House Special Rules Committee, March 27, 2026 Video: https://vimeo.com/1176339605 (a timestamp t plays at https://vimeo.com/1176339605#t=s) Page: https://georgiacommons.org/meetings/2026-03-27/house-special-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. [0:13:05] Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Special Rules Committee. We have, uh, four resolutions to hear from today. Uh, Chairman McCollum, you wanna... I said McCollum. You got that, didn't you? Chairman McDonald, come on up to the podium. [0:13:23] I will sacrifice my bill. Yes, sir. [0:13:28] Come on up, sir. [0:13:28] All right. [0:13:35] And tell us what, uh, resolution number you got, LC number, and what your resolution does, please, sir. [0:13:42] All right, Mr. Chairman, my best friend- ... Representative Floyd Griffin, and members of the committee. [0:13:48] It's not gonna work. [0:13:50] It's not gonna work. Uh, I've got, I bring to you today, um, House Resolution 1831, which, that's a big number. I hope that means we're getting to the end when we see 1831s. But the LC number on it is LC 61-0492. We good? [0:14:08] Good. [0:14:09] Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is a, a resolution. As you know, I've had the fortunate blessing from the speaker to take on inter- intergovernmental coordination this year as its chair. And course have never been on the committee and didn't really understand much about the committee except, you know, it was for local legislation. Well, it's been an experience. Uh, I've learned a lot. It's been a very busy committee. I have ... One, I wanna compliment the s- the team with Michael Satterfield and Kai and, and Graham and all those. [0:14:39] They've done a great job kinda getting me up to speed. You know what it's like going into a new committee as busy as it is, and how important it is to local government and each of you, because you know what local government can, can beat you up here. And, and so anyway, going through this, all I kept seeing and hearing is about the cities and the, the audits. And as I started looking into it more, I asked to pull a full report on the audits of our cities and counties, and, and when I did that, it- it- it just blew my mind that we have 139 noncompliant cities. [0:15:16] That's 1-3-9. And then we have 22 counties out of 159 are noncompliant on their audit. What this mean, ladies and gentlemen, is we're leaving money on the table with grants through DCA, through federal money coming down, and we, we talked to cities. They, they don't know how to get back in compliant. They, they need help. And as you've seen, uh, there's been in the news with the City of Hiram, the City of Quitman. Uh, it puts us all in bad positions when, when we start looking at how do we fix these problems. [0:15:47] And I'm not looking to abolish cities or counties, but I think we need to take a hard look on how we help these cities and counties. And, and if we do have to make tough decisions, we make them together. We're not just haphazardly just abolishing cities and counties. So I, I think this is a, a good measure to get us to a place that we can go around our state and, and figure out what services might need, uh, for these cities and counties to help them get in their audits. Some are six years, some are four years, some are one year. [0:16:17] So, you know, uh, maybe they just need a little direction, a, a boost of, of where to go to get these audits done. I don't know. Uh, like I said, I'm new at this, but this is something I think would be very important to each of us around this state. Any questions? [0:16:32] Okay. Okay. Thank you, uh, r- uh, Chairman McDonald. Uh, GMA, I'm sure, is back in this study resolution. [0:16:40] Well, sometimes when you do these resolutions, you do it because you wanna do it and you wanna help Georgia. I, I really could care less what GMA thinks or ACCG on this. [0:16:48] All right. [0:16:48] I just wanna help our cities and counties. [0:16:50] Okay. All right, we've got a couple of questions. Uh, Representative Taylor. [0:16:55] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and that was probably my first question, but did you even reach out to them a- regarding the, the resolution? [0:17:01] Yeah, they know about it. [0:17:02] Okay. Okay. [0:17:02] But I, it's not something I went to meet with them about. [0:17:05] Okay. [0:17:05] They know everything we're doing down here, I promise you. [0:17:07] Well, I'm sure of that. Um, I wanted ... This stu- this is a study committee. So within this study committee, you're going to co- I'm asking, your