The affidavit is pathetic.

It is a regurgitation of baseless complaints by election deniers and conspiracy theorists who refuse to accept that donald trump did not win georgia in 2020.

Those of us who live in georgia, we are no strangers to these arguments.

Every single allegation offered in this affidavit is old news.

There are no bombshell discoveries, there are no smoking guns.

The five central allegations in this affidavit have been investigated ad nauseam and they have either been rejected, discredited or explained by non nefarious reasons.

Democrats react to the release of the affidavit from the fbi raid at the fulton county elections warehouse.

Good evening and welcome to lawmakers.

It's day 17 of the legislative session.

I'm donna lowery in Atlanta.

We plan to look at a lot of bills tonight.

One would place a notation on the driver's license of someone with a physical or mental disability if they want it.

That's eric's law.

Another bill would create the darren lewis saves lives act to adopt policies for high speed police chases also we'll look at several pieces of legislation to protect homeowners and renters when it comes to everything from hoas to landlord tenant issues.

And georgia's largest industry is hurting.

We'll look at what's happening with georgia farmers and what bills might help them first a look at what happened today under the gold dome from capitol correspondent sarah calls.

Hi donna.

Today at the capitol, lawmakers gave their ideas for next steps after new details came to light about an fbi raid at a fulton county elections warehouse.

Two house democrats held a press conference this morning to dispute claims made by the federal government in their subpoena of fulton county voting documents.

Representatives sayah draper and tonya miller, both of Atlanta, say that claims made in the affidavit had already been debunked.

These are issues that have been openly reported by journalists.

These are issues that have been investigated both by democratically controlled fulton county and republican controlled state agencies in georgia.

These are issues that have been litigated to death in court and have never passed muster honestly the most telling thing about this affidavit is that after more than five years to find evidence of fraud, a rehash of baseless election denier talking points was all the federal government could come up with why because there is no fraud.

Republican senator greg dolezal of says the raid confirmed what many feared about fulton county's voter rolls and wants the state to take over fulton county's election operations this fall.

What has this concern moving forward is the voter rolls in fulton county continue to be a mess.

And it's my personal opinion, it's past time for the state to take over fulton county elections until they prove that they're capable of adjudicating our elections in georgia.

Fulton county commission chairman rob pitts traveled to the capitol to respond to dolezal comments well after I stopped laughing, remember this is election season.

Every elected official or many, many would be elected officials are going to seize upon this moment to have their ten or 15 seconds in the spotlight by picking on fulton county.

But let me be crystal clear.

We at fulton county, we will fight with every resource available to us to defend our elections and the rights of the people who reside in fulton county, who live in fulton county, who vote in fulton county.

It was a busy day in the house as members debated and passed several bills.

House bill 383 dealt with name, image and likeness rights for high school athletes.

Nil laws for teenagers already exist in the state under child actor laws, but the bill would provide guardrails for contracts.

What this does is it protects these student athletes from having these un ended contracts at the high at the collegiate and the NFL level.. I had the privilege of working on both sides of the aisle with this and we wanted to ensure that we were protecting these young athletes to be able to maximize their potential and also so that, you know, if there's questions when a student athlete has that money, the parents are the ones who go in contract with us with a under child acting laws and they're also the ones who will be responsible to understand these contracts.

It passed unanimously.

Another bill increases the speed at which food delivery robots can travel.

We also look to other states that followed the state of georgia.

We took leadership.

They went ahead and followed us.

Many of them went to ten to 12 miles an hour.

So in a sense, laboratories of democracy, federalism at its finest.

We looked at other states and said, we weren't going to go ten to 12.

We were just going to trim it up to seven.

More importantly or equally important to the safety is our ability to keep efficiency.

By increasing it on the crosswalks, we're able to move them across the crosswalks faster and move traffic, especially here in downtown and midtown Atlanta, at a more efficient pace.

Some lawmakers had concerns about pedestrian safety if the robots are allowed to move faster and is it safer if they're colliding at them at a faster speed, almost double the speed.

But in the end, the bill passed 164 to three.

Members also passed a resolution that would allow voters to decide if all judges can run as nonpartisan candidates in elections.

Under current law, probate judges have to pick a party when they run for election.

Judges should be running nonpartisan because we need to maintain the public's confidence in an independent judiciary.

Requiring some judges to run in partisan elections make it difficult for them to comply with the code of judicial conduct and maintain impartiality.

And the appearance of impartiality.

They are the only judges now that have to run partisan.

And out of 1,600 judges in georgia, 53 run partisan.

The measure received bipartisan support, but sparked a conversation about the politicization of the judicial system.

Will we remain a rule of law country?

Will we remain a democracy, or will we accelerate the process many scholars, many legal scholars believe has already begun and tipped further into something more like a competitive autocracy.

