This year’s General Assembly got off to a late start due to inclement weather and ended unexpectedly with a number of issues still unresolved. In times as dangerous as these, what more could a sensible lawmaker ask for?
It may have been a disagreement over legislation restricting the use of school zone speed cameras that prompted Lt. Gov. Burt Jones to abruptly declare the Senate adjourned shortly after 9 p.m. Friday, while the House was still grinding sausage. But the collateral damage from this surprise sine die left all sides with a similar consolation: this session could have been worse.
Aside from the big fight over tort reform, much of the political energy in this session was expended in the effort by the Republican majority to pass bills reflecting the Trump administration agenda, and the effort by Democrats to turn them back.
Republicans passed the latest version of a bill giving religious protections to businesses, which critics say allows them to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community and others, and Gov. Brian Kemp quickly signed it. But a bill banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in public schools and universities was among the dozens of bills left for a later day by the early adjournment.
The Senate debate over the DEI bill produced an especially sharp example of the way the nationalization of politics is affecting longstanding relationships at the state level.
The bill’s sponsor, State Sen. Max Burns, a former college president and member of the U.S. Congress, has as impressive a resume as anyone in the General Assembly. He has butted heads many times with State Sen. David Lucas, the veteran Democratic legislator from Macon. But a furious Lucas spurned Burns’ efforts to recall their friendship.
“I come from the 60s, and you’re old enough to know what happened then,” Lucas said, condemning Burns’ “unmitigated gall” in bringing the bill.
“You’re drinking Trump Kool-Aid,” Lucas said.
Burns made no effort to defend the bad old days of the 60s, and instead maintained that his bill was about “equality.” Equality, conservatives argue, means ensuring a level playing field, while equity means ensuring the disadvantaged get a leg up.
The language of the DEI bill demonstrates how much the DEI issue has come to be about the power of words, in and of themselves. It would ban “any effort to promote, as the official position of the postsecondary institution, a particular, widely contested opinion referencing unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, gender ideology or theory, microaggressions, group marginalization, antiracism, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neopronouns, heteronormativity, disparate impact, racial privilege, sexual privilege, or any similar or related formulation of these concepts.”
Senate Democrats filibustered the bill late into the night Wednesday, but Republicans passed the measure on to the House Friday, only to see it miss the early bell. Like stronger medical marijuana and the Georgia version of DOGE (you knew that one was coming), it will be red meat for another year.
This past week marked a political reset for the state for more reasons than the end of the legislative session. U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams resigned as chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, and qualifying was held for two long-awaited Public Service Commission races.
A lot of questions have been raised over time about Williams’ dual role as a member of Congress and state chair. The issue was reportedly brought to a head after last year’s election by Sen. John Ossoff, who has an obvious interest in his re-election campaign ahead of next year. In her resignation, Williams said the party chair “cannot remain an uncompensated volunteer position.”
Whoever replaces Williams will presumably be paying close attention to the races for the PSC seats currently held by Republicans Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson.
Echols is being primaries by Republican Lee Muns of Augusta. The winner will face Democrat Alicia Johnson of Augusta.
The largest race is the Democratic field running to oppose Fitz Johnson, who has no primary opponent. The Democrats are Daniel Blackman, a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency who lost a 2020 race against Johnson; former state Rep. Keisha Waites; Robert Jones, who has worked as a regulatory analyst for electricity companies in Oakland and Seattle; and clean energy developer Peter Hubbard.
These races will provide the first meaningful opportunity for a debate over the dramatic increase in demand created by the growth of data centers. That’s as good a starting point as any for the politics of the next few years.