goal is to come up with different resources to assist these cities and counties through the state? [0:17:25] Very much so. I come from a county with, uh, I think about 12 municipalities, Jackson County. And in even, I'm gonna use Jackson County as an example, but I think we've got 206, I don't know the number, school system. Jackson County has three different school systems and 11 or 12 different cities. That's a lot. But I'm not looking to get rid of cities or counties. I'm not trying to go from 159 to 155. I'm looking to help these cities and counties. It's all about money. It's money that they're not getting because DCA, DCA cannot give them these grants because they have not completed their audits. [0:17:59] So you're connecting the resources. [0:18:00] Yes, ma'am. This is all I wanna do is, is help these cities and counties. I have no, uh, uh, desire to, to, to do what legislation's been dropped with Quitman and Hiram. That's, that is not the goal of this study committee. This is to help each and every one of y'all in your prospective counties to try to bring some resources. Uh, and, and I, at this time, I don't know the, the right direction to go. I'm gonna need some help from my members. I just feel that there, that we need to give, uh, some direction from us as those that can bring the resources back to, to our counties and cities. [0:18:33] Mr. Chairman, if I may. [0:18:34] Yes. [0:18:35] Currently, for being noncompliant, what is the penalty for these cities and counties? [0:18:42] Money. You can't get, you can't get grants. [0:18:44] So it's just you're, you're just kind of, um, missing opportunities. [0:18:49] Yes, ma'am. [0:18:49] There's nothing that the state mandates where they're supposed to be doing these reports automatically. [0:18:53] No, ma'am. I believe, I, I, I would like to ask our state auditors in the room, would you like to address that? 'Cause- I can. Please, if you don't mind. Sure. Uh- You want to come up here with me? [0:19:03] Come, come on up to the podium- [0:19:04] To the mic [0:19:04] ... if you will [0:19:08] And I appreciate him being here. It was, it's on the fly that he's here. We met in the hall to talk about another issue- ... and, and I said, "I got someplace you can go with me." [0:19:17] Okay. Give us your, uh, give us your name please, sir. [0:19:20] Uh, yes sir. Uh, Greg Griffin. I'm the state auditor. [0:19:23] Mm-hmm. [0:19:23] And, uh, to answer your question, the, uh, state law requires an annual audit, uh, every, well, annual audit from, uh, cities and counties. [0:19:33] And the penalty for not complying? [0:19:35] The penalty is if you don't, uh, file, you're in violation of state law, but the, the real consequences, as the chairman said, they lose access to, uh, state funds, whether it be grants at DCA or Transportation, uh, maintenance funds, uh, LMIG funds at, uh, GDOT, and, uh, possibly some other access to federal funds. [0:20:02] So is there a reason why some cities are/counties are six years not compliant and the state has not acted on it? [0:20:10] The, so the, again, the state, uh, again, they're supposed to file their audit. Their con- again, the consequence is they don't have access to those funds. [0:20:20] But no penalties? [0:20:21] No penalties other than- [0:20:23] Other than the loss of access to the- [0:20:24] That's correct. The reason the ... And, and this is more so a city municipality issue than it is a county. [0:20:31] Mm-hmm. [0:20:32] We have, uh, the counties, uh, the numbers you probably quoted or saw, all these numbers you get are at a point in time, and the counties generally, uh, are compliant. They may turn in their audits late- [0:20:47] Mm-hmm [0:20:47] ... but by and large, they eventually catch up. Right now, they're ... I, I'm looking at my, my dashboard. There, there are two counties that have, uh, that are, have two audits in arrears. The, the main issue is really the cities where you have about 120 that are non-compliant. Uh, you have 12 that are five years or more, uh, where they haven't filed their audits. Uh, and then, uh, four years is probably 15, and seven at three. [0:21:22] So there's a, a good ... This is mainly a city audit. [0:21:25] I guess I'm just trying to understand why the state has not acted on following up with this delinquency and non-compliance. [0:21:35] I, I think, Representative Taylor, they follow up- [0:21:38] Okay [0:21:38] ... and these cities leave a lot of money on the table because they can't apply for a grant through the state or through the feds because, uh, the fact that they haven't completed their