by Jill Nolin and Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder
March 31, 2025

A bill originally designed to encourage safe gun storage now includes a controversial tax break on firearm purchases, and a proposed database that was seen as the central element of a school safety bill has been dropped in response to privacy concerns.

The compromises were forged as lawmakers head into the final week of the 2025 legislative session – the first since a 14-year-old accused gunman killed two other students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in September.

Lawmakers have until this Friday to send bills to the governor, who then has 40 days to decide whether to sign them into law.

Safe storage incentive spliced with sales tax holiday for guns, accessories

A House bill that would have created a $300 income tax break for firearm safes and other safe storage devices now only applies to gun safety training.

And the bill – which had passed overwhelmingly in the House and with bipartisan support – has been spliced together with a Senate bill creating a sales tax holiday in October for the purchase of firearms, ammunition and other accessories, like scopes and magazines – as well as gun safes.

The Senate Finance Committee advanced the measure Friday.

A similar version of the Senate bill, sponsored by Dallas Republican Sen. Jason Anavitarte, passed in the Senate this session with a party-line vote. The proposal originally called for an 11-day tax holiday, but it has been shrunk to a four-day window under the compromise.

The House proposal stalled largely over concerns among Second Amendment advocates that the tax incentive would create a registry or a record of who benefited from it. 

Rep. Mark Newton, an Augusta Republican who is the bill’s sponsor, said Friday that the proposal is a way to promote gun safety training in a “Second Amendment-friendly way” while also saving taxpayers money.

Democrats immediately objected.

“We took a responsible gun ownership bill and turned it into a gun proliferation bill,” Sen. Jason Esteves, an Atlanta Democrat, said after the committee vote Friday.

Republicans dismissed those concerns.

“Isn’t true if you’re going to buy a safe that you need to buy a gun to put in it,” said Sen. Steve Gooch, a Dahlonega Republican who serves as Senate majority leader.

Not all Democrats opposed the bill, though. Sen. Michael “Doc” Rhett, a Marietta Democrat, voted for it because he said sees it as “a start.”

“Anything that will promote gun safety is a good start,” Rhett said.

House Speaker Jon Burns, a Newington Republican, told reporters Friday that he still thought “the larger picture is being accomplished, and that’s to ensure that we have gun storage, gun safety devices that are available to Georgians.”

“I just want to see us get something done,” Burns said.

Gun safety advocates who spoke at an already-planned press conference at the state Capitol Friday blasted the compromise. Rep. Michelle Au, a Johns Creek Democrat who has pushed for gun storage requirements, said HB 79 has been “essentially completely neutered.”

“I’m not exactly sure what this bill aims to do at this point,” Au said Friday. “I don’t know if they think that the activists who are here and the students and the families that are listening are stupid enough to think that this is action on gun safety.”

Heather Hallett, the founder and director of Georgia Majority for Gun Safety, said the House measure went from a promotion of safe storage to “a tax bill related to guns and related gun products.”

“We have a problem with safe storage (in Georgia) and the fact that our Legislature, after the worst school shooting in Georgia’s history, cannot unequivocally take up some legislation to say Georgians should adopt safe storage practices – that’s a real statement of where our Legislature stands on gun safety,” Hallett said. 

House Republicans have also revived a controversial Senate proposal that targets a Savannah ordinance penalizing gun owners who leave their firearms in unlocked vehicles. If passed, someone facing a fine would be able to sue the city for as much as $25,000 in damages. That measure was added to Senate Bill 204 last week.

Database cut from high-priority school safety bill

Burns’ signature school safety bill passed unanimously through a Senate committee Thursday, but with some key elements stripped out.

One of the most controversial aspects of House Bill 268 was the creation of a statewide database of information on students who might pose a threat to school safety. That provision was removed after an outcry from parents and child advocates who worried that youthful mistakes or behaviors caused by disabilities could follow a student and harm their future opportunities.

