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Legislative Watch

Georgia House of Representatives – 2.4.2025 Committee Meetings

By February 13, 2025No Comments

On February 4, 2025, the following six Georgia House of Representatives committees met to discuss bills to potentially advance:

Select the associated links to read each bill in full.

Motor Vehicles

HB 61

This bill passed all committees last year but never made it to the Senate floor for a vote. HB 61 authorizes the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue separate license plates for ambulance and hearse vehicles. They currently use the same type of license plate because they were once the same vehicle type but are very different vehicles now. This will have no physical impact on the state. 

The bill passed committee.

HB 77

This bill also passed committees last year but ran out of time for a vote on the Senate floor. It pertains to funeral processions: on rural roads, oncoming traffic must pull over until the funeral procession passes. Additionally, there must be flashing lights at the beginning and the end of the procession. HB 77 will help ensure the safety of the deputies leading the procession. 

The bill passed committee.

HB 114

This bill updates the motor care compliance division on hazardous materials guidelines to meet federal requirements. The update solely pertains to changing the year currently written in the code to reflect the current year. 

The bill passed committee.

HB 116

This bill proposes a change in the name of the Motor Care Compliance Division (MCCD) to the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division and will establish that officers working in this division will be trained, sworn, and certified as law enforcement officers. This bill will benefit both the safety of the highways and the clarity of the enforcement process. The MCCD’s primary focus is to enhance highway safety through detailed inspection of commercial motor vehicles, including checking vehicles as well as operators and the loads they carry to ensure vehicles do not pose a safety risk. 

Renaming the division will provide the public and the vehicle operators a clear understanding of who is conducting inspections and will allow operators to know exactly which division is responsible for enforcing safety compliance. Swearing in MCCD officers as law enforcement officers allows them to have the full legal backing to ensure all commercial vehicles comply with safety standards.

The bill passed committee.

HB 208

This bill creates two new license plates benefiting the Department of Revenue—a plate for the state parks and historic sites division (the first of its kind in Georgia) and a plate for bass fishing anglers.

The Georgia parks system saw more than 14 million visitors, and the department that oversees more than 88,000 acres of state parks. A specialized license plate would not only bring more attention to the state park system but also generate funding to support improving the aging infrastructure and creating more areas with handicap access. It will also enhance recreational amenities and activity.

Georgia is on an international radar for bass fishing due to many record-break bass catches. This plate would generate dedicated funding for bass management activities and will enhance recreating activities for angling for bass throughout Georgia.

These plates will serve as symbols of support and advertisements for the state parks and for black bass conservation efforts. 

The bill passed committee. 

Agriculture and Consumer Affairs

HB 91

This is a bill that affects veterinarians, of which Georgia has a major shortage. This bill allows graduates of foreign veterinary medical schools to become board certified in Georgia as long as the graduates meet the requirements to become licensed through associations such as the American Veterinary Medical Association or the American Board of Veterinary Specialists. If they meet these requirements and earn this license, graduates of foreign veterinary schools may practice in Georgia. 

The bill was only introduced and heard; it will come back to the committee at a later date.

HB 117

Almost 80% of seafood eaten in America is imported; specifically, 94% of shrimp eaten in America is imported from China, India, Ecuador, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. Most of these countries do not adhere to domestic US standards, and only 0.7% of foreign shrimp is tested by the FDA, which is less than 5% of the Congressionally mandated inspections on foreign food facilities. Shrimp from India and Vietnam typically contain antibiotics and other drugs.

HB 117 requires food service establishments to display from where they imported their seafood. The bill is intended to allow consumers where the food they eat comes from and to make the process more transparent. 

The bill was only introduced and heard; it will come back to the committee at a later date.

HB 163

This bill focuses on properly labeling items in restaurants, particularly cultured meat that is made in a lab. This bill is intended to create transparency regarding what consumers are eating. Some cultured meat is becoming cheaper to produce, meaning more restaurants will begin using it; as such, this sort of food needs to be labeled for transparency.

The bill was only introduced and heard; it will come back to the committee at a later date.

Judiciary Civil

HB 55

This bill, introduced on 1/28/2025, is to add another judge to the Alapaha judicial circuit. It needed to be recommitted in order to change the effective date from July 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026.

The bill passed committee.

HB 131

This bill concerns self-storage delinquency auction advertisements. Georgia has around 1,500 self-storage facilities that serve seniors, students, renters, and other individuals. Part of the current statute states that the self-storage facility is required to give actual notice to the customer who has developed the delinquency that the contents are going to be auctioned. Most of the people who bid money on these delinquent storage units learn about the sale online and conduct the bids online. 

Self-storage facilities often lose money when they cannot rent out storage units because the delinquent unit is still full. This bill is designed to remedy this cost to self-storage facilities. It creates a timeline for the direct notice, online advertisements, and the auction along with multiple steps to ensure no errors are made. 

The bill passed committee.

HB 180

This bill changes the code as it relates to Article VI courts and probate court qualifications in counties with more than 90,000 people. An affidavit must be signed by every candidate for probate judge in those Article VI courts stating that they have been practicing law for more than seven years. This bill requires the candidate to have the affidavit signed and with them on the day they qualify for probate judge rather than on election day.

The bill passed committee.

HB 199

This bill is intended to guarantee that all personally identifiable information of Georgia judges is restricted from certain public websites and disclosures due to instances of their families’ lives being threatened. Under this bill, judges may fill out a form that includes their phone numbers and home address to submit to the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC); this office will then submit the documents to the local governments, barring this information from being available on any public website.

The bill passed committee.

Intragovernmental Coordination

HB 73

This bill only affects Seminole County in southwest Georgia. With support from the county superintendent as well as the Board of Education in Seminole County, HB 73 allows the Seminole County school board elections to be nonpartisan.

The bill passed committee. 

Judiciary Non-Civil

HB 123

Georgia is one of the only states in the country that executes prisoners with intellectual disabilities. This bill changes the standard of proof of intellectual disabilities from beyond a reasonable doubt to a preponderance of evidence, which aligns with regulations of every other state that practices capital punishment. The bill also determines the issue of intellectual disability before the trial in a separate hearing because capital punishment cases are usually very long and very gruesome, which leaves juries biased. This bill does not allow any changes to the prisoners currently on death row and would only change the process for individuals going forward. 

District attorneys support changing the standard of proof but not changing the pre-trial procedural steps. The bill will be discussed further to find a compromise.

Defense and Veterans Affairs

HB 107

This bill will require the licensing board to issue digital verifiable occupational licenses to expedite verification of licenses, eliminate delays, and provide a single consistent process for military spouses. This would allow military spouses to have occupational licenses on their phone and not have to wait for a physical copy so they can begin working more quickly.

The bill passed committee. 

HB 110

This bill creates a state-level penalty for any members of the title pawn industry who do business with servicemembers. According to federal law under the Military Lending Act, it is illegal for that industry to do business with servicemembers. HB 110 institutes a state penalty in the event that such business occurs and fines the title pawn institution four times the principle amount advanced in that interaction. 

The bill passed committee.

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