SINE DIE! Election-year Gold Dome session reaches the checkered flag
A look at what to watch on the last day of session
Georgia state lawmakers are getting ready to head home for the year.
Thursday is the final day of the annual 40-day legislative session, known under the Gold Dome as Sine Die.
Both chambers are expected to work late into Thursday night and likely into Friday morning — before ceremoniously ripping up all of the papers on their desks into confetti to mark the conclusion of a session taking place against an election year backdrop.
But what might seem like a day of celebration can often be rather chaotic, and this year will be no exception. In fact, the looming deadline brings a mad dash to hammer out last-minute negotiations and votes on a long list of bills.
Here are some issues to keep an eye on.
Budget
The only thing lawmakers are required to do every year is debate and decide how the state spends its money — a debate that is still ongoing even as they race to the finish line.
The state is hoping to spend roughly $36 billion in the next fiscal year under the new budget. But plans for a significant portion of that money have yet to be made.
While they have agreed on pay raises for teachers and state employees, there are still parts of the budget where leaders aren’t seeing eye to eye. The House, for example, would like to give judges a raise. And the Senate is looking to invest more money in sexual assault and domestic violence response.
“There are a lot of people in the state that are affected by this budget,” a key Republican negotiator told Atlanta News First. “You’re going to see my frustration in this final budget report,”
Immigration
The arrest of a Venezuelan migrant in the Athens murder of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley sparked a tense debate at the state capitol over illegal immigration.
Though “sanctuary cities” have already been outlawed in Georgia, the House and Senate voted along party lines to pass a bill targeting cities that don’t fully cooperate with national immigration laws.
But there is still an ongoing debate over House Bill 1105, which seeks to penalize local officials who refuse to work with the federal government.
HB 1105 is awaiting another vote in the House after a revised version passed the Senate.
Sports betting
After years of trying and failing to legalize sports betting, lawmakers are hoping to reach a compromise: letting voters decide. But this year’s effort still has several major hurdles to clear.
A pair of Senate bills seeking to amend the state constitution and put the issue on the ballot remain stalled in the House Higher Education Committee, where they could come up for a vote Thursday morning.
Constitutional amendments in Georgia must be passed by two-thirds of both chambers and signed by the governor before voters can weigh in.
Supporters of sports betting have long argued that Georgia is losing revenue to nearby states, but conservative lawmakers have long opposed a gambling expansion for religious reasons.
Culture wars
A bipartisan House bill that had been crafted to address mental health concerns facing teenage athletes is now a vehicle for several conservative priorities.
House Bill 1104 is several one of these so-called “culture war” bills that remain up in the air. Republican Senate leaders are now using the bill to push for limits on sex education, target transgender athletes and require students to use bathrooms that match their assigned gender identity — priorities that have otherwise gone nowhere this year.
“While this bill has several parts, I think they each have a common thread: empowering parents to ensure that children are learning and competing in safe and supportive atmospheres,” said state Sen. Clint Dixon, a Gwinnett Republican who helped rewrite the bill.
The revised HB 1104 passed the Senate on a party-line vote but faces an uncertain future in the House — the chamber where it originated.
Film credit
Rising costs had led to questions about the future of Georgia’s lucrative film tax credit.
But new language in House Bill 1180 could prevent large movie studios like Marvel from being met with caps on incentives, effectively rendering any debate over limitations meaningless.
Last week, a different version of H.B. 1180 cleared the state Senate Finance Committee. This version lowered the cap from 2.5 percent to 2.3 percent, but it also included a notable exception. The Senate bill exempts any productions shooting at a studio sound stage facility "that was substantially completed between January 1, 2023, and June 30, 2027" and cost "in excess of $100 million" to build, or "that has more than 1.5 million square feet of stage space."
The Senate could take up the bill Thursday.