Gold Dome Follow Up

Neither of these is earth-shattering, but a couple of bills in which I have a particular interest made it through the General Assembly and are awaiting the Governor’s signature.

The first concerns limiting the permissible dates for special elections held “to present a question to the voters.” Given my experience with contesting the Clarke County School District’s plan to hold its SPLOST 3 referendum as a special election back in 2006, an indefensible process that would have incurred considerable expense to open up all 24 of the county’s precincts and print absentee ballots for a low-turnout election with but a single item on the ballot, I wrote on my campaign web site:

. . . HB 1306, also introduced in the 2006 session of the General Assembly, was designed to limit the number of dates available for SPLOST referenda in any given year. Though I had nothing to do with this legislation, I am in full support of it as a means of curbing such practices in the future. Again, though a substitute version of the Bill was favorably reported out of the House Governmental Affairs Committee, the full House did not act on the Bill by “crossover day.” Hopefully, this legislation will also be resurrected in the next session of the General Assembly.

That is precisely what happened. HB 296 would add a subsection (c)(2) to O.C.G.A 21-2-540. That proposed subsection reads as follows:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, a special election to present a question to the voters shall be held only on one of the following dates which is at least 29 days after the date of the call for the special election:
(A) In odd-numbered years, any such special election shall only be held on the third Tuesday in March or on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November; and
(B) In even-numbered years, any such special election shall only be held on:
(i) The date of and in conjunction with the presidential preference primary if one is held that year;
(ii) The date of the general primary; or
(iii) The Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

The Senate’s substitute version of the bill passed that body by a vote of 51-2 (with 1 not voting and 2 excused); the House agreed to the Senate substitute by a vote of 162-6 (with 7 not voting and 5 excused). The measure is slated to go into effect in 2010.

The second concerns HB 1054, the “Children and Family Services Strengthening Act,” on which I previously commented. From a legislative standpoint, this bill is much more complicated that the one above, in that it would rearrange several aspects of the state’s child welfare bureaucracy into a Governor’s Office of Children and Families. Involving O.G.G.A. Titles 15, 19, 35, and 49, this proposed reorganization includes the Child Advocate for the Protection of Children, the Child Fatality Review Panel, the Children’s Trust Fund Commission, and the Children and Youth Coordinating Council.

The Senate’s substitute version of the bill passed that body by a vote of 50-0 (with 1 not voting and 5 excused); the House agreed to the Senate substitute by a vote of 135-26 (with 10 not voting and 9 excused).

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