Georgia.

Georgia.

Georgia.

The whole day.

Just no sweet soul.

Keep Georgia on my mind.

A beautiful way to start the legislative session in the house with the reigning Miss Georgia.

Audrey Catella, serenading house members with her voice and her violin.

Good evening, and welcome to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

It's the 158th session of the Georgia General Assembly, and the 56th season of Lawmakers.

It's a campaign year, and several lawmakers are running for higher office during the session.

A few have departed to either focus on their campaigns and or.

There are other reasons why they've left.

That means there are some new faces under the gold dome over the next 40 days.

Expect bills in the areas of education, property and state income taxes and artificial intelligence.

Plus, a major focus on affordability.

Looking for budget friendly housing and health care legislation.

But before getting into all that, let's find out what happened today from our own Capitol correspondent, Sarah Kallis, who happens to be here for a change and not all the way at the dome, where I don't have to yell at you to get there.

So thanks for being here on set.

Thank you for having me.

Always great to.

Be here.

We're happy to to get into this session.

Our first day of lawmakers.

And it's somewhat busy there.

A lot of procedural things.

Yeah.

It was great to be back at the Capitol with the Lawmakers crew.

And today lawmakers got to work very quickly in the newly renovated House and Senate chambers under the Gold Dome.

It's the first day of the.

2026 session, and as expected, both floors gaveled out after accomplishing procedural business.

They welcomed new members in both chambers.

Let's give our new senator from Cobb County, Senator Howard, from the 35th here.

Let's give him a big round of applause.

And the Senate unanimously selected Senator Larry Walker, the third, as the new president pro tempore.

My father taught me that, you know, while we sit on different sides of the aisle or come from different areas of the state or different perspectives, we're all bound by a common duty to leave Georgia better than we found it.

He understood that leadership isn't about the title you hold, but the people you serve.

And as I take this gavel, I hope to honor his legacy by bringing the same spirit of steady, principled leadership to this role.

Walker replaces Senator John F. Kennedy, who resigned his seat last year to run for lieutenant governor in this year's election in the House.

Lawmakers debated the 2026 legislative calendar.

The issue is actually Friday, March 20th, which is the end of Ramadan.

And usually there's like prayers.

People travel to see family.

And we do have staff that could be impacted.

Is there any way that we could potentially shift the committee work day that week and then just switch them out, essentially.

As I understand it, religious holidays such as this holiday that that you've referenced may be over several days.

What I would just say is that holidays that are celebrated, maybe at different times of the day that that understanding and accommodation can be made.

Certainly so that if, if there's an evening time celebration or something like that, we may not be in session, but I would just say that this schedule has been very carefully vetted.

In the end, both chambers approved the full schedule as presented for the legislative session.

House members also paid tribute to Representative Mandi Ballinger, who passed away last year after a battle with cancer.

What a great member of this House.

What a great advocate for children in this state.

For those great advocate, for those who suffer from domestic abuse, not only in this House, but in the Southeastern United States and in America.

And they enjoyed a special performance from Miss Georgia.

Georgia.

Joy.

The whole day.

Just knowing.

Meanwhile, people flock to the Capitol for the ACLU, packed the Capitol event advocating for communication between legislators and their constituents.

To our elected officials.

We are here to engage, not to disrupt.

We are here to educate, not intimidate.

We are here to work with you like democracy should.

Last week we got a preview of some of the legislative priorities to expect this session.

When Republican Speaker of the House Jon Burns spoke with reporters.

Whether it be health care, whether it be property taxes, whether it be income taxes, all the things that impact our lives.

So what we want to make sure of that when we address affordability issues in so many, in a wide variety of instances across the board that we want Georgians to keep their dollars.

And Lawmakers teamed up with agricultural and civic leaders to support area food banks.

Eat some barbecue and talk with reporters at the annual.

Wild Hog Supper last night.

They also welcomed new legislators, including the youngest lawmaker under the Gold Dome.

I feel very proud of what I what I represent and what I stand for, especially when it comes to the youth.

I mean, we're seeing this wave incoming of just pressure, blood pressure ideas.

It's not so much of a matter of age with me in particular when it comes to politics.

It's more of a drive and energy.

And you see this with the newer wave that we want to get things done on the foundational level.