audit, and that's the whole thing that I think Representative McDonald- [0:21:52] I understand [0:21:52] ... is trying to do, is push them in that direction to get it done so they're, they can do things within their city. They're not getting any L, uh, LMIG money from the GDOT to pave roads or anything like that because of the audit. [0:22:02] I, I understand that. I'm just wondering why they're allowed to break the law. But thank you, Mr. Chairman. [0:22:06] Okay. [0:22:08] Well, I w- I want to address. If you don't mind if I address that? [0:22:11] Mm-hmm. [0:22:11] You know, we know there's an issue now. Maybe it's never been brought up, Representative Taylor, that, that, uh, I'm not ... My predecessors have done a great job. This is just something I started looking into, uh, that, that I heard conversations, and so I asked to pull these reports, even though I'm, I apologize my numbers were off on the counties, but last time I pulled the numbers, we were at 22. So somebody's- [0:22:33] It's, it's, it's not static. [0:22:34] Yeah. So, uh, you heard, you know, people are still, you know, they're slate, just like some people paying their bills. Um, you know, I want to look in the r- in the windshield, not the rear view mirror on this. I want to see how we can help these cities and counties. Mainly cities, as the, as Au- the chief auditor said. Um, I'm not looking to punish anybody. I mean, if, if we're looking for punishment because they broke the law, that's not the direction I want to go on this. It does n- does not do any of us any good to st- look at punishing our cities and counties. [0:23:02] I thank you for bringing the resolution. [0:23:03] Thank you. [0:23:05] Okay. We have a couple more. Uh, Representative Griffin. [0:23:08] Uh, thank you very much, uh, Mr. Chair and- [0:23:11] I'm supposed to sort, I saw my friend [0:23:12] ... and Chairman. [0:23:13] My friend. [0:23:15] And Chairman, uh, McDonald. Let, you know, I'm a former mayor, and I, uh, thank you for bringing this if it's gonna do what you have expressed. But more importantly than that, I've seen too much legislation come through this body the last two years that have not had the type of studies and so forth, and they just putting them out and not able to provide all of the information we need, and I think that there are more, and especially at the city, county level and so forth. [0:23:56] We need to have more study committees because those study committees can, can bring out a lot of the questions, or should bring out a lot of the questions that have been asked. So, uh, only thing I ask you to do is, uh, with the, the Speaker, is make sure that we have some local mayors and, and, and, uh, involved in this, and those in that who are in the legislature now that have gone through these kinds of things to be on the study committees. [0:24:30] That was part two of my speech, uh, Representative Griffin, that I was gonna be bringing up, is, is that's what I, that's what needs to be on here. [0:24:37] That's ... You got it now. [0:24:40] Okay. One more. Uh, 17. That's the, uh- [0:24:46] Yes, sir. [0:24:46] Chairman Rhodes. [0:24:48] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask, did you see a, uh, when you were going through your list, did you see any kind of pattern between smaller cities, bigger cities? Was, was there a kind of- [0:24:58] It's all over the place. [0:24:59] Okay. [0:24:59] Yeah, m- mainly your bigger cities get it 'cause they have the staff to do it, and that's what we've got to figure out with this is, is, uh, do we need to, to get some cities to work together? I, I don't, I don't have the answer right now, Mr. Chairman. [0:25:11] Well, that's what ... 'Cause I, I've got a city in my district that's on that list, and it was caused by a prior administration that did not really take care of this matter, and now they've gotten, you know, four or five years behind trying to catch up. And, um, I, I, I want to thank you for the measure. And Mr. Chairman, at the proper time, I'd like to make a motion. [0:25:29] Okay. Uh, couple more questions. Okay, Representative Beckles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, regarding the study committee, could you also make sure that GMA is included- Yeah ... as part of one of your, uh, stakeholders? They all of them will have a seat at the table. Okay. I mean, it's, I don't, I'm not... The, you know, the speaker will pick the study committee, but everybody, it's important that we, we have Georgia Municipal Association, ACCG. [0:25:59] Um, they're the ones that are the direct contact, and they're the usually the communication a lot of times from us to our co- counties and cities. They're being paid to, to watch after their best interest. So all, everybody will have a seat at the table. Our mayors, our c- commissioners. I want everybody to participate. It does no good for us to sit and go into these counties and dictate what we're gonna do. We need to hear from them. Right. I'm actually speaking to my, um, city of Norcross right now. