Recent Stories
DOUG HOLT: State's education code in jeopardy
Since I have long supported charter schools as a worthwhile experiment to improve educational performance, I was certainly ready to support HR 1162. Knowing that it would also deal with the Title 20 problems gave me even greater reason to vote yes.
HOLT: Supplemental budget gets slight increase
The primary focus of the third week of the legislative session was the supplemental budget.
HOLT: Redistricting likely to be in special session
With crossover day now behind us, the House is digging into committee work on the 120 some odd bills the Senate has sent us. It always takes a number of days to start moving them out of committee, so we handled only five measures in House floor votes during the week.
HOLT: Traditional committee work begins
Committee work began in earnest last week now that bills have begun flowing. I've heard a couple of comments along the lines of "it is so wasteful that you all are meeting for over a week without anything substantive to work on." I can't deny that this tradition-bound process can be very wasteful at times. If there must be a response, I'll offer this: we have a system in which real power is diluted among a sufficiently large group of people so that exercise of that power cannot be arbitrary, excessive or vengeful. It's long been noted that dictatorships can exercise power far more quickly and efficiently. Nonetheless, I prefer putting up with our perhaps creaky, somewhat fussy and occasionally exasperating institution.
HOLT: Filling a hole $2B wide will take sacrifice
Now that initial appropriations hearings have concluded, the General Assembly was back in session last week. Since this is the beginning of a two-year term, there are no previous year bills in the system.
HOLT: Tight budget will dominate 2011 session
The 2011 legislative session had a rough start. Only events mandated by the state constitution were held during our first week. Everything else was canceled due to the historic snow and ice storm that temporarily paralyzed Atlanta.
HOLT: Flurry of votes held as House ends business
The House completed the legislative session last week. In two daylong floor sessions, we considered 56 bills and resolutions, and also worked through many reviews of amendments and compromise positions between House and Senate versions of bills. Here are some of the more important and interesting items.
HOLT: Ethics getting late push as session wanes
The House worked through two more legislative days last week, and the final two days are this week. The days are spaced out to give the Senate sufficient time to deliberate on the budget, which the House passed the previous week. Then a conference committee will need time to work through differences between the two versions that inevitably result. We considered 28 bills and resolutions on the floor, along with dozens of reviews and conferences to iron out differences between House and Senate versions of various measures.
HOLT: Budget passed as revenue sees slight increase
The House moved into the late phase of the session last week. We were still focused largely on committee work, but a couple of the 12 bills and resolutions we saw were notable or significant.
HOLT: Bill would review tax exemptions
The House returned to a posture of heavy committee work and light floor sessions last week. Having finished crossover, we are now working on bills the Senate has already passed. The next 10 legislative days will see a compressed repeat of the ramp-up from committee work to lengthy time on the House floor. As such, we voted on nine bills and resolutions during the week. One measure was notable.