Most of us suffered something of a crossover day hangover last week. The breakneck pace of the days just before that crucial day was absent. The daily calendars were almost empty as our attention shifted back to committee work so we can prepare for the final sprint to sine die on April 4.

Work got done but a lot of it was behind the scenes.

This is a time, though, when damage can be done too.

Members who have thus far been unsuccessful at getting their legislation out of a single chamber are looking for “vehicles:” bills that are on the move that they can substantially modify as a workaround to getting their ideas through the entire legislative process. 

The breakneck pace of the final weeks creates an environment where bad ideas don’t always get the scrutiny they deserve. Controversial issues are rushed though and may advance unnoticed. Sometimes we don’t realize the damage that’s been done until after bills are passed and signed into law.

Often by design. 

So we remain focused and vigilant in this final stretch. 

A reminder about the town hall I’m hosting tomorrow night along with Rep. Omari Crawford and Senator Elena Parent. We’ll do a post crossover day analysis and preview the final weeks of the legislative session. 

In this Edition of the Draper Paper

• Election bills update: what’s up the GOP’s sleeves?

• If You Give A Mouse a Cookie

• Around the Bend: Tort Reform and DOGE

• Highlights from this week at the Capitol

One of the bills I proposed this session offered a process for the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate to remove a member of the State Elections Board when the Legislature is not in session.

It’s something we need, especially considering that we are out of session far longer than we are in session.

Alas, my legislation, House Bill 501, did not survive crossover day.

But -- and this is an important but -- the entire language of HB 501 was inserted into Republican-sponsored House Bill 397. HB 397 primarily related to giving municipalities the option to opt-out of offering two Saturdays during the early voting period. It is sponsored by Republican Rep. Tim Flemming, who is rumored to be running for Secretary of State in 2026.

House Dems knew HB 397 was likely to come to the House floor before crossover day. Even though it contained my good language about the SEB, we were prepared to oppose it and speak out against it because the anti-Saturday voting provisions curtail voting access. 

However, some funny business happened in the last few hours of crossover day.

Republicans stripped HB 397 of the opt-out of Saturday voting language. The only thing that remained in HB 397 was my language about removing State Election Board members. 

When HB 397 came to the floor, it was something Democrats no longer opposed. So we did not speak out against it– which Republicans appreciated because opposition would have eaten into valuable limited time available on cross over day.

So here is the question. Will the opt-out of Saturday voting language be re-inserted into HB 397 when it goes through the committee process in the Senate?

If so, that’s a classic bait and switch. A way to evade public scrutiny and discussion of a controversial idea on the House floor. 

Similarly, will HB 397 be loaded with other election legislation that the House has not seen or considered? That would similarly be anti-democratic and lack transparency.

If the Senate changes the bill, it will come back to the House for what is called an agree/disagree. We can agree with the Senate’s changes and vote on the bill as passed by the Senate, or we can disagree with the Senate’s changes and the bill may go to a conference committee made up of House and Senate members– typically all Republicans. The conference committee will amend the bill so that the House and Senate are amenable, and then each chamber will vote on the conference committee version. But notably, there may not be additional opportunities for House members to speak on the substance of the bill from the well.

Is that what they want? To move controversial items without Democrats’ public outcry? I hope not.

I discussed this issue with Mark Neisse who wrote about it in the AJC.

Here are some of the proposals GOP leaders could still attach to HB 397 if they were so inclined:  

• Prohibit voters from turning in the absentee ballots in person the weekend before Election Day. 

• Block the State Elections Board for making any rule changes  60 days before voting starts. 

• Ban the secretary of state from participating in the Electronic Registration Information Center, ERIC, which has been invaluable to keeping our voter rolls up to date. 

• Give partisan poll watchers more access to ballot tabulation areas.

• Let parents with small children go to the front of the line to vote, a courtesy we already afford the elderly and disabled voters.

• Create a permanent absentee ballot list.

• Prohibit ranked-choice voting.

Nothing is dead until the gavel falls.

