Looking Back. The recently completed Second Session of the 149th Georgia General Assembly received some deservedly negative marks for what was not accomplished, including the failure to pass comprehensive tax-reform legislation and to adopt long-term funding plans for trauma care and transportation. Despite the Session's shortcomings, however, lawmakers did consider and approve a number of important measures, and I experienced a successful session, helping to move several pieces of legislation through the General Assembly.

After two years of very hard work, I obtained the overwhelming approval of both the House and Senate for House Bill 336, creating a felony-level DUI offense for the first time in Georgia. I was also the House sponsor of Senate Bill 24, creating a state law against Internet "phishing" (identity-stealing schemes), and Senate Bill 529, closing a loophole in Georgia law that allowed certain offenders to escape serious punishment for committing vehicular homicide. A bill that I introduced in the House to create a new tax-free holiday for the purchase of water-efficient products was incorporated into a Senate bill that passed both chambers and is awaiting the Governor's signature. In addition to sponsoring these and other measures, I was an active member of the House committees on which I serve.

The 2008 Session began on Monday, January 14, with a series of veto-override votes and concluded with a flurry of last-minute activity at midnight on Friday, April 4. In the sections below, you will find summaries of the most significant pieces of legislation acted on by the General Assembly this year. Unless otherwise noted, all the measures discussed below were approved and await Governor Perdue's signature.

Budget. Supplemental Budget for Fiscal Year 2008. House Bill 989, the supplemental budget for the current fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, funds $20 million in equalization grants for schools, $50 million for trauma care to help hospitals like Grady, $40 million for reservoir projects, $2.7 million for indigent defense and $210 million in school construction bonds. The supplemental budget was signed into law by Governor Perdue last month.

Budget for Fiscal Year 2009. House Bill 990 is the state's $21.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2009, which begins July 1 of this year. The budget includes:

• $1 billion in state construction projects for schools and universities
• $2 million for new community health centers
• $1.3 million for Math Mentors
• 1% increase in operational expenses for Pre-K providers
• $10 million for land conservation
• 2.5% pay increases for Georgia's teachers and state employees
• $70 million in loans for reservoir construction
• $10 million in equalization grants meant to balance per-student funding for sixteen Metro Atlanta school districts

Education "Austerity" Budget Cuts. HB 990 reduces Gov. Perdue's proposed cuts this year to basic school spending from $142 million to $91 million. Before the revised revenue figures were released by the Governor, House leaders had expressed their intent to restore all $142 million to basic school spending. Although reducing the amount of the so-called "austerity" cuts is movement in the right direction, I believe that we are still seriously underfunding public education, and I will continue to work with my colleagues in the General Assembly for full funding of our public school systems.

Despite a few last-minute hurdles, House Bill 336, the felony DUI legislation that I introduced, cleared the General Assembly nearly unanimously during the last week of this year's session. If signed by the Governor, HB 336 would punish as a felony a fourth or subsequent DUI received within ten years. In addition, the bill requires that first offenders obtain a drug and alcohol evaluation and any necessary treatment (unless waived by the court). Passage of HB 336 represents an important step forward in the prosecution and treatment of drunk driving.

Other Criminal Justice Bills.Vehicular Homicide. As a former prosecutor, I felt privileged to be the House sponsor of Senate Bill 529, which closes a loophole in Georgia law relating to vehicular homicide. Under current law, offenders who cause a fatality in a hit-and-run accident can escape punishment for felony vehicular homicide so long as the death of the victim occurs instantaneously (as opposed to the victim lingering for as little as a half an hour before dying).

The Georgia Court of Appeals properly described this result as "nonsensical" when it was forced to overturn a vehicular homicide conviction. SB 529 corrects an unintended consequence of vehicular homicide law and if signed by the Governor, will spare surviving family member being twice victimized by hit-and-run drivers.

Internet Safety and Protection. "Phishing" Schemes. Almost anyone who owns an email address has received a fake notice purporting to be from a bank regarding an account, about winning the lottery or about help a soldier or minister needs moving money out of a foreign country. Senate Bill 24 criminalizes these schemes in which a person, posing as a legitimate business, uses a web page or an email to induce victims to provide identifying information about themselves. The bill also makes it a crime to knowingly possess information obtained through a phishing scheme. I was pleased to be the House sponsor of SB 24.

Senate Bill 474 provides greater online protection for children against sexual predators who use the Internet to lure minors. The bill calls on the Georgia Department of Education to develop a program to teach Internet safety to children and requires Internet providers to offer to adult subscribers commercially available technology to monitor a minor's Internet activity and block or restrict access to websites.

