That biological reality as it relates to sport shows us that there is a clear male advantage when it comes to sport, and what we recognize is.

That.

Advantage around female sports, such that that advantage levels the playing field for females, gives them a competition in which they are.

Competing for.

Females, and does not allow that male advantage to change the nature of the competition.

The Georgia Senate votes to ban biological males from participating in female sports.

Good evening and welcome to day 13 of the Georgia legislative session.

I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

More on today's Senate action.

Coming up in the show, you'll hear from Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones.

In a wide ranging interview.

He shares his vision for the year ahead.

In other news, Senate Democrats announced a significant move yesterday calling for a ballot referendum that would allow voters to weigh in on abortion access.

We'll hear from the senator behind that initiative.

Also hear the lawmaker who spearheaded the heartbeat bill back in 2019.

It is now law restricting most abortions once a heartbeat is detected.

We'll have that interview ahead.

First Capitol correspondent Sarah Kallis reports.

On a busy day under the Gold Dome.

Hi, Donna.

Today at the Capitol, the house okayed millions of dollars in state funds.

And the Senate took up a controversial bill.

The House passed the amended fiscal year 2025 budget nearly unanimously.

The amended budget adds millions of dollars to the current fiscal year budget to address damage from Hurricane Helene, prison security and pay for some employees.

It was important to me and to our speaker, that we stick to the timeline of a quick turnaround because this budget contains very important additions, primarily as it relates to hurricane relief and Hurricane Helene, and the safety and security of our prisons.

It also gives $68,000 per school for security improvements.

The budget was immediately sent to the Senate for their approval.

Members also acknowledged Alzheimer's Awareness Day with a touching tribute.

Representative Leesa Hagan spoke about her journey as a caregiver for her late father in law.. With an estimated 6.9 million Americans suffering, living with Alzheimer's, that means there's at least 6.9 million Americans who are caring for them.

And most of them are probably not okay, even though they like to put on a good face.

So today, as we have visitors from the Alzheimer's Association and Alzheimer's advocates here at the Capitol, I just want to take a minute to recognize the caregivers and remind you that you need to support them when you can, in any way that you can.

Also, today, women in the house wore red to recognize Women's Heart Health Day at the Capitol.

And another important health related recognition.

Lawmakers celebrated the Morehouse School of Medicine's 50th anniversary.

We are going to continue our work in identifying students who are coming from underserved and underrepresented communities, whether it's our nursing program, our PA program, our MD program, our master's program, our PhD programs, and we're going to convert non Georgians to Georgians, and we're going to convince them to come and invest and stay in our state, because that's how we know we can increase health care access and achieve health equity.

A controversial bill dealing with a controversial subject made its way to the Senate floor this afternoon.

SB one, the fair and safe Athletic Opportunities Act, would ban transgender athletes from competing in female sports at every scholastic level, including banning trans athletes competing in Georgia from other states or private schools.

Republicans say it's needed to protect cisgender female athletes.

That biological reality as it relates to sport.

Shows us that there is a clear male advantage when it comes to sport, and what we recognize is the need to put this boundary of male advantage around female sports, such that that advantage levels the playing field for females, gives them a competition in which they are competing against other females, and does not allow that male advantage to change the nature of the competition.

Democrats say it does far more harm to transgender children than solving any problem.

I'm voting no on the sports bill today because regardless of what you might have to say about fairness or safety, I know where this bill comes from.

This bill comes from exclusionary politics that have a natural end point.

And that natural end point is the erasure of trans people.

Not true, responded Republicans.

There's no attack by anybody in this chamber on you as the discussions happen in our committee.

You're cared for by members.

You're cared for and valued by our state, and nothing we do to protect the value of women's sports should be misinterpreted or twisted or bent by the words of those in the minority party to suggest otherwise.

We're simply trying to provide a fair shot for young women in sports.

Three Democratic amendments were proposed, including one that would make coaches pay facilities and equipment for female sports equal to boys sports.

That's what this amendment does.

It impacts thousands of girls lives.

And what's more, we know that from statistics, when girls play sports, and particularly when they play for a long time, they grow up to be powerful leaders like the one you see standing in this.

