This is video of the Georgia House earlier today where lawmakers have been working steadily since about 10:00 this morning on and off.

And the day could end late tonight or possibly early tomorrow morning.

Good evening and welcome to our special 1 hour, 40 day signing day Lawmakers show.

Tonight we wrap up our 55th season of the show on GPB.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

We are live from the Capitol all evening for interviews with leaders from both sides of the aisle.

Among the guests, Governor Brian Kemp.

He'll give his view of the legislative session.

And in the studio, we'll have analysis from Republican political strategist Brian Robinson and the interim head of the Georgia Democratic Party, Matthew Wilson.

First, a look at signee die so far today from Sarah Kallis.

Hi, Donna.

Lawmakers fulfill their preeminent obligation on day 40, but there is still much to be done in the final hours of signing day.

The day kicked off with a bill signing by Governor Brian Kemp.

And today I signed SB 36, also known as the Religious Restoration or the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or rfrA, ensuring that once again at the state level that Georgians are protected, including Georgians of faith.

In the House, members got to work agreeing to Senate changes made to House bills.

They gave final approval to a bill requiring colleges to disclose funds accepted from foreign countries of concern.

Members also approved fluorescent pink hunting garments, infrastructure for vertiports and increased indemnification funds for school resource officers.

After lunch, the house took up the only bill they are constitutionally required to pass.

The fiscal year 2026 budget.

The House and Senate compromise on House Bill 68 includes big wins for the state prison system.

The Department of Correction receives an infusion of $200 million over the current budget.

This is $75 million more than the governor's original recommendations.

Both the House and the Senate agree on staffing and safety increases.

However, the House went further and wanted to recognize the increased cost for food and health care in the base budget.

But ultimately, we recognize that some of these additions are multiyear process and can be adjusted next year.

At HB 68 also funds the Georgia Promise Scholarship.

About $141 million, or 1% of the quality basic education funds.

I know many of you have been receiving updates on the number of applications and know that of the 10,000 applications started, 5,100 have been deemed eligible for the scholarship to date, and that's as of today.

This full funding allows for more than 21,000 students.

The opportunity to participate in the program.

The budget also allocates $15 million for school districts, with a significant number of students in poverty, and keeps funding mental health initiatives for students.

Funding for the new Student Support Services program at Doe is preserved, albeit at a slightly lower number.

This includes nearly $20 million for mental health support, grants for middle and high schools, and $2.3 million to provide funds for school systems that, due to their size, do not earn full funding for a school social worker.

Medical programs in rural Georgia and grants for timber farmers also made the final cut of the budget.

The bill passed one 70-5 The Senate spent over an hour during this morning's points of personal privilege speeches, as multiple Democrats angrily decried the banning of Dei programs in the state schools and colleges.

With HB 127.

The legislation passed late Wednesday night, gutted original language, increasing teacher sick leave days.

Democrats used today's anniversary of Doctor Martin Luther King's assassination as a reminder of the importance of having those programs.

I hope this body will take a different approach to solving problems and settling different disagreements today.

A better, better one than what we saw on Wednesday.

As Republicans in this body couldn't even bring the fight to us properly and cut and run instead of allowing us to represent those voices that we represent back home and stay here.

If you're going to put a bad bill here, stay here and fight us on it.

Even if it took all night.

Today, we should carry the spirit of Doctor King and keep his legacy in mind as we bear the task of making decisions that will impact 11 million people who live in this state.

People I love in a state that I love.

And I'm very disappointed by what has been happening this session.

And at times, we're unable to contain their anger over the issue.

Many of you are pretty good people.

I came to know most of you.

You have a pretty good heart, but some of you are just racist and you need to stop it.

They then debated two house bills that dealt with speed cameras at schools.

HB 651 would regulate the use of cameras and how revenues earned from speed camera citations are used.

The second bill, HB 225, would eliminate the speed cameras altogether.

It repeals all laws relating to the enforcement of speeding violations in school zones through the use of certain devices, and prohibits certain contracts for the enforcement of speeding violations in school zones through the use of certain devices.

What it does is it sets a sunset on the use of these types of devices.

Here in the state of Georgia.

And if you are looking at the legislation as amended, if you go to line 91, it says no contract shall be entered into or renewed by local governing body or law enforcement agency for the enforcement of speeding violations in a school zone through the use of an automated traffic enforcement safety device on or after July 1, 2027.

Both bills were passed and sent back to the House.

The Senate also passed the FY 2026 budget, agreeing to the changes worked out in the conference committee 54-1 The Constitution of the State of Georgia.

The Constitution of the State of Georgia.

Also today, new Commissioner of Labor Barbara Rivera Holmes was sworn in.

We expect lawmakers to work all night.

And I'll be back talking with legislators later.

But for the last time this session, that's my Capitol report.

Donna.

And she said later and later is now because we're going to.

That was Sarah on tape.

Now we're going to her go to her live where Sarah has an interview with House Speaker Jon Burns.

Sarah.

Thank you so much, Donna, and thank you, Speaker Burns, for being here with us tonight.

So a big priority for you that cleared both chambers was a robust school safety bill.

Can you talk to me a little bit about the effort behind this bill?

Yeah.

It's been, you know, our number one priority is what makes Georgia a great place to live.

But we're making sure that our young people, our students, are safe when they go to school and that learning environment.

We also want to make sure our parents are aware that.

And they feel comfortable when they drop their kids off.

