The Cause at the Dome

CCGA Recap of Legislative Activity, Feb. 9 – 13

The General Assembly is now operating on a 3-day week, with session days Tuesday through Thursday, and only incidental business on Mondays and Fridays. They plan to keep to this schedule through the end of March then recess till as late as June to be in a position to make budget changes to deal with stimulus income.. March 12^th will be crossover day. For those new in tracking legislation, crossover day is the day by which a bill must pass one chamber to be considered by the other before adjournment.

On our Top Ten issues, there were a few developments this week.:

SB 17, which re-establishes lobbyist filing fees and increases penalties for late filing, passed out of the Senate Ethics Committee on Thursday. We supported that bill.

We saw a draft of the proposed legislation on judicial election reform from Rep. Lindsey this week and are in the process of providing comment. What we have seen so far is encouraging in what it does on recusal and disclosures of independent committee contributions.

We expect SB 96, the local ethics board legislation, to be before Senate committee next week. There was no movement on two other bills of interest this week, the non-partisan local elections bills sponsored by Buddy Carter, and the larger ethics/campaign finance bill that we are working on with Rep. Willard. We will make those our two top priorities next week.