Sex Offenders Residency Restrictions. Senate Bill 1 makes it illegal for convicted sex offenders to take pictures of children without their parents' permission and reinstates language that bans parolees from living and working within 1,000 feet of churches, schools, day-care centers and other places where children are likely to congregate. The 1,000-foot barrier was struck down last year by the Georgia Supreme Court because, according to the Court, it deprived offenders of their property rights by requiring them to move if a church, school or other place frequented by children were established within 1,000 feet of their home. SB 1 exempts property owners who are registered sex offenders but otherwise preserves the residency restrictions.

DNA. Senate Bill 430 provides law enforcement officials with another crime-fighting weapon by allowing them to compare a DNA profile obtained through a search warrant, consent of the suspect, court order, or other lawful means to DNA profiles lawfully collected and maintained by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Firearms. House Bill 89 probably constitutes the single most expansive firearms legislation ever to pass the General Assembly. The bill allows permit holders to carry concealed weapons onto public transportation and into parks, historic sites, recreation areas, wildlife management areas, and restaurants. At the same time, it restricts the rights of public and private employers to control the presence of firearms on their property.

Indigent Defense. House Bill 1245 grew out of a joint House-Senate Study Committee on which I served between the end of the 2007 and the beginning of the 2008 General Assembly sessions. I was a co-sponsor of the bill, which was drafted after listening carefully to many hours of testimony from stakeholders throughout the criminal justice system. It breathes life back into a faltering indigent defense program and provides future safeguards against the kinds of problems and monetary drains arising out of the infamous Brian Nichols trial in Fulton County.

Dog Fighting. House Bill 301 tightens the provisions of anti-dog-fighting laws by making it clear that anyone convicted of engaging in dog-fighting or owning, training, possessing or even transporting dogs with the intent to have them fight other dogs will be guilty of a felony and punished accordingly. The bill also punishes as felons those found guilty of wagering on dog-fighting, those who promote it and those who allow their property to be used for dog fighting. Convictions for first-time spectators at dog fights are considered high and aggravated misdemeanors. If convicted a second or subsequent time, offenders are punished as felons.

Driving without a license. Senate Bill 350 would increase criminal penalties for driving without a license and makes the offense a felony if the driver is arrested four times within five years.

Charter Schools. House Bill 881 creates a seven-member State Charter School Commission to review and if warranted, to approve applications for charter schools that have been denied by local school boards. The Commission would be authorized to override the denial. A school charter (like a contract) exempts schools from many education-related rules and regulations, but in exchange, the schools must meet certain performance standards to maintain their charter status.

HOPE Scholarship Eligibility. House Bill 152 makes students eligible to receive HOPE scholarships if they both:

• received a general educational development (GED) diploma, completed an approved home-study program or graduated from a high school which is not an eligible high school; and
  
  
• earned a score in the eighty-fifth percentile or higher nationally on a standardized college admission test, such as the SAT or ACT.

Trauma Care Funding. Unfortunately, the House and Senate leadership could not agree on a permanent solution for funding trauma care. An agreement on the details of a $10 car-tag renewal fee that would have provided $74 million in revenues designated for trauma care could not be reached before the midnight deadline on the final day of the session. The Fiscal Year 2009 Budget does provide an additional $58 million in state funding for the trauma care network, but this is not a permanent funding source, which is desperately needed for the trauma care system to survive.

Certificate of Need. Senate Bill 433 is a major hospital regulatory reform measure, overhauling the "certificate of need" (CON) program. Currently, the CON program regulates the provision of health care services, including such matters as where medical facilities can operate and even whether a hospital can build a parking deck. SB 433 would lift many of the current restrictions, like those placed on a few hospitals allowed to deliver babies only in cases of emergencies.
The measure would also allow more hospitals to perform certain heart procedures (such as diagnostic catheterizations) and would streamline the CON appeals process in cases where permission was denied. The legislation also permits the Cancer Treatment Centers of America to build a $150 million facility near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. However, the facility must draw at least sixty-five percent of its patients from outside of Georgia.

Taxes. Sales-Tax Relief. House Bill 948 establishes July 31 through August 3, 2008, as the back-to-school sales tax holiday weekend and October 2, 2008, through October 5, 2008, as the energy-efficient products sales tax holiday.

Early in the session, I introduced House Bill 895, legislation creating an additional sales-tax-free weekend for the purchase of water-efficient products to encourage water conservation. The measure establishes the tax-free weekend to coincide with the energy-efficient weekend to make it more convenient for consumers.