They're safe.

But, you know, you can't learn if you're not in a secure learning environment.

And we're taking we're very proud of our efforts this year.

Representative Singer has worked diligently to make sure we would get this across the finish line, appreciate our House members, and certainly appreciate the Senate, too.

And as we send it on down to Governor Kemp.

And another one of your priorities, it cleared both chambers was protections for IVF or in vitro fertilization.

Can you talk to me about the importance behind this issue?

Sure.

You know, there's nothing more important in our lives than children, and this creates an opportunity for folks who may have been had the challenges with having children to create an opportunity to get it in and codify the legislation, to ensure that it will be for them, be there for them in the future.

And certainly we have a member, Lehman Franklin and his wife, Lori, are now expecting a little girl because IVF treatments and certainly a blessing.

And we want to ensure that's the case because we respect life in Georgia and the House has worked very hard at this.

We're very proud of that as well.

And perhaps a more controversial bill was a bill that would ban transgender girls from girls sports, and that also passed the House and the Senate with some collaboration.

Can you talk to me a little bit about this collaborative process between the House and the Senate on this particular bill?

I can't I think that's just it's a good piece of common sense legislation that people of Georgia have spoken.

And we we heard from them during the election in November.

And certainly as we continue to hear from our constituents and people, not only in Georgia but across the country, the President Trump passed a executive order, certainly respecting the right of to prevent boys from competing in girls sports.

And we're we're proud to be a part of that movement.

And and certainly the Rally Gains Act is will level that playing field.

So in Georgia we have from from elementary school through universities, through our higher ed, we have girls competing against girls and boys against boys.

That's the way it should be.

It's a level playing field.

All right, Anne, thank you so much.

Donna, back to you and your guests in the studio.

Thanks, Sarah.

I know we'll be coming back to you later.

I do want to introduce our guests in the studio, who will offer analysis of the legislative action this session.

First, a former legislator who has spent time in the House during signee die.

Former representative Matthew Wilson.

He is currently interim chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia.

Also here is Republican strategist Brian Robinson.

He's with Robinson Republic.

He has served as deputy chief of staff for former Governor Nathan Deal.

Welcome to Lawmakers to both of you.

Lots of good things to discuss.

Let's start with what Speaker Burns was talking about.

Pretty successful in terms of his priorities.

Let's start with you this session, right.

He mentioned IVF, school safety.

As soon as the Apalachee shooting happened, which shocked and saddened all of us in Georgia.

Speaker was one of the first statewide officials to step into that breach and say, we've got to do something.

We've got to address these deep concerns that so many parents and children in this state have.

No kid should go to school in terror, and we have the ability to strengthen security, to put in new processes.

We saw at Apalachee that the emergency system the teacher triggered got the police there quicker.

We saw the resource officers neutralize the suspect.

So we've seen those reforms already work.

This just furthers them.

And hopefully it's going to keep kids and teachers safe.

The IVF is something obviously very special to the speaker's heart.

This is a family man.

This is somebody that whenever you speak to him, whether in public or in private, he's talking about his wife, he's talking about his grandkids.

This is something very personal to him, making sure every Georgia family has the chance to have children.

That is near and dear.

And this is a huge win for him this session.

And both of those were bipartisan.

So you're feeling good about those two in particular the school safety and the IVF two.

Two bills out of how many hundreds that that the legislature took up this session, Donna.

And, you know those were, you know, well-intentioned efforts and certainly should be applauded for for the intent there.

But, you know, my feeling of this session is just I've been calling it the onion session because it's just very little of it is sweet.

We're not talking about a Vidalia onion.

Most of it is just pungent and bitter.

The the Republicans this session just focused on culture war issues.

You talk about those two in particular.

At the same time that those bills passed, they took a bill that would have given teachers pay raises, turned it into an anti die bill, took a bill that would have created a school supply tax holiday, turned it into a gun and ammo tax holiday.

And of course we have to talk about the rfrA bill which you know, is is is going to turn Georgia into a place to hate back to a place to hate.

And the thing that I'm worried about, you know, we talked about the IVF bill and wanting to encourage families in Georgia.

My husband and I are going through the adoption process right now, and bills like this will make it harder for thousands of LGBTQ families in Georgia to adopt a child right here in this state.

So despite that, you still feel overall your feeling on the session is not good.

Bitter.

Bitter, bitter.

When you said onions, I thought you were going to say it has layers.

It sort of had layers, right?

You could have peeled away a little bit of what happened this session.

To me, it was a sweet Vidalia.

Onion.

Yeah, yeah.

Very sweet.

Look, it's not just about culture war issues.

Those do predominate in every General Assembly and legislature in the country.

It is something that's part and parcel of American politics.

But this session was so much more.

Georgia's got a tax rate cut.

They are going to get a tax refund $500 if you're married to 50 or single, put into your bank account.

We got Hurricane Helene relief for many communities in this state, but the tier one issue that is a huge economic win for Georgia was Governor Kemp tort reform effort.

It will protect jobs.

It will protect common sense in this state by limiting these jackpot juries that are simply unaffordable and make it hard to do business in Georgia.

If you're living, if you're in a high crime area, even just in the same ZIP code, the retailers there, the gas stations there that our residents depend on, they can't afford the insurance in those places.

It's hurts low income Georgians.

It's not just something that is a giveaway to the rich.

Okay?

Your idea, your thoughts on tort reform?

I have a.

