You are looking at a live view from under the Gold Dome, where this House is working hard on the 28th day of the legislative session.

Good evening and welcome to our special Crossover Day edition of lawmakers.

We have a great lineup of guests tonight for live interviews.

They include Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, Democratic Minority Whip Representative Sam park, and Republican Senator Sam Dolezal.

But first, let's get an update on the day so far from Capitol correspondent Sarah Kalis.

Hi, Donna.

Crossover Day kicked off with Governor Kemp signing his first piece of legislation this session.

Then the mad dash to pass legislation started up for the day with the Senate passing three bills related to school safety.

SB 17, also known as Ricky and Alyssa's Law, named after two victims in high school shootings, would mandate mobile alert panic systems for schools to alert local responders to emergencies.

The other part of this bill is a school mapping piece.

And very simply, all it does is require that every school property in the state be mapped so that data is provided.

When an incident happens in real time, our folks and friends in the public safety community know where to go to find the assailant, where to go save lives, where to evacuate people.

The bill passed unanimously.

Senate Bill 61 would add new charges that a student could be prosecuted for in Superior Court, including terroristic threats.

I think it's important to point out at this point as well that the bill preserves the existing authority for a DA at any time before indictment, after investigation and for cause to decline the prosecution in Superior Court and bring the case to juvenile court for those between the ages of 13 and 17.

Democrats were less enthusiastic about this bill as it passed 33 to 22 along party lines.

And Senate Bill 179 requires the sharing of a student's disciplinary history when transferring schools and holds parents legally responsible for not disclosing a current suspension.

It would require from 6th grade to 12th grade, students would be required to take a minimum of one year class or training on suicide awareness and prevention.

Also youth based violence prevention, either, you know, being recognized if a student is potentially going to harm themselves or someone else.

It passed 54 to 1.

Senator Colton Moore offered up his first bill, SB 163.

The bill would rescind all local city and county laws over guns and other weapons and entrust the power of regulation exclusively to the state.

When citizens in Northwest Georgia go to a place like Savannah and there is a mayor there who has put in ordinances that violate their Second Amendment rights, my piece of legislation simply says that those citizens, just like your citizens, have a right of tort to sue those governments for violating those rights.

The often ostracized Republican took his time answering questions from the podium.

Mr. President, I just want to make sure I've had one opportunity in five years to present a bill here.

If there's any more questions, I will be happy to answer.

You just want to field some questions, don't you?

I want to make sure this thing passes.

And in this case, it was enough.

As the bill was passed 33 to 23 along party lines in the House, members contemplated an income tax cut for Georgians.

House Bill 111 would change the flat income tax from 5.39% to 5.19%.

Republicans say the surplus allows the state to put more money in the pockets of taxpayers while other states are raising taxes on their citizens.

And while we're facing sky high prices and can least afford it, we are doing the opposite.

Here in Georgia.

We have a surplus budget and we are able to put money back into our taxpayers.

But some Democrats say the tax cut disproportionately benefits the wealthy.

The top 20% of earners will receive nearly 80% of the total tax savings, with millions millionaires receiving thousands of dollars in benefits annually.

Meanwhile, the bottom 60% of Georgians, those earning middle class or lower incomes, will see less than $6 a month in savings.

The bill passed 110 to 60, mostly along party lines.

They also unanimously passed HB 112, a one time tax rebate of $250 for single taxpayers and $500 for married couples.

And Gwinnett delegation members debated HB 657, which would annex more land for the newly formed city of Mulberry.

This bill is about annexing 45 small parcels into Mulberry.

All of these parcels are in my district.

Some Democrats say the issue should have been dealt with on the local level.

This process works.

It has worked.

And it recognizes that while bills must come through the legislature, we respect our local governments and will not force things down their throat.

The bill passed 98 to 76 in a mostly party line vote.

That's my Capitol report.

Later this show, I'll speak with House Minority Whip Sam park and Senator Greg Dolezal.

Donna, back to you.

We'll return to Sarah later for some interviews, but first I want to introduce our guests in the studio who will offer analysis of the legislative action.

