Summary: Week 7 of 2022 Session
On Tuesday, February 22, the Georgia House of Representatives reconvened for productive seventh week of the 2022 legislative session. As usual, we debated and voted on an array of legislation in the House Chamber, and by the end of the week, my colleagues and I reached Legislative Day 20, which means we are at the halfway point of the session.
These days, many school systems utilize virtual learning opportunities, and the number of students with school-issued laptops or tablet devices has dramatically increased so children can learn from home. To keep up with this evolving learning environment, the House passed House Bill 1217, or the Student Technology Protection Act, to promote the safe and appropriate use of school-issued technology, whether students are using these devices in the classroom or while learning from home. The Student Technology Protection Act would require each local board of education and charter school governing body to adopt an acceptable-use policy this year that could better prevent and prohibit any school computer or network from accessing obscene materials, child pornography or material that is deemed harmful to minors.
The House also passed the following bills on the House floor this week: House Bill 500, which would allow a second round of funding of $100 million to the Georgia Agribusiness and Rural Jobs Act program for capital investments, increase the program’s application fee from $5,000 to $25,000, establish an annual maintenance fee of $7,500 for all rural funds and update the program’s reporting requirements; House Bill 1192, would allow the Georgia Department of Community Health to submit a waiver request to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the U.S. Health Department of Health and Human Services to provide Medicaid coverage for HIV treatment services.
House Bill 1092, or the Georgia Women’s Child Care Alternatives, Resources, and Education Act, would allow eligible pregnant women who are sentenced to a period of confinement in a penal institution to have their sentences deferred for the duration of their pregnancies until six weeks postpartum. This bill would give judges the discretion to deny deferment if the pregnant woman is a safety risk, and this deferment would not count as “time served” for the offender.
House Bill 1008, which would amend the operations and composition of the Georgia Higher Education Savings Plan (GHSP) board of directors, dissolve the Georgia Achieving a Better Life Experience program and transfer this program’s authority and trust to the GHSP, as well as remove the board of directors’ authority to require and collect fees to cover administrative costs and impose withdrawal penalties; House Bill 1059, which would provide exclusions to unfair trade practices and unlawful inducements by allowing insurance companies to provide loss-mitigation safety products to consumers; House Bill 1086, which would lower the age at which hospitals would be required to offer an inpatient the influenza vaccine prior to discharge from 65 to 50 years of age; House Bill 1088, which would authorize non-judicial foreclosures of timeshare estates by an owners’ association and would update notice of sale requirements for these foreclosures; House Bill 1146, which would require that vehicles driven by officers enforcing traffic laws be equipped with flashing blue lights and would allow the Georgia State Patrol to have vehicles without such exterior- mounted roof lights; House Bill 1148, is targeting efforts to reduce the Chronic Waste Disease in our state’s deer population by prohibiting individuals from bringing a carcass from outside Georgia into the state if any part of the carcass contains a portion of the nervous system, and this bill would provide exceptions for antlers, skulls, skull plates, teeth or jawbones that have soft tissue attached; House Bill 1186, which would expand the eligibility for individuals who can have a non-diagnostic electro-physiologic screening done by a non-licensed audiologist from ages three and under to birth through 22 years of age; House Bill 1215, which would allow students to withdraw from their local school and enroll in a charter school with available classroom space without penalty and would require local education boards to adopt a universal, streamlined transfer process, as well as clarify how local revenue allocations would be collected and calculated for charter schools; House Bill 1233, which would revise the effective date of rules and regulations promulgated by the Georgia Board of Natural Resources to January 1, 2022, consolidate various species of black bass, update requirements for shotguns used for hunting migratory game birds and create the umbrella term “migratory game birds;” House Bill 1276, which would require the Georgia Department of Community Health to post detailed statistical reports with data for administered state health plans on its website biannually; House Bill 1307, which would require excavators to make an emergency 911 call to alert emergency services if they strike or damage a utility facility that carries gas or a hazardous liquid; House Bill 1320, which would update the state’s definition of “Internal Revenue Code” to include the provisions of the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, such as changing which bonds qualify as tax-exempt bond financing, extending interest-rate smoothing for defined benefit plans and expanding certain non-taxable contributions for government water or sewage disposal services; House Bill 1361, which would require that if a General Assembly act is alleged to be unconstitutional or invalid in an action, the attorney general would be served with a notice and would be entitled to be heard in defense of the act.
Heading into the second half of session, the next couple of weeks will certainly be some of our most demanding as we prepare for the Crossover Day deadline, which is the last day a bill can pass out of one chamber and still be eligible to be signed into law this year. There are still many more important bills that will be taken up before Crossover Day, including the Fiscal Year 2023 budget. I hope to hear from you soon about legislation that is still up for consideration this session. You can reach my Capitol office at 404-656-0188, or you can email me at Robert.Pruitt@house.ga.gov.
As always, thank you for allowing me to serve as your state representative.
As the State Representative for District 149, Robert Pruitt serves Dodge County, Telfair County, Wheeler County, Cadwell, and Hazlehurst. During the second week of the 2021 Legislative Session, Rep Pruitt was appointed to serve on the Industry and Trade, Economic Development, and Small Business committees for the next two years. Robert and his wife Kelly have been long time residents of Eastman.
By Rep. Robert Pruitt (District 149)