During session, the language of HB 895 was included as part of another measure (Senate Bill 342) that cleared both the House and Senate and which now awaits the Governor's signature. The idea for this bill came from a letter that I received from a constituent. So please continue to share your ideas with me to help improve the quality of life for all of us.

Property-Tax Relief. The session began with House Speaker Glenn Richardson introducing his much-anticipated "GREAT" Plan, which proposed replacing property taxes with sales taxes on services and expanding sales taxes on goods. The GREAT Plan was to be considered for approval or rejection by Georgia voters in this year's November general election. The final House version, which did not include the additional taxes, would have eliminated the yearly car-tag tax and would have established a property-tax assessment freeze.

The Senate, however, passed an entirely different tax-reform package that included an income-tax reduction (instead of a property-tax freeze) and continued the car-tag tax. The Governor did not support either plan. Because no compromise agreement was reached, much-needed tax reform will not appear on the November ballot, a very disappointing result for Georgia taxpayers.

I intend to continue to fight for property-tax reform, especially the kind proposed in House Resolution 1170, which I introduced earlier this year. HR 1170 proposed freezing both residential and commercial property taxes, fixing a homestead's tax value at the original purchase prince. That tax value would not change until the home was sold (except in a few limited circumstances such as where additions were made to the property).

The legislation also proposed eliminating the expensive, time-consuming and virtually pointless property-tax appeals process and replacing it with a simpler, fairer system. I plan to reintroduce this measure next session.

Tax Allocation Districts. Senate Resolution 996 will be on the November ballot, asking voters if they want to allow school property taxes to be diverted to support development projects. If approved, projects like the Atlanta BeltLine and the proposed Sembler development in the N. Druid Hills area could be supported with school taxes for plans such as traffic-congestion relief.

Foster Care Tax Credit. House Bill 1159 provides an annual $2,000 income-tax credit to families with a child adopted through Georgia's foster care system.

Transportation . Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank. House Bill 1019 creates the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank to provide low-interest loans to local communities for transportation projects.

Transportation Sales Tax. The House approved an amended version of Senate Resolution 845, which authorized counties to join together to implement a one-penny transportation sales tax on a regional basis (if approved by the voters in those counties).

An effort was made to dedicate the fourth penny of the four-cent gas tax to transportation; currently, the money simply becomes part of the general fund of the state treasury. The dedicated funds could have been used to improve mass transit and to help rural areas with economic development. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to agree to the measure.

Water. Statewide Water Management Plan. One of the first major acts by the General Assembly this session was the adoption of House Resolution 1022, the Statewide Water Management Plan. Better managing Georgia's water resources has become a high priority, especially in light of the recent drought.

The plan provides a three-year data-gathering effort to determine the amount of water in Georgia's rivers, lakes and streams. The plan also calls for eleven water planning districts to allocate water among farms, industries and communities. Councils are created within those districts and are charged with drafting a water plan for their respective areas.

Implementing statewide water management is a vital step towards ensuring an adequate water supply for ourselves and for future generations of Georgians.

Reservoirs. Senate Bill 342 facilitates building more drinking-water reservoirs throughout the state by speeding up the permitting process for construction.

Regulatory Consistency. House Bill 1281 prohibits local governing authorities from establishing outdoor watering guidelines that are stricter than state rules. Although DeKalb County has apparently relented on its threat to close swimming pools this summer, enactment of HB 1281 would prevent the County from doing so at a later date if the state otherwise permitted them to remain open. This was a concern about which I received correspondence from many of you asking me to help keep the pools open this summer.

Georgia-Tennessee Border. Senate Resolution 822 urges discussions between the Governors of Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina over the actual state boundary lines and calls for a commission to correct state borders. Historical records indicate that Georgia's true boundary with Tennessee should rest north of the present state line. Part of the disputed territory includes the Tennessee River, a valuable water source.

Veto Overrides. On the first day of the session in January, the House voted to override twelve bills vetoed by Governor Perdue after the end of the 2007 Session. Among those measures were:

• House Bill 549, ensuring that children with disabilities receive the medically necessary therapy services to which they are entitled under the Medicaid Early Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment Program; and
  
  
• House Bill 559, permitting teachers and employees of charter schools to be considered employees for purposes of participating in the health insurance plans for teachers and other school personnel.

Looking Forward. It has been a great privilege to serve you in the state legislature over the last two years. I am grateful to the many of you who contacted me with suggestions and concerns, and I hope you will continue to do so.