Lot of your ideas.

I had.

A spent a whole hour.

Talking about the tort reform bill.

I was.

You're an attorney.

So I.

Was down at the Capitol a lot this session with the trial lawyers on this bill.

And, you know certainly everyone can complain that inflation is too high, that our insurance rates are too high, that tax, that tax rebate that passed, you know, who doesn't want 500 more dollars in their pocket?

I certainly will take it.

But that was a loss, a missed opportunity to spend and invest billions of dollars into our economy and the tort reform bill.

The insurance commissioner testified before the legislature and said this will not lower insurance rates.

So what are we doing here?

Yeah, Donna, I think we saw the House leaders come out after the tort reform.

Obviously, one vote margin.

This was not an easy sell in there.

It took a lot of legwork and shoulder grease from Governor Kemp and Speaker Burns to get it done.

But we saw leaders come out and say, we want to see insurance rates come down.

You told us that this would get us there.

We are watching.

We will hold you accountable.

And I think that's going to be a great metric to judge this law by.

Well, we have Governor Kemp available right now.

So we're going to talk more about this in a moment.

We are happy to welcome the show.

The Georgia governor, Brian Kemp.

Good evening, sir, and thanks for joining us for a few minutes.

Busy night.

I think.

Great, great to be back with you.

Happy signing day.

Thank you.

I want to start with what you told or you planned to tell those in the chambers this evening.

I guess you haven't talked to them yet?

No, we're fixing to go do that here in just a little bit.

When everybody gets back from their dinner break.

I know they're going to have a busy rest of the night, but I'm looking forward to getting in there and thanking the members of the General Assembly for a great legislative session.

I mean, we have had some really tough issues that we have worked on and debated, but I think it's been done in a really open, transparent, fair way where everybody had their say and that's the way it should be.

Obviously, from my perspective, we've had had a great session.

They passed a great budget today, and so I'm looking forward to the rest of the night and also the rest of the year.

Okay.

We've been talking about it here in the studio, but one of your big priorities was to get tort reform passed.

You did that.

How how are you feeling right now about that goal being accomplished?

When you were on the show last year, you told us you were going for it and you did.

Yeah.

Well, very, very excited to get that done, as you all were just talking about very, very close vote.

Tough debate, very tough issue.

People have been trying to get this done for, you know, really the last five years.

You know, in modern times.

And really over the last 20 years, there hasn't been a whole lot done.

So it's a it's a tough issue to tackle.

But I think all the leaders in the General Assembly felt like we had to do this.

I know from my perspective, I felt like it was the one thing that was really hurting our business environment here, and that other states were using this against us because they have taken action on tort reform.

And so, you know, our main thing was to stabilize the marketplace that was out there.

People could not continue to live with, you know, 15-30 percent premium increases every year.

It's killing small business people, killing working Georgians out there.

And so tort reform, you know, what we did, I think will help stabilize the market.

And we're going to continue to watch that, you know, as we get out of session.

All right.

So we've heard some people talking about this.

Is there a possibility a possibility you'll want to see insurance reform next year.

Well I know there's a lot of members of the General Assembly that were very concerned about some of the insurance companies and, you know, wanted to take a look at that.

I kept asking people the whole session, hey, bring me something.

You know, if you want to legislate that, bring me the language.

I'm open to talking to all sides on these issues to stabilize costs, but also to open up markets.

I mean, we've got small business people out there, entrepreneurs and others that can't even get insurance because of the way the market was here and the way the the legal environment was here.

And so we wanted to bring some parity, transparency and fairness to that issue.

Now, if people want to look to the insurance companies, I'm open to to talking to them about how they want to do that.

But my message to the insurance companies is we we did what we think was right.

I think they're very supportive of that.

And so now we're looking for them to get into this marketplace and have more competition, which will help stabilize prices.

And so that's something certainly I'll be looking at in the months ahead.

Okay.

On another issue, given that the budget relies heavily on federal funding and we still don't know where things are going to fall out when the state in the state, when it comes to money, do you think there will be a need for a special session to deal with the budget at all?

Yeah, I think it's very, very, very premature to be talking about special sessions when we haven't even ended this one yet.

In regards to what's going on in the federal government, whether it's DOGE other things that the Congress is doing on any ending COVID funding.

I mean, look, they have to do those type things.

We cannot continue to have the levels of spending in this country, especially things that were related to COVID, that quite honestly, when you look at the way the state of Georgia has performed, I mean, we haven't been, you know, relying on those things for over the last two years.

So, you know, I think they're making the right moves to make sure that they worry and get down our debts and our deficits, which will help bring down interest rates and not burden our children and our grandchildren in the future.

And I can assure you that we have continued to budget.

Conservatively, conservatively in our state, even with this budget.

But we're also putting money back in our taxpayers pockets with another billion dollar tax refund.

That's going to send $500 to the average family out there that's been paying taxes.

We're low in our corporate tax rate.

We're low in our personal tax rate.

To continue to keep more money in Georgia's pockets so that they can fight the high cost environment that we've been over the last four years.

And hopefully we're going to see that continue to to go down and have a better, better days ahead financially.

So I'm very optimistic about that, especially in the state of Georgia with the economic development, the jobs that we're creating here, the amount of investment that's been historic over the last three years.

So we're we're positioned as well as any state in the country to weather whatever whatever goes on in the U.S. Or the world economy.