An autocracy sure they have elections and they have courts and they have journalists and the external hallmarks of a democracy, but none of it's really trusted and therefore none of it really matters.

House resolution 251 passed 147 to 22 bills in the senate today sb 400 strengthens the role of the georgia non public post secondary education committee and allows the commission to have oversight and control of bad actors.

Occasionally an independent school will come in, they'll set up shop in the storefront, they'll recruit students, they'll accept tuition, and then they fail to deliver services.

And one of the things that the commission does is protect those students from bad actors.

Sb 444 would prohibit medal insurance companies from using ai programs without human approval.

This bill recognizes the important role played by artificial intelligence in this process now and in the future however the bill specifies that there must be a human clinical peer in the process before an adverse determination is made.

Both were easily passed.

Today was also kia day and state trooper day at the capitol.

Lawmakers will be back tomorrow for day 18.

That's my capital report.

Back to you donna thanks sarah now I want to get into a wide range of legislation with our guests first democratic senator donella James of Atlanta, , a longtime member of the senate.

She is chair of the urban affairs committee and vice chair of interstate cooperation.

Also here is democratic representative carl gilyard of savannah.

He has served in the house for ten years and is on the appropriations committee and is secretary of creative arts and industry and he's also on insurance and transportation, all of those committees.

Welcome to the show, to both of you.

Thanks so much for coming.

Thank you We've got a lot to get through.

So let's start with you, chairman James, 106 sb 106.

It deals with tenant landlord relations.

What's the reason behind that bill?

We had many students, especially from our hbcus, who came and complained to us that their rent was doubling tripling and even quadrupling.

When they could not get in a dorm and they had to to stay in a apartment or a house close by and they had been.

Renting for a long time.

So we looked at the escalating rent and we said that they were gorging these students and then we found out it was all over the state, especially near any university.

And it wasn't just hbcus, it was georgia tech and georgia state and other ones too.

So we looked at what we could do and they said we couldn't.

Put rent control because georgia has a repeal on rent control.

So as a result, we realized after talking to the lawyers, the only thing we could do is give in order to give the different Counties and cities the control and they want local control anyway, was to pass a bill to repeal the restriction on rent control.

And so we talked about sb 106, but right now it's bipartisan.

It's kind of moved into another bill with well no, the other bills that moved were with the hoa because we worked with predatory hoas and we've had five hearings and each one we have more and more people who come not just from the fulton county or the metropolitan area, but they come from valdosta waycross Savannah and in fact savannah had a big rally for us and we had our one hour meetings there and a big hearing where we had so many of the people saying we can't stay in our own house.

They're trying to steal our homes.

They're putting liens on us and some of them are bogus and then they won't take our money when it's because we haven't satisfied the lien.

And this is for not paying your hoa dues.

This this is.

What it's supposed to be for not paying but most of them can't pay if they don't.

Cut the grass to a certain length or have the wrong christmas tree decorations that's not in their covenant or paint their shutters black instead of white and that that's not in the covenant.

So they once they put a lien against you then.

Most of them will not take any more of your payments.

So explain what the bill would do.

So the bill would.

We have four or five bills, but what they would do is to make sure we save homeowners because the liens would no longer be able to foreclose on the property.

So it's a lot of details in it, but the new one says 406, and that was senator brass and we worked together on that one.

Okay so you have sb 106,, 406, and then 4084 08 and then 406 is the main one that we're pushing okay I know you have more, so we'll get to back to you in a moment.

Thank you.

So representative gilliard, I want you to talk about what's behind hb 465, the autism missing person alert system act well donna, you know, last year at the georgia general assembly, and I applaud all the members, we passed this bill unanimously in the georgia general assembly, being one of ten children, I'm a knee baby.

My brother is autistic and has down syndrome.

We're blessed that he didn't gravitate to the waterways and to the highways the average.

Family member.

If they drift away that's where they usually end up and and because of that we want to place something in place that's modeled after mattie's law that protects and speeds up the process to put the information out there.

The gbs.

Helped me with this bill.

It's a great bill that saves lives.

It will get the information out far faster and give us a chance to save lives okay well let's hear from someone who supports the bill and spoke at the capitol.

As an autistic man, I understand firsthand what sensory overload and dysregulation feel like in moments of dysregulation, I may avoid eye contact, make sudden movements, or struggle to communicate effectively.

And what he is really concerned about is, and he talks about that being in a situation where he is pulled over by the police well it's how can we know and define it?

I think senator James eric's law alludes to that also police don't know they're doing the process of the law, but that person in that car doesn't know either.

They're afraid.

So we got to do more to educate both entities.

Yeah so let's talk about it.

I think we have video of this.

Eric actually is a person who is in another state.

What state is he in?

I think he he's maryland.

