Parent Press Week 8 of the 2026 Legislative Session
We finally crossed over to the month of March and we also had Crossover Day at the Capitol last Friday. March is a month for change, with warmer weather, more hours of the day, and a general sense of renewal. Change in politics is as natural as the changing seasons.
Senator Ossoff Qualifies for Re-election
My Democratic colleagues and I joined Senator Ossoff on Monday morning at a press conference after he qualified to run for re-election to the United States Senate.
In his remarks, Senator Ossoff said, “In just the past few months, nearly a quarter of a million Georgians lost their health insurance altogether, while nearly a million and a half Georgians have seen their premiums skyrocket, all because this President so bitterly opposes the Affordable Care Act. Hospitals and nursing homes are losing funds in order to cut taxes for the wealthy, while the President's corruption and abuses of power are chilling and unprecedented. I may be relatively young in a Senate full of retirees, but I am fighting like hell for the state of Georgia.”
Our economy is not working for most people and we know who is breaking it: Trump’s Epstein Class.
Democrats in the Georgia legislature are fighting just as hard for a state government that reflects the needs and aspirations of all of the people of our state.
Mid-Session Town Hall
On March 3rd, I hosted a town hall with Representative Saira Draper to give updates on what’s being done during this legislative session. We discussed the pressing affordability crisis crushing Georgians’ pocket books and how Senate Democrats are fighting for legislation to check Georgia Power’s influence and make sure data centers don’t jack up utility prices for consumers.
I am thrilled that Rep. Draper has stepped forward to run for the Senate seat I hold. She will do a fantastic job for the district, and I encourage you to support her campaign. (Reminder - legislators can’t accept contributions from supporters until after the session.)
This section – move to Crossover/combine with what’s written on those bills in that section: We also discussed how Republicans are trying to make it harder for Democrats to vote in our elections. For instance,
Girl Scouts Get a License Plate
The Senate passed SB 524, a bill that creates a specialty license plate honoring Girl Scouts of Georgia. I have had the honor of presenting the resolution on Girl Scout Day every year at the Capitol and I proudly assisted in the crafting and passing of this bill. Girl Scouts of America has a long history of civic engagement and was founded right here in Georgia back in 1912. Girl Scouts of Georgia will continue to shape the next generation of women leaders across our state and this license plate will represent them and their future.
See the video of my remarks in the Senate here.
Yellow Rose
I was proud to award Sameera Fazili the 2026 Nikki T. Randall Servant Leadership Award from the Women’s Legislative Caucus. She previously served as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council under the Biden-Harris Administration and currently serves as a consultant for businesses, non-profits, and governments.
Crossover Day
On Friday, we were in the Capitol for the long-haul. The Senate began meeting at 9am and we adjourned at 10:45pm, and the House went on until well after midnight. There are several important pieces of legislation to keep in mind, some of which passed out of the Senate and others we happily defeated.
SB 367 passed the Senate. This is Senator Cowsert’s Certificate of Need (CON) bill that would allow for cancer treatment centers without going through the entire certificate of need process. Needless to say, CON is very controversial. Health care is not a product that works in a free-market system, partially because large numbers of uninsured people come to hospitals for health care and hospitals must attend to them regardless of ability to pay. Certain areas of health care within the hospital are profit centers, and any time some shiny new facility opens up, they can poach patients from an existing hospital and make their balance sheets far worse, even cause closures, which is why we have CON. But, some states have done away with it and it can be cumbersome and for certain things, it seems to hardly make sense. This bill was amended to not allow new cancer treatment within 35 miles of certain rural hospitals.
Emory Healthcare is in favor of it, which says something because existing hospital networks are against repealing CON. I voted no, but am still weighing the issue as the bill heads to the House where it will inevitably be altered before coming back to the Senate, IF it comes back to the Senate.
The Republicans passed their bad data center bill, SB 410. This bill is the culmination of the many attempts made by Republicans to bend over backwards for Georgia Power at every turn. The bill codifies rules set by the PSC in the wake of tremendous losses for Republicans last November. Just before Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson joined the PSC, the commission rammed through their stipulated agreement. This agreement will jack up costs for consumers across our state and pour billions into new power plants and other energy (mostly natural gas plants) that will allow data centers to come into communities that are very skeptical of them. SB 410 lacks strong safeguards to protect consumers from stranded asset risk, cost overruns, and decades of fuel expenses—potentially shifting up to $50–$60 billion in long-term costs onto ratepayers if projected demand or revenues fail to materialize. The consumer protections portion of the bill is just the PSC rule and is not protective enough of billpayers.