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Uh, Representative Griffin, you wave? [0:26:31] Yeah, I wave. Okay. Uh, okay, back to Chairman Rhodes. Um- So moved. Okay. We have a motion to pass and a second. Any other discussion from the committee? Okay. Representative Beckles, your light's still blinking. Are you- Sorry. Okay. All right. Uh, any other discussions? Seeing none, all in favor of House Resolution 1831LC61-0492, say aye. Aye. All opposed. [0:27:01] Okay. Down to Rules. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee. Okay, I'm gonna run through this one pretty quick. This is, uh, Representative Kelly's, uh, House Resolution, uh, 1832LC47-4275. He had to be in Rules, uh, this morning, so I told him that I would, uh, explain the resolution. This resolution creates a study committee for collections of fees in local government. And what it is, we're trying to decide what's an assessment and what's a fee. [0:27:35] And, uh, we've had several lawsuits filed out around the state, and we're just trying to get a study committee to try to, uh, solve the issue so the cities and counties don't have to go through these suits and kind of maybe clear the air on assessments and, uh, and the fee system. So, um, other than that, uh, any questions? [0:27:59] Okay, what is the will of the committee? Do pass. A motion do pass. Do I hear a second? Second. We have a second. Any further discussion on House Resolution 1832LC47-4275? Uh, any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. Okay. It's on to Rules. Okay. Uh, Representative Au, you wanna present from there, that's fine. If you wanna present from there, or you wanna go to the podium? [0:28:30] Okay. [0:28:42] All righty. Good morning, everyone. Uh, if you'll give us your resolution number and your LC number you're looking at. Sure. It's House Resolution 1829, and the LC number is LC1123932. Okay, go ahead. So we had a study committee, um, over the summer that looked at the health costs of smoking and vaping in this state, and one of the things we ended up discussing quite a lot was this phenomenon of youth vaping, in particular with, um, the vaping and nicotine purveyor companies selling quite aggressively to youth to, uh, grow their, their market. [0:29:17] And one of the things we discussed was how, um, harmful this is to youth, the type of neuropsychiatric changes we see when younger children are exposed to high levels of nicotine. Right? So in doing this study committee, one of the things that we learned from some of our community partners at Georgia Appleseed is that, um, schools often when they catch kids smoking on school grounds, that they have sometimes what I would consider to be an overly punitive approach, in that they end up suspending them from school for long periods of time, sometimes even up to a year. [0:29:52] Kids as young as middle school caught for first infractions of being caught with a vape being suspended for a year. So I think we can recognize how, A, it does no one any service to suspend a middle school student for that long from school and not get the education that they need, uh, for a first violation of this manner, and also that it actually doesn't address the issue of getting them to stop vaping, right? So this house resolution basically is an urging resolution to look at exactly that, and to urge schools to take a more evidence-based approach to, in their response to student vaping, which we all, I think, recognize should not be happening, to take on some other methods, um, shy of suspension. [0:30:33] And I have one speaker here with us that can give you a little bit more information from Georgia Appleseed. She's gonna walk up here now. Okay, come on up. Yep. And this is Ms. Mary Catherine Velazquez. She's the Policy Counsel for Georgia Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. Okay. Good morning to you- Thank you ... members of the committee. I'm Mary Catherine, the Policy Counsel at Georgia Appleseed. We have, we are a 20-year legal nonprofit that helps serve hundreds of families and children facing long-term suspension and expulsion from school every year. [0:31:06] So