How Georgia’s General Assembly writes law on guns, health care, crime and more

The Georgia House and Senate meet in the state Capitol in Atlanta for 40 working days at the beginning of each year. They, with the governor, set a budget and can make, amend or repeal law. They’re a little like the U.S. Congress, but for Georgia only.

Inside, the 56-member state Senate meets in this room.  The 180-member House of Representatives meets a similar room across the hall. In every even-numbered year, all 236 legislative seats are up for election.

The budget will be about $36 billion for the year that starts July 1. Most of that will be spent on education and health care.  

The state House, pictured here, as well as the state Senate and the governor, each publish budget proposals. The three must agree on a budget every year, and it must be balanced because Georgia cannot borrow money to operate like the federal government does. 

So far, this description is likely familiar from civics class.  But your class might have left out important influences like appointment power, party discipline and lobbying.

These three men are the most powerful people in state politics and are all currently Republicans. All three need to be favorable toward a bill — or at least neutral on it — for it to become law. The governor and lieutenant governor are elected by statewide votes.

Gov. Brian Kemp, in the center, can veto legislation and lines in the budget. His appointees and hires run state agencies. The bosses of most agencies answer only to the governor and their budgets reflect his priorities.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, on the right, presides over the state Senate and has power over which bills make it to the Senate floor for a vote, either through his own decisions or those of allies he can appoint to committees. Jones was also a Republican fake elector who sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. 

House Speaker Jon G. Burns (left), has similar powers in his own chamber; and bills on taxes and spending must start in his chamber. He is chosen for the position through a vote of the House, but he is elected from his district.

The idea of each party checking the other doesn’t work in the Georgia Capitol. There’s a Republican governor and a GOP majority in both chambers. 

Democrats have informal checks such as media attention — reporters in the Capitol will gather for press conferences, such as this one called by the House Democrats. But their formal powers are limited.

It’s been that way for most of the 21st century, as Republicans swept into the governor’s office and to majorities in the state House and state Senate via elections and Democratic defections in the early 2000s.

Democrats spent most of the 20th century in charge until Deep South party alignment came to match that in the rest of the country and the GOP became the home for conservatives.  

When Republicans in the Georgia legislature stick together, the GOP can pass legislation without a single Democratic vote. But because the GOP’s majority is shrinking, just a few Republican dissents can kill a bill. 

Stopping a bill can be a demonstration of power just like passing a bill.

For example, a handful of Republican doubters have so far crimped their own party’s efforts to issue public money to parents to spend on private schools.  Almost no Democrats support the idea and some Republicans are also skeptical of what would be a fundamental change in education, especially if they represent a district that doesn’t have a private school or a strong property tax base for schools anyway.

There are about 4.6 state lobbyists for every legislator.

Lobbyists may draft legislation and ask lawmakers to pass it, advise on pending bills, try to kill bills, complain about existing law and taxes — or just keep relationships warm via donations, food and drink, receptions, awards and the like. Flattery is cheap and plentiful.

The biggest lobbying contingents come from chambers of commerce, power or utility companies, telecom companies, Delta Air Lines, Google and Meta, hospitals, trial lawyers and car dealers.  Twin Pines Minerals is up there, too; that’s the company seeking a permit to mine titanium dioxide near the Okefenokee Swamp.  The mix of lobbyists in large part reflects the industries that Georgia regulates.

Like reporters and constituents, some lobbyists hang around in the halls trying to get a handshake and a word.   The spot in front of the House Speaker’s office is popular.

Some lobbyists are full-time company employees; others are independent lobbyists who have many clients.  About 4,500 groups and companies are represented by the roughly 1,100 lobbyists. 

Lobbyists reported about $1 million expenditures on things like meals and gifts for legislators, spouses and staff in 2022. That’s about $4,200 per legislator.

All bills are formally drafted behind this door by nonpartisan staff lawyers in the Office of Legislative Counsel. Legislators really do bring ideas to legislative counsel, just like we learned in civics class. 

But sometimes the legislators also come with legislation ready to copy and paste provided by “friends in the hall.”

Legislators filed about 2,000 bills in the two-year term that ended in 2022; almost 600 were sent to the governor’s desk. 

Sometimes lawmakers file a bill that they know will not pass, just so they’re on record on the topic.

Yet most bills that get to the state House or state Senate floor pass with big bipartisan majorities because the bills just tweak some undisputed thing that already exists, like professional licensing rules.

After legislators file a bill, the House speaker or lieutenant governor assigns it to a smaller group of legislators — a standing committee that handles a specific topic like education, health and so on.  Committee chairs, nearly all Republicans, decide what they’re going to schedule for a hearing.  

Most bills never get a hearing. If the committee chair doesn’t want to hear a bill, it’s dead already.

Committees often edit bills; each one has a nonpartisan staff lawyer to take notes and draft amendments. The amendments can be small and technical. A few bills a year get a last-minute “gutting,” meaning the original content is cut out in committee and replaced with a more powerful legislator’s unrelated idea.

Anybody can come watch a hearing; and some committee chairs may invite public comment.

But in practice, committee testimony generally comes from lobbyists or friendly invited guests, not the public.  

The process makes it difficult for average citizens to get involved. Legislative committee agendas are announced on maybe one or two days’ notice if at all. So insiders who are in the halls watching are just about the only people with enough notice and warning to organize testimony.

Only certain topics trigger headlines, fundraising emails, lawsuits, social media drama and indignation (fake or otherwise). Those are fundamental changes, or very politicized topics like private school vouchers, abortion, gun laws and Confederate monuments. 

For example, take the process for the eight-foot fence around the Capitol, which protects the building and its symbols, like the statue of Georgia Ku Klux Klan leader, former governor and Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon.  

Kemp and allies authorized funding for the fence after Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Protestors had come onto the public lawn demanding removal of the Gordon statue.

Democrats at the time denounced the new fence as fortress-like and intimidating.  Republicans said it was a simple security decision.  

For all that the Capitol can seem incomprehensible, unresponsive or locked away, it’s also true that lawmakers generally do pay attention when their constituents call or email — maybe not immediately, especially during busy days of the session when they often stay in Atlanta for weeks at a time.

But phone, email or social media are effective ways to make comments. Some lawmakers even publish their personal mobile phone numbers and answer their own phones. It’s OK to ask for a meeting, especially when the Legislature is out of session and lawmakers are back home — after all, lobbyists do that. 

Find your state legislators’ names via the Georgia My Voter page. Log in and scroll all the way to the bottom to “My Districts & Elected Officials.”

That page will link to your legislators’ official bios and contact information.  Look them up on the internet, too. Many are on social media or have newsletters.

The state Capitol doubles as a small state museum and it contains the taxidermied heads of a two-headed calf born in Palmetto in 1987. Generations of Georgia students are liable to remember nothing from their field trips to the Capitol besides that popular curiosity. 

For certain, there’s more going on under the Gold Dome than what they teach at school.