Governor visits Chickamauga school, signs bills into law
On Friday, April 26, Gov. Brian Kemp landed on the practice football field of Gordon Lee High School in a Georgia State Patrol helicopter and was met by an entourage of luminaries that included Sen. Jeff Mullis of Walker County and Rep. Dewayne Hill of Catoosa County.
The purpose of the governor’s visit was to publicly sign several bills into law and to share some of the accomplishments of his first 100 days in office.
Kemp has signed over 120 bills into law this year, many of them in the home towns of legislators who sponsored them.
Mullis was a sponsor of S.B. 77, a bill that provides additional protection to state monuments by allowing for extra fines in the case vandalism and prevents monuments and other publicly displayed historic items from being moved to museums.
Controversy has surrounded S.B. 77 because many believe that while it applies to all state monuments, the intent is to protect Confederate monuments. Before signing the bill, Kemp cited the monument of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta and praised King’s legacy of peace.
“It’s true we have monuments that do not reflect our values,” Kemp said, alluding to some Confederate monuments.
But he added that those monuments are also part of our history and we can learn from them.
Among other legislation Kemp has signed into law is H.B. 274, which cements the extra homestead exemption related to school taxes for Catoosa County homeowners aged 65 or older whose income is under $30,000 a year. The exemption will apply to $40,000 of the assessed value of a home.
H.B. 387 allows for liens against property in areas that are served by non-profit, volunteer fire departments in cases where the property owners have not subscribed to the fire protection service but request assistance in the case of an emergency.
H.B. 63 requires health insurance companies to allow patients to skip typical steps in drug therapies on the advice of the patients’ doctors and to go immediately to stronger or alternative drugs as their doctors deem necessary as long as the drugs are covered by the insurance company.
H.B. 551 addresses the packaging and sale of kratom and specifies that it is illegal to sell kratom to anyone under the age of 18 and it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to possess kratom.
The bill also outlines labeling requirements that include listing ingredients and safe doses.
One interesting piece of legislation, S.B. 6, outlines the consequences of using unmanned aircraft to deliver contraband to prisons or to take unauthorized photographs of prisons. H.B. 353 makes it a crime to intentionally stage a motor vehicle collision, to intentionally cause a motor vehicle collision or to fabricate evidence of a motor vehicle collision for the purpose of insurance fraud.
The governor spoke in Chickamauga about his wife’s efforts to help end human trafficking. First Lady Marty Kemp is heading up the GRACE Commission, committed to “eliminating sex trafficking and providing care to victims.”