First, someone who has spent several crossover days in the Georgia House, former state Representative Terry Anulowitz from Smyrna.

She was first elected in a special election in 2017.

Also here is someone else who understands state politics.

Martha Zoller is a columnist and author, host of the Martha Zoller show on WDUN Radio.

She ran for the U.S. house of Representatives in the 9th congressional district.

And I want to thank you both for being here.

Thank you.

Great to be here.

So let's get started.

We're at the 28 days.

28 days so far.

I can't believe it.

So what are your overall thoughts about how it's been?

This has been a very different kickoff to the biennial.

So, you know, the legislature has two years in the biennial.

This is the first year of the two year period, which is good.

Something that doesn't cross over tonight and something that doesn't pass by sine die, you have a whole other year, it's okay.

But there's the biggest difference looking at this from a House perspective is how much, much faster things are going.

You know, the 23 session, when the next, the first panel, we had a brand new speaker.

We had lost Speaker Ralston.

We were really as a House coming out of a collective trauma.

And Speaker Burns, you know, he needed to get up and running, get his office up and running.

We had a lot of new members.

Almost one third of the House was brand new.

So you have a, you know, you lose institutional knowledge.

You have a lot of people who don't even know where the bathrooms are.

And so it was a much slower start this year.

Year.

I was almost surprised at how quickly things got moving in the, you know, in the, in the House.

In the Senate, I was less surprised.

But the House, things really got off to a quick start.

All right, Martha, your take, I think the point that you made is a good one about John Burns because he now knows where he is and what he's doing.

And of course, at the beginning of the session, he had Terry England as his chief of staff.

Of course, Terry had the terrible accident, is doing much better and Chris Riley stepped into that place.

But there's an opportunity for him to really get things done.

I think it's the leadership of the governor really.

I think this state of the state was the most direct about what he said his goals were as far as tort reform, as far as tax reform, that kind of thing.

And I think I've seen the Senate and the House working a lot more towards that because he used political capital in a different way than he'd ever used it, where he said, this is what I want and if I don't get this during the session, I will call a special session.

So I think the House and the Senate have been hyper focused on getting these few things done.

We definitely had the governor involved from the very beginning.

Yes.

Okay, so we'll get back to you guys in a moment.

We're going to head now to the Capitol where Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones is standing by.

We're going to head to the Capitol now where Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones is standing by.

I know it's a busy night for you as president of the Senate, so thank you for being with us.

Lieutenant Governor Donna, it's good to be with you.

I appreciate you doing this show tonight.

And yeah, it's been a long day, but we're almost done and we've gotten some good things done today.

Well, let's talk about that.

The day started with good news for you, with the passage of three school safety bills that you've championed after what happened at Apalachee High School in September that resulted in the death of four people.

So I understand you had a conversation with a juvenile court judge, a sheriff, a superintendent, all to get their views on schools and how to keep them safe.

So tell us about that.

That helped push this legislation.

Yeah, this is something I was actually talking about, you know, two years ago before we had the tragedy at Appalachian High School, talking about that we had some soft spots with our school systems and we needed to beef up security at both from a personnel standpoint as well as from securing buildings as well.

So what we did today is not only did we sign the budget that had 50 additional million dollars that we had put into the governor's budget today, but we also had some measures put in place that would help pay for resource officers and help locals pay for security measures that could, that would automatic lock systems and Automatic, you know, 911 calls and things of that nature that we got that we got finished today.

And that's been a priority of mine for the last couple of years.

And obviously what happened at Apalachee really amplified that that need to do it at the state level.

Yes.

Well, I want to talk about the more contentious of the school safety bills and among other things, it adds terroristic acts to the list of offenses by juveniles 13 to 17 years old.

Can you.

They can now be tried as adults.

So Democrats opposed it, saying it criminalizes youth.

What's your take on that?

Well, I mean, you don't have to look any further than the, the young man that committed the crimes at Appalachia.

I believe he was 14, 15 years old.