Practical level.

I want to make sure folks know what's going on.

So when we talk about words like affordability, what does it look like behind the scenes?

What's the process to make sure things actually get done?

When we have issues with home prices?

When it comes to corporate landlords, when it comes to private equity distorting things or, other algorithms artificially inflating rents and food prices, we want to go through the process to make things better here in Georgia.

And another interesting aspect of this session is the number of new lawmakers who are running for higher office while still serving in the legislature.

That's my Capitol report.

And we're going to talk about that right now with you, because you're staying with us.

So wonderful to have you here.

And with veteran reporter Ty Togami with Capitol Beat News Service.

And that's a GPB contributing partner.

Thank you for being here on this first day of the Georgia Legislative session, 2026.

So let's talk about this.

As Sarah mentioned, we have it's an election year.

And then we have people running for office who are who did not step down during this time.

Explain explain why some left maybe and some are still around for people who don't understand that.

You cannot fundraise during the legislative session if you're in office, that's a significant handicap.

And you're it's hard to get out there and beat the campaign trail if you have to be at the Capitol every day.

So I think that that's a significant reason.

But we'll still see a lot of them talking about trying to get camera time, I think, and talking about the legislation that they're supporting that they think will help.

And so they're still there.

They want to have some good legislation to go back to their districts and say, this is what I did.

Yeah, absolutely.

They need this is the last chance to perform for their constituents.

Right?

That's true.

Not only are all 236 seats in both chambers up for election, but every constitutional office on the ballot.

And so there there's a lot in terms of that, too, in terms of how people are going to be looking at what they do.

So maybe do you think we'll see a lot of the cultural issues come up this time?

Because there's so many eyes on them?

Well, historically that's been a big thing that we've come up seen come up in election years.

That's something that certainly gets a lot of media attention, which we've said they often chase during these years.

But, you know, leadership in both the House and the Senate chamber have said that this is going to be a year where they're focused on the kitchen table issues, affordability being the biggest one that I hear over and over again.

Okay, I want to tell you about those the lawmakers who are running for office in the Senate.

There is Lieutenant Governor Bert Jones.

He's seeking the governor's office.

There are three Republicans and one Democrat running for lieutenant governor, two Republicans for attorney general.

One Democrat hopes to become insurance commissioner, and a Democrat and a Republican have their eyes on U.S.

Congressional seats in the House.

Two Democrats are running for governor.

A Republican is looking at the lieutenant governor's seat.

A Democrat is vying for the attorney general's office, and one person has thrown his hat in for secretary of state.

And then there's one making a bid for U.S.

Congress.

So a lot of that going on, and as we mentioned, a lot of competition for making sure they're getting out there.

And so the fact that they can't raise money, those who left are doing just that.

Right?

Yeah.

They're out there.

They haven't you know, we don't have any reporting required for, you know, for fundraising yet anytime soon.

But I assume that they're out there beating the bushes and taking advantage of their free time.

Okay.

So let's get into some of the big issues that we're hearing about already.

Affordability on both sides of the aisle.

The speaker is pushing for property tax relief.

So talk a little bit about what he's looking to do.

Yeah I mean, one thing that the speaker brought up in his pre-session press conferences is that some Georgians feel like they're being crushed by increasing property taxes.

And so he's looking to work with some of the local jurisdictions, who are the ones who control property tax for an area to see what they can do to reduce that burden on Georgians.

But we don't have any specifics yet.

No.

Not yet.

We're hopefully this week we'll see some stuff unveiled in the Senate is taking a very different approach to the tax relief.

Yeah.

So talk about that a little bit.

Yeah.

So Senate leadership is saying one of their priorities is to reduce and eventually eliminate the income tax in Georgia.

We've seen it decrease the past few years.

And they're hoping for another big cut this year.

Yeah.

And there was a study committee over the summer led by chairman of Blake Tillery, who is the appropriations chair in the Senate, to look at all of this.

And he has figured out a way to make that happen.

Talk about that.

Has numbers.

I'm not sure if they'll all pencil out in the end.

You're going to need a lot of revenue to make this happen.

But he has an immediate short term project of cutting, eliminating the entire income tax for people in the first $50,000, basically, that an individual makes.

