Our state representatives have a clear opportunity to make sure that no other students, teachers or families in Georgia have to endure what we have endured.

No child should ever have to learn how to survive a mass shooting.

No student should have to run from gunfire in their own classroom, and no family should have to grieve the loss of their child, sibling, or parent because of preventable violence.

A senior at Apalachee High School urging legislators to prioritize student safety in schools.

Welcome to Lawmakers.

On day 11 of the legislative session, I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

We'll hear more from the press conference in the show and explore the specifics of the school public safety legislation under consideration this session to help prevent another tragedy.

And it's becoming a yearly effort to get some gambling bill passed in Georgia.

On the show, two lawmakers who once again believe the odds are in their favor of sports betting legislation gaining the support it needs in the General Assembly.

And we'll hear more from both sides of the debate on legal liability reform in Georgia.

But first, let's get the latest from the Capitol, where Sarah Kallis has our Capitol report.

Hi, Donna.

Today at the Capitol, lawmakers hit on school safety in girls sports.

Also today, lawmakers recognized an important community in Georgia.

This morning, Representative Michelle Au held a press conference to promote her safe Gun Storage bill, which would criminalize unsafe firearm storage around a child.

She was joined by students and families affected by a school shooting at Apalachee High School in September.

Months later, I still wrestle with the questions that haunt me.

Did that really happen?

Why was he allowed access web access to that weapon?

What if another child gains access to an unsecured firearm?

What if this happens again?

It does not have to happen again.

In the wake of our shooting, our community showed up for us.

And their support has been essential for so many students and teachers.

Now it's time for our state legislators to show up.

Al says that her bill aims to prevent more tragedies.

Later in the morning, representative Ray Martinez hosted Latino Day at the Capitol.

As I stand here before you on behalf of the state of Georgia, I'm reminded of the power of the Hispanic community and the contributions our community has made throughout Georgia, throughout the history of Georgia.

Latinos now account for over 1 million residents in the state of Georgia, and it's growing every year.

Folks, we are not going anywhere.

You better take us seriously because we're here to stay.

In other news, speaker of the House Jon Burns explained the House's version of legislation that would prohibit schools from allowing transgender girls to compete in female sports.

In 2022.

The House championed legislation that enabled the Georgia High School Association to ensure fairness in girls competitions at the high school level across the state of Georgia.

The Riley Gaines Act ensures that that same standard of fairness as is applied at every every competitive level from kindergarten to college.

It also protects the dignity and integrity of women's spaces by requiring separate locker rooms, bathrooms, and changing facilities for male and female athletes.

A similar bill is making its way through the Senate.

The topic of tort reform came up in the Senate this morning, with Democrats questioning the Republican penned S.B.

69, lack of accountability for insurance companies.

Show me in the bill, where it addresses premiums being lowered to me.

Show me where in this bill does it address the practice of unacceptable?

I'm sorry.

Unacceptable.

Denial of claims.

Where in this bill can I find language requiring insurance companies to write policies?

Where does it address the unfair cancellation and non-renewal of policies?

Senator Randal Mangham spoke about another insurance practice that specifically affects African Americans, with black communities paying auto rates that can be as much as 63% higher than others.

The mythology behind these numbers involves insurers taking into account zip codes which, although not explicitly race based, often correspond to certain racial demographics.

Companies justify the price differences through arguments ranging from higher claim rates to increase rates in these neighborhoods.

Factors that cannot be decoupled from socioeconomic realities.

As a result, according to the research, the insurance industry's risk assessment is tinged with an unconscious bias that evidently impacts black communities financially.

SB 69 is part of the governor's push for tort reform.

This session in the House.

A touching tribute to Representative Patti Stinson Stinson is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Members wore pink to show their support.

We want you to know that you are not alone.

And this entire House of Representatives want to say to you, we love you.

We appreciate you, and we know that God is with you all the way.

He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

So we want to present these flowers to you because you're beautiful, just like these flowers inside and out.

