The GOP-controlled Georgia House is enforcing legislation to create oversight of county prosecutors

The Georgia GOP-controlled House late on Tuesday, Crossover Day, passed a controversial 98-75 law that would create oversight panels that could recall district attorneys believed to be neglecting select prosecutions.

Dallas Republican Congressman Joseph Gullett House bill 231 would require the Georgia Supreme Court to appoint five-member investigative panels and three-member hearing panels to decide disciplinary sanctions for prosecutors who refuse to prosecute minor crimes.

Reasons for removing district attorneys and attorneys general include willful and prejudicial misconduct or identified mental or physical disabilities that affect their ability to prosecute cases.

The Senate brought a similar bill last weekwith the Republican legislature supporting the measures opposed by the prosecution and district attorney associations.

Democratic lawmakers have questioned the need for an oversight committee that can target prosecutors’ discretion to determine the merits of cases, noting that prosecutors can already face disciplinary action for violating their duties.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting an investigation into former President Donald Trump, has complained that the legislation was an overreaction.

“Prosecutor’s discretion is critical to allow our locally elected prosecutors to consider the specific facts of each case when deciding whether and how to prosecute, and that is threatened by this law,” MP Dar said ‘shun Kendrick, a Democrat from Lithonia.

Gullett defended the measure by saying that the state Supreme Court would review all disciplinary actions related to filed complaints and subsequent decisions by the panel.

“I don’t think that’s a partisan question about who is acting in bad faith as a prosecutor,” he said hours before Monday’s deadline for presenting legislation to the opposite chamber. “This is critical for communities that have district attorneys who are bad actors and don’t prosecute cases or do illegal things and end up reflecting really, really badly on their offices.”