And that would cost about $3 billion in the first half year, which, you know, I think that we could swing that with the current revenues.

But then when it becomes a full year, it'd be 6 billion bucks.

And so that's when they're going to be, you know, starting to dig.

And he wants to go farther than that.

He also wants to take the base rate down to 4.99%, which, you know, there might be broader enthusiasm for that.

And one of the ways he wants to do all of this is by eliminating, eliminating a lot of the tax breaks that are out there.

Well, that would be part of the discussion.

Future in the future, for some of the deeper digging.

Yeah, he's talked about there's $30 billion in tax breaks on the books.

Some of them are for, you know, for the Police Benevolent Fund or for schools, but some of them also for data centers and for different corporations.

And so I think that there would probably be some enthusiasm for eliminating some of those, but I don't know if they can eliminate, you know, they would need 10% is what remember the $3 billion, the other half of the 6 billion.

That's where he would get that 10% of that 30 billion.

So and he's talking about doing this like phasing it in up until 2032 I believe.

Well that would actually be pretty immediate.

It would be January.

It would be the next fiscal.

Well, the current fiscal halfway through the current the next fiscal year for the first half, the $50,000.

But then in the following fiscal year would be a full fiscal year.

So it would be 6 billion.

That's for the 50,000 alone.

Or income, your first tax bracket.

But they also want to reduce the overall.

Right now it's 5.19%.

And they want to cut that to 4.99%.

And so that's more money.

So that's a lot in play.

And he wants to bring that down to zero in 2032.

The main thing is there's still a lot to do to get to the point where people can say, I have no more income tax.

There's still so people who are thinking that's going to happen right away, it's not going to happen.

Right away.

Well, and then you have the speaker the House has an important role in the budget.

And the speaker was asked and he's like, well, we're interested.

We want to see the details.

That's true.

The math.

Yeah.

So let's get on to something else.

Education is always a big area for legislation, and it looks like high school students may never they may be losing access to their phones in school.

That's correct.

We've seen it for the younger ones.

Speaker Burns says that he's hoping the House will pass a ban on cell phones in schools for ninth grade through 12th grade.

And as you said, as you said, we've seen that ban for K through eighth grade already.

And so now they're discussing extending that to high school.

They feel like they've really seen a lot of benefits for kids and for teachers.

With this K through eighth ban and they're hoping to see it.

Keep going okay.

We'll see how that one goes.

But I think there's some popularity there where the parents, we didn't know how it was going to go for the eighth graders and younger, but it seems to be going well at the Wild Hog Supper supper, which was last night.

I talked to Democratic Representative Floyd Griffin of Milledgeville, and he has a push of legislation to repeal the Promise Scholarship.

Now it's a $6,500 voucher that eligible families can use for things like tutoring or private tuition.

On Amazon and et cetera, and buying products that's probably didn't have anything to do with the, you know, with them going to school.

There are some students going into the private school and for whatever reason, they are being their parents are taking them out and they're going back to public school.

See that money?

Once it goes to the private school, it does not come back.

So he is saying that the system right now is being abused by some people, even even though he is pushing back on that.

The Republicans want to even increase the promise scholarship in some way they haven't said yet, but there's some who are looking either to increase the amount of money or the number of students who can are eligible.

This has been on the agenda for years and years, and they finally did after, you know, some very squeaky votes.

They finally did get the voucher into law.

And yes, they're going to want to expand it.

Senator Greg Dolezal, who is one of those senators running for higher office for lieutenant governor, is vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

So he'll have a say in the budget.

And he this was his baby.

I mean, he's been pushing vouchers for years.

And so I wouldn't be surprised at all if he would like to see either an increase in the value of the voucher at $6,500 right now, or in the total appropriations, so more students could participate.

And we always get the pushback on the other side that this is hurting public schools.

Lawmakers are expected to revive some bills that didn't make it through both chambers last year.

And one of those is SB 30, which would prohibit prescribing or administering hormone therapies or puberty blocking medications.

Talk about that a little bit.

So this is an issue.

We've seen a lot of movement on over the past few years.

You know, several years ago we saw a ban on surgeries and hormone replacement therapy.

This bill was originally intended to ban puberty blockers as well, which are often given to transgender minors to prevent them for from going through puberty.

But we've seen some amendments in the past year.