And, and, and, and you know, he, he committed four murders that day that he seemingly was competent in what he was doing, knew exactly what he was doing.

And, you know, I think a person that gets to that age bracket, then they are well aware of the consequences of their actions.

And so trying them as an adult is something that I, I was, I was four, definitely.

Well, the two other bills that dealt with school safety received overwhelming support.

One of them, Ricky and Alyssa's Law, will require mobile panic alarm systems in schools.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Right.

Well, it just goes back to just trying to do what we can to help help secure facilities best we can.

You know, during that at the Apalachee, they had resource office that they had emergency checkpoints and also 911 call centers.

And because of all those things that they had in place, unfortunately, we had four deaths.

But the response time on those, from the time the first shot was fired to the time that they had that young man in handcuffs was literally a minute and 20 seconds.

And that's that.

That's they.

And they had a lot of these procedures that we're talking about now in place.

And even with all those procedures they had in place, you know, there's still.

There was still an opportunity for somebody to commit a violent crime.

So we want to beef up the security best way we can.

But we also believe that it's up to the locals to determine what is in the best, best, highest and best use at the low at their school systems to determine their security measures.

So anyways, so I say all that to say that we're putting all this resources in place, but we're also leaving a lot up to the locals to determine which ones they'd like to do and not do.

I'm sure the school systems appreciate that.

My last question is, how long do you think the Senate will go tonight?

I don't know.

We had some bills that went longer than I.

Than I was expecting as far as the debate is concerned.

And we have about 34 bills available on the calendar for the night.

And it will just depend on how quick the bills go, whether or not we get to all of them or not.

Okay, well, we'll be watching.

I want to thank you so much for joining us on Lawmakers Tonight.

Have a good evening.

Donna, always good to be with you.

Thank you for having me.

All right, Terry, your thoughts?

So there is not a person in that building who doesn't want to make sure that our schools are as safe as they possibly can be.

What I'm going to be curious in hearing, especially as this bill is discussed and debated in House Committee, are the practicalities of actually implementing this.

You know, I think about my daughter's high school, which is a very large high school in Cobb County.

They have the panic alarm system.

It's worked.

It's been, it's been tested.

They do drills.

They've, you know, false alarms.

But everything has worked the way it's supposed to.

But the other reality is they've got a couple of dozen doors on this campus.

You know, how do you, how do you enforce this?

How do you actually implement this?

How do you make sure the districts have what they need?

It's great if they have the money to buy the alarm systems.

They also need to be able to do the things they need to do to get their infrastructure to get their like just the practicalities putting it in place a lot for the schools to try to figure out.

Okay, thanks.

We're going to go back to Sarah.

She is standing by at the Capitol with Senator Greg Dolezal.

Sarah, already seen the Senate pass dozens of bills today.

What other bills are you hoping will pass?

We have bills coming up for health care.

We have bills coming up for our military veterans.

We have bills coming up for literacy.

I think we're going to be here pretty late tonight.

The House is working hard as well.

They've passed tax cuts.

They're dealing with sports betting right now.

So it's an exciting day already here at the county Capitol.

And so last week, the Senate announced effort to investigate former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in the New Georgia Project.

So you'd be part of that committee.

Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

Yeah.

We were very surprised to hear on the heels of the largest ever fine from the Georgia Ethics Commission, conversations coming out of D.C. potentially some other involvement with Stacey Abrams.

So we want to know what happened with Georgia's campaign's finance laws in the, in the 2022 election election and the appropriation of $3 million of dark money into Georgia's elections.

We got a lot of questions for Ms. Abrams.

Thank you.

And is there anything else that you're watching?

Are you feeling so far about how tonight's going?

You know, this is a fun day.

I love the, the fast moving pace of today.

I've got a bill on the floor in about five minutes to help doctors and optometrists prescribe medicine to those in need.

So we deal with a broad swath of things here in the Senate and certainly except excited to see what the, what the surprises will be before the end of the night.

Well, thank you so much.

And we'll have to Keep an eye on that bill, Donna.

Thanks, Sarah.

