The Henry mcneil turner voting rights act, also known as the georgia voting rights act, will secure protections for georgia voters no matter how congress or the federal government attempts to tear apart democracy, Legislation like the georgia voting rights act is powerful, practical and popular democrats along with voter rights advocates introduced a bill today that would create a state voting rights act after they say that protections from the landmark 1965 federal voting rights bill have been steadi eroded in recent years.

Good evening and welcome to lawmakers on this day 21 of the georgia legislative session.

I'm donna lowery in Atlanta anxiety depression, and other mental health issues have led to an intense focus on solutions related to children and social media.

Tonight we'll learn about several bills on that topic.

We'll also spend time on the word navigable.

The definition of navigable is at the heart of a debate over state ownership of riverbeds, streams and rivers, and it affects whether people can fish kayak or use other outdoor recreation in certain areas.

Coming up, we'll explain what the debate called the freedom to float act is all about on the education front.

Should unaccredited institutions offer degrees and should we have dropout recovery charter schools?

Lawmakers join us to answer both of those questions.

Our capital correspondent, sarah calls, is in rome covering the visit of president donald trump,, but we will still have a wrap up of the day under the gold dome in the house.

Pops of purple dotted the chamber as members wore capes for lupus advocacy day.

The annual event brings attention to the lupus warriors battling this invisible disease.

Today is lupus advocacy day and I am standing here recognizing the greatest group of people that fight every day to get up out of their bed, go to work, contribute to this state, and become active citizens for their families that are struggling but are overcoming and champions for lupus and a proclamation to honor echo park speedway for its economic boost to georgia, renamed from Atlanta motor speedway in 2025, echo park in hampton will host the NASCAR auto trader 400 on sunday.

NASCAR series driver and watermelon smasher ross chastain zoomed in to share his story.

I am the grandson of a proud georgia born farmer from o'clock ney.

The watermelon life of my family took us to south florida for my for my father and my my time here on this earth and I was born and raised in south florida and fell in love with the sport of racing really as a way to get off the farm.

I thought as a kid I didn't know which way I would want to go.

And now I've been able to do both.

So through my platform of racing, y'all see me race the number 1 car for big companies like bush light and wendy's this weekend.

The ties back to agriculture come right back to the state of georgia.

But it wasn't just about passing cars on the speedway as the house took up a variety of auto related bills.

One bill actually discourages passing.

House bill 11 61 clarifies and codifies the best practice of yielding the right of way to emergency vehicles during traffic stops.

This bill simply clarifies that for traffic stops, drivers should move towards the right hand curve of the road away from traffic if safe to do so.

This is something most in the situation already do and many, including law enforcement, have assumed that it's codified, but georgia courts have actually said it's not.

And that's led to some confusion and differential treatment.

The bill passed 162 to two.

Another automotive bill received unanimous passage.

House bill 11 81 reduces red tape around vehicle title applications.

It allows a decedent's car title to come directly from the state where the estate is domiciled to the first degree relative who is inheriting it.

And it skips the intermediate step requiring that the car be title first in the state where the executor is.

And a utility bill came up on the house floor.

The kind of utility bill consumers will like.

House bill 1027 extends rate payer protections.

This is an electric utility rate payer protection bill.

What this bill does is it allows the members of the municipal electric authority of georgia to enter into retail electric sales contracts that are validated by a superior court judge for a period of 20 years.

Current code only allows that for ten years.

This extends that to 20 years to allow for protection of the ratepayers.

It passed with a vote of 162 to two, a judicial retirement benefits bill, house bill 1020, seeks to increase the retirement age for district attorneys to 65 to match the age raise already made for judges in keeping with what we did in increasing the judicial retirement age last year from 60 to 65 would have similar treatment for district attorneys consistent with retirement ages being at 65 and for consistency within the judicial code, this would just increase when the retirement for das would be eligible, meeting the other eligibility requirements.

Hb 102 passed unanimously.

The senate gaveled in, conducted routine business, and then gaveled out for the day.

And senate democrats held a press conference this morning promoting sb.

536, a state voting rights bill that would set up safeguards against voter suppression and create a voting rights commission Protections they say are needed after recent supreme court rulings that have eroded the federal voting rights act of 1965.

This act creates statewide protections against voter suppression and vote dilution, key components of section two.

It also creates a preclearance mechanism to ensure to ensure vote dilution plans by local jurisdictions never move forward.

Other specific aspects of the legislation ensures that public notice must be given for new or modified election changes on local or state levels, and it will make sure that voters do not face impediments to voting.

The bill is called the Henry mcneil turner georgia voting rights act, named after a reconstruction era black republican legislator and faith leader who was expelled from the legislature with other african American representatives in 18 68.

We've named this bill for him because the lesson of our era is not ancient history, the fight over who counts, whose vote matters and who gets to participate has never fully been stopped.

