House Rules Committee, January 28, 2026 Video: https://vimeo.com/1159233802 (a timestamp t plays at https://vimeo.com/1159233802#t=s) Page: https://georgiacommons.org/meetings/2026-01-28/house-rules This is a machine transcript of the General Assembly's video, made by a speech-recognition model. It is not an official record and can mishear words, names, and numbers. Speakers are not identified. The video is the record: every timestamp links to the moment it plays. [0:03:46] Morning, everybody. [0:04:01] Morning, everybody. Good to see you all this morning. Uh, we'll call our first Rules meeting to order. And as we begin, I'd like to recognize, uh, Dean Greene to open us up with a word of prayer. [0:04:18] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let us pray. Lord our God, we come into your presence and ask you to help us. Help us in every part of our daily lives, even when we do not understand. Be with us through your Spirit, guide and lead us with your hand. Let your will be done in all things, oh Lord, as we pray. Help us through your Word. Bless us and protect us, guide us and direct us during our deliberations in this Rules Committee. [0:04:50] And Father, we ask you to bless our governor, our speaker, and our chairman, and the members of this Rules Committee, for we make the decisions that go forth for the people. Bless us now, guide us and direct us in all things. In thy holy name we pray, amen. Thank you, Dean. Next, I'd like to recognize Speaker Pro Tem for a moment. Speaker Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to take a moment to, uh, remember, uh, Rules Secretary Mandi Ballinger. [0:05:24] This is the first Rules meeting that she has not, uh, been, uh, both sitting up here or sitting out there in a very many years. And, um, she was, I think the thing she would most want to be remembered for is being a mother to Henry, um, a wife to Lee, a daughter, very devoted to her mother before she passed, and her father, who is, uh, still living. Um, and then after all of that, she was a state representative and, um, a real servant to the people in Cherokee County. [0:06:02] And so if we could just take a moment, uh, uh, a quiet moment to remember Mandi Ballinger. A moment of silence. [0:06:15] Thank you, members. Thank you, Pro Tem. [0:06:23] Well, since it's our first, uh, meeting of the year, we've got a couple little housekeeping, uh, comments I'd like to make. First of all, want to recognize our secretary of the committee, Trey Kelley, right here. Trey, glad to have you with us and part of this committee. And also for you, uh, all the members and everybody get to know our intern this, uh, year with us, Davis Camuso, sitting right over here. Davis, glad to have him working with us up here. So feel free to stop by and see him. [0:06:54] He'd be glad to help you with, with whatever we need to do. Now, let's go ahead and begin our deliberations this morning, and we're gonna call on Representative Chairman Smith to make a presentation to us this morning. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Rules Committee. Good morning again. I bring to you today a bill called House Resolution one zero zero eight, and the background on this and why we're having to do this at this point in time, it, it goes to the history of the State of Georgia and how we've dealt with our water and environmental challenges through the years. [0:07:33] We've had, um, extreme problems in the late nineties, uh, all the way up until about ten years ago when things kinda had been smooth. But we only had Hur- Hurricane Helene to remind us of the changes that are again starting to come our way. One of the fears, um, is, you know, maybe followed by a drought. There's some predictions there. And the group that handles this, for the background for the committees who don't know, in 2004, the General Assembly created what is known as the Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Plan. [0:08:12] The first thing that happened there was this, the greater metropolitan Atlanta area under the arc of the ARC was created via a legislative bill, and, um, its role is to address the concerns of that area. For the rest of the state, we have never done any in-depth study as how to make our state work together as the challenges would come our way. And so there's a lot of, as only you can do in the General Assembly, there's a committee to study that, then there's a committee to study what we were told about that, then there's another committee to study another thing, until finally in 2008, we passed the first resolution, and, um, that resolution is a guiding, a template, a, a playbook for our regional committees. [0:09:05] As it was a new process, there was a lot of, um, concern, so a lot of people were assigned to these regional committees. And, um, as long as we had challenges in front of us, the members who were assigned to those committees met, and they had their quorums. But as we've had some quieter times recently, most of our regional water planning districts are having difficulty getting a quorum. And so, um, the Regional Water Planning Committee, we have a council, and one of their charges is to periodically revise the management plan to reflect, reflect new knowledge and insights. [0:09:48] Well, the insights we've gotten, um, a- and I'll read what, what this resolution is, the, the intent of the resolution. So this amendment is to reduce the number of governor appointees from 13 to seven. Keep in mind, all these people have to be at the meeting to have a quorum. Reduce the number of lieutenant governor appointments from six to three. Reduce the number of speaker of house appointments from six to three. Remove alternate council members. Increase the length of appointments from three years to six years. [0:10:21] Require each council to have at least one representative from each of the water and wastewater demand forecast sectors, municipal, industrial, agriculture, and energy. Those are obviously your consumers