“An amazing number of parents, particularly of teenage boys, who, by definition, they are immature and compulsive and do dumb things were fearful that their child might end up having a stigma attached to them of having a record that would go with them permanently about some stupid comment, threat, or behavior they had done as a teenager when, in fact, they were really not criminal, never engaged in criminal behavior, just immature behavior,” said Athens Republican Sen. Bill Cowsert, who is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.

The bill, which is 57 pages long, still touches myriad aspects of school safety. It would require public schools to implement a panic button system and share data with local law enforcement including school maps.

It would also require schools to more quickly share data when a student transfers, a response to the Apalachee shooting in which the accused gunman had allegedly been interviewed by the FBI in connection with shooting threats at a different school in another district more than a year before the attack.

“You can see this is an extraordinarily comprehensive approach to addressing the known problems we have with school violence,” Cowsert said Thursday to his Senate colleagues. “And hopefully, with God’s help, we won’t have another Apalachee in this state.” 

The bill will have to go back to both the House and Senate by April 4 if it is to become law this year.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Burns was comfortable with the bill’s chances and about the database being removed from the bill.

“This is a great process we have up here,” he said. “I think we all come together, we deal with the facts, sometimes we have a little different viewpoints, and final passage of anything is never the final statement on it. So, we look forward to working with the Senate next week, and I believe they’ll get school safety across the finish line, and I know that it will offer protections for our students in Georgia for a safe learning place.”

Though the measure passed the Senate committee unanimously, some still hope to see the bill changed before it heads to the chambers.

Some child advocates say parts of the bill calling for trial as an adult for teenagers charged with making terroristic threats against a school could sweep children, especially children of color, into the justice system for youthful behavior.

Au said she is grateful that Burns is prioritizing safety in schools, but she’s disappointed the bill makes no mention of firearms despite concerns about the danger of shootings. 

“When we talked about the cell phone bans in schools, which was presented as a bill to increase student performance and concentration and reduce distractions in schools, most of the objections I heard about that bill reverted back to the argument about school safety and how are kids going to call us if there’s a school shooting?” she said.

Au was referring to House Bill 340, a ban on personal devices for students through middle school, which passed both chambers and is awaiting Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature. Several lawmakers indicated that they agree with the principle of removing cell phones in schools to increase student focus but said the idea of a child not being able to call 911 or text loved ones in case of an emergency gave them pause.

“Everyone’s thinking about it,” Au said. “I it’s a really conspicuous omission therefore to have any legislative push, an omnibus bill that has many different aspects to it addressing school safety, but to leave out the most obvious piece of it that any parent or any student will tell you is top of mind.” 

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.

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SUMMARY: Residents of Villa Rica, Georgia, are fighting a proposed road project that could force them from their homes. The Mirror Lake Connector project aims to extend the road through properties, connecting Douglas County to downtown, but many homeowners have lived there for decades and do not want to move. Despite ongoing protests and concerns about transparency, the city continues to push the project forward, citing regional growth. Some residents feel the city has not communicated effectively, and they plan to keep advocating against the displacement, with one individual expressing frustration over their veteran father’s uncertain future.

A group of residents in Villa Rica could be forced to move as a proposed road project that would go right through their properties is allowed to proceed. It’s a fight that has been going on for years.

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by Ross Williams and Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder
March 29, 2025

This story was updated at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 29, 2025. 

Back by popular demand, it’s nuggets, tasty little tidbits of news from the Gold Dome. 

Lawmakers are getting ready for the last day of the 2025 legislative session on Friday, but they still drop some nuggets everywhere they go.

This week: Democratic discontent comes to the dome, a ride-or-die always Trumper gets rewarded with a new gig and some funny money, and state leaders try to decide whether to add more real money into their yearly salaries. 

Pay bump flop

House lawmakers quickly swatted down a last-minute Senate plan to give the governor and other statewide officials pay raises. 

The Senate had added the salary bumps Thursday to a bill adjusting the pay of judges at higher levels in Georgia. Under the plan, Gov. Brian Kemp would have been tied with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for the highest earning governor in the country. 

“You may have seen a little something about the amendment in the news over the last 24 hours,” the bill’s original sponsor, Elberton Republican Rep. Rob Leverett, said to his colleagues Friday. 