It looks like now it's been watered down to just add a bunch of additional requirements before they're able to prescribe those drugs.

And it passed the Senate, but it was stalled in the House last year.

So we'll see if they pick it back up.

Yeah, we're expecting to hear that now.

The wild Hog supper I also spoke to Representative Matt Reeves of Duluth.

He is taking the baton to once again, once again try to get a vote on sports betting.

We're not asking House members to implement this.

We're asking House members to let the people of Georgia vote on this question of online sports betting, with the money going to literacy and pre-K with the lottery.

Just last week during the Peach Bowl, Indiana and Oregon came here to Georgia.

Both those states have legalized online sports betting.

They have it transparent and accountable with their lottery, and the money's going to education, not $1 in Georgia has gone to education from online sports betting.

So, Ty, is this the year that sports betting gets a vote?

Well, you know, all of this is like a big Rubik's cube when you get into the budget and you push here and you have to pull there.

So something else we have is a Hope scholarship.

It's very popular.

If people start spending their money on sports betting instead of hope, that could have an impact on.

And that's a cherished, you know, that's a cherished fund.

So I think you and obviously we've seen pushback from religious communities in the past.

So, you know, I don't know could happen.

But this is a perennial issue.

Yeah.

So there's so much we didn't get a chance to touch on.

So we may have to have you back.

But thanks so much for getting us started.

On the first day of Lawmakers.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you, thank you.

So coming up, we will take a look at the amazing work done to glam up the Gold Dome.

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

It's a Georgia people, places and stories thing.

Morning Edition on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Georgians everywhere dialed into home.

Tune in to GPB.

It's a Georgia thing.

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry.

When Georgia lawmakers arrived today, they entered a freshly restored chamber.

Over the summer, dozens of workers updated technology, restored woodwork, and brought historic details back to life, including shining Georgia gold.

Our GPB team got a behind the scenes look that included going to great heights.

We are.

At the top of the House chambers.

Top of the House chambers, so we've got a lot of the work that's been redone.

It's a rare close look at the intricate artistry and gilded touches at the highest point of the House chamber.

Then you have the fine, detailed work in here that they were restored.

All of this and then added some more detail of adding gold into that.

We wanted a little Georgia gold everywhere.

Georgia gold in here.

Up 2.5 stories.

We're standing atop a complex skeletal framework comprised of tons of connecting pieces of steel, massive scaffolding built on house floors so old they needed shoring up first.

The weight of the scaffolding is quite heavy, so we had to have a lot of engineering to be done to make sure we didn't collapse the scaffolding to the bottom floor, so we replaced all the flooring that's in the building.

There were still went back to the original timbers that were from the 1800s.

Refreshing every inch of the chamber is required.

Engineering, precision balancing preservation with safety in that enormous wooden box.

This is our chandelier.

The chandelier will see downstairs.

It's boxed up, protecting it.

It's been cleaned.

They're going to be putting new lighting in there.

Artisans meticulously restored everything to its original neoclassical look of the late 1800s.

There have been over 60 painters that have just worked in this building.

We have artists and painters that are here doing the detail work.

They actually started on that detail work in their shop in New Haven, Connecticut, back last January.

So they went through a selection process.

There's probably three historical painters in the United States that do that work.

Kind of a mob color.

And that's one of the colors that has been in there for a while.

But it's been more pink before.

It's been more.

There's been a lot more pink.

There's one more what we call like a Pepto Bismol pink that was brought in.

So that has been more replaced with some of the bob.

The restorations, not just cosmetic.

It's comprehensive right down to the air inside the building.

They repaired plaster damage from the humidity in the building.

Originally, the domed ceiling opened up to let out hot air inside the chamber.

In the building and from the people discussing things and.

Debating, I would imagine there was quite a bit of.

Hot air.

Now the HVAC system the last time it was replaced is in the late 50s, so it was was definitely needing to be done.

So we're proud to have that and have good quality air in here and try to maybe keep it a little bit cooler as to keep tempers down if they need to.

We leave the House.

We're in the Senate chambers, so we started the restoration project in the House and Senate chambers back last May or this past May.

And so we're wrapping up in here.

On this day.

The scaffolding is gone and they're working on wiring and new carpet in here.

There's new stain on the wood.