Turner's legacy is a reminder that voting rights is not self enforcing.

If we do not build protections in the law, , those protections can be chipped away.

And it's prostate cancer awareness day at the capitol, former chicago cubs outfielder and Atlanta native cj stewart spoke about the importance of routine screenings, something many men seem to avoid.

If you're a man, hear me clearly.

Make the call, schedule the screening, get checked, stay alive, and if you love a man, don't just pray for him.

Don't just worry about him.

Don't just hope he's okay.

Push him, challenge him, hold him accountable because love ought to look like something.

And today love looks like a prostate screening.

That's our capital report.

Sarah will be back tomorrow with day 22 of the session at the end of the pbs news hour.

Look for her reports on the president's visit to georgia on gpb radio and gpb org.. Now we're going to spend some time now on outdoor recreation issues and education.

Joining me is the senate majority caucus chair, republican senator sean still of swanee.

Among his committee assignments are education and youth, finance and judiciary.

Also here is republican senator max burns of sylvania.

He is chair of the senate education committee and also on appropriations and children and families.

Welcome to you both.

Thanks for coming in.

Thanks for having us okay let's get into something that's really been hot for a few people under the dome this week.

Some georgians who love outdoor recreations have been in favor of the georgia river heritage act and I said it wrong earlier.

It's a very important legislation to quite a few people who like to do things on the rivers and streams around georgia.

What's it all about?

So I'm a lifelong kayaker my entire life.

I actually do it a little bit professionally, but not in the state of georgia.

And what it's about is defining the difference between a navigable and a non navigable water and whether or not someone has the right to float it.

And the expression, if you can float it, you can boat it.

And it's really trying to thread the needle and understand the difference between someone's right to be able to kayak a river or a creek or a stream.

And where does that intersect with private property rights?

And so we held a hearing this week in senate transportation to really flesh that out.

And it was a very lively debate to talk about the differences between the two.

And it allowed everybody from both sides of the issue to really talk about it and what happened?

Let's talk about the other side of this.

There are people who are vehemently opposed to this, including the georgia farm bureau, some farmers talk about that.

Why are they against it?

For very valid reasons, their concerns, and the bill was written broadly, so there were no exclusions of any body of water in the state of georgia.

Their concerns were about private land owners rights.

If someone owns a piece of property and there is a river flowing through it and they own both sides of the bank.

Does someone have the right to flow through it if it's just part of normal passage, if it has an access point upstream and downstream.

Does someone own the river that's flowing through their property?

Do they own to the center of that river?

Do they own both sides of that river?

And this goes back to the, you know, really the origin of our state,, going back to the 1,800 seconds when rivers were really just used for commerce where you're floating goods and products up and downstream to be able to move it more efficiently and really trying to drill down to that.

So when you think about the chattahoochee river that flows through downtown Atlanta, that's considered a non navigable river.

The savannah river, on the other hand, is navigable because of the depth and the width and the way that it moves.

So we have different categories of rivers and streams.

We have coastal, we have inland, and then within that all the different sizes and shapes beyond.

And there's everything in georgia.

So this is really difficult.

What is the, I know today there was a hearing about it.

What happened?

We heard again lively debate, people on both sides of the issue, feeling very strongly about it.

In my job as someone who understands both sides of the issue, wanted to be able to really host and bring all that together.

So chairman greg dolio, who chairs the transportation committee, he did a masterful job of really pulling answers out of attorneys, of vested interests, of landowners, of people from all sizes and shapes of bodies of water where they represent, even one of my dearest friends in the legislature, a state senator, who might be on the show in a little bit, talked about, you know, how it directly affects his district where a river that has the most champion rainbow trout, I would argue, in the country flows through his district.

And we want to make sure that the people that have invested and put so much money and effort into those champion trout can protect that while still preserving the right of somebody to be able to kayak in a maybe not that river, but something similar to it.

And then where do we draw those lines?

So it was great to able to start it okay well we'll keep up with it.

I promise you that.

And I know that senator bow hatchet is here.

We're going to talk about some other things.

You may want to get that in though, but thank you so much.

I had a lot of people telling me you should come on the show to talk about this.

So thanks for doing that.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Chairman burns, I haven't you.

I just want you to know you want to prevent unaccredited institutions from offering degrees.

So what's behind that legislation well I think people need to understand that there are three types of schools in georgia.

I chair higher education in the senate.

There's the university system, there's the technical college system, and certainly we have our privates, but there's also a group of schools that are called public non public non public, excuse me, let me get it straight.

Non public post secondary education of schools.

This is a commission.

We have a commission that deals with non public post secondary education.

There are over 350 schools that fit this category.

There are over 81,000 students in georgia that utilize these services.

And the total tuition in an annual basis is about $850 million.

So these are schools that are not accredited, but they are authorized to operate in georgia and there are over 350.

