Tillery: Week Nine Under the Gold Dome
Nine Days to go. But those nine legislative days will take us 3 more weeks. Over the next three weeks, we’ll be working in House committees to get Senate bills across the finish line. Several caucus priorities await their committee hearings. These include measures to improve school safety, like SB 17, “Ricky and Alyssa’s Law,” and consumer protection bills for communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, like SB 210. I look forward to updating you as these pieces of legislation make further progress.
On Thursday, the Senate began its work on the House’s budget recommendations for 2025-2026. Let’s be clear: this is your money. You work hard to put food on the table, and it’s our job to make sure the government isn’t wasting a single penny of it. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, my goal is to hold agencies accountable and make sure taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely. We’re cutting waste, prioritizing law enforcement and ensuring your kids can get their education safely.
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the Georgia Promise Scholarship. The House reduced the funding to this program because similar programs in other states have not ramped up to full usage quickly. However, Georgia’s program has already seen 7,000 applications in twelve days. The max participation by current statute is around 21,000. We will have to address the funding shortfall here.
The House budget also made a creative move of restarting the State’s bond package for 2026. This allowed the House to create approximately $280 million to spend on other budgetary areas, mostly in Corrections and Healthcare. The Senate is awaiting the Governor’s Office comments on this move before addressing further. Not yet knowing how the Governor’s staff will respond, we’ve asked agencies to inform the Senate of how they would reduce their budget by 1% should those funds need to be returned to the Governor’s position.
My “DeBanking” bill had another win this week. Shareholders and others from JPMorgan Chase Bank have claimed that the bank’s policies have led to the closures of conservative businesses and individuals’ bank accounts. As a result, Jamie Dimon, the CEO, announced they would amend those policies. It is worth noting that those previous policies also caused Former U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and his National Committee for Religious Freedom to be “DeBanked.” While the DeBanking bill failed in the Senate, as we discussed last week, it’s awesome to see the groundswell of support to make sure this issue is fixed.
In other local matters, I sponsored Senate Resolution 365 to recognize Cohen’s of Alma on its 100th anniversary. As a pillar of the Alma and Bacon County community, this family business has maintained an impressive legacy of integrity and service. Their economic contributions to Georgia cannot be understated, and I hope you will join me in congratulating and continuing to support Cohen’s of Alma.
Finally, we welcomed the United States Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, to the State Capitol. Secretary Rollins held a round table with state legislators to hear about issues affecting Georgia’s farmers and ranchers, including H-2A policies, which govern the temporary agricultural employment of foreign workers.
She also discussed President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs. Secretary Rollins assured us that the federal government will protect Georgia’s farmers. Federal disaster relief will soon be headed our way to revitalize areas affected by Hurricane Helene.
With just a few weeks left in this session, if you have concerns or ideas or just want to know more about what’s happening under the Gold Dome, reach out. Your voice matters, and I’m here to make sure it’s heard.
Sen. Blake Tillery serves as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. He represents the 19th Senate District, which includes Appling, Bacon, Jeff Davis, Long, Montgomery, Telfair, Toombs, Wayne and Wheeler counties, as well as a portion of Coffee County. He can be reached at 404.656.5038 or by email at Blake.Tillery@senate.ga.gov.
By Sen. Blake Tillery (R-Vidalia)