I know you said this this evening isn't over yet, but I do want to know if you're already looking toward next year at all, like you talked last year about tort reform for this year, anything for next year.

Yeah.

I'm not I'm not looking forward to I'm not looking forward yet to to next year.

I'm looking forward to next year.

But look we had a big agenda this year.

We had a lot to get done.

So we'll, you know, get this session done with tonight.

Go into bill review and make sure that we're signing or potentially vetoing bills that would be bad for our citizens.

And then, you know, then we'll start looking on what we're going to do next year, but a lot different than we were in this position this time last year, talking about tort reform and having to focus on it in the next legislative session.

Thankfully, we got that done along with a lot of other good things, and we've had a great legislative session.

Well, I know that you are going to go talk to each chamber and thank them for everything, and they'll be happy to hear from you.

But I want to thank you for coming to see us first.

I appreciate you talking with us, governor.

Great to be back with you.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

You.

Too.

All right then.

So a lot to cover there.

And actually, you got us rolling.

Both of you did ahead of time on that.

So he feels really good about tort reform.

We knew we knew he did.

We didn't get your full opinion on tort reform did we.

Did you say enough?

It was interesting because, Donna, you asked him about insurance reform next year, which of course, the speaker and some House leaders have already called for.

And it was interesting to me what what Governor Kemp just said, because he said that he would that we would talk to the insurance companies and see what they wanted.

And that's exactly what we did with the with this tort reform bill.

Gave it a, you know, give away what, President Trump calls a multi-billion dollar insurance bailout like when it passed in Florida, to the industry.

So what we should be focusing on is the everyday Georgians whose insurance rates are too high.

Tort reform is not the answer.

Insurance reform is.

And you're filling out insurance reform.

Look.

He did not say the insurance company should bring me language to look at.

He said legislators should bring him language to look at because he heard legislators talking about.

Does this impact the cost of insurance?

Does it bring it down?

I think that is the metric by which this law will be judged.

I don't know that we're going to know in the next six months, but within two years we'll know.

We do know that Georgia is an outlier.

And this is my real problem with Matt's argument is we're hearing from retailers with footprints across the southeast, and they're saying that the cost and number of lawsuits in Georgia is outpacing all the other states combined, and most of them are in Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, right here in the metro Atlanta area.

That had to get stopped.

We heard we saw regional businesses saying, stay out of Georgia.

Don't have a footprint there.

The legal liability is too high.

And these juries are just passing out jackpots.

We just saw another $2 billion jury verdict here last week against Bayer because of a roundup case.

Utterly ridiculous.

Okay, so we had that answered your your feeling on insurance reform though.

Are you are you okay with looking at that?

Absolutely.

Okay.

We just heard from the governor that he's fine with it as well.

Look.

Okay, look, this the rhetoric around this wasn't made up.

It was not a false flag.

This is about bringing relief in insurance calls to Georgians and to Georgia businesses.

We want low income areas to have drug stores and and gas stations and grocers.

We want them to have all that.

But we and we want businesses to come here knowing that they're going to be treated fairly.

If they're negligent, they're still going to get sued, they're still going to pay out a lot.

So you see more businesses coming in because Georgia's been doing pretty good in terms.

Of doing great.

But we heard the governor himself.

Right there.

The governor himself just said, we've seen businesses backing off because of our litigation climate.

This will change that.

Okay.

I want to talk about something else I asked him about, and that is the budget and the possibility of a special session.

We've heard it from people.

What are your thoughts in terms of what we're hearing out of Washington and some of the cutbacks?

You know, they always have the opportunity to to call a special session.

And I know the governor, any governor, not just this governor, would be reluctant to call one unless it's absolutely necessary.

Of course, he put a special session on the table in his state of the state speech this year, but that was for tort reform which has passed.

So it'll be fascinating to to follow that and see how Governor Kemp navigates President Trump and his administration.

I talked to a Democrat today who thinks it's going to happen.

So I don't think it will.

You don't tell us about that?

No.

There's no appetite.

Legislators don't want to come back.

This is a part time legislature.

These people run businesses, have families back home.

It's very disruptive to have to come back here and look, we've got a huge surplus right now.

The governor has got discretionary funds that can keep the state moving ahead.

It's a problem that can wait until next year.

If and this is it's all theoretical.

If there's massive funding cuts from the federal government coming to Georgia, we don't know just exactly yet what that looks like.

But I don't see a scenario where they have to come back.

Nobody, nobody wants that.

When when when when Kemp made that threat, you could just hear the groans spread through the entire House chamber.

It's been a long few months.

And, one of the issues we didn't discuss earlier that the that the speakers talked about and that was the transgender bills that we saw this year.

Your comments on that.

You know, it was you know, I spoke about this earlier, that the Republicans really focused this session on the culture wars.

And it was interesting to me, as a former member of of the Georgia House under Speaker David Ralston.

That chamber always was the firewall really against the far right fever dream?

That was that's been infecting the Republican Party for so long.

And I think what we saw this session was unfortunately, the Republican leadership just knocked that bulldozed that wall right down and just shoveled all of those horrible bills right through, right through the house.

There was more of a collaborative, process between the two chambers.

Right?

There was a lot of agreement on those transgender bills as for sure, because.

And a lot of.

Others on many issues, and I think they're going to they pass record numbers of bills in both chambers during Crossover Day.

So you're seeing a lot of production out of this session when it comes to these transgender bills.

