Flag, broadband, Ag, and voting bills also pass
The eighth week of the legislative session marked the first real deadline – Crossover Day. All Senate bills to be signed by Governor Kemp have been sent to the State House for review. During Crossover, we heard 68 pieces of legislation on the floor over four days and passed many important measures. In this column, I will highlight a few that are relevant to our district and I think everyone should be aware of.
SB 83 would allow high schools to provide elective courses on the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Both sides of the aisle believe this is an important opportunity to give our public schools the option to teach students valuable lessons from the scriptures.
SB 170 designates specific dates and locations on which the “Honor and Remember” flag should be displayed. The flag represents and honors the dedication of armed service men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the line of duty. I am proud to be from a district that is home to so many armed service heroes and glad we can designate this flag to remind us of the thousands of people who have allowed us the civil liberties we enjoy.
SB 2, the last Senate bill in the broadband package, was passed. SB 2 would enable Georgia’s 41 Electric Membership Corporations (EMCs) to provide internet services and broadband to their customers directly or through a broadband affiliate. As the bill has been passed along, we continue to work with our House counterparts to balance the needs of providers and consumers.
The Senate Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee recommended the passage of SB 211 which would require that food labeled as “meat” contain at least 90% contents from live animals. Recently, technology allows meat to be grown in a lab, and we think it’s a disservice to our hard- working farmers to classify anything grown in a lab as true “meat.” This bill passed 48-7 in the State Senate.
This week in the Senate, we passed a few measures which will affect us all in the coming years. Georgia’s voting system and machines have been in need of updates and HB 316 will replace them with updated technology that still employs the use of touch screen machines, but prints a paper ballot for you to verify your results. This is a proven secure method that will ensure your vote is being counted.
As we’ve moved past crossover day and on towards Sine Die, the length of our days in chamber and committee hearings will continue to get longer and most of the bills we will be hearing will be House bills. Please do not hestitate to reach out if there are measures you’ve heard about in the news that you feel strongly about. I try my hardest to represent each of you and your feeback is critical to my work at the Capitol. As always, it’s an honor to serve you.
About the author: Sen. John Wilkinson serves as Chairman of the Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee and also as Caucus Secretary to the Majority Party. He represents the 50th Senate District which includes Banks, Franklin, Habersham, Rabun, Stephens and Towns counties and portions of Hall and Jackson counties. He can be reached by phone at 404.463.5257 or by email at [email protected].