See my speech from the Senate floor here.
The Republicans also passed SB 423. The bill would prohibit Georgia candidates and political committees from receiving more than 50% of their campaign funds from individuals or entities that are not considered “Georgia persons,” requiring any excess out-of-state contributions to be returned or turned over to the state and imposing penalties for attempts to evade the cap. This seems like a naked attempt to target Senator Ossoff in his re-election bid or our Democratic nominee for Governor. These Republicans are so ridiculous – they undo all the campaign finance rules all over the country and get mad when Democrats also take advantage. This bill passed.
The House voted down a bill that would remove the ban on gun silencers, BUT the Senate passed its version. SB 499 doesn’t change a whole lot, in effect, but the fact that Republicans would still pass this in the wake of Apalachee is a heartless message to send. The Senate also passed SB 572 to further broaden Georgia’s existing Stand Your Ground laws. The current language dealing with stand your ground laws is already broad as it is. Further broadening would make it significantly harder for prosecutors to bring cases forward and potentially lower the threshold for the use of deadly force in ambiguous situations. I obviously could not support these silly measures, which most seem directed to help certain Republican senators in their re-election efforts or statewide primary campaigns.
Senator Dolezal’s attempt to court Trump’s endorsement for his campaign for Lieutenant Governor by passing bad election bills went down in flames on Friday. SB 568 and the State Assurance of Voter Eligibility (SAVE)Amendment both failed. SB 568 would make voter lists public before elections, require publication of who voted after elections, shift to hand-marked paper ballots with optical scanners, and impose fines on registrars who fail to remove ineligible voters after successful challenges. SR 587 legislation would amend the Constitution by requiring eligible voters to be 18 years old, United States citizens, and Georgia residents. Voter ID would also become a constitutional requirement. This resolution failed because the SAVE amendment needed support from ⅔ of members and failed to meet that threshold.
SB 573 was also defeated. This bill would require non-partisan elections for District Attorneys in Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Clayton – and ONLY in those heavily Democratic counties. This was an attempt to enhance the power of Republican DA’s around the state and remove the voices of Democratic DA’s. I proudly voted against these blatant attempts to circumvent Democratic electoral representation in Georgia. But good news – there was a ton of opposition to both SB 573 (from Republican DA’s who know that all DA elections must be the same - 5 cannot be different) and SB 568 (from voter registrations and elections departments as well as voting rights groups and others). Both failed on the Senate floor!
There were some bipartisan wins as well. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to pass SB 540, a bill which would require operators of public conversational AI services to disclose that users are interacting with AI, implement safeguards for minors, provide parental privacy controls, and establish protocols for responding to suicidal or self-harm prompts. SB 542 also passed. The bill would allow clergy members to be charged with felony improper sexual contact if they engage in sexual conduct with someone under their pastoral counseling or spiritual authority, even if the person is an adult and consent is claimed. And SB 587 was also passed with bipartisan support. SB 587 would create a free, publicly searchable statewide database of people convicted of animal cruelty offenses in Georgia to help shelters and the public screen potential animal owners.
The House pushed through a dubious property tax bill at the last minute after failing to pass a constitutional amendment that would have dramatically slashed property taxes because Democrats refused to vote for it despite some aggressive arm-twisting. Instead, lawmakers approved a scaled-down measure that caps annual property tax increases at the greater of 3% or inflation. Because it tries to impose a statewide tax limit through ordinary law rather than the constitution, expect legal challenges over whether it improperly restricts local governments if it actually passes all the way through and is signed by Gov. Kemp, which seems doubtful.
Advocates are also sounding the alarm about a troubling SNAP bill moving through the House that would add new eligibility and verification hurdles for food assistance. Anti-hunger groups warn the changes could push eligible families off benefits simply because of bureaucratic barriers.
One bright spot: lawmakers advanced the DREAMS Scholarship, a long-overdue effort to create a needs-based college aid program to help low-income Georgia students afford higher education, something the state has lacked while relying heavily on merit-based HOPE scholarships.
And in a bit of legislative drama, sports betting finally reached the House floor for the first time and promptly went down in flames, once again stalling efforts to legalize and tax online betting in Georgia.