of our natural resources. And so that's what this bill does. It's a resolution enabling this to happen. I'll stand for any questions, Mr. Chair. [0:10:50] Okay, thank you. We have a couple of questions. Uh, Representative Hugley, is that you? [0:10:55] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Madam Chair. [0:10:57] Morning. [0:10:58] A quick question. Uh, would you help me understand why we're going from three years to six years on their term? I understand reducing the number, but t- talk to me about the term change. [0:11:10] And so for this to work and the numbers to serve on the committee have to be recommended to our speaker or governor. And what was happening, it was a loop. By the time they got enough names to make the appointments, it, three years were up, and they're having to make new appointments. So the intention in the beginning was good, but the function is not what it needs to be. The other thing to know is these are not closed meetings at all. They're open to the public, and people interested in our regions who want to serve s- need, need to make an effort to get their names before the ones who do the appointments. [0:11:46] So it's not meant to be exclusive. It's meant to be functional. We're, we know we've had Hurricane Helene. Some of the forecasts out there are droughts. If we can't give our regions the tools they need in a timely manner, they're not gonna be able to do what we've asked them to do. So it's not intended at all to exclude. Best way I know to explain it, I ran a business. I had a lot of employees at one point, but then all of a sudden things shifted and I had to readjust quickly to be an effective business leader. [0:12:20] Taught school. In the beginning I had about 40 kids in one classroom, and I don't know that they learned anything because you have too many to be effective. So the other thing to keep in mind is that it's in a resolution form, these regional water plans, except for Atlanta, and we get to visit it every year. So if this is not working, we're just trying to put it back on the right track to, to, to be efficient and to be able to help the citizens of the state of Georgia. [0:12:52] No one knows, well a few who were here back in the 1990s on, we experienced horrible challenging water problems and we didn't get our act together. Now, thanks to the efforts of what we've done through the years, we are the most recognized state in our nation for being able to address the concerns. But, um, yeah, we gotta make some adjustments to continue to help our citizens. [0:13:20] Have another question. Dr. Newton, Chairman Newton. [0:13:23] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the, for the bill. This, is this mostly a structural setup for this council to allow it to run more efficiently and be able to get it, or does it actually get into the, the real specific plan as well? Like are, are there interbasin transfers allowed? Things like that that some rural areas have been more concerned about with a metropolitan area that may have water needs. Interbasin transfers, at least over in my east area, uh, is a concern. Are we approving a plan or just to make the structure a workable structure? [0:13:53] We are making the structure work. Any change to a plan would have to come through the legislative process as a bill. [0:14:01] Thank you. [0:14:01] And so this is really giving the people who are serving our citizens something that works, so they can... It, the best way to explain it, there's some parts of the state who are still able to do it, and they're meeting with other regions, especially along the coast, because they're facing more immediate problems. And they're doing what they were charged to do, which is meeting, coming up with ideas, addressing the problems, but they have no legislative po- power. It is building an esprit de corps for the regions of our state. [0:14:36] Thank you. [0:14:36] Okay. Don't see any other questions. Thank you, ma'am. [0:14:40] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. [0:14:43] Okay. Let's set a calendar for January the 29th, legislative day nine. Under modified structure, House Resolution 1008. Is there a m- We have a move and a second. Is there any opposition? It's on. Okay. That will be our calendar for the next legislative day, the ninth. Let me make a couple of announcements before we break up. [0:15:14] First of all, today, uh, every day that we're here is a special day, but today is a very special day because it's the birthday of Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones. Happy birthday. [0:15:32] Representative Williams, you had a comment? [0:15:34] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and happy birthday, Madam Pro Tem. Quick question on quality of life in just one bill. I've got two or three I'd like to put on if it's all right right now. I don't want you to- [0:15:44] Yes, sir. I, I've got your name by several, and you and I are gonna be discussing those as we go through the process. Thank you. Uh, and a- and along that line, I w- I wanna thank you for being here this morning. Chairman Hatchett, thank you. I know you're up to your ears in numbers back there and everything, but we thank you. Each one of you members on this committee, this is a special committee. You asked to be on this committee, and the speaker put you on here. Uh, Ms. Lewis is taking roll every day, and we're keeping up with that, and we expect all our members to show up and be here. [0:16:18] So please make every effort that you can to attend all the members. It's important, uh, all the meetings. It's important that you be here. And if you have any issues or questions or problems, Ms. Lewis is in the office and Leo is there and certainly I am too. So thank you for that. Uh, our next rules meeting will be Monday at 9:00. We'll meet here, uh, in this room Monday at 9:00. Any other comments or questions or announcements from anybody? If not, we'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.