We'll be back to you in a moment.

So that was an interesting conversation.

Sports betting, he said they're talking about it right now in the Senate.

Yes.

And I think what's interesting about that is that I don't know, 10 years we've been talking about sports betting.

I think that is it going to happen, is it not?

I think probably it has the best chance this year.

However, it's looked all day like it's never going to see daylight.

So we just don't know what's going to happen until they get to these final bills.

It would be interesting to know what's going on right now there.

What are you thinking?

It will.

I know.

You know, it's made it onto the rules calendar.

The House is a little different from the Senate.

The Senate has one rules calendar.

It's what you see is what you get first.

You know, first thing in the morning.

They had the rules meeting yesterday.

The House will have rules meeting in the morning.

They'll have one at lunchtime.

They might have one at dinner time.

Sometimes they have them at 9, 10 o'clock at night.

So that this is why now sports betting was not on the calendar.

This morning we woke up, a lot of things happen and now it is on the calendar.

I hope it passes.

I have been a longtime supporter of sports betting.

Every year I was in the House, the Atlanta Braves were in my district.

Atlanta United was in my district for a while.

Their practice facility.

I've always been a supporter of it.

It is happening anyway.

It's happening.

You know, these people are using VPNs.

It's working.

We might as well collect revenues.

Addiction is going to happen regardless.

It is a tragedy, but it is something that does happen at least.

But now we'd have some funds to actually address it.

Well, and getting it to the voters to decide, I mean I've, I have been a slip personality about this issue through over the years.

But I will say that, that what we have right now with the, with the lottery and people are playing games online on the lottery right now, it's not sports betting.

But you're already doing legal virtual gambling in Georgia.

It sounds like it could be the next step.

Yeah.

And that's been the big argument that that's it's already happening.

Why not bringing money into Georgia?

Exactly.

It's happening.

And these are very regulated industries.

You look at CO ams, the coin operated amusement machines that are legal in Georgia have been legal in Georgia for a while.

They're probably one of the most regulated of all of Georgia's regulated industries.

So these things are happening.

You know, we have the All Star Game coming back to coming to Georgia this spring.

Sports betting.

I don't, you know, we.

There's two parts to this right, too.

You have to approve sports betting.

Then you have to have the constitutional amendment, and the voters will ultimately be able to decide on this.

So we won't have this in place for the All Star Game if it passes, and I hope it does.

But the World cup is coming next year.

This is an opportunity.

You know, we have numbers on the revenue that we lose in Georgia every time there's a major sporting event because other states are getting this revenue or nobody's getting this revenue.

It's regulated.

This will go to the lottery.

It's going to be overseen.

It's going to be more money for pre K, more money for Hope.

I think Hope is probably the most popular thing that the state has ever done.

And it's good.

I think it's a good thing.

Yeah, yeah.

We've seen a lot of bills, but this is the one that everybody is like, will we or won't we?

Will we see it or not?

I think what's interesting, too, is that doesn't seem to be the kind of social conservative movement.

Some things have been introduced with rfra.

Some things have been introduced.

On other things, I spoke today at the March for Life that Georgia Life alliance sponsored.

And you know, one of the things we talked about, there wasn't a lot going on under the Gold Dome this year on that.

So I don't this gambling could be where all the energy goes.

Okay, well, wait and see.

He talked about a lot of other bills that passed in the Senate today.

And the Senate has actually, I have the list here.

There is quite a few.

You saw that the lieutenant governor said there were quite a few still left to go through.

This is going to be a busy night.

Anything in particular that you're looking at?

Sports betting is a big one that I'm looking at because again, I think that it is long overdue.

This is something that we need to do for Georgia.

The other issues that I'm looking at, you know, some of them we're going to see in the next 12 days, right between now and sine die.

The thing, a lot of the issues addressing transgender, youth, youth sports, things like that, we're going to have a lot more debate about that as those move through the House there.

I don't think the House has passed out anything nearly as controversial as the as you know, I don't think the Senate can expect, I don't expect nearly anything as controversial.