Well, today we know that when girls play sports, they grow up to be CEOs.

They are more likely to finish college, more likely to hold leadership positions.

When girls play sports.

This amendment makes sure that girls have a level playing field and increases the likelihood that girls will stay in the game instead of quitting the game because they don't have equal opportunities.

Two other amendments would have removed the grade school requirements, but in the end, all three amendments failed to pass.

SB one was then passed 35-17 with two Democrats voting for the bill, and the House's budget bill was received in the Senate, where it will be their turn Monday to put their mark on the appropriations bill.

Lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday for day 14.

That's all from my Capitol.

Report.

Back to you, Donna.

Thank you.

Sarah.

I recently sat down for an interview with Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones.

He is in his third year presiding over the Senate and has been advancing his priorities.

Yesterday, after the session, he was in Washington for the signing of an executive order banning banning transgender women and girls from girls sports.

As Sarah reported today, the Georgia Senate took similar action.

I started the interview asking him about his support of the legislation.

Well, I mean, it's important as a father, you know, of a teenage daughter who's who plays a lot of sports and is also having having met many young ladies who have, you know, particularly the young ladies that came to testify from University of Kentucky and the swim team, where they actually competed in the national title here in Atlanta at Georgia Tech and were unable to place in those swim meets because a young man who was posing as a female athlete ended up winning the national title right there.

Those are things that, you know, we we just really believe in the fact that we need to be protecting girls, sports.

And and we put it in the hands of the Georgia athletics.

Georgia High School Athletic Association a couple years ago, which is not a good spot to put those unelected officials in.

And so we're going to move forward and do it and put it in statute where we're clear about where we stand on protecting women's sports.

You went through this last year, though last year it made it out of the Senate.

It didn't in the House.

How are you feeling.

This year?

I feel good about it.

The speaker has, in the off season has said that he supports it.

Now, I think he supported it last year, but for whatever reason, it didn't.

It didn't get all the way through the house.

I think there he, as well as his leadership team is on board with it this year.

And so I feel I feel good about it being able to pass.

Okay.

Another study committee you had over the summer dealt with child care.

Talk about that as something that you really care about.

Yeah.

The how expensive it is.

Now.

There's no question, you know, child care expenses, like a lot of things, it keeps going up and it's very difficult for working mothers to be able to work full time and, and try to find good childcare for their young youngsters.

I myself, being a business owner, has have seen it firsthand many times.

I've lost a lot of good talent because, you know, a single mom or a working mother or whatever.

Or family, whatever.

However, whatever the situation is, you know, I've missed have not been able to work full time because either they couldn't afford child care or, you know, it just was a hardship on them.

So we're coming up with a child care tax credit, you know, that will hopefully enable more working mothers to be able to find affordable childcare and also be able to fulfill their their work, their work desires as well.

Explain how that credit would work.

Well, I mean, it's pretty simple how, you know, they file it on their taxes as far as obviously the bill to show that they're, you know, have them in a some sort of daycare system and, and then file it on their taxes.

And, and it's a pretty substantial savings for them.

Is there a possibility of anything more direct?

You know, some parents are really struggling now.

Yeah.

I mean, I would like I would like to try to figure out something direct.

We thought the the child tax credit would be the best option.

However, we're going to, uh, go through this legislative process.

And if somebody has a better idea or a better way that we can fulfill that obligation a little quicker, then we'll be we'll be open to that.

But the the essence was let's, let's try to put something in place that that at least gives them a little hope on, on being able to have a, have a little financial help in getting it done.

Something else you've been looking at and that is taking something that they're talking about on the federal level, at the state level.

And that's DOGE the Department of.

Yeah, government efficiency.

Talk about that.

Well, I mean.

That would work here.

This is something that we introduced last year as far as dealing with our state agencies on the regulatory front.

Uh, one thing that's always a burden on small businesses.

Well, small and large businesses, quite frankly, is, is the cost of doing business and the regulatory structures in, in the state or, you know, or, or local or state regulatory structures.

And we're saying that we need to always because we always add more regulations with very few times do we take them away.

And, and I think that it's always good for us to do a reset on our regulatory fronts through the state agencies.