Last week, the House Governmental Affairs Committee gave a lot of time to election conspiracy theorists who have helped file thousands of voter challenges around the state so they could again spew their lies that Georgia’s voter rolls are a mess.

Their presentation was a regurgitation of presentations that have been offered to local boards of elections and to state election officials in their efforts to convince them that drastic steps are needed.

They claim the rolls are littered with the names of people who have moved from the addresses on their registrations and are no longer eligible to vote, but ignore that the evidence they point to is often insufficient under our laws to trigger removal of voters from rolls. 

It is equally wrong to remove someone from the rolls who shouldn't be removed as it is to keep someone on the rolls who should be removed. There are two values here that must be balanced. But it seems like the folks with the loud voices are only concerned with the latter.

And for some reason we are giving them a platform.

“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is one of my kids’ favorite bedtime stories. What happens when you give the mouse a cookie? He's going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he'll probably ask you for a straw. When he's finished, he'll ask for a napkin. Small actions can lead to a series of escalating demands or events.

If Republicans thought giving conspiracy theorists an audience would satiate them, they are going to be disappointed. 

At the end of the presentation, I was allowed to offer a brief rebuttal. About seven minutes. That’s seven minutes against their 1 ½ hours. And no one else was permitted to give public comments in response to the presentations even though many members of the public were present and prepared to do so. 

I was dismayed by the one-sidedness of the hearing, especially when the General Assembly has a history of passing election legislation to assuage election denier concerns.

We must always push back on narratives based on misinformation and fear mongering. See my remarks here.

I want to quickly touch on two issues that we will likely vote on over the next few weeks.

First is the issue of Tort Reform, which I have written about in previous editions of the Draper Paper. I’ve received many thoughtful emails from voters on this issue, both for and against, and I really appreciate the various perspectives. 

Here’s where I am as of this moment. I think insurance premiums are too high and that increasing premiums are a real problem. I am open to legislation that lowers or at least maintains current levels of insurance premiums. The current iteration of SB 68 does not guarantee that premiums will go down or even be maintained at present levels. The current iteration of SB 68 purports to address increasing premiums by controlling the litigation environment and curtailing access to the courts. Limiting access to civil justice may be an appropriate tradeoff if doing so would mean lower insurance premiums, but without that guarantee– or even proof that it has worked in other states that have implemented similar legislation– the tradeoff is not worth it.  

I’m disappointed in how this bill has played out. Rather than collaboratively working with stakeholders, the Governor is ramming this legislation down our throats.  He has been, at least as of this writing, seemingly closed off to modifying the bill to address what I consider to be legitimate and reasonable concerns. His “my way or the highway” approach makes it difficult to accept the bill in its current form. The legislature is a co-equal branch of government and he should not be able to ignore our points of view and get legislation passed.

The strong-arming and games get worse. This bill should have been assigned to the Judiciary Committee in the House.  But because there wasn’t enough clear support for the bill in that committee (by Republicans and Democrats), Republican leadership created a new committee to hear SB 68 and hand picked the members they wanted to serve on that committee. They are changing the rules of the game so they can get their desired outcome rather than working with stakeholders to create a product various stakeholders can be comfortable with. 

Finally, the Governor is running attack ads on my republican colleagues who are against the bill or only open to voting for it if it’s modified. The mail and digital attack ads are part of a pressure campaign to extract votes from his own party for a piece of legislation they don’t agree with.  That’s not not democracy, that’s extortion.

So for all these reasons and more, my plan is to vote no on the current iteration of SB 68. If Kemp’s strong arm tactics don’t work, we may see an amended version of the bill that I’d be open to considering.

Finally, the Lieutenant Governor’s “Georgia DOGE bill” is making its way to my committee this upcoming week. Officially called the “Red Tape Rollback Act of 2025”, SB 28 is a bill we’ve considered and rejected over the last several years, but this year it's been re-marketed as DOGE and has received substantial interest.  

Despite the “government efficiency” moniker, the bill undermines state agencies’ ability to do their jobs by curtailing the agency rule making process. I’ll have more to report after the committee hearing this week. 

Just a few more weeks to visit during session. Come on down, I’d love to see you!

Yours in service,