What we're seeking to do is to make sure that students in georgia are protected, that if they enroll in these schools and they provide a very valuable service, if they enroll in these schools.

These are good actors.

These are people who can deliver quality education to our students and who can be assured that their tuition will be able to deliver them credits.

These are going to be course credits diplomas or certificates, but not associate or bachelor's degrees.

So all the work that they've done means something absolutely and that's the key.

So if I choose to participate and utilize this tool to further my education, I can be confident that that is a school that is authorized to operate in georgia, that they offer quality programs for georgians, and that those students can be assured that they will be able to have those courses delivered in a timely and effective way.

Is that committee yet?

It is actually out of committee.

It's out of the senate.

We passed it out of the senate.

It is now in the house.

We had a house hearing on it this week.

We expect a house action on it probably after crossover, after March 6, and then we'll we'll proceed with our friends in the house taking up this legislation but I expect it to pass and I look forward to the governor's agreement okay well thanks for telling us about that.

It is an issue I know a lot of people care about.

So chairman still while we still have you.

You want to see charter school help students who drop out or age out on the well they drop out of school, but you want charter schools to be able to help them.

We're trying to find another tool for kids to be able to get a diploma that have had to leave school for variety of reasons.

Maybe they're being bullied, Maybe they have to take care of an ailing parent, Maybe they have to work a full time job, maybe they're a teen mom and they want to be able to still graduate from a traditional school or a charter school.

This allows for a dropout recovery school.

So we amended the charter schools act of 1998.

And then this just creates the framework for no additional cost to the state to allow charter schools to be able to form and create work with their local school board and the charter school commission to be able to create specific schools focused on dropout recovery.

And you say you said there's a pilot of sorts.

We do.

Have a pilot in south fulton and it's working wonderfully and we want to be able to expand that around the state.

How many students do you think this might affect?

We don't know.

The problem is we have kids dropping out of school for so many other reasons.

Chronic absenteeism illness bullying, and the list goes on and on.

So if we can give kids another option to help them get across the finish line, hopefully be able to go to one of the institutions that senator burns mentioned.

That would be a wonderful way to be able to tie this up.

All right then, anything else on higher education on your radar right now we're working on a number of issues.

I think probably the biggest challenge that we face in higher education is ensuring that georgia students have quality options either within a public or a private environment.

I met today with some of our good partners at emory university.

And that's an excellent school, by the way, that's an accredited institution, as are a number of quality privates.

But at the end of the day, we want to make an educated georgia and a georgia that fits our workforce needs okay well we'll keep up with that and your bills too.

So thank you so much for both of you coming on the show.

Thank you.

Appreciate that well coming up, research shows social media adversely impacts a young person's mental health.

Two senators join us to talk about their legislation looking for help for children and adolescents.

Stay with us.

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It's not a mountain thing or a coastal thing.

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Morning edition on georgia public broadcast that keeps georgians everywhere dialed into home.

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It's a georgia thing Welcome back to lawmakers.

I'm donna lowery.

Researchers in mental health are beginning to understand the effects of social media on the mental health of children.

The u s department of health and human services quotes research that says children and adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems, including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety.

The agency quotes another survey showing that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media.

And when asked about the impact of social media on things like their body image, 46% of adolescents, 13 to 17-years-old, say social media makes them feel worse.

So we're going to spend some time on legislation to help address these issues.

Joining me is republican senator Bo Hatchett of cornelia.

He is the governor's floor leader.. He's vice chair of both the children and families committees and reapportionment and redistricting committees.

And he's ex officio member of the education and youth committee.

There's a lot there.

Also here is democratic senator nikki merritt of grayson.

She is the chair of the georgia legislative black caucus.

A few of her committees include government oversight, health and human services, insurance and labor.

Welcome to lawmakers.

Thank you both for being here.

This is such an important topic.

It really is.

I'm going to start with you, leader hatchett.

I gave some statistics.

Let's start with both of you talking a little bit about why you're interested in this issue.

I think it's glaring right now with mental health issues across our state and our young people that social media is the culprit and it's not necessarily just the content,.

What we're finding out now through research is that it's actually the design of the app itself.

It's engineered addiction.

These apps are designed really for one thing, which is to increase the time you're on the app by figuring out exactly what you like and feeding that to you.

It's infinite scroll, it's autoplay.

And I think for an adult that's somewhat of a business decision, but for a child, there's no place for that.

And so when we originally set out with senate bill 343, we wanted to ban social media completely for kids under the age of 14 well courts all over the country have already said that that's protected speech grounds that we can't really tread on.. So what we're trying to do is hold social media companies accountable by saying if you know that your end user is a child, you're not allowed to use these addictive algorithms.

You're not allowed to use the same type of addictive tools that you use on adults, on children.

And as you said earlier, we're seeing increased rates in depression, sleep deprivation, self harm suicide constant social comparison, which is driven by social media and it's just kids need to get outside, they need to get off their phones.