And that's what this bill would do.

It got a lot of attention now because that's something that they're doing on the the Trump administration is moving towards doing on the National Front.

But, you know, it was something that we, um, passed out of the Senate last year and got hung in the House last year.

But it makes good common sense.

I mean, it's just one of those things that why wouldn't you want to reevaluate your regulatory system every four years and particularly make your state agencies reevaluate them?

Okay.

You talked about a couple of things that got were passed in the Senate that didn't make it into.

The House.

Yeah.

Are the two chambers going to work together better.

Than our relationships?

A little bit over there, Donna.

No.

We have a great working relationship with the.

With the House and the speaker.

Um, he and I, you know, he he started his speakership at the same time I started as lieutenant governor.

And we've had a great working relationship.

Not everything that the House sends to us, we've that we've done.

And not everything that we send to the send over there to them, they've gotten done.

But I would say for the majority of issues, we've been able to come up with some common ground and, and, you know, you're not you're not ever going to agree on everything.

So, um, and that's okay, you know, but but you can always reevaluate what they don't like and, and and then try to try to make those changes.

And so I think we'll be fine.

So this is not a honeymoon period.

At the beginning of the session.

This is going to continue all the way through.

You guys will be good at the.

End of.

Oh yeah.

It's like a it's like a marriage.

It's like a marriage.

Donna.

You know, I mean.

Seasons of it.

You got to know when, when, when to keep your mouth shut and listen and and and then vice versa.

Also, you got to state your case too.

So.

But yeah, I think it's going to be fun.

And I'm an easy person to get along with.

And so is speaker Burns.

Anything else you wanted to add that I didn't discuss?

Oh no.

I mean, you know, we're looking forward to to doing this, getting this session behind us.

I know it just started, but our main obligation is to is to pass the budget and do and and we've got some issues that we need to address in that budget.

You know, particularly pertaining to southeast Georgia.

That's a big one with the with the Hurricane Helene and the damages that were done to those counties.

So we're going to try to address those situations there.

And, you know, it's always it's always transportation, education and access to health care.

Those are all the big issues we always tackle.

And and so we'll be doing something on all those fronts.

This this session here.

I want to thank the lieutenant governor for that interview.

Well, coming up, the debate over abortion rights in Georgia and new legislation from Democrats.

Two senators passionate about each side of the issue.

Join us.

This is Lawmakers on GFB.

Perfect you guys.

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.

How 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.

Sunday.

Oh, stop.

The big is happening.

So hurry up.

We're driving in.

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.

Which 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.

I want to know, did you?

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry.

We're going to look at both sides of the abortion debate.

With two senators.

Joining us is Republican Senator Ed Setzler of Acworth.

He is chairman of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology.

He served in the House 2005-2023, when he became a state senator and Democratic senator.

Sally Harrell of Atlanta.

She previously served in the House, but has been in the Senate since 2019.

Her Senate committees include Government Oversight, Health and Human Services, and Higher Education.

Welcome to Lawmakers to both of you.

So I want to offer some history a little bit before we get into this topic.

At the General Assembly.

So in 2019, then House representative Ed Setzler sponsored House Bill 481, the Living Infants Fairness and Equality or Life Act, known as the heartbeat Bill.

It bans abortions once a doctor can detect a heartbeat in the womb, generally about six weeks into a pregnancy.

There were protests against the bill, and on the final vote in the House, the legislation passed by just one vote.

Governor Brian Kemp later signed it into law, but it didn't take effect because the federal law protecting abortion access.

Fast forward to 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe versus Wade, and despite legal challenges, the heartbeat law stands in Georgia.

So, Chairman Kessler, did I miss anything?

You're right on it.

Donnelly.

You're all over it.

All right, so tell me a little bit in your your opinion how things went in hindsight now, because I was there covering it in 2019.

After 49 years of abortion on demand as a means of elective birth control.

You know, the Supreme Court gave back to citizen elected legislatures the ability to balance the very difficult circumstances women find themselves in with a basic right to life of a living, distinct unborn child.

That balance we tried to we tried to strike a very careful balance, and we landed.

