ATLANTA — In the closing hours of its 2022 session, Georgia’s General Assembly went from celebrating a paramount bipartisan mental health overhaul to a bitter debate on Republican efforts to ban transgender girls from playing sports — one of many reversals in a year , in which the GOP is direct, focuses on the upcoming primary elections.
Driving the momentum was a need for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to bolster his conservative credentials in the face of a challenge from former US Senator David Perdue, as well as bids from other lawmakers for statewide office.
Kemp went through a long list of accomplishments when addressing lawmakers late Monday, calling the session “historic” and noting achievements including $5,000 pay rises for university and state employees and $2,000 for teachers who he proposed and which were approved by the legislature.
Even Democrats acknowledged that Republicans pushed through their agenda, including legislation allowing residents to carry handguns without a license, making it easier for parents to contest school supplies, banning the teaching of “divisive concepts” about race, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation the beginning of the elections allow fraud investigations on their own.
“I think they have a lot to do,” said Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, a Stone Mountain Democrat. “That’s something you can give people and say, ‘We did that for you.'”
But Democrats and even some Republicans have warned of a right-wing Republican fringe who believes former President Donald Trump’s false claims about a stolen 2020 election and unsubstantiated warnings that the unopposed mental health bill could lead to a World Health Organization Takeover of the Georgian health system.
In a March 11 speech against Permitted Carry, Democratic Rep. Josh McLaurin of Sandy Springs said he was warned when he first came to the Capitol “that some people might just want to burn the building down.” But it now seems “that the whole majority of the whole House finally wants to burn it down together,” he said.
“The majority party has calculated that the short-term boost they’re getting from the grassroots outweighs the long-term damage to the brand and public order implications,” McLaurin warned. “That’s what you own tonight.”
Rep. Randy Nix, a LaGrange Republican retiring after 16 years in the House of Representatives, warned in a March 25 farewell speech about what he called “CAVE people” or “citizens against practically anything.” He said lawmakers should rebuff loud voters spouting nonsense about COVID-19, voting rights and mental health.
“Having no positive agenda of their own, they like to spread outlandish conspiracy theories and outright lies to try and destroy the good and noble work you are doing here and I want to thank you for staying strong,” he said Nothing .
Despite such admonitions, what McLaurin called the “drift right” dynamic was often at play.
Given Trump’s efforts to oust him, Kemp certainly did the right thing. He welcomed bills that he balked at last year, including one that would bar parents from school mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic and another to ban transgender girls from high school sports. Though Kemp supported the illegal carrying of guns during his 2018 run, the issue seemed hushed up until he revived it earlier in this year’s session.
Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller of Gainesville, who is being challenged by Trump-backed Senator Burt Jones of Jackson in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor, has worked hard to prove his conservative credentials and even pushed through bills that appear doomed to fail was. The Senate, for example, easily rejected Miller’s broad-based school voucher proposal after House Speaker David Ralston declared the issue dead for the session. Observers noted that the vote allowed Miller to erase the memory of his own vote against a previous coupon bill.
The grassroots appeal also served many Republican officeholders after the GOP-led redistribution of Democratic competitiveness weakened in many Republican areas.
Some efforts could backfire. Outgoing Senate Rules Chairman Jeff Mullis, a Chickamauga Republican, lobbied for a bill that would have barred the Georgian government from buying Chinese state-owned companies. The bill fell through late in session after a House of Representatives amendment expanding the bans raised questions about whether Georgian agencies would be banned from buying from all Chinese companies. The Chinese household appliance manufacturer Haier is one of the largest employers in the Mullis district, with a stove factory employing 2,600 people in LaFayette.
Ralston, often the force of moderation, hit back at some initiatives. The House of Representatives has thrown out an abortion bill that would have required women to undergo a physical exam and an ultrasound before being given abortion pills. Ralston claimed the house was running out of time after his chamber spent a long time doing nothing on Monday.
Democrats have expressed concern over Republicans’ continued push for legislation aimed at pleasing far-right voters.
“You can’t walk the political highway with white knuckles much longer,” Brookhaven Rep. Matthew Wilson said last month. The nominee for insurance commissioner urged Republicans to stop serving the most extreme sections of their party, saying victory “doesn’t require you to squeeze every last drop of power out of the mental asylum.”
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Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.