He's in maryland yeah he's in maryland.

And this is eric.

And that is what it would involve putting a butterfly right right on the license plate if you want it.

Know, senator James bought this bill for it and and and I stand with a supporter when he came down he showed us that they did it in maryland, we can do it in georgia.

So it's a great bill.

We need to get this bill passed and save lives one at a time.

So you you you brought him here yes.

It's eric's id law and we have been.

Working with autism as well over the past three years.. My grandson has autism and he's turned 15 and he looks like a man because he's over six feet tall and you know, I don't want him to be mistaken by police to be a a criminal or something or running because he, you know that's what they do they frill their arms sometimes and get nervous or pull their phone out when they say, put your hands up and he's done if he's done nothing, he could possibly be injured or killed okay we'll keep up with that one.

I also know you have another homeowner's bill.

This is to offer certificates to homeowners who were with homeowners associations yes because so many people who have.

Either condominium associations, homeowner associations ppas whatever they.. Will often have to go to court to prove that they don't owe a certain amount of money so they're not getting the proper receipts.

So I want wanted them to get a certificate for paying because if they say I've been paying 20 years and I no longer owe, if they don't have anything to prove it, then then they that's when they try to foreclose on them and purchase their homes from under them okay we'll keep an eye on that too.

I want to get one more of your bills and this is called the darren lewis saving lives act and it deals with the police chases.

Talk about that.

Last year in savannah georgia unfortunately, a young man named darren lewis was walking out of his home, never to know that in the residential neighborhood where he lived that there would be a high speed chase.

He lost his life in georgia last year 2025.

We had the highest rate of chases in reference to accidents, et cetera.

This is a saving lives bill that goes toward law enforcement and those civilians.

At a certain point when you're going through the neighborhoods, there needs to be a point of cease synthesis.

There needs to be training that will help save lives because the average person doesn't know what's going on in the residential areas.

So specifically residential areas, it's not prohibiting them from doing the chase, but at a certain point cease and desist and we can better save lives.

And darren lewis was a pedestrian.

I know his family came up to the capitol right his wife kathy lewis and all of those is a very passionate bill because they emulate so many others in the state of georgia that have lost their lives.

So it's a good bill.

I pray that we get the hearing and move it forward out of the house and it goes successfully to the senate and to the hands our governor okay we'll keep up with all of your bills.

I want to thank you both for being here today.

Thank you for having us coming up.

Some farmers say this is a challenging time for the state's largest industry.

A lawmaker who also is a farmer is here to talk about that.

Stay with us.

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Farm bureau advocates for all georgia farmers at the state capitol during the session and year round.

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

It's a georgia people places and stories.

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

Tune in gpb.

It's a georgia thing Welcome back to lawmakers.

I'm donna lowry.

We're going to focus on georgia's largest industry.

Agriculture contributes over $100 billion to the state's $1.5 trillion economy.

Those numbers for 24 come from the university of georgia's college of agriculture and environmental sciences.

It also reports that agriculture supports more than 370,000 jobs.

Joining me now is the chairman of the house agriculture and consumer affairs committee, republican representative robert dickey of musla.

He is a fourth generation peach and timber grower and owns dickie farms welcome thanks for coming.

Good to be here.

Thanks for having me.

So we saw hundreds of farmers at the capitol yesterday in person and with their equipment.

So talk a little bit about why they were there and what they wanted to talk about well our farm economy is in crisis right now and both our row crop farmers as well as our timber farmers.

And it's been high input costs, low commodity prices.

And so we had a great day yesterday with grassroots farmers and timber growers and timber harvesters coming to the capitol to let my colleagues know we need some help in this state for our biggest industry yeah and the concern is a lot of it left over from helene when it came through and destroyed so much.

It sure did.

And the hurricane was just devastating on top of the other issues we have.

I mean, the higher input prices, labor costs fertilizer seed, and low commodity prices.

Farmers are really having a hard time being competitive and making a profit.

And I'm worried about us losing a lot of our farmers, especially small farmers in our state yeah because is it true that the cost of the land is more valuable than actually farming on?

It is.

Our farmland and other land is just being taken over by development and you know solar developments, a little bit of everything.

And so it's hard for farmers to justify farming on very expensive land and with the low returns we're receiving.

Give us an update on where things stand with the federal relief well ag commissioner, Tyler Harper, has been working tirelessly in washington helping to get some relief back.

Congress has appropriated some funds for us for disaster relief and we got a block grant, but trying to get that approved, trying to get it through department of ag us here has really been a struggle.

So we need some relief quickly yeah so people can't complain about georgia bureaucracy that what's happening up in the.

I'm proud of my colleagues and the governor and the speaker of the house and trying to help last year and this year on some relief for our farmers okay well this morning I spoke to one of your friends and colleagues, republican senator drew eckel of gainesville.