Thank you.

Also in the house, members acknowledged girl Scout day at the Capitol.

Later in the day.

It's a bird.

It's a plane.

No, it's a drone.

The winged drone delivery service demonstrated their product for spectators outside the Capitol at Liberty Plaza.

Operators showed off the package delivery system that is currently being used in other states.

Tomorrow, another Latino Day celebration is planned by a collection of Latino groups.

That's all for my Capitol report.

Back to you, Donna.

Thanks, Sarah.

For several years now, supporters have tried to persuade lawmakers to allow gaming in Georgia.

They argue it would help fund college scholarships and other education initiatives.

And last year, the Georgia Senate voted overwhelmingly, 41-12 to ask voters to consider a constitutional amendment to legalize online sports betting.

The bill did not get any action in the House this session.

Supporters hope to garner support for something dealing with gaming once again, and joining us are two of those lawmakers Republican Senator Carden Summers of Cordele.

He's chair of Senate Banking and Financial Institutions and vice chair of regulated industries and utilities.

And Democratic Representative Billy Mitchell of Stone Mountain in the House.

He's on appropriations, banks and banking and Regulated industries committees.

Welcome to Lawmakers to both of you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Chair Cardin I mean, Chair Summers, we have to deal with last year.

Talk about what happened to SB 579.

It was passed in the Senate.

Then what happened?

It got in too late.

Missed on it was.

It was too late to be able to get the bill started.

And no one wanted to just to pass sports betting.

Sports betting doesn't do anything for Georgia.

It takes the money out of Georgia.

It goes to another state and they hire like 400 people to run the whole sports betting process.

So therefore, when we analyze it and figured it out, we realized that that was just not the thing to do.

Okay.

So as of this afternoon, hot off the presses for our audience, you introduced a new bill.

Let me tell you how I did that and why.

Back in June of this year on the Republican primary, over 650,000 people voted.

They wanted the right to vote on legalized gambling in Georgia and gaming.

And basically what that amounts to is, is we have a prohibition in our Constitution.

You have to remove that prohibition before we can have any kind of gaming in Georgia.

Well, it passed by 80% in 159 counties, 80% in 159 counties voted.

They wanted the right to vote on it.

So my bill is simply a bill or resolution.

I think it's SR 131 that set up a perimeter to allow people to vote to remove the gaming off the Constitution if it passes, if it passes, we'll have to have an enabling legislation for, for example, horse racing, sports betting, and of course, casino gambling.

You'll have to have the enabling legislation to go along with it.

And this bill probably won't be voted on until 2026 because there's no elections until 2026.

So we're talking it's not something that's going to happen right away.

We hope the vote will be through and pass it through for people, but we won't have a vote until 2026 because that's when the elections come up again.

Then there'll be a two step process, the vote and then the enabling legislation.

That is correct.

And the way it works is very simple.

If, if, if people want to do gaming, we can't take shortcuts.

We can't hide things under the lottery.

We can't do things like that.

We have to remove the gambling prohibition off the Constitution.

And people of Georgia need to speak to that.

If it passes, it passes.

If it fails, it fails.

But we got to do it the right way and the straight way for people of Georgia.

And you would like to see the money go into a different pot.

Yes, ma'am.

I talk about.

That and my bill or my resolution.

It simply says that if we Winder, let's just use for example, let's just say you get six casinos in Georgia, okay?

You have six casinos.

Only those six counties would really reap the benefits of what those casinos would bring in regarding property taxes.

Money changed that type of thing.

My bill simply or my resolution simply says that the first billion dollars it generated goes to every county in Georgia equally, 149 counties gets a share, which is about $6.3 million.

It will be handed to every county commission in Georgia because the county commission is an arm of the legislature.

Okay.

The second billion dollars is the same thing.