If a child has a detectable heartbeat, they should be protected from the from the brutality of abortion.

So you also added something else to that.

And that was the personhood.

I didn't get into that.

Explain that.

For people who don't understand that.

Well, you know what our statute did, unlike many other states, is it didn't just focus on the abortion issue.

It focused on the humanity of the child.

So in Georgia, when moms find themselves pregnant, mom gets child support from dad for for health care expenses.

You know, moms and dads get a tax exemption for for having a child, having a third member of their family if it's their first child.

Throughout Georgia Code, we recognize the humanity of the child because, again, with the abortion question, it's this difficult balance, right?

But with the humanity, when you recognize the humanity of a child, we mean throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

And then again, we're our state's been very generous with postpartum care.

We're looking at it holistically to recognize the humanity.

The child is being worthy of full legal protection.

Okay, so, Senator Herrell, you were you were in the Senate in 2019, right?

I was you were you were in the Senate.

You just come back.

Yes.

It was my first year in the Senate.

Coming back.

You'd been in the House the years before.

Tell me what your thoughts were looking back on that time?

Well, almost my entire lifetime, Roe versus Wade was in place.

So it was really beyond my imagination that we would lose the protection of Roe versus Wade and the ability to seek an abortion.

Now we're living with that reality.

It's hard.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about what you're what you're thinking now as you as you move forward.

So as I understand it now, yesterday you made an announcement.

Talk a little bit about what?

What you'd like to see happen.

Right.

So one of the most frequent questions I get from constituents is why don't we.

Why can't we vote on whether or not to protect abortion like other states have?

Because other states that have put this on the ballot have had some success.

What they don't know is that in Georgia, we have no path to putting things directly on the ballot.

So what Senate Resolution 84 does is it seeks to actually amend Georgia's Constitution to enshrine the right to reproductive freedom in our Constitution, that, in essence, would put the question on the ballot because in order to amend Georgia's Constitution, all voters in Georgia have to vote on that amendment.

And this is something you are sponsoring.

But the Democratic Party is behind.

Your caucus is behind.

That's right.

Talk a little bit about that.

I, I think there was the expectation that something might come up dealing with abortion from Democrats.

You guys chose this route.

Is there a particular reason?

Sure.

So, you know, this fall we got together and the caucus came up with our policy agenda and reproductive freedom was one of the five issues on our agenda.

Um, people like to vote on issues.

I think people are feeling disappointed in the institution of their elected officials.

They're feeling like their voices aren't heard.

And and I think part of this comes from gerrymandered districts where, um, legislators draw the district lines in a way that makes their, their districts safe for reelection.

And so they can vote on extreme measures and support extreme measures with really no consequence.

It's it's evenly balanced districts, 50, 50 districts that generate discussion and debate.

So they're frustrated with the process.

They're feeling like their voices are not heard.

So it would be, I think, good for democracy to allow people to vote directly on this issue when they go to the ballot to vote.

Okay.

Let's your opinion on what she's proposing, having taking it to the voters.

Well, you know, it's interesting when I when I was the author of the heartbeat bill here in Georgia, my district was 48% Donald Trump.

It was a very competitive district.

I won reelection because the voters in our districts, um, recognize that after 49 years of abortion on demand, the humanity of the child needed to finally be recognized.

And and that was recognized at the ballot box.

I think the issue with voting this statewide is, is that regular voters can't come to face it really can't come face to face with the brutality and the ugliness of this procedure.

I mean, we can't even really talk about abortion because the brutality of it is kind of outside of the realm of polite conversation.

If 11 million Georgians could come face to face with what abortion is this thing you can't even look at and could see it for its ugliness, it would overwhelmingly be be be struck down.

This this would overwhelmingly fail.

The concern you have as a legislator is after 50 or $100 million of of money, you know, pushing abortion on demand comes into the state to kind of confuse voters, control the language, reframe this brutality to something that you call abortion care.

I think the the twisting of that, um, makes it very, very difficult for voters to sort through, really what they're looking at.

If they could come face to face with it, Georgians would overwhelmingly reject this proposition.

It passed by one vote.

Do you worry that even taking it to the voters that.