But I know that the things that I am, I'm looking for tonight, you know, really the big one is, is is sports betting.

I think if it can cross this hurdle, if it can get through the House, which it's never done before, it's made it through the Senate, hasn't made it through the House, I think that is going to be an issue to watch.

Yeah.

Well.

And the really big things have kind of gotten through.

You've gotten tort reform through one side, you've got the tax cuts through one side.

Going to be really interesting to see how all of this plays out because the kind of big initiatives, certainly we got the final budget, which still will have it's past one House, we'll get through the other, but there's a lot of work to do.

But it does seem less controversial.

Everyone I talked to today, as I was going through the Capitol, it was like, it's so quiet today.

It's so quiet.

Yeah, it was very different energy today than what you normally have.

And I think that goes back to what I said initially, where the governor and the speaker and the lieutenant governor have had a lot of control over this agenda this time.

Yeah, there is.

And I think in terms of the energy at the Capitol, there's a lot of waiting for the other shoe to fall.

You know, I was there on Tuesday of this week when several of several pretty contentious bills were being debated on the Senate floor.

There were a lot of activists there.

It was pride day at the Capitol.

And there is a contrast between the energy and the mood there today and how it was earlier this week.

But I think as things ramp up, especially as the House is discussing some of these more controversial measures, we're going to see a lot more people.

Okay.

Well, we're going to head back to the Capitol where Sarah Callis has House Minority Whip Sam Park.

Thank you, Donna.

Representative park, we saw the Democrats at a press conference about an hour ago talking about some priorities for working families are hoping to get through.

Can you hit some of the highlights?

Absolutely.

Georgia Democrats, we remain focused on focusing on lowering costs for Georgia families, on expanding access to health care, to education and of course, ensuring safety for all of our communities, certainly from gun violence, unfortunately from the Republican Party, from, from Republicans.

We are seeing a lot of really extreme, divisive culture war issues that do nothing but continue to divide people.

And so you spoke on the House floor earlier today against a proposed tax cut for Georgians.

Can you explain that to me?

Absolutely.

So there are two bills, 111 and 112.

Georgia Democrats, we all supported House Bill 112 because that provided a tax rebate that was fair.

That provided 250, 375, $500 back into all Georgians pockets.

111 that's a tax cut for the rich.

The way in which it was structured, $500 million would go to the top 20% of earners while the average Georgian making around 50 to 60,000 would receive $6 a month.

Well, thank you so much for being here, Donna.

So much.

Sarah.

We don't have a lot of time, but I want to get some final thoughts from each one of you.

So I'll start with you, Martha.

Well, quickly, I'm watching John Kennedy's bills on absenteeism in schools as well as changing the way we do superintendents, which is a Matt Dubnik bill.

So those are the two ones that I'm watching closely.

Okay.

What about you?

I'm disappointed that with all the talk that we've had about school, school safety, whether it relates to, you know, the alarm system, whether it relates to sports, I'm disappointed we haven't had more talk about meaningful common sense gun reforms.

Yeah.

And it looks like we're not going to have that today.

Yeah, I don't think that that's happening this session.

Yeah.

And we did see the senator Colton Moore had his bill that dealt with the Brady law which would eliminate everything dealing with Brady.

Yeah.

And I actually saw him with a little bit of a sense of humor which is not something you usually see from him.

So maybe we're seeing a turning tide.

We'll have to see.

That was all in the Senate.

Any thoughts on that from you?

I don't think that's something that the vast majority of voters in Georgia would really embrace.

Okay.

Well.

And we get to see what's going to happen in the House and the Senate with each of these bills.

Last year, some of the bills passed in one chamber never made it anywhere and sometimes they get substituted later.

So I'll be popping some popcorn.

So.

Yeah, we'll do that.

And then the stripping begins.

That's it.

Well, yeah, taking the bills out.

Thank you both for being here today.

I appreciate that.

That does it for lawmakers tonight.

We'll be back on Monday when each chamber will start looking at legislation passed on the other side.

That's when we begin to see which bills will actually become laws.

Have a good.