Traditionally, the final day of the Legislature is a time for surprises. Thursday will be no different.
Just before midnight on Tuesday, a list of bills eligible for final-day votes in the state Senate was emailed to interested parties. One them is House Bill 118, a measure that would define online fantasy sports contests as something other than gambling.
Which the state constitution and legal precedent now says it is.
The bill, authored by state Rep. Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown, passed the House last year, but was tabled before it could reach the Senate floor. It had lain dormant for nearly a full calendar year until last week, when it was quietly passed out of a Senate committee that deals with regulated industries.
HB 118 is part of a nationwide state-by-state effort by the industry, dominated by sites such as FanDuel and DraftKings, to reclassify the contests.
We understand the measure has created something of a row within the Senate Republican caucus. The Georgia Baptist Mission Board, which opposed the bill last year, sounded an alarm on Facebook this morning.
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The final day of the Legislature will be the last day of free media exposure for many statewide candidates who decided to weather the ban on fundraising while the General Assembly is in session.
One of them is state Sen. Michael Williams, R-Cumming, a gubernatorial candidate who has been slammed by his GOP colleagues for offering a slew of conservative amendments to unrelated bills in the final stretch of the legislative session.
Our AJC colleague Maya Prabhu reports that Williams offered amendments that would ban abortion once a heartbeat is detected, allow gun owners licenses in other states reciprocity to carry in Georgia and expand the state’s medical marijuana program.
And after each one, Pro Tem Butch Miller struck down the amendments for lacking relevance to the bill under debate. Writes Prabhu:
Senate Rules Chairman Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, poked fun at Williams from the floor.
"Apparently we've been part of the senator from the twenty-seventh's campaign commercials all day long," Mullis said of Williams. "I was wondering if it was legal that he does not have our permission. Or should we charge him for us being in his campaign commercials?"
Miller joined in on the roast: "The senator from the 27th hasn't had this much turn-down service since he stayed at the Holiday Inn."
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State Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, a candidate for secretary of state, tried the same tactic, but didn't get the same kind of pushback.
Prabhu reports that McKoon introduced and then withdrew an amendment that would have made it harder for teens to get a court waiver to avoid having to notify their parents about an abortion.
And he unsuccessfully sought an amendment during the debate of the distracted driving bill that would have required driver’s licenses given to illegal immigrants with a protected status -- i.e. DACA kids -- to be distinguishable from licenses for other residents.
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Democrat Stacey Abrams said Tuesday she would form a new council of middle school and high school students to host town hall meetings, organize outreach initiatives and hash out policy ideas if she's elected governor.
The former House minority leader said she would hire a full-time staff member to run the Governor’s Youth Council, provide stipends and transportation funds for meetings and train and mentor members.
Her proposal came days after tens of thousands of students and other demonstrators marched in downtown Atlanta and elsewhere around the state to protest gun violence.
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At the end of Zell Miller's funeral on Tuesday, the Rev. Don Harp gave a shout-out to a Democratic candidate for governor. The senior pastor was addressing Miller's legacy as the founder of the lottery-fueled HOPE scholarship when he added this:
There's a young woman here today running for governor who is a product of the HOPE scholarship. She told me she lived in 17 different places. President Clinton, that's what the HOPE scholarship is all about.
Harp’s reference to was to Democrat Stacey Evans, who was among dozens of Georgia politicians and candidates at the funeral to pay their final respects to the former governor.
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With a memorial service for the late Gov. Zell Miller set to begin at the state Capitol within a matter of hours, we're getting many notes from past and current political figures. One of them was former House speaker Terry Coleman, who made several points:
No. 1: "Except for Zell's leadership, Atlanta may have never successfully landed the 1996 Olympics. His force of personality helped thrust Atlanta and Georgia onto the world stage in dramatic fashion."
No. 2: "When Zell was lieutenant governor, he insisted on building the Appalachian Highway and eventually the Brasstown Valley Resort. He understood that all politics is local, and his allegiance to and love for his home in north Georgia's Appalachian mountains was obvious."
No. 3: "Zell's roots in Appalachia and his empathy for poor and older citizens led him to push for the removal of the state sales tax on groceries."
Mike Griffin, lobbyist for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, posted this on his Facebook page:
"I'll never forget the friend Zell Miller was to me and Ten Commandments Georgia. When Jody Hice and I were trying to raise money to pay of the ACLU lawsuit in Barrow County, he came to our rescue and spoke at our fundraiser in Atlanta at the Capital City Club."
Others have sent photographs. State Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, sent this, taken in 2013 on the 20th anniversary of the Georgia Lottery:
And Jane Kidd, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, sent along this memento of political columnist Bill Shipp’s 80th birthday party, which drew four former Georgia governors and a former first lady, Betty Russell Vandiver, widow of former Gov. Ernest Vandiver:
Betty Vandiver died in January. Former Gov. Carl Sanders, seen seated next to Shipp, died in 2014.
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Former President Jimmy Carter had some harsh words for President Donald Trump's new pick to lead the National Security Council. He said that selecting John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as his in-house military adviser might just be "one of the worst mistakes" of Trump's tenure, in a recent interview with USA Today. The Plains resident called Bolton a "warlike figure" who could set back the White House's upcoming summit with North Korean leaders:
"Maybe one of the worst mistakes that President Trump has made since he's been in office is his employment of John Bolton, who has been advocating a war with North Korea for a long time and even an attack on Iran, and who has been one of the leading figures on orchestrating the decision to invade Iraq," Carter said. He called the appointment, announced last week, "a disaster for our country."
Andrew Young, another former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said much the same thing on Sunday.