Democrats made a huge political miscalculation when they marched out of the House chamber against a bill that bans taxpayer funded transgender surgeries for prisoners.

This is something that you don't need to poll.

It's going to be 90%.

And I don't know, I think that the 10% probably didn't understand the question that they were being asked.

You know, it's an overwhelming support from Georgians for what they're doing here, why Democrats would choose that issue when it makes them look so extreme.

On what Matt called a culture war issue.

Culture war issues are something that drive votes and Democrats told Georgians, we don't share your values.

That's what that's what they said this session on those issues.

Okay.

You're president of the interim president of the Democratic Party.

Chair, chair, chair, please don't promote me to.

Anything, okay?

Give me more authority.

No.

Look, the, the Democrats walked out in that in that moment, and I think it was more that for for that caucus, it was more just about the culmination of of everything that has been coming down the pike.

This session, one, one horrible bill after another, after another, after another, after another.

And it got to a point where, the the Democratic caucus felt like it needed to stand up and, and show some solidarity with this community that has been under attack from day one.

Okay.

Well, we're rolling right now.

I hate to stop this, but we need to take a break.

So coming up, interviews with Democratic leadership in both the House and the Senate on this special 1 hour signing day Lawmakers show, the House is back in session.

By the way, this is the 55th year of Lawmakers on GPB.

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.

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Of the Georgia Senate back in action for the night in what could be a long evening.

But we'll keep you up to date on what's going to happen.

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

We're having a special 1 hour signing day show, wrapping up the 55th year of Lawmakers on GPB.

And joining me in the studio is Republican strategist Brian Robinson.

And the chair, the interim chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, Matt Wilson.

Thank you so much for being here.

We're going to head right now back out to Sara, where she has the minority leader in the House, Carolyn Hugley.

Thank you, Donna, and thank you, leader, for being here with us tonight.

This is your first session as Minority Leader.

Can you tell me how it's been going and any reflections?

It's been a fast and furious year, but I'm so very proud of our House Democratic Caucus.

We're 80 members strong and our members have had a great time this year.

We've worked really hard on on really some really fabulous issues.

But at the end of the day, we're disappointed that a lot of the things that we wanted to do were not looked at or heard.

This year, the session turned into Trump talks and everything trans, but our constituents wanted us to look at our agenda, which was to create opportunity for Georgians to live, to learn and to earn.

Thank you so much.

And speaking of everything trans, yesterday there was a pretty coordinated demonstration by the Democratic Party against SB 185, which would essentially ban gender affirming care in prisons.

Can you talk to me a little bit about that effort?

At the end of the day, what were we talking about?

Five people is all they could come up with five people, and they make this the number one priority.

And we're we were on the 39th day of our session.

We had not passed our budget.

We had not finished a lot of things as it relates to education, none of the things that we worked on today have been done, but yet we felt like that we were wasting the time, the valuable time that we have here.

We only have 40 days here, and our citizens sent us here to tackle the real issues and not to work on phantom issues or made up issues, as that was.

If we were going to look at prisons, let's make sure the door is locked, that you can lock the cells.

Let's make sure that you have the staff that's needed.

Not talking about maybe five out of all the people that we have incarcerated fall into this category.

And is there anything that you're hoping to see pass in the final hours of the session today?

My hope is that we have nothing else bad come through in the last final hours.

We've done our constitutionally mandated thing, which is to pass a budget, and we're looking to get to the end of the session without any other major disruptions to the people of Georgia, so that when the legislature is out, the people of Georgia can be safe again.

All right.

Thank you so much, leader Hughley.

And Donna, back to you in the studio.

Sarah, we'll be back to you in just a moment.

So she's the leader who talked a little bit about the fact that she doesn't expect much to happen.

The big bills have actually gone through.

So tonight, maybe a little.

Unless there's a surprise from that you guys may know about or I don't know right now.

Anything could happen.

As we say.

No, literally.

So we still have 4 hours more to go.

So yes.

And they are they're going to be talking through bills.

You do not know what's going to get inserted into conference committees.

You don't know what powerful legislator is going to be on one of those conference committees.

Who's got a pet project that has gotten no traction with their colleagues, and they slip it in something that they're a bigger bill that their colleagues do want.

So it's you never really know.

And the fact that you don't wake up on Saturday morning and know, we really don't know until the middle of next week what is in some of these bills.

It's kind of a crazy system.

You're shaking.

Your head.

Yeah.

You're shaking your head because right now we don't know what negotiations are taking place either.

That's right, that's right.

There's a lot of negotiations going on behind the scenes, in between the chambers.

And of course, with the governor's office as well.

But we we already know, though, we've talked a lot about what has happened and what may happen, but we certainly know what hasn't and isn't going to happen.

In this session, another session where Medicaid expansion was not even really on the table despite the fact, you know, we know Georgia spent over 40, you know, billion million dollars.

Excuse me.

To ensure 6,000 people, when we can expand, fully, expand Medicaid, and ensure close to half a million people in Georgia, that was left by the wayside.

But we'll see.

Maybe they'll surprise us and pass Medicaid here in the last hour.

We'll see.

That be a.

Big surprise.

I think Governor Kemp made it very clear you're asking about next year.

I think Governor Kemp made it clear as long as he lives on West Paces Ferry, there will not be Medicaid expansion in Georgia.

Okay.

We'll talk about talk about more in just a moment, because now we're going to head back to Sarah at the Capitol with the Democratic Senator Josh McLaurin.

