted to determine her cause of death.
The Athens-Clarke County Police Department asks anyone with information about the case to contact Detective Harrison at 762-400-7361 or by email at [email protected].
Daniel Allen McFalls (Hall County Sheriff's Office)
A trip to a mobile phone repair shop ended with a Buford man’s arrest after a worker discovered child pornography on his cell phone, investigators say.
Hall County sheriff’s investigators arrested 27-year-old Daniel Allen McFalls on March 22 and charged him with sexual exploitation of children. They say forensic processing done on McFalls’ phone revealed at least 300 images of child pornography.
According to investigators, the phone was dropped off at a repair shop in Gwinnett County on October 20, 2022. After discovering pornography on the device, the employee called the Gwinnett County Police Department. When Gwinnett PD investigators determined McFalls lived in Hall County, they turned over the case to the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
“HCSO investigators received the cell phone in early November 2022, obtained a search warrant for the device, and began forensic processing of the phone,” says Hall County Sheriff’s Public Information Officer B.J. Williams.
The forensic processing was completed last week, and investigators examined the data this week. On the cell phone, they found at least 300 still photos of children, believed to be between the ages of 1 and 14, engaged in sexually explicit activity, Williams says.
McFalls was booked at the Hall County Jail where, at this time, he remains without bond.
Tod Lee Hamilton, age 69, of Clarkesville, Georgia, passed away on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at Northeast Georgia Medical Center following an extended illness.
Born in White County, Georgia, on March 14, 1954, he was the son of the late Lillie Ellen Hamilton Elsen. Mr. Hamilton was self-employed in the construction industry for over 40 years.
A graveside committal service will be held at 11:00 a.m. Friday, March 24, 2023, at the Stonepile Baptist Church Cemetery, with the Rev. Connie Berry officiating.
Nancy Kollock lived fully for 93 years. She died peacefully at home with family after a sudden brief illness, her grace, joy, and positive outlook intact.
Her father was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, and his job required that the family move often when Nancy was a child. She developed skills of adapting to new surroundings and new people – and she loved people! When she married and settled down in Georgia, she finally had a place to put down roots. Her life was full with running a business, being active and engaged in the community, and supporting others.
Nancy’s creativity found outlets through “home making,” hospitality, kindness, and enthusiasm. From working with a host of neighborhood kids in her craft room as a young mother to card-making in her eighties and nineties, she found ways to include others in her passions. Her sight was compromised in later years, but her “vision” and her faith never faltered, and her appetite for learning and desire for compassion in the world deepened as the years passed.
In the words of others, Nancy was
“always helping and never judging”
“endless patience”
“a rare and special person”
“down-to-earth”
“she had a wonderful way of making everyone she met feel valued and special”
“one of the really beautiful things about (her) is that we can feel her love and encouragement just by thinking of her”
“she happily walked the real Christian path, and made it look like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world”
“she was the one who raised the joy meter reading always”
“Nancy (will) leave a wake of goodwill and joy that will echo through these hills forever”
“Nancy and John made our communities such a better place as they reminded us not only through art but living a simpler, less complicated life themselves”
“she carried her blessings with her”
“she was a smile that could conquer sadness with a heart that embraced us all”
“when she gets to heaven she will have no trouble establishing street cred as an angel” “I
was lucky to be present to hear a verse or two of … Nancy’s song”
“Aunt Nancy was the best of us.”
For those who did and those who did not hear her song, may the memory of our loved ones inspire and motivate each of us to live a little bigger and a little better because of their examples.
Nancy is survived by her three daughters and their families and her cat, Camilla. One of her daughters has said, “When I miss my father, I find him painting a beautiful sunset. Now, my mom will be the light that makes it glow.”
There will be a service at Grace-Calvary Episcopal Church on Saturday, March 25, at twelve noon, with a reception to follow. The interment in the church cemetery will be a private ceremony.
In lieu of flowers, it was Nancy’s wish that people give to organizations and projects which support the well-being of life on earth.
A section of the Appalachian Parkway in Cleveland was temporarily closed Thursday morning, March 23, after this car hauler overturned. (Dean Dyer/WRWH.com)
A transport driver escaped injury when a car hauler loaded with vehicles overturned on the Appalachian Parkway Thursday morning.
Cleveland Police Chief Jeff Shoemaker said the accident happened around 7:33 a.m. on Georgia Highway 11 at Parkway Plaza. Cleveland police and firefighters responded to the call along with White County EMS.
Reports from the scene say the driver was attempting to turn left onto the parkway from South Main when the car hauler overturned.
Chief Shoemaker says the driver, 19-year-old Eric Charles Kumah III from Fredericksburg, Virginia, was driving a 2021 Dodge 3500 Dually truck hauling two vans. The accident temporarily shut down parkway traffic as crews worked to clear the wreckage.
The Georgia Department of Public Safety Motor Carrier Compliance Division (MCCD) assisted with the investigation.
Habersham County may soon start providing animal control services again in the city of Baldwin.
At its next meeting, the Baldwin City Council will consider whether to approve an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the county for animal control. The Habersham County Commission approved the IGA earlier this week.
City residents pay county taxes too
For years, Baldwin and the county have gone back and forth over the cost of the animal control service. The main issue was the cost for the service did not reflect that “in city” property owners are also county taxpayers. Baldwin leaders maintain the county should apply credit for those taxes to reduce the city’s cost for the additional service.
Another issue that came to light over the years was that some cities used animal control more than Baldwin but paid less.