Every piece of wire has been pulled.

Every item has been either touched in some way.

We have new HVAC and air systems in the building handling that.

We have new stain on the wood, new paint on the wall, new gold and the gilded areas and the chandeliers have been cleaned.

They are putting new wiring in a building not built for the kind of electricity we use today.

When we ripped up the floors, we were able to do new, ductwork throughout here.

So just in the Senate chambers, there's over 36,000 feet of cabling just in this small area that we have here in the House chambers.

There's over 76,000 feet of cabling in there.

Lawmakers will have better access to computers and phones with USB ports and chargers at their desks.

And where are those desks on this day?

The desks are being restored down in the depot.

We turned the depot.

The Georgia depot, into a workroom.

So we've been doing the restoration of the desks that have been on site.

We didn't let them leave state property.

So the workers have come in there to do that.

Chairs were a little bit more of a challenge.

The chairs had far outlived their usefulness.

So we actually have replica chairs that are coming in.

Some of them are original chairs from the turn of the century.

Not the most recent turn of the century.

The one before those long ago, 1990s.

Now to the carpet.

It's a very similar to the design of before.

There's some modifications because I did not know this, but all the carpets have copyright design on there, and we've got this design.

It's actually out of Dalton, Georgia.

So Charlotte Carpet is our provider for that and very proud of what they were able to produce for us.

Georgia grown of course contractors, architects and craftsmen.

Many Georgia taxpayers themselves treating the Capitol as a shared legacy.

But just being part of this project, this is more of a sense of pride in giving back to the state.

They've all taken this as their ownership and that they're all taxpayers here in the community, and they're proud of what they're doing.

And you can just tell by the quality of work.

Modern systems, carefully hidden, now support a building first completed in 18 89 that hadn't been restored in 30 years and even then faced challenges under House speaker Tom Murphy.

The story goes that they were going through a pretty extensive renovation, and they had to cut off a cut a few corners with them because Speaker Murphy got tired of all the time it was taking, and so he told them to get out of his chambers.

So he was that was one of the things that was.

So Speaker Burns has been very helpful with us to make quick decisions.

New Ada access open committee rooms and redesigned stadium seating for the public.

This phase of restoration in the chambers began in May.

After careful planning to finish everything by the end of October.

What are you most proud of about this renovation process?

Being able to get it done in the timeframe that we have.

Preserving history, restoring dignity, and preparing these revered historic chambers for generations to come.

It was.

Pretty cool to be up there and actually touch the ceiling.

I can tell that tell you that.

So you both were with Speaker Jon Burns when he showed it all off.

So what what did you what did he.

He seemed very.

He was.

Very he was very excited.

And he also announced today that they did the entire project under budget, which I know all the lawmakers loved.

But it was so interesting to see the different intricacies of the designs.

You wouldn't notice just walking through there.

And the significance of the Dahlonega gold.

The carpet looks sort of like a Cherokee rose.

They wouldn't confirm that.

That's what the design was.

But of course, it's the state flower of Georgia, so it was good to see all those details up close.

And that the carpet was copy.

It had been the previous yeah.

The the previous carpet was copyrighted.

So that was weird.

You said you heard from some lawmakers today.

Yeah.

And in the Senate you can get up close and see them, you know, in their habitat.

And they were like kids in a toy store.

Like, apparently the chairs were pretty rickety in the past, maybe even dangerous.

And so they had musical chairs going on.

So they'd swap out someone wasn't looking so they could have the chair that works.

And of course, they're there for 40 days and nights, so they want something that works.

And yeah, I saw them inspecting their chairs, kind of leaning back in them, making sure they worked.

Yeah, I even got a text from one of the senators of his USBC plug.

He loved it, I loved it.

Thank you both for being here, because that does it.

And for Lawmakers today.

We'll be back tomorrow for Legislative Day.

Two Senate leaders from both parties will join us to discuss their priorities, and we will explore how the rapid developments in artificial intelligence are prompting new legislation this session.

Later this week, we'll have a 1 hour show highlighting Governor Kemp's annual state of the state address.

That's his last one.

We'll have the Democratic response also.

Have a good evening.

Georgia.

Joy.

The whole day.

Just know sweet soul.

Keeps Georgia on my mind.

I say.