Highlights from the House — Rep. Shaw Blackmon

Thursday, Feb. 24, brought to a close legislative day 20 of 40. This means, we have successfully completed half of this year’s legislative session. With 20 days down and 20 to go, we expect for the pace to quicken as we all work to ensure our respective bills make it through the process in time to receive passage from both the House and Senate chambers prior to our last day deadline. The last couple of weeks our House body passed several measures for the betterment in policy areas, such as: public safety, education, healthcare and wildlife protection.

Public Safety

To hold to our promise of a safer Georgia, the House has prioritized arming our law enforcement officials with new, cutting-edge tools to combat the war on gang crime, which has been an ongoing issue in recent years. The passage of House Bill 1134 would allow the state’s attorney general to collaborate with local district attorneys to prosecute certain gang-related crimes across the state. Additionally, HB 1134 would allow the attorney general to employ peace officers for investigative purposes. This bill would also work in tandem with the governor’s plan to create the Gang Prosecution Unit within the attorney general’s office. HB 1134 is now in the Senate to receive further consideration.

Wildlife/Environmental Protection

In order to ensure that we continue our efforts in protecting our state’s natural resources, we successfully passed House Bill 893. This bill works to extend the collection of hazardous waste fees, which are crucial to supporting the Hazardous Waste Trust Fund and its work to restore Georgia’s environment. This fund was established to collect fees from hazardous waste generators, solid waste tipping fees, and violation fines to help fund the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. Without this fund, it would be challenging for the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to continue its critical missions to remediate contaminated sites, and our local governments would be left with an unfunded mandate to fund the cleanup of leaking landfills, abandoned and contaminated properties. Originally set to expire this summer, HB 893 extends the sunset date of this Fund to July 1, 2027.

We have always been dedicated to the continued preservation of Georgia’s unique wildlife. Those efforts were enhanced through the passage of House Bill 1147. This bill builds off current framework used to protect various species such as turkeys, ground nesting birds as well as year-round protection of our loggerhead turtle population. HB 1147 would allow property owners to hunt and trap raccoons and opossums year-round thus removing bag limits for these animals as they are known predators to some of Georgia’s most endangered species, most specifically, ground nesting birds.

Healthcare

We also passed House Bill 1092, also known as the Georgia Women’s Child Care Alternatives, Resources, and Education Act. This bill would allow eligible pregnant women, sentenced to a period of confinement in a penal institution to have their sentences deferred for the duration of their pregnancies until six weeks postpartum. If deferment is accepted, the offender will be required to maintain prenatal health care, treatment, and assessments, as well as participate in education and resource programs. The bill also requires that every female offender who is not released on bond within 72 hours of an arrest to be given the option to submit to a urine pregnancy test. Further, deferment of one’s sentence does not count towards “time served.” We are hopeful that more prenatal care and resources to these pregnant women will yield better health outcomes for both the unborn child and the mother.

Education

To keep up with ever evolving technology trends, regarding education, we successfully passed House Bill 1217, or the Student Technology Protection Act. This measure works to promote the safe and appropriate use of school-issued technology. The Student Technology Protection Act requires the following:

• Local education authorities would be required to adopt an acceptable-use policy to better prevent any school computer or network from accessing obscene materials deemed harmful to minors.

• Requirement to update school technology to better block or filter access to these explicit materials online. The Georgia Department of Education would provide local school systems with guidance and technical assistance to develop guidelines for training school personnel.

• The State Board of Education is given the power to withhold a portion of state funding allotted for that school if that school has not implemented the practices outlined above.

We are hopeful that as technology continues to evolve, this bill would ensure that Georgia’s public schools have these policies in place and are equipped with the resources needed to protect children from harmful online content.

As we continue to work our way towards the conclusion of this year’s legislative session, please be on the lookout for further updates. If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to reach out to our office directly. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity and honor of serving as your voice under the Gold Dome as we work towards our goal of simple, smart, and effective government.

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