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Legislative Watch

Georgia State Senate – 2.27.2025 Committee Meetings

By March 6, 2025No Comments

On February 27, 2025, the following Georgia State Senate committees met to discuss bills to potentially advance:

Select the associated links to read each bill in full.

Higher Education

SB 181

This bill seeks to prohibit Georgia colleges and universities from accepting funding or entering into contracts with foreign adversaries. 

The bill passed committee. 

SB 120

This bill bans universities from participating in DEI initiatives or supporting any programs or activities that promote or advocate for DEI initiatives. 

No one testified in favor; everyone who showed up to speak was against this bill.

This bill will return to committee at a later date.

Banking and Financial Institutions

SB 178

This bill aims to let the State Treasury to invest in Bitcoin.

The bill was only heard and will return to committee at a later date.

Retirement

SB 157

This bill allows current and former members of the General Assembly to become a member of the Georgia Legislative Retirement System and obtain credible service. The bill is intended for past legislature members who opted to not join but want to buy back their service. The bill will allow current or former members to receive credible service if they commenced service as a General Assembly member on or after January 12, 1981.

The bill was passed by committee for actuarial study.

SB 209

This bill is requesting an actuarial study to understand the impact of allowing public school employees to participate in the teacher retirement  system. The intent of this change would be to improve retention of public school employees.

The bill passed committee.

SB 216

This bill is requesting an actuarial study to understand the impact of allowing the director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission to participate in the Georgia Judicial Retirement System.

The bill passed committee.

SB 226

This bill would create a retirement path called the Peach State Saves Program, which allow employers with 5 or more employees that does not already offer a retirement plan to have automatic payroll deductions to build a retirement fund. The program would use the economy of scale of our ERS and the investment opportunities to maximize people’s retirement and make it efficient.

The bill did not pass committee.

SB 285

This bill would increase the amount of funds collected for the Peace Officers’ Annuity and Benefit fund. The bill would increase in the percentage of all 9-1-1 charges, provide for a $1.00 increase in the monthly 9-1-1 charge assessed by local governments, provide for a $1.00 increase in the monthly wireless enhanced 9-1-1 charge assessed by local governments, and provide for a $1.00 increase in the prepaid 9-1-1 charge assessed by local governments. 

The purpose of this change is to allow older police officers to have a stronger retirement fund. The bill increases the monthly premium for officers by $10, but this is offset by the increase in 9-1-1 charges.

The bill was only heard and will be voted on at a later date.

Education

SB 124

This bill expands the Georgia Promise Scholarship Fund (not by adding dollars) by allowing these state dollars to follow the children of active duty servicemembers, which is happening at the federal level as well. This bill allows the State Board of Education to adopt rules necessary to implement this change.

The bill passed committee. 

SB 63

This bill allows homeschoolers to take their PSAT, SAT, ACT or pre-ACT at their residence school.

The bill passed committee. 

SB 148

This bill creates a pilot program for outdoor education, looking at schools around the state to see how all school systems can use their outdoor spaces as classrooms to teach students. 

An amendment was added to allow teachers to use 5 of their sick days as personal days, an increase from the 3 they can currently use.

The bill as amended passed committee. 

Judiciary

SB 132

This bill requires a hearing before a court orders an evaluation of the mental competency of an accused person to stand trial. The time for this evaluation will decrease from 90 days to 45 days for non-serious misdemeanors. 

Some people are deemed mentally incompetent but can be restored. Currently, the law gives the courts 9 months to consider treatment for these individuals. This bill will decrease that to 120 days. 

The bill passed committee. 

SB 207

This bill relates to how occupational licensing boards handle criminal records. Almost every board handles these differently, so this bill aims to align all of these boards in Georgia. It confirms that boards will look at felonies and certain misdemeanors as well as whether there is an offense directly related to the license occupation.

The bill passed committee. 

SB 36

This bill is designed to protect people from unfair state and local intrusion into their freedom of religion.

This bill opens pathways for local governments to use religious freedom in bad faith to deny services to anyone they disagree with religiously. Religious freedom is already protected under the Constitution.

Pastors and rabbis testified against supporting this bill, as it puts women and minorities and the LGBT+ community at risk.

The bill passed committee. 

Natural Resources and the Environment

SB 240

This bill makes April the Natural Plant Month to focus on plants that are native to Georgia.

The bill passed committee. 

HB 167

This bill expands hunting options for Georgians by adding the option for hunters to wear fluorescent pink rather than fluorescent orange.

The bill passed committee. 

HB 287

This is a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) cleanup bill. It updates the year 2024 to 2025 in the code and codifies rules and regulations from the DNR board. It also extends the disabled courtesy hunting definition to include all residents and non-residents who are paralyzed or are veterans and allows them to hunt as well as fish.

The bill passed committee. 

Regulated Industries and Utilities

SB 213

This bill aims to address commercial cheating at all levels of education, specifically occupation licensing. This sort of cheating poses safety risks for Georgians; some companies provide this sort of work. SB 213 makes it unlawful for any person or entity to provide a work product in a substantially completed form for any commercial purpose.  

The bill passed committee. 

SB 254

This bill puts a limit of 10 mg of total THC per hemp food product or consumable product and a limit of 5 mg per 12 ounce liquid container. It does not stop the consumption of THC if it is derived from hemp.

The bill passed committee. 

SB 241

Under current Georgia law, the accepted methods to dispose of a human body are burial green, burial cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, and donation to a medical school or other research facility. This bill seeks to legalize human composting with licensing. Human composting is putting a body in a container to decompose naturally. Remains do not mix. 

The bill passed committee. 

Insurance and Labor

SB 121

This bill, discussed previously (see HERE), would require individuals charged and convicted of reckless driving or DUI to increase their minimum required insurance coverage to not less than $100,000 for bodily injury to or death of one person in any one accident. The limit for bodily injury to or death of two or more persons in any one accident would be increased to $300,000, and the limit for injury to or destruction of property will be increased to $100,000.

It also clarifies that a DUI is any BAC .08 or greater for adults and .02 or greater for juveniles.

The bill passed committee. 

SB 201

This bill provides protections for homeowners in counties declared state of emergency counties. These homeowners will be able to get out of contracts with contractors if the work is not done in a reasonable amount of time. 

The bill passed committee. 

SB 230

This bill, discussed previously (see HERE), relates to fire and extended coverage statute for condominium association insurance. It will eliminate the $5,000 deductible cap that can be assessed back to the individual unit owner from the condo association. Policies are no longer available with a $5,000 deductible, as most are now typically from $25,000 to $100,000. 

It also requires insurers to provide notices electronically as well as through the mail.

The bill will return to committee at a later date.

Ethics

SB 214

This bill allows people to request absentee ballots throughout early voting and on election day to cast immediately. This is designed to circumvent issues with the mail system.

The bill was heard and will return to committee at a later date.