6.3 thereafter, for ten years, $500 million goes to rural Georgia or goes to Georgia, one of nine counties to be split evenly, which is about 3 million, a little over $3 million now in Georgia has 159 counties, but we have 120 rural counties that are struggling every day just to, you know, put gravel down on a road or to do something for for school busses or to do something for red lights or do something for any kind of infrastructure.

And this money would be a godsend to these counties in my position, is, is that everybody in Georgia is sharing this, not just a few counties.

Okay.

So that's how it's set up.

So basically about $7 billion will be given back to 159 counties.

Any monies left over.

Now we took out 5% for problem gambling and to run the program.

But any monies that are left over after the 500 million would go to the general fund or wherever, you know, wherever other representatives and senators and lawmakers feel like it should go.

I left that open.

Okay.

All right, I know, I know, you have had you've had sports, you've had gambling.

Well, let me let me say specifically gambling legislation in 2021, I think you had some legislation.

What do you think of what he's talking about here?

Well, I'll tell you, I enjoy working with Senator Summers, and I think his plan is very ambitious, to say the least.

And I think some of the, the, the points in the proposal are actually worth looking into for sure.

I just believe that, you know, when you talk about the whole gambit of gambling, horse racing, casinos as well, it was a tough task to get passed the house last year, being an election year, I'm anxious to see how our members of fully receive this, but make no mistake about it, I think that the state should adopt at least online gambling, at least some.

I'm in favor of casinos as well.

I do believe the statistics suggest that our citizens are doing it anyway.

They're doing it right now, so if they're doing it right now, it should be regulated in Georgia by Georgians for the benefit of Georgia.

We're talking about taking some of the resources that Senator Summers said for problem gamblers.

Right now, we don't have that protection.

It is, you know, going the money is going out of state where they could care less about what the consumers are doing in Georgia.

So I think this is a great opportunity that we can perhaps with the the points that he has brought up, we can certainly maybe get it further down the road.

But before we go any further, I do need to talk about the strong opposition that the arguments for those who oppose anything relating to gambling, and this is from the influential Georgia Baptist Mission Board, which voted on a resolution a few years ago opposing sports gambling of any time kind in Georgia.

And they say one of the dangers is that it increases addiction rates.

It leads to bankruptcies, job losses, crime, sex trafficking and suicides.

And they say it harms individuals, marriages, families and children.

You say.

I can tell you this right here they are against the lottery.

And look what the lottery has done for Georgia.

Look what it's done for our children that couldn't have gone to school.

They used the Hope scholarship and we have a tremendous reserve fund set aside now to help with lottery and pre-K.

So my answer to that is I understand their position.

I respect their position, and I want to comment on what Representative Mitchell said a while ago.

I mean, this is for people.

People of Georgia are going to speak to this.

This is not for representatives and senators to make this decision.

This is for the people of Georgia to make that decision.

And when you put it back in the hands of the people of Georgia, anybody can look their constituents in the eye and say, we gave you the choice.

You made the choice.

You feel strongly about that, too.

Absolutely.

And and to that point, I don't think that the government, the right place for the government is to be their nanny, if you will.

When we talk about the revenue that can be derived, when we talk about the jobs, when we talk about tourism, when we talk about the improvements to infrastructure, and of course, when we're talking about common sense, sensible implementation, this is the right thing to do at the right time.

Yeah.

And despite what what the the pushback you've received before, you feel pretty confident this is the way to go.

Even though the vote will take a while, you feel that mandate you received from the 80% of the people from what was on the ballot.

Once again, the push backs, because we we singled out a certain sector of gaming.

You know, one time we tried to do horse racing about four years ago.

Billy Mitchell remember, we just just horse racing and they thought they could put it on the lottery and move it here and move it there.

You can't we can't hide this stuff.

You got to be straight up with it.

It's got to be across the board and you got to allow people to know what's happening.

Because like I said, at the very end, people will make the decision.

If it passes it, pass it.

If it fails, it fails.

But they asked for the right to vote.

Now, we did not take a Democrat poll on this in June.