“I think that is a discussion we as a body need to have at some point, but we shouldn’t have it as an amendment to a bill in the last two or three days of session,” Leverett said. “I believe it needs to be thought through a little more and it needs a little more study.”

Some senators also tried to increase lawmaker pay in another judicial pay bill focused on superior court judges.

Critics argued that the legislative pay amendment would sabotage a bill intended to create uniform statewide pay for Georgia Superior Court judges. The proposed pay raise amendment to House Bill 85 would have increased the salaries of lawmakers from $24,341 to about $55,000.

Sen. Randal Mangham, a Stone Mountain Democrat, argued it would put Georgia lawmakers in line with the national average of $44,320 in 2024, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

He referenced the limited funding he receives for his staff. 

“$7,000 for an entire year with my budget for expenses to run the people’s business. It’s a $40 billion enterprise,” Mangham said, referring to the state budget.

Sen. John Kennedy, a Macon Republican, urged senators prior to voting to consider how passing the amendment would come across to the taxpayers.

“Colleagues, are you willing to look at your constituents in the eye and tell them you need more of their tax dollars in your pocket and out of their pocket?” Kennedy said.

The debate ended with the legislative pay amendments failing 33 to 18 before the superior court legislation passed with nearly unanimous support.

Dems in disarray

In the wake of a bitter loss to President Donald Trump, Democrats across the country are trying to figure out where it all went wrong. 

A recent Politico analysis of a Quinnipiac poll found that for the first time in the poll’s history, a majority of Democrats view members of their party in Congress unfavorably. Just 40 percent of Democrats polled said the party is doing a good job, compared to 49 percent who said the opposite. 

A March NBC News poll found 65% of self-identified Democrats want the party to fight Trump rather than seek compromise, even if that leads to gridlock in Washington. Around this time in Trump’s first term, only 33% of Democrats felt that way, the pollster found.

That discontent could be springing forth at the state level as well. 

The Forsyth County Democrats released a statement castigating Democrats in Congress and the state Legislature for “voting like Republicans.”

“With democracy itself at stake – and with the public’s frustration with figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk high – we cannot afford to hand political or legislative victories to Republicans or to validate their agenda while our constituents and values hang in the balance,” the statement reads. “Likewise, here in Georgia, amid widespread discontent with Governor Brian Kemp’s hard-right legislative push, it is imperative that Democrats stand together rather than bolster Kemp’s initiatives that harm the public interest.”

The statement lists three pieces of legislation where some Democrats broke rank – Senate Bill 68, Kemp’s priority lawsuit overhaul bill, supported by three Democrats; Senate Bill 144, liability protections for fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers with the support of nine Democrats and House Bill 267, which bans transgender girls from playing on girls’ school sports teams and got votes from three Dems. 

The local parties in Fulton and Gwinnett counties have also issued statements co-signing the message from Forsyth County.

Trump U.S. Treasurer Legislature’s newly popular kid

Republican Sen. Brandon Beach’s selection as President Donald Trump’s choice to become the next U.S. Treasurer has boosted his popularity.

Beach signed fake currency featuring the face of Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch reading “In Goochie We Trust” that was passed around the Capitol last week. The 63-year-old Beach’s signature as U.S. treasurer could soon be emblazoned on the front of real legal tender in the future.   

The senator’s role in state government will end shortly after the Legislature gavels out on April 4 for the final day of the 2025 session.

Beach will act as a liaison between the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, as well as oversee the U.S. Mint and Fort Knox. The president is boosting a conspiracy theory these days that some of the gold is missing from Fort Knox and says he plans to go to Kentucky to see for himself if the country’s treasure is still secured. 

Inside the Senate chamber Wednesday, fellow Trump loyalist GOP Lt. Gov. Burt Jones celebrated Beach’s new job opportunity. 

Jones recalled that not long ago they were part of a small cadre of hardline Trump supporters in the Senate who were persona non grata, even among fellow Republicans.

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.

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