we have a first-hand look at how school disciplinary policies impact, um, students across Georgia. So we've seen a tremendous rise in vaping cases and a tremendous rise in those penalties as well. So unfortunately, in our work, we see schools across the state, from Catoosa, Cherokee, Peach, Paulding, Grady, Gwinnett, they're responding with zero tolerance discipline policies, expelling children from school for a year or more- [0:31:33] Even for first-time offenses. These are children as young as sixth grade, 12 years old, for things being caught with a vape. They may not even be using it. Um, at a time when this body is working hard to address chronic absenteeism, GaSE reports that vaping is the second leading disciplinary incident in Georgia schools, and in more than half of these incidents, they're suspended or expelled. When students are removed from school, schools miss this crucial opportunity to provide education on why these substances are harmful. [0:32:04] They also, um, miss the opportunity to provide instructional time and lead to deeper disengagement with schools. In the 2023-2024 school year, DOE reports that there were 12,268 out-of-school suspensions due to vaping violations. That means 92,000 hours of lost instructional time. Beyond the effects on absenteeism, just one 10-day suspension cuts a student's graduation rate in half. Leading health organizations such as the American Lung Association have recognized the vaping crisis in schools today. [0:32:40] They warn against trying to treat the problem through only harsh discipline and encourage schools to adopt public health approaches that keep students connected to school while providing education and cessation support. This resolution also recognizes the seriousness of youth vaping while urging schools to use effective public health approaches, including the Department of Public Health's free Tobacco-Free Schools toolkit. We ask for your support in this resolution. [0:33:08] Thank you for being here. Any, uh, questions for the, uh, witness here? None? Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, Representative Taylor. [0:33:21] Um, thank you for bringing the bill, and at the due time- [0:33:23] Okay [0:33:24] ... the proper time to pass. [0:33:26] Okay. Uh, seeing no other further questions or discussion, uh, this would be the proper time. Representative Taylor. [0:33:35] Mr. Chairman, I motion to do pass. [0:33:38] Okay, we have a motion do pass. Do I hear a second? [0:33:40] Second. [0:33:41] Uh, we have a s- motion do pass and a second. Any further discussion from committee members? Seeing none, all in favor of House Resolution 1829 LC1123932, say aye. [0:33:56] Aye. [0:33:56] All opposed. Okay, off to Rules. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Okay, and, uh, Representative Schofield, come on up. [0:34:16] How you doing today? [0:34:18] Ooh, I've seen some better days, but it's a good day. [0:34:20] It is Friday. That's right. [0:34:21] It's a Friday. [0:34:21] That's right. [0:34:22] It's a good day. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Today, I present to you House Resolution 1473, uh, LC number 461452. [0:34:35] Okay, and that's it. [0:34:35] And this resolution creates a house study committee on lupus, uh, to examine the medical, economic, uh, public health and, uh, approve, really improve the access to care outcomes. As many of you know, um, this, in, in 2014, Governor Deal signed into law HR, uh, 262, creating the Georgia Counci- Council on Lupus and Awareness. Why this is important is because lupus is one of those disease- ases that are really not recognized in the general public. [0:35:10] I came down here and started this work in 2008 because this is my 26th year of living with lupus. And, um, there was no e- n- uh, there was no even a medicine. So there's no cure for it, and there's no single test that we have. Uh, I came down here, and we didn't have a medicine desi- designated to just lupus for 50 years. And I knew at that time I didn't have another 50 years to wait to educate people on what this disease is. So let me tell you what it is, and I'll do it in basic terms. When you get sick and get a cold, you, your antibodies, and they produce some, uh, antibodies that fight it. [0:35:45] They'll see what it is, and they'll go, and you'll feel bad for a couple of days, and then these little, I call them soldiers in your body, go attack that. When a person has lupus, we have an overactive system, so it attacks everything in our body from our heart, lungs, kidneys, skin. Sometimes you'll see a rash on