Just the Republican primary had that in there.

But I feel certain that it would have been basically the same numbers.

And actually I've seen some polling and it was closer to 90% among Democrats.

Democrats have done it too.

So yeah, and we're at 80%.

So that's about where we are.

All right.

Well, we'll see what happens.

And.

I'm sure we'll have you come back on and talk about it.

Looking forward.

To it.

Thank you both.

For I look forward to working with Representative Mitchell.

He knows what he's got.

I love.

That represents some of his good Senator.

Thank you.

Thank you both for being here.

We thank you.

All right.

Coming up, we'll talk school safety, property tax relief and more in the studio.

Two attorneys who are starting their second terms in the Georgia legislature.

Both are enthusiastic with lots of ideas for making life better for Georgians.

This is Lawmakers on GFB.

Georgia Farm Bureau, a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving Georgia agriculture.

Farm Bureau advocates for all Georgia farmers at the state Capitol during the session and year round.

Georgia Farm Bureau, the Voice of Georgia Farmers.

It's good to have everyone back together.

Good news indeed.

Put your feet up a minute.

It's beautiful.

Where does that sound to you, man?

It's what I love doing.

Cup of tea?

I was.

Thinking more.

A double whiskey.

Harriet.

Freshly baked biscuits.

Always.

Well, this is all proving rather cozy, isn't it?

I got my head out the sunroof.

Oh.

Oh, la la la la la la la la la.

Understanding the past gives a sense of the future.

Heart like a lion.

This is the first time that anyone has seen this in 2000 years.

Oh, stop.

The big is happening.

So hurry up.

We're diving in.

What?

This is amazing.

Well, I'm excited now.

Pompeii is a battle against time.

Eyes wide open.

Oh.

You think I'm joking?

But look at this.

It did really happen.

Don't let anybody tell you who you are.

Yeah.

I love this life.

History teaches us to honor the past.

We're jumping in with our eyes wide open.

When you look back, you're like, wow, that was pretty special.

This is something that's actually altering the course of history.

You're charged with keeping these stories alive.

Eyes wide open.

You.

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry.

We're going to talk about a variety of issues with our next guest.

Joining us is Republican Representative Matt Reeves of Duluth.

He's vice chair of House judiciary.

Also with us is Democratic Representative Sarai.

Sarai.

I'm saying, Sarah, I always do that.

I'm so sorry.

No problem.

A Saira Draper of Atlanta among her committees is judiciary, juvenile.

And I apologize when I see you.

I can say it when I look at the word.

You know your name.

No worries.

Thank you so much.

Welcome to Lawmakers.

Now that I've got past that, let's talk about House Speaker Jon Burns school safety package.

That includes everything from and we're going to show it up on the screen, creating a student safety database to increase penalties for anyone who makes threats at schools, and a whole lot of other things that you see up on the screen.

And I know you were part of putting that package together.

So talk about your part in all of this and what it's all about.

John, I was proud to work with Speaker Burns, Office Majority Leader Chuck Efstration on the terroristic threats part of the bill.

I really appreciate the leadership of the speaker and the immediate aftermath of that tragedy in Appalachia.

To formulate a a response, to make sure that kind of a tragedy wouldn't happen again.

And I remember being at UGA during nine over 11 when that tragedy happened.

I remember the federal government made sure there were no barriers to information and existence.

After 9/11 post 9/11 world, and I look at what the speaker has done and Representative Holt Persinger the sponsor of the bill, and you've got Jima, Georgia Emergency Management, who just did a wonderful job during the snowstorms.

Jima Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.

The state Board of Education, local law enforcement, our local schools.

They will now be able to share information.

If you look at that tragedy in Appalachia, that young man had some cries for help and some bad behavior, threats of violence.

But his new school didn't know about that as much as they needed to.

And that will not happen again under this bill.

Yeah.

So there's a data base that kind of follows the students, follows the schools to, in a way, some of the things that are happening.

