The Georgia Legislature this session, like every year, created a number of special study committees to gather information on various issues leading to possible legislation.
None of this year’s crop of special committees looks to have as major an impact as two panels from the 2014 session. A special joint transportation committee last summer held hearings across the state, resulting in a widely publicized report and the eventual transportation spending bill that Gov. Nathan Deal soon will sign. Another high-profile bill, allowing the medical use of cannabis oil, included information gathered by a special committee.
The special study committees formed during the recently completed session probably won’t cause such significant legislation next year. Some of the issues that the panels will tackle appear to have narrow interest, but undoubtedly have significance to those affected. As happens every year, some of the committees have joint House-Senate membership, while others are limited to members of one chamber or the other.
House Resolution 71 by Rep. Craig Gordon, D-Savannah, will set up a committee to look at giving higher HOPE Scholarship amounts to private school students who major in fields experiencing shortages of workers. So, film majors at a private school could receive a bigger scholarship than English majors. The panel will also look at bringing private school students to the same funding level as those in public universities.
Think the Auburn-Georgia game and Chattahoochee River disputes are harming relationships between Alabama and Georgia? House Resolution 395 by Rep. Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert, passed by both chambers late in the session, creates the Joint Georgia-Alabama Study Committee “to promote cooperative working relationships between the state of Georgia and the state of Alabama, our neighbor to the west.” The committee will be composed of legislators along the states’ borders, who will collect per diems and other expenses for discussing issues shared by the states. Unlike other special committees, which end in December 2015, the Georgia-Alabama committee lasts until the end of 2016.
Relations with Cuba will be the focus of Senate Resolution 494, by David Lucas, D-Macon, which will study the effect on Georgia of President Obama’s agreement with Cuban leader Raul Castro to normalize relations with the communist country. The resolution notes that Georgia already has agricultural trade relations with the island nation, and that they are likely to increase.
Georgians could eventually bike or hike almost to Cuba under a resolution to create the Coastal Greenway Study Committee. The panel will study a scenic trail for bicycling, walking, hiking and jogging from Savannah to St. Mary’s, which would run through current historic sites and scenic areas. The trail would be part of the proposed East Coast Greenway from Calais, Maine, to Key West, Fla.
Coastal issues would also be examined by House Resolution 501, to form a House Study Committee on saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers. The committee will perform a comprehensive review of the problem in distressed counties included in yellow or red zones under the Costal Regional Water Plan.
The study committees’ work reaches into many areas of Georgia life. House Resolution 474 by Rep. Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, puts into place a panel to study grandparents raising grandchildren and providing kinship care. HR 612 by Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, forms a committee on fibroids education and awareness, to look into uterine fibroids, a serious women’s health problem.
Senate Resolution 560 by Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, will launch a panel studying adequate health care for women.
Another committee set up by an Unterman resolution will look at preventing youth from developing substance abuse disorders.
The high rate of children receiving diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorders will be investigated by a committee set up by legislation sponsored by Sen. Joshua McKoon, R-Columbus.
In the House, HR 640 creates a panel to look at developing school health centers. HR 641’s committee will study issues of children’s mental health.
A few proposed committees didn’t make it. Senate Resolution 570 would have set up a committee to study pool industry standards and licensing procedures. Also not making the grade this session were committees on genetically engineered foods and cyber security.
A committee to seek alternatives to Georgia’s runoff election system also lost out. Georgia is the only state that requires a general election runoff if the winner doesn’t receive a majority of votes, which some observers believe causes confusion among the electorate.
