{"id":251,"date":"2022-03-17T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T14:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/crossover-day-dust-settles-voters-are-not-being-well-served\/"},"modified":"2022-03-17T10:00:30","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T14:00:30","slug":"crossover-day-dust-settles-voters-are-not-being-well-served","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press\/crossover-day-dust-settles-voters-are-not-being-well-served\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossover Day Dust Settles \u2013 \u201cVoters are not being well-served\u201d"},"template":"","class_list":["post-251","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","press_type-press-release"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"House passed \u201cElections Bill Sequel\u201d late at night \u2013 Senate failed to pass campaign finance bill but did pass problematic First Amendment bill.","featured_image":5062,"press_type":145,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"1\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":7815}"],"related_issues":[92,100,109,400,402],"related_work":false,"location":13},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

House passed \u201cElections Bill Sequel\u201d late at night \u2013 Senate failed to pass campaign finance bill but did pass problematic First Amendment bill<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\r\nAt about 11pm Tuesday night, the Georgia House passed a substitute version of <\/span>HB 1464<\/span><\/a>, the apparent \u201csequel\u201d bill to last year\u2019s SB 202. The bill would make changes to a variety of election laws, including making it difficult for local elections offices to accept private gifts and grants, and creating a new responsibility for the Georgia Bureau of Investigations to \u201cinvestigate election fraud and election crimes.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\nIn the other chamber, the Senate failed to pass <\/span>a bill<\/span><\/a> that would have prohibited political fundraising by new \u201cleadership committees\u201d during legislative sessions. The new type of political committees was created by legislation passed last year; they can accept unlimited amounts of money.<\/span>\r\n\r\nHowever, the Senate <\/span>did<\/span><\/i> pass <\/span>a bill<\/span><\/a> that could undermine Georgians\u2019 rights of assembly and free speech \u2013 freedoms that are a cherished part of our nation\u2019s history. The bill would also waive \u201csovereign immunity\u201d for counties and municipalities in some circumstances, which would encourage lawsuits and impact insurance costs.\r\n<\/span>\r\n

Statement of Aunna Dennis, Executive Director of Common Cause Georgia<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\r\n\u2018Crossover Day\u2019 is all about priorities \u2013 and the priorities on display Tuesday night were about legislators\u2019 political statements and not about the needs of everyday Georgians.<\/span>\r\n

SB 171<\/b><\/a><\/h3>\r\nThe First Amendment bill seems <\/span>modeled on<\/span><\/a> one of Florida Governor DeSantis\u2019s legislative priorities, that passed last year. An economist projected that their version of the bill would cost Sunshine State taxpayers <\/span>millions of dollars a year<\/span><\/a> -- but Georgia\u2019s bill is being considered without any inkling of its cost to the state, and no assessment of how the waiver of \u2018sovereign immunity\u2019 will affect municipal budgets.<\/span>\r\n\r\nEven worse, there has been no accounting for how this could affect our cherished rights to demonstrate, our rights of assembly and free speech. Georgia has a deep and painful history of communities using nonviolent protest to seek equal treatment \u2013 and this bill dishonors that history.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWe hope the House engages in a more careful deliberation of the ramifications of this bill, and does not advance it.<\/span>\r\n

SB 580<\/b><\/a><\/h3>\r\nGeorgians deserve to be able to have <\/span>confidence that our laws aren\u2019t being bought and sold<\/span><\/a> to benefit political committees. But unfortunately, the Senate failed to act on a bill that would have limited donations to leadership committees while the legislature is in session.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThat means that leadership committees of the party caucuses in both the House and the Senate can continue to solicit and accept <\/span>unlimited<\/span><\/i> donations<\/span><\/i> even while the Legislature is acting on bills affecting the donors\u2019 interests.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe appearance of \u2018pay-to-play\u2019 is undeniable.<\/span>\r\n\r\nBy failing to rein in this donation scheme, the Senate has sent a clear message that donors\u2019 money is more important than voters\u2019 confidence.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWe hope the General Assembly will reconsider \u2013 and pass \u2013 this proposal next session.<\/span>\r\n

HB 1464<\/b><\/a><\/h3>\r\nGeorgia\u2019s voters broke turnout record after record, in November 2020 and January 2021 \u2013 and rather than celebrating, our Legislature retaliated by passing a bill making it <\/span>more difficult for certain communities<\/span><\/a> to vote.<\/span>\r\n\r\nNow, apparently, we\u2019re on round two \u2013 only this time, the focus is more on \u201cinvestigating\u201d voters. Again, this seems to be an idea borrowed from Florida, where the Legislature just created an \u201cElection Police\u201d bureaucracy that\u2019s going to cost Sunshine State taxpayers $3.7 million a year \u2013 and will undoubtedly chill participation by already-marginalized voters.<\/span>\r\n\r\nGeorgia\u2019s Secretary of State\u2019s office already has authority to investigate alleged violations of election law. And they\u2019ve done so, with hyped-up headlines but <\/span>only \u201ca handful of isolated cases<\/span><\/a> verified by investigators\u201d looking into double voting in the November 2020 election. Now, though, the Legislature proposes another law enforcement agency to pursue even more investigations.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe bill would also make it much more difficult for local elections jurisdictions to accept private gifts and grants, which is troubling on two fronts. First, there\u2019s the question of whether the Legislature is willing to step up and properly fund our elections. <\/span>In 2020, more than $45 million<\/span><\/a> in private grants were distributed to Georgia counties, ranging from \u201cred\u201d to \u201cblue.\u201d\u00a0 Is the Legislature planning to make up the funding gap? Also, when SB 202 was passed last year, private organizations were prohibited from giving food and water to voters who were waiting in line. Reportedly, the idea was that the organizations should give food and water donations to local elections offices \u2013 and the elections officials would give them to voters standing in line. Except now, this year\u2019s bill would prohibit such \u201cgifts\u201d to local elections offices \u2013 which means either <\/span>local taxpayers<\/span><\/i> will be buying the food and water, or the voters will be standing in line without it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThere <\/span>are<\/span><\/i> good parts to this bill, and we would like to see the bill amended so that only those provisions remain. The bill provides time off for voting during the early voting period. It improves language around \u201cthird party ballot application\u201d distribution, including clarifying the disclaimer to make it less confusing to voters. And it improves language around election night reports, ease some of the burden on overworked elections officials and providing them with more time to reach ballot totals.<\/span>\r\n\r\nBut as the bill stands now, it is more a partisan political statement than a piece of legislation intended to benefit voters. It\u2019s also a testament to the principle that a rushed legislative process rarely makes for good public policy. If House leadership had been proud of this bill, they would not have scheduled the vote on it to happen during the middle of the night.<\/span>\r\n\r\nVoters are not being well-served by this year\u2019s legislative process. Now that Crossover Day is behind us, we urge the Legislature to focus the rest of the session on the needs of everyday Georgians.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>"}}]},"yoast_head":"\nCrossover Day Dust Settles \u2013 \u201cVoters are not being well-served\u201d - Common Cause Georgia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/crossover-day-dust-settles-voters-are-not-being-well-served\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crossover Day Dust Settles \u2013 \u201cVoters are not being well-served\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press\/crossover-day-dust-settles-voters-are-not-being-well-served\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Cause Georgia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/crossover-day-dust-settles-voters-are-not-being-well-served\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/crossover-day-dust-settles-voters-are-not-being-well-served\/\",\"name\":\"Crossover Day Dust Settles \u2013 \u201cVoters are not being well-served\u201d - 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