That's right.

And this bill, which is 50 pages long, there was a lot of care taken to make sure that all the legal boxes are checked.

There are a lot of federal and other educational and health care privacy issues that are addressed in this bill to make sure schools and law enforcement have the information they need to intervene when there are threats of violence, to make sure they do not escalate into another tragedy.

Okay.

It's pretty comprehensive.

What are your thoughts?

Yeah.

So I very much appreciated a multifaceted approach approaching it from different angles.

This is a very complicated issue, but I think we have to address the elephant in the room there, as far as I know, is not one thing in this bill that has been proposed about common sense gun safety reform.

Right.

Guns are the number one killer of children.

They kill more children than cancer.

They kill more children than car wrecks.

Right.

So for us to in the days in the aftermath of the most deadly school shooting in Georgia history, for us to not even address gun safety, I think it's a dereliction of duty.

Okay.

There is something that deals with at least lock boxes or some some way of.

Yes.

Donna, the speaker, in the immediate aftermath of Appalachia, said we do need to do something on the gun component of that tragedy.

House Bill 79, Doctor Martin Newton Newnan, a doctor and representative from the Augusta area, has a gun safe storage and gun safety, education, tax credit and incentive bill.

And also, if you look at the bill, there are a lot of provisions in there to make sure that the students who are having mental health and other violence issues do not get to get to the point of bringing a gun to school.

There's also anonymous tip app, which works well in Gwinnett to make sure that if a student brings a gun or is otherwise threatening violence, that that is reported immediately to law enforcement so they can intervene.

And that's that's worked around the state.

So it honors the Second Amendment, but it brings all the know how from law enforcement, mental health and other important areas to make sure these tragedies don't happen again.

It's something that could pass the House, the Senate and get signed by the governor and meet legal scrutiny in the courts.

You still don't think that's enough?

What would you like to see?

Yeah.

With all due respect, I think that's a half measure.

I mean, when you have a baby that's born at a hospital, you don't get a tax credit for making sure you have a car seat for that baby.

You have to, under the law, have a car seat for that baby in the hospital.

Won't give you your baby unless you do.

Right.

So there is.

We can have the tax credit.

The tax credit is fine.

There is a bill that was proposed two years ago, the Pediatric Health Safe Storage Bill, which was proposed by Doctor Michelle Au representative, Doctor Michelle Au, which basically says, look, if you have a firearm in your house and you have a minor who also lives in that house, you have to properly secure that firearm.

I mean, this is a really moderate conservative measure that we would place on parents to ensure that their children are safe.

It seems like it's every other day that there is a news story about a toddler who finds a gun in a house and kills himself or permanently injures himself.

There is so much that we can do to prevent these very foreseeable tragedies from happening, and tax incentives just don't go far enough.

Well, I'm sorry, did you want to add something to that?

Absolutely.

Donna.

This bill focuses on the problem.

It focuses on the tragedy of Appalachia.

It learns the lessons from Appalachia, and it responds to it in a way that will prevent it from happening again in our schools.

I come from Gwinnett County, the the state's largest school system, and we take school safety very personally.

I really appreciate what Gwinnett County School police have done to keep Gwinnett schools safe.

In a lot of ways, it takes some of those Gwinnett County know how and measures and takes it statewide to prevent tragedies from happening.

So I think the bill, which is very lengthy, it's one of the best in the country on school safety, and it addresses what happened in Appalachia and will make sure it doesn't happen again.

And there are parts of it you do like.

Yeah, sure.

No, I think we need to have a multifaceted approach, but I think we have to deal with the gun issue and as not just as a legislator, but as a Georgia parent.

I know that I want to see our elected officials dealing with this central issue, which is the proliferation of guns.

I will tell you that my daughter, when she was in pre-K, her very first day of school in Georgia, ever her school went on lockdown because there was a man outside her school with a rifle.

This was her very first experience with school ever.