This is a generation of guinea pigs and it's not going well for them.

This is the generation that grew up with it and so they don't know anything else.

Your thoughts on what's going on.

That's exactly it.. I've been concerned about kids have moved to this phone based childhood now.

They're not going outside to play anymore.

And my bill talks about, you know, it's for minors, those that are under 14.

And that is a crucial age of development, brain development creativity spending time on social media, as we've already said, it is having impacts on their mental health, their self image, their confidence, their creativity, everything that makes them a child.

And I think it is very dangerous.

We know these companies have built these algorithms to keep them on longer for money, for profit.

So they're profiting off of our children.

They're taking their data.

My bill deals with that as well as having penalties on them for the data that they're collecting on these children.

But it's a real problem and I'm concerned, you know, I want to get back to the basics of when we were young, you know, we went outside and played and it's it's really kind of astonishing parents push back on bills like ours.

We hear more from parents.

And what is interesting is that parents are so afraid, they're afraid of the pedophile outside of the phone and we're like no the pedophile is probably in your child's phone in the bedroom.

So they're so worried about the dangers from the outside when kids can be on their phone any time of night, you know, they could be in their bedroom exposed to whomever.

We don't know who these end users are sometimes so someone that's 14 and under I just I I I I think their attention should be somewhere else.

It should be on school it should be on play and not in an adult environment.

I want to get deeper into each one of your bills.

Now how exactly are you going after the companies in your bill or how are you checking to see to keep them from doing the things they're doing with some of the social media.

And I'm glad you asked that this is not a bill that we're going after the companies, What we're doing is we're saying if you know a child is the end user, you're not allowed to use the same addictive design that you use on adults well how did they figure that out?

That's the biggest debate under the gold dome right now because there's two ideas.

Number 1 is age verification at the app store.

And number 2 is age verification verified by the social media platforms essentially.

And of course the social media companies want the app store to be in control of that and have that responsibility.

The apples and googles of the app store want to make sure the social media companies are in charge.

And so there's two different ideas.

In my opinion, it should be both.

Verify the age of the app store.

Verify the age on the platform as well.

I don't think we can put enough guardrails around what's happening to our kids right now.

Extra protections, you say in your bill, how does it go up?

It's a little bit different.

I go, I'm going after the social media companies.

I am holding them accountable.

That's what sb 165 does and what it does, it places significant penalties on them which will help with our enforcement.

But I absolutely think they should be held accountable.

They're collecting data, private information, they're exploiting our children, and we should go after them and make them pay the penalties because they have the technology.

You were asking how, trust me, they have the technology to know who is on that platform.

And what this bill does, it says hey if you know if someone, if you have not gotten their parental permission, if you know someone under 14 and you have not built some design to check that, we're holding responsible.

I'm curious about the fact that you say parents are fighting against this.

Are you hearing that too, that parents and adults are against this absolutely it's probably one of the most common things that I talk to about constituents moms dads.

I think one of the biggest issues that a lot of people are not talking about is when kids get on social media and they get hooked because of the dopamine receptors and the engagement well at that age, you can't make an autonomous decision whether or not you want to expose yourself to that well when you reach the age where you can make that decision, it's already too late.

You are addicted.

And I think to be honest, a lot of adults are addicted to social media.

I think a lot more people are than would admit it.

And we've got to keep kids off of this and away from, I'll say it again, it's called engineered addiction.

And they catch you when you're young and they'll keep you for the rest of your life yeah you totally agree with that yeah yeah absolutely again we should be holding these companies accountable for what they're doing.

.

I think it's social media to me is an adult space.

I think being exposed to kind of adult matter, just being exposed to everything that's addictive.

Now kids are are are, you know, gauging their self worth by if they're getting a like, I mean, it's it's just an environment that's just not healthy and parents, to be honest with you, what has happened is some parents really get it and are for it.

So and then we get the significant pushback from those that say things like, don't tell me what to do, don't tell me how to raise my my child I think that's kind of the pushback, but to be honest with you silently and I and I was on the brt show and he had me on we do have parents that fully agree.

They say, I absolutely agree with you.

I don't want my child on there and I think we do need some more restrictions.

So it's going to take kind of a groundswell of interest in all of this for this to really work.

I mean, you can put the legislation out there, but don't you need that support too absolutely and I think there's several different angles that were coming at it, but I don't think you can come at it in enough ways and you know, at the end of the day, this is not a partisan issue.

This is a This is an issue which you know me and senator me see eye to eye on this for sure, not on all things, but.

I thank you so much, both of you for being here.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Keep up with those bills.

That does it for lawmakers today.

Sarah will have her capital report tomorrow after the pbs news hour and monday is a committee conference day at the capitol.

So we'll be back on tuesday when they gavel in.

Have a good night