Thank you, Donna.

And Senator McLaurin.

We appreciate you being here with us tonight.

So before we start, I noticed your pain when you walked over.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yes.

This is a big pen.

Big bipartisan pen.

It's doing it for America.

And it's a picture of me and Senator Russ Goodman.

We're both enthusiastically committing ourselves to service service this evening.

So I figured the pen would commemorate it.

Well.

Thank you.

And so how is your session been so far?

What are some of the highlights for you?

Look, this has been a wild session.

And if you ask any legislator, there's sort of a big picture and a small picture which is like, what are they working on?

Big picture.

This has been a really tough session.

There have been some really regressive bills.

I think even members of the majority party have been surprised by how culture war oriented and regressive some of the bills have been, just to be very blunt.

And so I mourn actually, with a lot of people who think that there have been undue attacks on teachers, on the trans community and on civil rights in general.

However, that being said, I have been working on some things this session that I've been personally proud of.

I got a regulation on booting, passed both houses, House and Senate.

So it's headed to the governor's desk.

I think that will be the first statewide booting regulation that's booting of cars.

To be very clear, I have to enunciate clearly ever in the state's history.

And I've also worked on funding for veterans and some judiciary bills that I'm proud of.

So for me, it's been a productive session.

But but, you know, my thoughts are with the people who feel like this state has taken a turn for the Trumpy.

And so on late Wednesday evening, you were very vocal opponent of HB 127, which would ban Di programs in Georgia schools.

Can you talk to me a little bit about your stance on that?

Yeah, that bill is absurd and may be the worst legislation that I've ever seen in history.

The reason I say that is because if one professor at the University of Georgia were to teach that the Holocaust happened, the entirety of the University of Georgia would be defunded of all state and federal money.

I'll say that again.

If any professor took as an official position that any group has ever been harmed or marginalized, you know, that's the Holocaust, that's slavery, whatever.

All federal funding and state funding would be withheld.

It is a total red meat culture war bill.

The majority passed to satisfy a base that has grown to hate the letters Di for for really no reason.

And so we just that kind of move is not what the moderate Republicans who voted for Republican leadership want.

This is the far right base that they're appealing to.

And I can tell you with certainty that the Senate is hoping that the House does not pass that bill because they know how bad it is.

And is there anything that you're hoping to see pass in the final hours of the session today?

Sure.

I mean, there's still some good government bills.

I mean, that's that's the contradiction being in this place is you can have a bill that's really crazy that people are really not proud of.

But then on the other hand, you can have good government bills that make life a little bit easier.

So I'm still waiting on a judiciary bill that would improve our backlog in our courts by making cases go a little bit faster.

So again, you just got to stay focused on the little wins you can get to make life a little bit better for people, and you got to fight where where you need to.

All right.

Well, we'll have to watch that.

Bill, thank you so much for being here with us.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it.

Donna.

Thanks so much, Sarah.

So let's let's start where he kind of left off on in terms of the Di bill, it was the the the information, the language was added to a bill that would have added sick days to teachers who really need sick days after it didn't make it for Crossover Day in the Senate.

So talk about your feelings about that.

I have strong feelings about this, Donna.

Which may come as a shock to you, but most people don't know.

Before I went to law school, I taught sixth grade.

No, I.

Didn't know math and science.

And so educators have a very special place in my heart because I know how hard their job is.

I used to joke that nothing prepared me better for service in the Georgia house than being a sixth grade teacher, because it's an exercise in persistence and getting up every day and not taking everything that's said to your face personally.

So I think those sixth graders for preparing me.

Especially middle school.

Yes, sixth.

Graders.

But but this is just another example, Donna, of how Republicans are not doing anything to address those high costs inflation that we were talking about earlier.

This is just another, Senator McLaurin said it.

Well, another red red meat bill thrown out to the base.

As we go into a critical election year, which we should talk about some critical statewide seats on the PSC this year, which Democrats are going to have a great shot at?

And going into even more critical cycle next year, I expect about this time next week, we'll have a whole bunch of campaign announcements.

Okay?

Okay.

Anything that you want to add to us, we'll get back to that in a moment.

I just want to hear what you have to say about the Di language added to the bill that dealt with sick days, and it's now in the House.

We believe tonight we'll vote after the Senate.

Well, we heard.

The chairman here and the senator talk about red meat.

And I want to point out they're red herrings.

Look, the idea that a University of Georgia professor is going to threaten the university's funding because they teach that the Holocaust happened is just so extraordinarily, outrageously false.

There's no one watching this right now that believes that is the case.

No one, not one person, not even the senator who said it believes that's the case.

What this is about is rooting out the left wing ideology that has been put into curriculum from elementary, middle, high and colleges across the country.

And now there is a backlash.

This all came out of COVID when parents for the first time were hearing what their kids were learning through the computer.

And you are seeing folks say, enough, enough of this ideology.

We're not sending our kids to public school to be fed liberal propaganda and to be taught basically, that our country is full of shame.

We should be proud Americans.

And that's what this is about.

And I disagree with the senator as well, that moderate Republicans disagree with this.

There are things that moderate Republicans disagree with.

The MAGA part of the party on.

This isn't one of them.

Right.

The the Democrats and the left who control cultural institutions simply went too far and people got sick of it.

Okay, we're going to change gears a little bit here, because earlier today when I talked to the governor, we talked about the fact that he would be talking to both chambers.