people. Um, I like to say it's the Energizer Bunny going rogue. So every day you wake up feeling like you have the flu to the ump degree. You feel achy and tired, and some days the flares are really, really bad for people. [0:36:16] You don't see it. And so I came down here to start this work because people looked at me, and they said, "You don't look sick." So thus ends the stigma on what lupus really is and who it impacts. Well, it does impact women between the ages of, uh, 15 to 44, usually in our primary years, uh, working years, but it also impacts men and affects men and children. And so part of the study committee is to really look at how the impact of Georgians living with lupus. [0:36:47] And we have, um, started the work, but the work didn't expand far enough. We know what it does in metro areas, but now we understand the impact on rural Georgia, especially when there is no rheumatologist, dermatologist, nephrologist. I can go through all the ologists 'cause I have most of them in my life. Those are the men in my life. They a- their, their all last name is O-L-O-G-I-S-T. Um, but this becomes a burden on the state. One in... And I don't know if you knew this, but one in three people, uh, or nine people may get diagnosed with lupus, but within five years they're ending up on disability and can't work. [0:37:23] Um, I filed a, a bill got passed a couple of years ago called Georgia as a Model Employer, and so that helps people stay at work and return to work because people with lupus don't want to not work. They just want to find the type of work that's best suited for them. And so we have the burden on the state. It also costs, in healthcare costs, about $35,000 per person to be treated with lupus. And if you have, uh, lost your job, it's over $50,000. So we don't really want to become a burden to the state either. [0:37:54] We just want to find more other, o- other ways to, to move this forward. When we don't have insurance, we're like everybody else. We go visit, uh, Michelle in the er- emergency room. And there's really nothing you can do, so you send us home. Um, recently I was in Dougherty County, and Dougherty County has one of the highest rates now of lupus incidents. And so we really need to study how this disease impacts, um, across the whole state, not just metro area. I started a program years ago, uh, for students living with lupus. [0:38:28] And what we did was we educated all the school nurses on what s- lupus looks like for students, and that became a national program. So there's so much more that we can do, and I'm asking for the study committee so that we can better understand how it impacts workers, our healthcare system, our communities, and really to take lupus from the shadows and give us more of a conversation where Georgia is doing some great things. You have the hub right there at Grady for the lupus clinic that does amazing research. [0:38:59] But I would love our help to get a study committee to really inform what we can do better. The lupus, um, chapter here just recently has, uh, reorganized, and so now you have a lot of patients and people living with lupus that don't even have access to the resources they need. We need to study and find out what we can do better. Thank you, Mr. Chairman- [0:39:21] Okay [0:39:21] ... members of the committee. [0:39:22] Thank you very much. This is a very important issue to you, I know, and, uh, we appreciate your hard work on it. [0:39:28] Thank you. [0:39:28] All right. Okay, we have one question. Uh, Representative Griffin. [0:39:34] Uh, Mr. Chair, uh, at the appropriate time, I'd like to m- make a motion. [0:39:39] Okay. I don't see any other questions. This would be the appropriate time. [0:39:44] I'm, uh, my motion is, uh, do pass. [0:39:47] Okay, we have a motion do pass. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay. Uh, any other discussion from the committee? All right. All in favor of House Resolution 1473 LC 461452, say, "Aye." Aye. All opposed. Okay, off the roost. Thank you very much. [0:40:06] Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. [0:40:07] All right. [0:40:08] Thank you, members of the committee. [0:40:09] Thank you, members, for coming today. W- this will probably be our last meeting, so- Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. I've been waiting on this. Mr. Chairman. And through. Mr. Chairman. They usually, usually don't come this early. Yeah, [0:40:28] I've been here before last night. Usually they come in after we leave. Yeah, they did. But it's still in government hands. I don't usually come this early.