Prior to dropping the service earlier this year, Baldwin’s animal control bill had gone up significantly. In 2017 and 2018, the county charged the city $13,971 a year for animal control services. In 2021, that fee increased to $27,941, and for fiscal year 2022, it rose to $28,779 annually.
Under the pending agreement, Habersham would charge Baldwin $4,200 for animal control services for the last three months of the current fiscal year which ends June 30. That equates to $16,800 annually.
Working together
Habersham County Finance Director Tim Sims explained in an email to Now Habersham that the formula for determining animal control fees is “complex.”
“That formula has been in effect for several years from the historical info that I can find in the files,” he tells Now Habersham. “My predecessor’s calculation formula was on track but needed to be updated to appropriately take into account several additional items that go into the total cost of animal control services and the taxes generated in each municipality.”
County manager Alicia Vaughn says the county is very committed to working with municipalities in exploring ways to improve service delivery to residents.
“Anytime we find a way to work together provides an opportunity for tax savings,” says Vaughn. “We are looking forward to reinstating animal control service to the City of Baldwin contingent on their approval of our revised IGA and thank the city for our valuable partnership.”
Acting Baldwin Mayor Alice Venter says she has not yet seen the agreement approved by the county commission – it’s awaiting the city attorney’s approval.
“When we spoke to the county, they broke down some numbers for us, and we’re still not 100% on them. However, they were very good – much better than they have been in the past at working with us,” Venter says.
The Baldwin City Council is scheduled to vote on the IGA Monday, March 27. If approved, animal control services would be restored in Baldwin effective April 1.
The Habersham County Senior Center will have a spaghetti lunch fundraiser this Friday, March 24th, at 11:30 a.m. This event will be hosted by the Classic Belles. The community is invited to attend.
The cost per plate will be $8, and all proceeds will go to the Habersham County Senior Center. All proceeds will be used to provide Christmas gifts for the seniors, as well as bingo prizes.
The spaghetti lunch will consist of spaghetti, a side, and garlic bread.
Everyone is invited to come to the Senior Center to enjoy lunch and fellowship with the county’s seniors. The Senior Center is located at 217 Scoggins Drive, Demorest, GA.
To-go orders may be reserved by calling 706-839-0260 or by emailing [email protected].
White County Public Safety used their drone Monday night to check on reports of someone flashing a light from atop Yonah Mountain.
White County Deputy EMA Director Don Strength, who is a licensed drone pilot, said after the county’s 9-1-1 Dispatch received several calls about the situation, he used the drone to fly to the top of the mountain and check the situation. Strength said they discovered that two people were camping and everything seemed okay.
Since the county put the drone in service, it has been utilized numerous times with fires, searching for individuals, and other situations.
The Habersham County Sheriff’s Office also has a drone and licensed drone operator who, this week, helped locate a missing boy who wandered away from home.
(GA Recorder) — Momentum continues to build in the Georgia Legislature for a proposed law that could allow state officials to remove district attorneys from office for misconduct.
The Georgia House moved a step closer this week to establishing a prosecutor oversight commission, the first of its kind in Georgia, as the House Judiciary Committee passed Senate Bill 92 along a party line vote on Wednesday.
The Republican-backed bill is now set to go before the gatekeeping House Rules Committee, which determines which bills can make it to the floor for a vote. The 2023 legislative session ends on March 29.
Sen. Randy Robertson, a Catuala Republican, said the measure aims to hold local prosecutors accountable in a similar manner to judges, who are subject to investigation by the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission. Georgia sets a high bar for police officers’ conduct, which results in more officers being decertified than in any other state.
“The criminal justice system is under oversight whether you’re a deputy sheriff working in a rural county or you’re a police officer with the Atlanta Police Department,” Robertson said. “There are multiple layers of opportunities to have your actions reviewed, studied, and corrected.”
“I’ve watched judges who chose to do things their way as opposed to the way things were supposed to be done who retire and leave the job because they failed to meet that high standard,” Robertson said.
In 2020, Democrats proposed the creation of a similar committee following allegations of improper handling and eventual criminal indictment of the local prosecutor who initially took charge of investigating the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 23-year-old Black man killed by three white men while jogging in a Brunswick-area neighborhood.
At the time, Republicans dismissed Democrats’ proposals to form a new commission that would weed out problematic prosecutors or at least dole out some form of punishment to district attorneys who didn’t meet the proposed standards.
In recent months, some Democratic legislators and prosecutors have questioned whether Republican legislators’ support of more prosecutorial oversight is related to political reasons instead of serious concerns about district attorneys abusing their authority.
They point to the fact that in the 2020 election, a record number of non-white women were elected as district attorneys in Georgia.
Republican Sen. Randy Robertson wants to create a commission that would determine the disciplinary consequences for prosecutors who face allegations of misconduct. (Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)
About two dozen of Georgia’s district attorneys and solicitors have signed a letter supporting the oversight commission. The proposal, however, is opposed by the state’s prosecuting and district attorney associations, which complain a state oversight panel could unfairly target local prosecutors for making independent judgments about which types of cases should be pursued.
Opponents also argue that the legislation is unnecessary since voters can already decide whether district attorneys are re-elected and prosecutors who break the law face criminal charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is pursuing a probe of former President Donald Trump, has complained the legislation is an overreaction.
A district attorney or solicitor general could be removed under the proposed law for willful and prejudicial misconduct as well as physical or mental disabilities that inhibit their ability to prosecute cases.
Under HB 231, the Georgia Supreme Court would appoint a five-member investigative panel and a three-member hearing panel. Robertson’s plan calls for Georgia’s legislative leadership to choose the members.