Let's listen to him right now.

I believe he's in the.

House.

Full coordination between the House, the Senate and my office has benefited the people of our state and put Georgia on a path to continued prosperity and opportunity.

My hope is that we continue that successful streak, which will benefit hardworking Georgians.

Most of all.

And as this seventh session during my time in office draws to a close, I want to thank you all for your contributions and your hard work.

Marty, the girls and I are grateful for your service to our fellow Georgians.

Thank you all.

Have a great rest of the night and God bless you.

Thank you.

Sir.

All right.

Governor Brian Kemp speaking tonight.

Signee.

Die to the members of the Georgia House.

I believe he now will probably go on over to the Senate, but we're going to right now go back to Sarah at the Capitol.

And she's with Senate Minority Whip, Senator Kim.

Jackson.

Thank you, Don Donna.

And thank you, Senator Jackson, for being here with me tonight.

So can you start off by walking me through some of the highlights for the Democrats and for yourself this session?

Yeah.

You know, this has been a long session for us.

We've had to fight really hard against a lot of really bad bills, but we also continue to fight for good things.

We passed a child tax credit this year that I think will help some Georgia families.

We continue to work to make sure that people have education fully funded based on the QBE.

We wish that we.

Reevaluated the QBE scale, but we're glad to fully, fully fund that.

But it's been it's been a tough it's been a tough session for us.

And so we saw several bills that would have restricted transgender Georgians passed the Senate this year.

And you were vocally opposed to all of them.

Can you talk to me a little bit about your stance on that issue?

Yeah.

So my stance is that all people in Georgia should be treated equally and fairly, that no, no population and particularly a minority population as small as transgender folks and transgender children specifically should never be attacked and pointed out.

And so I've stood really firmly on that.

I am a member of the LGBTQ community, but more importantly, I'm very much invested in no child feeling discriminated against, no child being limited in terms of being able to exercise their rights as children, to just play and have fun.

And are there any other reflections that you have for this session as we head into the final hours?

Yeah.

You know, I'm really disappointed in my colleagues in the Republican Party.

We had an opportunity to really bring good things to Georgians, and we continue to have people who are uncovered when it comes to Medicaid and being able to have access to insurance.

We continue to have families that are just struggling to have access to child care and to have it be affordable.

Our TANF dollars are not where they should be in terms of people who are really low income, being able to have access to additional funds so that they can just simply feed their families and care well for their families.

So there's just a lot that was left on the table that we could have done to really help Georgians to advance the ball.

And instead, we've been playing these games with trans children.

And now we had a G.I.

Bill that passed out of the Senate that would greatly limit what people can do.

rfrA passed a bill that we've been fighting against for ten years because it legalizes discrimination.

And so I'm deeply disappointed.

We had an opportunity to do good things.

And instead, my Republican colleagues chose to throw red meat.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us this evening.

Have a good evening.

Donna.

So much.

Sarah.

Appreciate that.

Well, earlier this evening, Sarah did an interview with House Majority Leader Chuck Efstration.

Here it is.

Leader.

Thank you so much for being here tonight.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

A lot going on here at the Capitol on Sunday.

So plenty to talk about.

Absolutely.

So we've seen the House pass hundreds of bills this session.

Can you explain some of your highlights in the bills you're most proud of?

Sure.

We prioritize school safety, ensuring that hurricane recovery relief.

Tax cuts were part of the discussion this year.

Tort reform has been a major issue really.

I think it comes down to education, public safety and ensuring that Georgians are in the best possible position to live, work and raise a family.

We're we're focused on common sense kitchen table issues.

And what are your biggest takeaways from the session this year?

Yeah, I think the.

Success that we've had in passing legislation that really means a lot to Georgians.

So $2 billion in tax relief that's been passed.

We've had school safety legislation to ensure that parents are aware of school infrastructure improvements, mental health care.

We've had, you know, the Hurricane Helene had a devastating impact.

So just my takeaway is issues that really matter, Georgians issues we were discussing in January at the beginning of the legislative session.

We followed through on and passed.

And there's still some time left this evening.

Is there anything else you're really hoping is going to come up?

Passing the budget was huge.

We had to do that and that occurred earlier this afternoon.

But yes, I think we're going to continue to see additional issues.

And, and there's always some surprises here and there on a sunny day.

But I'm looking forward to finishing strong this evening.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for being here and talking with me.

Great.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

Thanks, Sarah.

So, leader of the last thing you talked about was the budget.

So I wanted to get into that.

So anything you want to talk about in particular with the budget.

Well.

It stands out for you.

Obviously.

It's a one time issue is Hurricane Helene.

Let's hope it's one time.

Obviously, there was tremendous damage.

There's something we can't afford to do every year.

But this was something that the legislature and the governor really prioritized.

And hopefully it's going to bring some relief to those communities in South Georgia over into the Augusta area.

One thing that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but is significant, is the amount of investment that has gone into our prison system.

This is something that's gotten bipartisan support.

Our prison system was in dire straits.

These are some of the deadliest, most dangerous prisons in the entire country.

Gangs are being run out of these prisons.

They're dropping in cell phones.

Gang leaders are able to order hits, manage a drug operation all from within our state prisons.

They're woefully undermanned.

They are very dangerous.

And look, it's very difficult in politics to go make an argument to taxpayers that their dollars should go to people who have committed crimes.

No one wants to talk about that too much.

