House Action. Several bills were approved by the House last week, including the following:

House Bill 1123, requiring the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation to make annual reports to the Governor, Lt. Governor, Speaker of the House and the chairs of the House and Senate Transportation Committees detailing the department's progress on bridge and road maintenance as well as the disposal of surplus equipment.

House Bill 732, which enables retired state troopers off the job for more than twelve months to return to full time work while still receiving their full retirement benefits.

House Bill 904, mandating daycare center staff and directors to undergo background checks by both the Georgia Crime Information Center and the National Crime Information Center.

House Resolution 1206, which establishes a commission to attempt to resolve a border dispute dating back nearly two centuries along the Georgia- Tennessee line.

House Bill 989, which sets the supplemental appropriations for the State Fiscal Year July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2008. After receiving the bill back following Senate action on the measure, the House reinstated funding for homeland security positions cut by the Senate and provided for a greater number of hospitals to access the Indigent Care Trust Fund, which, in turn, allows the hospitals to draw down federal dollars.

Because it was inconsistent with the purpose of supplemental budgeting (to provide for unexpected shortfalls in funding), the House removed two million dollars the Senate had inserted for officials to travel internationally to promote Georgia business. Such an appropriation should be included when setting the annual budget, rather than using the supplemental budget's urgent funding to accomplish this purpose.

Making Our Streets Safer. This week, I expect the full House of Representatives to vote on House Bill 336, my felony DUI bill. In order to ensure passage of this bill, I need your help. If you know people living in different areas of Georgia who care about making the roads safer for all of us, then please contact them right away and ask them to express their support for HB 336 to their Representative.

This legislation increases penalties for DUI convictions to include mandatory jail time for repeat offenders and would make a fourth or subsequent DUI offense a felony, rather than simply a misdemeanor. The bill also provides the opportunity for repeat offenders to participate in strict, court- supervised substance-abuse treatment to decrease the likelihood of recurring offenses.

Sponsored Legislation.

DeKalb County Government Reform. Last week, I introduced House Bills 1310 and 1311, legislation intended to bring about long-overdue reform to the operations of the DeKalb County government. Among other things, the measures provide the County Board of Commissioners with oversight and investigation authority over county operations; grants commissioners the authority to set their own meeting agendas; restricts the voting authority of the chief executive officer to breaking ties; and removes the prohibition against commissioners directly contacting county staff members. The bills have been referred to the House Committee on Intragovernmental Coordination and further action by the DeKalb County Delegation.

If you are interested in seeing our county's government shift back to a balance of power and know others across DeKalb who also want this, then please contact them to encourage their Representatives to sign onto the measure.

To read more about the effort to reform DeKalb's government, please click on the links below:

--Opinion Article on Reform Effort

--AJC Article on Reform Effort

Justice System Cost Reduction. House Bill 1239, the State Court Jury Trial and Public Defender Cost Reduction Act of 2008, allows a prosecutor to seek only a fine in minor traffic offenses (such as driving with an expired tag), which will remove the requirement to provide attorneys to indigent defendants in such cases, thereby freeing scarce resources for more serious cases. HB 1239 will also reduce the number of costly state court jury trials for offenses like speeding.

Co-Sponsored Legislation.

In addition to sponsoring the legislation discussed above, I co-sponsored several other measures, including:

House Bill 1241, exempting from taxation the sales of tangible personal property and services to a nonprofit volunteer health clinic that primarily treats indigent persons with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

House Bill 1297, which adds the offenses of sodomy, statutory rape, child molestation, bestiality, incest, and sexual battery to the list of crimes requiring the preservation of biological evidence after conviction for future use in solving crimes.

House Resolution 1303, urging the creation of a Grady Oversight Committee, made up of House and Senate members, to periodically inquire into and to review the operations, contracts, safety, financing, organization, and structure of the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority and its operation of the Grady Health System and Henry W. Grady Memorial Hospital.

House Bill 1299, which requires hospitals that are governed by a hospital authority created by two or more counties (like Grady) to contract with non- profit corporations for their operation and management.

House Bill 1231 (the Public Hospital Integrity Act), prohibiting individuals from serving on a hospital authority board while at the time serving on the hospital's management staff. Having an efficiently operated and adequately funded major trauma center that serves all Georgians is vital to all of us, and ensuring Grady's continued viability must remain a top priority for the General Assembly during this session.

Committee Action.

In the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee, we voted to send House Bill 250 to the full House for a vote. This legislation adds crimes involving the manufacture, distribution, trafficking, sale or possession of a controlled substance or marijuana to the list of crimes the Professional Standards Commission may investigate for purposes of revoking teaching certificates. Currently, the Commission may, after receiving a complaint from a local school board, the state school board or an individual resident of Georgia, investigate a teacher who has been convicted of a crime involving "moral turpitude."

The Committee also approved House Bill 455, establishing the Georgia Prescription Monitoring Program. The program would require pharmacists dispensing controlled drugs to submit weekly reports containing specific information regarding when a prescription is filled, the quantity dispensed and the number of prescriptions filled to each individual patient. All information would then be submitted to the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency to monitor for substance abusers who "shop" prescriptions until they can find a pharmacy willing to fill it.

Transportation. The House Transportation Committee passed House Bill 1015, which creates the Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank, an entity providing loans to rural communities for transportation projects. The Committee also adopted House Bill 1139 and House Resolution 1226, which together call for a constitutional amendment enacting a statewide penny sales tax to fund transportation projects.

If you are interested in more detail about what happened at the General Assembly this session, then please feel free to call or write me or visit the General Assembly website: www.legis.ga.gov. The website provides direct access to the text of legislation and vote tallies as well as schedules and live coverage of committee meetings.

(Another resource is offered when the General Assembly is in session by Georgia Public Broadcasting through a television program called "Lawmakers," which airs daily at 7 PM and rebroadcasts at 5:30 AM the following morning. The program covers each day's events at the Capitol.)

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