And as you know, he's a farmer with jmo farms, which has been a part of his family for more than 100 years.

He said it's not a great time to be a farmer.

There's a couple bills coming across to us.

People are concerned about where their food comes from and what they're actually eating.

So we're looking into that.

Governor Kemp was very generous to the to the forestry industry in the amended budget and we had forestry day down at the capitol yesterday look we're looking for any avenue to make the forestry industry hold huge timber framing.

I think the house is looking at alternative jet fuel.

Timber is a huge industry in the state of georgia.

We got to make sure that it's taken care of.

And property owners and timber farmers are as much as we can try to make them whole from all these natural disasters.

That's what we're working on.

So he talked a little bit about the jet fuel, so I think a lot of us think of just the timber being used as lumber, but there's so much more that can happen.

It is so much more.

We've lost a lot of paper mills.

Three have clothes in our state all across the southeast.

That industry is drying up and we don't have any uses for our smaller wood.

And so we're looking at, hopefully the aviation industry needs aviation fuel, sustainable aviation fuel.

And if we can come up with a process to use our wood industry I would in this state for that.

It would be a real godsend for us.

So is it similar to like ethanol the way it's processed or yeah absolutely.

So kind of squeezing it all out of it well we're just trying to make it commercial available.

We can do it, but not on a large scale.

So long term and short term, we're looking at exports for some of our wood.

We're looking at maybe generating some electricity.

We need a lot more power for our data centers and other growth in the state.. So we need some use for this.

We're growing more wood in the state than we're actually using right now yeah he said it's not a good time to be a timber farmer and that's what you are.

I am.

We grow peaches and timber and it's it's struggle well senator ecls is also the new chairman of the economic development and tourism committee, and he talks about the uniqueness of that position fortunately I was named chairman of economic development the first week of session.

The committee on assignments thought I would do a good job and I'd work hard.

It's pretty rare that a farmer is serving as a chairman of economic development.

Agriculture is the largest industry in the state of georgia, so I'm wearing it with a badge of honor.

I want our industry to be very well represented when we are sitting around talking about economic development all over the different regions of the state.

Agriculture needs a seat at the table.

I plan to be there.

It sounds like it's been a long time coming, well overdue.

I think so.

I don't senator chairman goodman, he brags about it more than I do, but he's very proud that a dirt farmer, that somebody that gets their hands dirty every single day is chairing such a big committee.

So I'm happy and I'm excited going forward.

One quick question.

Talk about what the tourism part is of agriculture well I worked hard all off season with a study committee about making tourism great in the state of georgia and we do a great job.

Tourism is like the number 2 industry in the state, so it's tied to agriculture in a lot of ways.

Some farms are opening themselves up and allowing visitors to come onto the farms.

It's big business here in georgia, but further processing and those are the type things that we're gonna look at from the economic development perspective.

What can we do with our georgia farms and with our georgia products that's out of the ordinary or extraordinary because we've got great people and great products and we just need exposure.

So it kind of sounds like it makes sense to combine the largest, the biggest part of our economy with the second largest with tourism.

So you're excited about that.

Am.

And chairman nichols has got a wonderful agri tourism facility up there, a long multi generation.

We're doing it on our farm and it's all kind of opportunities all across our state.

Our urban residents wants to come to the country, see what it's like to be in farm and get their food directly from a farm and it's got great potential and I'm just excited about chairman axel moving some investment in our state toward tourism yeah you and I talked earlier, corn mazes, getting pumpkins, picking some things like strawberries, strawberries you pick.

We've got a great thing in our farm bringing school children, educating our young people on what a farm does, how they get their food, and the process it goes through to get it to the grocery shelf and on the table.

So a lot of opportunities for us in agriculture to do some agritourism yeah so there are people who are probably up north in urban areas, never been to a farm right and so that's bringing them into the state and bringing in money.

I can see that.

And I tell you our state is so diverse with tourism from the coast to the mountains, our historic heartland.

We need to do some more promotion and advertising.

What the great assets we have here in the state georgia okay quickly.

What are some, what's some legislation you expect to get well we're trying to do some tax bills for our timber farmers.. It's a long term growth and investment.

Our trees are 30, take 30 years to mature and our markets are down.

We're paying a lot of taxes, property taxes, and just trying to give some relief.

That's about all we can do on a state level and help get our trees replanted that lost from the hurricane.

So those are some things we're looking at in the short term yeah, just some things to keep them going because you think if you've lost your trees and it takes 30 years to grow, it's been devastating and long term investing in some research for aviation fuel and other uses for our for our wood and timber power industry okay well we'll keep up with that.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Well that does it for lawmakers today.

We'll be back tomorrow for day 18 of the georgia legislative session.

Have a good night What