But there is a humanity involved in some of this.

People who commit minor crimes shouldn't be sentenced to a virtual death penalty, and in some cases, with the amount of murders that happen within the prison system, that has been the case.

So I think that this is a monumental investment.

I think it's going to make our prisons safer and hopefully make it safer also for the people who work there.

No one wants to work in these places.

The pay is terrible.

The work is dangerous.

So hopefully with higher salaries we can attract some good people and we need safety in numbers.

If you only have a couple of guards, the gangs in the prison can target them at home and kill them, which we've actually seen happen.

As you would agree that this is an issue nobody wants to talk about, but it had to be dealt with this session.

Sure, sure.

Absolutely.

And it's commendable that they that they took that up.

You know, I think most most people don't understand how the budget works in the legislature, but it really starts with, with the governor and who's elected as governor, because, as Brian well knows.

And Donna, you know, well, no the governor selects the economist who decides what the future projections for tax revenue are going to be, which determines how much money the legislature can actually budget.

And what we've seen in successive administrations is governors choosing economists who are ultra conservative, who will, have a very low budget projection number, knowing it's going to be over that.

And the governor gets to allocate this amount on top of it.

That does not have to run through the legislature.

And that's why we continue to have disinvestment and missed opportunities in investment in, in various communities.

That have been starved over the last several decades.

Okay.

I want to talk about the Democratic Party of Georgia right now.

So we've seen a transition.

Just what this week, earlier that Representative Nikema Williams has stepped down.

So you are interim chair at this point.

Tell us what's going on there.

So the Democratic Party of Georgia is really evolving to meet the moment that we're in.

We had a chair when, Congresswoman Williams was serving as a in a volunteer capacity.

Obviously, she's a member of Congress.

So she was a volunteer, unpaid, chair for the state party.

We are moving, to a system of having a paid full time chair.

Kind of like a paid CEO.

We also have a paid executive director, kind of like a COO.

And so obviously, with her being my congresswoman in, in Congress, she could not do that role.

And she has graciously stepped aside so that we can accelerate this transition.

So we will we actually just yesterday, Donna announced that the election for that will be held in 30 days.

And we already have several candidates that are stepping forward, but that will be a paid full time position going forward.

Is there a special process in place for choosing?

I remember it was a few years ago.

There was it was kind of a public way of doing it.

So we have a state committee of few hundred Democrats that are appointed from the county level who come together and will elect the chair.

Okay.

You alluded earlier to some announcements coming up.

So is there something you want to tell us?

I have no announcement.

Other than.

Other than I will not be the interim chair.

In 30 days, and.

I'm very much looking forward to that.

About some elections coming up.

You know, it's it's a very exciting.

It's a very exciting time.

And I do think that this time next week is when we'll see the slew of campaign announcements one signee die.

Gavels out today.

It will be interesting.

I've heard a lot of of names being thrown around.

We've seen a lot of names already.

In the media on both sides.

Some names in contention and then withdrawing from contention and some names we thought were out of contention.

Now saying that they are in contention.

So it will be a fascinating rest of the year.

Yeah.

Everybody is waiting for this day to end before we hear some of the big announcements.

What are your thoughts on what we might hear?

Well, we know of some already because they had to file paperwork and that was it wasn't much of an announcement, but a a bureaucratic, demand that that they announce that they're going to run with Chris Carr running for governor.

Our current attorney general State Senator Brian Strickland announcing this week through filing paperwork that he's going to run to succeed.

Carr, I think you're going to see numerous state senators.

We're going to we're going to empty out the state Senate.

I mean, we're going to need to go recruit a bunch of smart Georgians to fill these these seats, because so many are running for higher office.

You're going to see some running for the insurance commissioner.

I know Senator Larry Walker is taking a look at that.

Insurance Commissioner John King is looking at running for U.S. Senate.

If Kemp doesn't run.

But, of course, Donna on our side, Kemp is the domino everyone is waiting for to fall.

Nothing can happen until he tells us what he's going to do.

Polls show him beating Ossoff by eight points.

He's obviously the best horse for Republicans.

Ossoff is the most vulnerable Democrat in the U.S. Senate in this election cycle.

So everybody wants him to run.

Kemp doesn't want to be in the U.S. Senate.

He has been governor of Georgia.

The coolest job that there is.

It's a step down to go to the U.S. Senate.

So he would have to be strong armed into that.

I don't think he'll do it.

So I think you may see some of these state senators looking at the lieutenant governor's race, like John F Kennedy, who's the pro tem and Greg Dolezal from coming to maybe look at that U.S. Senate race.

They've been looking at the lieutenant governor's race and of course, Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper.

Also like Burt Jones, our lieutenant governor, very close to Trump and might be looking at some other kind of office to run for as well.

But there's going to be a lot of names, maybe some shifting.

We'll see next week.

People holding fundraisers and that will tell.

Us what they're running for.

What year was it that you you ran for insurance commissioner.

Right.

2022.

And we saw a lot of people leave the legislature.

We'll we're going to have to wait and see.

I want to thank you both for being here.

It was really fun and really good information.

So thank you.

So much.

Thank you for having me.

And happy 55th birthday.

Thank you.

Yeah, that does it for Lawmakers for 2025.

This session, the 55th season of the show.

Tune in to GPB for continuous coverage of state politics on GPB.

Org.

And as we bid you farewell, we leave you with some behind the scenes images of our crew.

Have a good night.