ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has spent weeks covering every move inside and outside the Gold Dome: surprise bills, school safety, election laws and everything in between.
It all wrapped up Thursday night.
Channel 2’s Richard Elliot was live at the Capitol for WSB Tonight at 11 p.m. with how the House and Senate reached a last-minute budget agreement.
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It was also the last sine die for Gov. Brian Kemp, who walked into the House chamber for his eighth and final sine die address to lawmakers.
“I hope we can all look back on this time as an era when Georgia leaders put the people first when they made their lies a little easier and opportunities more plentiful when state leaders worked as a team and did the right thing, even when no one was watching,” Kemp said.
Less than 30 minutes earlier, House and Senate lawmakers shook hands over Georgia’s $38.5 billion budget, a deal that took weeks to hammer out.
Both the Georgia House and Georgia Senate left some unanswered questions about the upcoming election.
House Speaker Jon Burns acknowledged that the General Assembly did not address funding a mandated removal of QR codes from election ballots.
There is the possibility that lawmakers may have to come back into the special session to fund the law before July 1, something only the governor can call on.
“It’s been a long day, a long morning, a long afternoon, a long night. So we’ll sit down with governor and take his temperature on where we need to be,” Burns said. “But certainly election reform is something we were committed to.”
The House was also disappointed it could only pass a Senate-watered down property tax reform bill losing a proposed 3% cap on property taxes but keeping a cap on assessments.
But some Democrats believe the way that bill passed is unconstitutional and will be challenged.
“We’re here to follow the Constitution. We take an oath to it. And we should not put it on citizens to think that they have property tax relief when they really don’t,” Rep. Dave Wilkerson said.
As for schools, all Georgia public schools will be required to adopt bans on cellphone use in class. But the districts will not be required to install weapon detection systems.
A bill that would take Georgia off daylight saving time also did not pass.
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