UPDATED
Some Other Things On The Minds Of State Lawmakers

(Update at 8:36 a.m. corrects status of Sen. Fort's hate crimes bill to show it passed Senate Judiciary Committee but did not reach a final vote. Previous version indicated it did not receive a vote in committee. New material highlighted.)

By Dick Pettys
InsiderAdvantage Georgia

(11/26/07) It’s fairly easy to see what some of the big issues will be when the 2008 legislative session opens for business, but it’s always instructive to take a look at some of the pre-filed bills to see what else is stirring out there among the electorate and is, therefore, on the minds of Georgia lawmakers.

The pickings are slim right now in the pre-filed section of the General Assembly’s website – 12 new House measures and just one for the Senate. But don’t forget that this is a carry-over year. Bills that were introduced but didn’t come to a vote last session are theoretically still alive for 2008. Also, a lot of new legislation won’t be ready in time to be pre-filed.

So what’s stirring out there?

DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones seems to have rubbed a few folks the wrong way. One pre-filed bill by Rep. Mike Jacobs, who switched to the Republican side this year, would strip Jones of veto power over county legislation and enable the county commission to set its own agenda. It is HB 899.

Jones is a Democratic candidate for Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ seat, and recently vetoed an ordinance that would have required DeKalb County bars to close earlier (2:30 a.m. rather than 4 a.m.)

Rep. Kevin Levitas, D-Atlanta, also has a bill that would curb some of the CEO’s powers by giving commissioners power to set their meeting agendas, run their own meetings and have more oversight over county affairs. It is HB 894.

Meanwhile, and despite the fact that some people – including the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation – want to patch up and save the “hate crimes” legislation, Rep. Clay Cox, R-Lilburn, wants to eliminate the remaining vestiges of it from the law books. That’s what his HB 902 would do.

The law was deemed unconstitutionally vague by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2004.

There have been efforts to revive it in recent years, including SB 211, introduced last session by Sen. Vincent Fort. It was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee but did not reach a final vote in the session.

In his repealer bill, Cox gives this statement of intent: “The General Assembly finds that the State should not interfere with freedom of speech, thought, and expression, that such matters are constitutionally protected, and therefore codifying policy on such matters should be repealed.”

The hate crimes legislation was designed to provide stiffer penalties for such crimes.

On another front, Sen. John Douglas, R-Covington, has pre-filed legislation that would prohibit the state or its political subdivisions from requiring prospective employees to speak another language or to give preferential employment to speakers of other languages. (It would not apply to jobs for which the ability to speak a foreign language is the primary function.) It is SB 335, and would be included in the existing law that declares English to be the official state language.

Roger Bruce, D-Atlanta, has a bill that would require employers to give workers up to 24 hours’ worth of leave time to attend things like parent conferences at schools and the like. It doesn’t require the leave time to be paid. It is HB 901, which he has dubbed the “Parent Protection Act.”

With a lot of concerns out there over the drought, there also are bills requiring low-flow water fixtures and offering income tax credits for replacements. One such measure is HB 898 by Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates.

Of the big issues that already have staked a claim on the 2008 debate schedule, one of the biggest is Speaker Glenn Richardson’s tax reform proposal, an effort to eliminate most property taxes and replace them with an expanded sales tax. (He’s also said it might just apply to school taxes. It remains a work in progress.)

Three pre-filed bills offer an alternative. All are from Levitas.

* HB 896 would give taxpayers a credit against their state income taxes for the ad valorem taxes they pay, so long as the state’s revenue shortfall reserve fund remained above $500 million. (Not a problem this year. As we reported last week, the reserves are now at $1.6 billion.)

* HR 1012 is a proposed constitutional amendment that would freeze property tax assessments at their current level, but only for the county portion of the tax bill. (The school portion is often as much, if not more. Municipal levies also would not be affected.)

* HR 1013 is broader. It would allow the Legislature to freeze assessments for “any or all” ad valorem taxes.