The state House of Representatives passed 75 bills Thursday in the daylong flurry of activity known as Crossover Day, the annual deadline for legislation to clear either the House or Senate to remain alive for the year.
Sports betting struck out again this year in the General Assembly. This year’s push came in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment placing the issue on the statewide ballot next year and a separate “enabling” bill containing details on how the industry would operate in Georgia. Watkinsville Representative Marcus Widower who was the chief sponsor of one of the bills said he was disappointed and that a lot of work went into what he called a good measure.
Also left by the wayside when lawmakers gaveled out Crossover Day shortly before 11 p.m. was a Senate bid to deny state funding to Georgia K-12 public schools, colleges and universities that promote DEI, legislation in the House overhauling the process the state uses to compensate the wrongfully convicted, and a Senate bill exposing banking institutions to lawsuits if they deny services to customers because of the way they exercised their rights under the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Legislation to ban mining adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and require Georgia Power to pass along the costs of power-hungry data centers to operators of those facilities rather than residential and small business customers never made it out of House committees to reach the floor of the chamber.
Marijuana has been a major topic in the Georgia Senate this legislative session, with three bills passing the chamber just ahead of the deadline Thursday to keep them in play this year. Two of the measures, Senate Bill 33 and Senate Bill 254, seek to restrict what’s legally available at convenience stores and smoke shops. The third, Senate Bill 220, would expand and modify access to medical marijuana. That measure would increase the allowed legal concentration in dispensed medical cannabis tenfold, to 50%, while reducing the amount of medical cannabis one can legally possess by the same factor, to two ounces.