This is a problem throughout Georgia, and we have to have the courage to address it head on.

Okay, I think we're going to certainly be talking about both of these bills.

Well, there's several on your side, and this one, I want to change gears a little bit and talk about tort reform, because I have you both here and you're both attorneys.

Of course, Governor Brian Kemp calls it Tort reform.

It's certainly dealing with civil liability lawsuits and large jury awards in Georgia.

So I want to get your opinion, both of you, your opinion on it.

And I'll start with you.

Thanks, Donna.

I've practiced law in Gwinnett County for 22 years after graduating from Mercer and UGA Law School.

We've done several measures the last several years, whether it's corporate executive depositions, bad faith insurance claims with car accidents, trucking insurance, as well as medical malpractice mediation that passed the House.

But I appreciate Governor Kemp's leadership.

He's done a great job in so many areas, and he heard the small businesses, the health care and many other industries in Georgia who said, look, governor, we hadn't done this in 20 years.

Governor Kemp was a state senator.

The last round of tort reform in 2005.

And so, you know, what this is doing is making an effort to make sure that we don't have unnecessarily high premiums.

On the other side, I'm the House Judiciary Committee vice chair.

And, you know, we're going to look at every facet of the legal system.

You got the Seventh Amendment right to a trial by jury.

You've got, um, uh, victims of negligence who need to be made whole.

If somebody if their spouse dies or their child gets injured or something, and then also insurance reform, I think a little bit more scrutiny needs to be put on the insurance industry.

And also got to recognize we're the number one place to do business.

So, you know, not everything is bad and broken.

We need to have a good bill.

The Senate is working on it now.

It will be a process.

The House is ready to work on this.

Um, you know, I listen to my constituents and I know that 20 years and part of that bill 20 years ago got struck by the courts.

So doing something that's going to withstand court scrutiny, I think, is of utmost importance.

Okay.

I want to get you, representative.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, I think it has to be refined.

It's going to be refined a lot before it actually gets to us.

So it's a little bit early to say, but generally speaking, what I'm looking for, I acknowledge that there is a problem with premiums and they are too high.

I think every Georgian feels that.

But what I want to know is that the proposals, the solutions that we are proposing, rather that they fix the problem that we are aiming to solve.

Right.

Is there a line between what we are offering and the solutions?

And if that's the case with this bill, I think that will be a good thing.

And if it's not, we need to reevaluate.

Yeah.

So you're you're in favor of at least looking at this.

The good thing about this is a conversation is taking place, right.

Absolutely.

For both of you on this, one more thing I want, I know you wanted to get to property tax relief.

We have a few minutes.

I'm really excited.

The governor has taken leadership on that.

We're going to have legislation lowering the state income tax even more this year, as well as a one time income tax rebate.

We are we're refiling the speaker's state minimum homestead increase.

If you have a homestead increase, that's going to decrease your taxes, that will be an addition to House Bill 581, which limits the value increases.

And also I'm working with my 22 or 23 Gwinnett County House colleagues try to do another round of Gwinnett County property tax reduction this year, as well as our school system.

Uh, you know, the American dream is homeownership.

And also making sure hardworking Georgians keep more of the money they earn.

That's something that is on the agenda this year.

Anything else for you?

What are you looking at?

Oh, lots of things coming down the pipe.

Lots of things coming down the pipe.

But you can tell us about it.

Um, well, I think I'm going to bring back a bill that I had two years ago, which is making sure that folks who have small children, if they need to go to the front of the voting line when they go to vote, they can do so.

We already allow that accommodation for our disabled population and over 75, and I don't want anybody having a small child getting in the way of them being able to exercise their right to vote.

So you think you have that one going to okay, then I appreciate you both coming on the show.

Thank you so much.

And I hope to hear more about all of these bills.

Thank you.

Come back, come back.

All right.

That does it for Lawmakers today.

Tomorrow we introduce you to some of the 22 lawmakers at the Capitol this year.

Have a good evening.