By Ashley Speagle
Correspondent
ATLANTA — Legislators spend all session navigating their bills through passage to state law, but when some bills fail, they jump ship and slip onto a boat still afloat.
PDF: Senate Bill 435 PDF: Senate Bill 411 PDF: House Bill 1198 PDF: House Bill 1055
Several bills passed Thursday, the last day of the legislative session, after lawmakers fastened their failed ideas onto safer, more popular bills. This political strategy helped pass tanning regulations and federal health care opt-outs on the last legislative day.
Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton, wanted to create a state office to prevent and treat increasing cases of diabetes, but he had to get senators to pass his bill with House-added tanning regulations.
“The speaker (Rep. David Ralston) over there has been very kind to us, especially with seat belts,” Sen. Thomas said. “I’m quite willing to accept the tanning apparatus added to the bill.”
The amendment bans anyone under 14 from using tanning beds, prohibits false advertising about tanning risks and requires annual registration fees to operate tanning equipment.
“We all know that, just like the sun can be dangerous to the skin, so can the tanning facilities,” Sen. Thomas said.
Despite some opposition to tanning bed oversight, senators passed his diabetes bill with the tanning amendment, which had cleared the House but did not pass through Senate committee on its own.
Another bill, the Healthy Georgians Act, originally allowed insurers to sell plans in Georgia with incentives such as lowered premiums for using covered health and wellness programs.
Representatives added legislation that would exempt Georgians from federal mandates to purchase health insurance. After debate, senators approved the revision by 33-16.
A bill to tax nonresidents’ deferred income earned in Georgia, such as pensions, passed with the addition of legislation to eliminate small tax credit refunds to low-income taxpayers.
Another bill glued together a measure to increase fees for state services and hospitals and one that phases out the state property tax and income tax for senior citizens.
Several Democrats opposed the cut and paste process, questioning the cramming of disparate bills together. If a court finds a bill unlawfully put together, legislators have a mess to fix.
“You know it’s unconstitutional, you know it’s going to bring lawsuits, you know it didn’t pass, now you wanna stick it on a bill just because you can,” Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, said during debate adding the federal health care opt-out to the Healthy Georgians Act.
Combining bills doesn’t always work. On Thursday, legislators failed to pass a bill creating a state board overseeing work force development.
The amendment would have required employees to resubmit union memberships to their employers biannually, which some lawmakers said could harm unions.
FUSED BILLS* SB 435: Diabetes and Health Improvement Act plus Tanning Facilities Regulation Act* SB 411: Healthy Georgians Act plus health-care opt-out* HB 1198: Taxing nonresidents’ income plus ending tax credit refunds to low-income persons* HB 1055: Uers and hospital provider fees plus property tax phase-outSource: Georgia House and Senate bills
“We are asking these teachers to mail a certified letter every six months that they still want to continue their dues be deducted … to make sure the roles of teachers in these associations decline over the years,” said Sen. Steve Thompson, D-Marietta.
Sen. Doug Stoner, D-Atlanta, said he opposed the amendment because it would actually decrease state economic development, going against the original purpose of the bill.
Sen. Orrock emphasized the erroneous lawmaking process, where legislators added a divisive amendment without sending the entire bill through committee review first.
“This is about the integrity of the process,” said Sen. Orrock. “We’re upholding the integrity of the process at 7 o’clock at night at the end of the session.”