You may.

Not make it, they voted for you and other lawmakers to work on their behalf?

But do you think that maybe them looking at it a little bit closer, you may not get the same result?

You know, it's interesting, Donna, if you look, there's a 2017 Pew Charitable Trust poll that said 38% of Democrats in Georgia believe that abortion should always or almost always be illegal.

You know, there were Democrats in both chambers who recognized that protecting life is is is solid and sound.

The the difficulty in their party is it's very difficult to to to to support that given the party realities.

There is a consensus that abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy is.

This constitutional amendment proposes is not where Georgia is.

We could debate six weeks, we could debate ten weeks, but where Georgians are in their gut is if there's a heartbeat, the child should be worthy of protection.

And I think, I think as we as people come to terms and recognize the wisdom of what we did in 2019, I think we're seeing support rise gradually, and we'll see that over the course of the next couple of years.

Okay.

Senator Harrell.

I think the senator underestimates the intelligence of the voters, and I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers, either.

Every poll that I've seen says that the majority of Georgians do support access to abortion.

Have you had polls at the you know, I know that sometimes at the ballot box.

There have been plenty of polls.

Parties will do polls.

The polls I've looked at haven't been party polls.

Party polls you have to be careful of because how the question is asked can generate the answer that you want.

So you have to look for, you know, solid, solid polling.

And the polling that I've seen says that the majority of voters do support the right to abortion and to say that they haven't looked at, you know, what you're calling the brutality of abortion, that they haven't looked at the complexity of the issue, really, I think, is insulting to the voters.

So at this point, I remember back in 2019, it was just a kind of a you were under the gun in terms of the fire that was coming your way, the protests and all of that.

You stuck to your you stuck to your beliefs in all of this and and came through it.

How are you feeling now as you look back on that time and, and what you did?

And at that point, we didn't know Roe versus Wade would be overturned.

Yeah.

I think when you think about, you know, that there's thousands and thousands of Georgia families who couples that cry themselves to sleep at night wanting to be able to adopt a child.

And there were not enough child children to be adopted here.

They're adopting kids from all over the world.

The idea that adoption now becomes a very real option for people, that abortion on demand is a means of birth control, shouldn't be the first choice.

And we do give this six week window for women.

As we balance this.

We didn't didn't close that window, but we recognized that when a child has a heartbeat, there's options like adoption.

There's options like a parenting plan that, um, that can give, give, give hope to parents.

Um, I think we're seeing people embrace that again.

These things change gradually over time, but I've been very pleased with the feedback I've gotten from across the spectrum of the experience of this since since 2022, when this became legal.

The the I was thinking about it earlier, we had someone on on the show talking about gambling.

Actually, it was Senator Carden Summers and he wants an amendment to go to the people to talk about gambling in Georgia.

Why not go that same route?

Well, actually, this is something Sally and I agree with the the idea of a constitutional amendment for a referendum for gambling.

She she, she also, I think, opposes the idea of a referendum for casino gambling.

You'd have $50 million of casino money come in to try to tell Georgians how great casino gambling would be.

I think we both recognize that's going to that's going to twist and bend that reality.

I think this idea of abortion on demand, uh, would have that same effect.

You'd have, you know, the multi-billion dollar abortion industry fund this.

And I don't think most Georgians have come face to face with the ugliness of this in a way that I think over time, we'll see.

We're seeing public opinion move on this.

And I think it was strong in 2019.

I think it's even stronger today.

How are you feeling about your chances on this?

Well, I think that very few people in Georgia understand that we don't have direct ballot access.

So by putting this bill out there, it's an opportunity to educate them about what their options are in terms of voting and that if we cannot get the two thirds vote, that it's that is required.

And it has to be two thirds.

It has to be two thirds.

Which is right.

That's a pretty heavy lift.

But if they understand that they need that two thirds vote, then they're going to reach out to their representative and put pressure.

What we saw in recent elections is that, um, the, the states where Trump won, that also had ballot referendums on this issue.

We're going to have to leave it at that.

I know we won't debate any more today on this one.

Maybe you'll come back, but that does it for Lawmakers today.

Thank you so much for joining us.