Listed below are the bills we are tracking in 2020.

Senate Bill 386 — revises Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Act, updating the program is make significant improvements. Passed full Senate on 3/10/2020

Senate Bill 318 — FORUM Act would public forums at public institutions of higher education and prevent the creation of “free speech zones” at public institutions of higher education. Passed Senate on March 9. Had a Hearing in House Committee.

House Resolution 378 — proposes an amendment to the Georgia Constitution to allow all forms of betting, bingo games, raffles, and gambling. This includes sports betting, pari-mutuel betting on horse racing, and casinos. Passed House Regulation Industries Committee on March 11, and expected to get a vote in the full House of Representatives on March 12. Requires a 2/3 vote in House and still must get a 2/3 vote in Senate.

Senate Bill 357 — updates Georgia law protecting houses of worship which allow firearms, treating the facilities as more like private property. 2/28/20 — Voted favorable out of Committee. Next step is the Rules Committee to be placed on the Senate calendar for a vote by the Senate.

Senate Bill 403 — creates sports betting under the lottery commission. This would permit betting on sports, including using a cell phone to make bets. 3/3/20 had a hearing in Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities.

HB 1060 — Vulnerable Child Protection Act would make it a felony to administer harmful medical interventions to make a minor child appear the opposite sex. These include: puberty-blocking drugs and mega doses of Cross-sex hormones that stop normal development and cause sterilization; and mutilating surgeries that remove healthy breasts and sex organs, resulting in permanent sterility and life-long sexual dysfunction. Introduced in the House on 2/27/2020.

Senate Bill 368 — provides for nondiscrimination of religious child-placing agencies by entities of state and local government.

Senate Bill 331 — Would amend Georgia law to make it unlawful for any person to knowingly possess or control or produce any material or medium which contains images that depict a naked or nearly naked, suggestively posed, and inappropriately sexualized child or children with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desire of such person or the person viewing such images. Will likely to have to be re-written and tried again in 2021.

Senate Bill 163 — Allows a home school student to be eligible to participate in extracurricular and interscholastic activities sponsored by his or her resident school. Status: Passed the full Senate on 2/25/19, and is now in the House for consideration. Received a Hearing Only in Committee on March 26. Similar bill in House is HB 1055 scheduled for House Education Committee on 3/5/20.

Senate Bill 221 — Georgia version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). This legislation prohibits the government from substantially burdening a person’s free exercise of religion. Status: The Committee did not take up this bill as planned on Monday, March 4, as the bill sponsor asked for more time for a fair hearing. It is still an active bill for the 2020 session.

House Resolution 327 —  A resolution (not a bill) to change the Georgia constitution to allow casino gambling. Click here to read GA Rep. Wes Cantrell’s Facebook post about the problems with casino gambling in Georgia (you may have to login to Facebook to see it – not sure). Status: Reported favorably out of Committee on March 1, but did not get a vote in the full House before Crossover Day.

House Bill 426 — So-called “Hate Crimes” legislation will enhance the punishment for crimes involving bias or prejudice. Presumes that law enforcement will know the motivation of any crime. Status: Passed out of Committee on Feb. 26, and passed the full House on Crossover Day (3/7/19) and is now in the Senate. Click here for an article about the Senate action on this bill.
See additional information below regarding problems with this legislation:

• Violates equal protection by treating some victims as more worthy of protection than others.
• Punishes thoughts, not actions. “Hate crime” bills ignore that the act is already a crime; instead, they ramp up punishment because the perpetrator was thinking something the government disapproves of. Empowering the government to assess and approve/disapprove thoughts is a very totalitarian concept.
• Injects identity politics into Georgia criminal law.
• Will inevitably be used against Christians, as has happened in Canada and the UK (see below).
• For the first time in Georgia Code, enshrines “sexual orientation” as worthy of special protection.
• Does not define “sexual orientation,” leaving that term open to expansion. The American Psychological Association and other LGBT activists are already pushing to have pedophilia reclassified as a sexual orientation (see this article for a good explanation: https://thefederalist.com/2019/02/21/pedophile-project-7-year-old-next-sexual-revolutions-hit-parade/). When that happens (and it will), and if the hate crimes bill passes, Georgia criminal law will give special protection to pedophiles.
• NOT NECESSARY. The burden should be on the proponents to show that victims who fall into these special categories are currently not being protected. The proponents have made no effort to do so. In fact, because true “hate crimes” are so rare, they are the most widely faked episodes in American criminal law. As someone has said, when it comes to hate crimes, demand greatly exceeds supply. See https://www.fakehatecrimes.org/.
• See also: https://www.christianpost.com/news/canada-anti-transgender-speech-hate-crime-prison-fine.html
• https://www.christian.org.uk/news/christians-unfairly-targeted-for-hate-crime-prosecutions/

Senate Bill 15 — “Keeping Georgia’s Schools Safe Act” has the intention of preventing, discovering, responding to, and recovering from threats, warnings, and developing situations regarding any public or private school. We spoke to the bill sponsor about concerns regarding the autonomy of private, Christian schools. Status: Private schools were removed from this version of the bill before it was presented in Committee. It was voted on in the full Senate on Feb. 27, and passed out of the House Education Committee on March 27. On April 2nd the full House voted 110-56 in favor. Gov. Kemp vetoed this bill.

Senate Bill 45 — Creates the Georgia Horse Racing Commission that will regulate pari-mutuel betting on horse racing. Click here for the testimony Citizen Impact gave at the Committee hearing for this bill. Our good friend, Mike Griffin, wrote this article about it: https://christianindex.org/horse-racing-proposed-again/. Status: Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee hearing held on Feb. 13 where testimony was given for and against. It was voted out of Committee, but did not get a vote in the full Senate by Crossover Day.

Senate Resolution 184 — Proposes an amendment to the Georgia Constitution to allow casino gambling. Status: Introduced on Feb. 15.

House Bill 580 — Would ban so-called “conversion therapy” for anyone under 18. This pernicious legislation will outlaw any effort to help young people who struggle with same-sex attraction, even if they come to their pastor for help. In some places where this was enacted there was an exemption for pastors; however, they can always remove that exemption later. Status: Introduced on March 5, but did not get a hearing in Committee before Crossover Day. It should be dead for this year, but could be added to another bill that did cross over.