With so much activity on the national and world stage there’s been little focus in this space on the Georgia General Assembly.  This came to my attention as I got a question from a relative, relayed from a co-worker of hers, on the status of a particular bill and its likelihood of passage.

It wasn’t legislation that I was familiar with, so I looked it up on the legislature’s website.  They’ve come a long way since I first started writing about them and Georgia politics in general.  You can find any bill, it’s status and progress, as well as videos of every day’s activities within the chamber and each committee meeting.  Transparency is there if you know where to start and have the time to observe.

This particular bill had received a vote for passage weeks ago.  It had a good mix of sponsors.  There were MAGA and “Establishment” Republicans, as well as a highly respected Democrat.  It passed the overwhelmingly with bipartisan support and only a few votes against it.  

So naturally, it’s a lock to get to the Governor’s desk for a signature, right?  As Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast”.

With everything, there’s a process.  Some of the rules of the process are clear. Some are unwritten yet still well known.  By the last two days of the session bills can venture into the world of known unknowns.  Nothing is certain until it gets to the Governor’s desk AND receives his signature.

Instead of focusing on that particular bill, we’re going to talk about the process of any bill that is alive at this point.  There’s a lot that will happen between now and when the legislature closes “Sine Die” on Friday, April 4^th.

Last week we passed the major milestone of “Crossover Day”, which is a day when a bill needs to pass one chamber in order to receive consideration from the other this year.  That’s only true as a technicality.  Bills that don’t make it often appear in part as amendments or in total as substitutes for ones that did pass.  

Every bill passed House bill that remains in the Senate, and vice versa, is both a live bill on its own as well as a “vehicle”.  That is, it’s a bill that can be re-purposed – some might say hijacked – if someone in the other chamber values their dead bill that needs a second life and uses a live bill to resurrect one that, in theory, died on Crossover Day.

If hijackers weren’t enough to worry about, there’s also hostage taking.  This comes from an understanding taught to me as advice from the late Representative John Yates of Griffin, when I was first making the move from being a grassroots volunteer to someone actively working in politics.  

I can still recall him putting his arm around me and saying “Son, when you get down there to the capitol, don’t ever let anyone know that you want anything. Once they know what you want, they own you.”

That advice is general and specific, and applies to many situations.  In this case, if the House or Senate knows the other chamber has a favored bill that is a priority then that priority can be and often is held hostage until an equal priority of the opposite chamber is moved to passage.  

It can be the most universally agreed upon heartwarming bill that will save puppies, protect children, and give us peace and prosperity in our time.  But if one chamber knows even one member of leadership in the other wants it – they own that bill until they get something for it in return.  That’s just business.

This year adds a wrinkle to this concept – a very well known unknown.  While technically this isn’t an election year, campaigns for 2026 have already started.  

We know that we’ll have a new Governor.  Our Attorney General has already announced for that race, and our Lieutenant Governor is all but an official candidate. Other statewide constitutionally elected officers are kicking tires on their races and/or a run for the U.S. Senate. Vacancies beget vacancies, and there’s plenty of ambition ready to run to fill them.

The point here is that a lot of the leaders of both chambers are looking at a lot of soon to be open seats with even higher titles.  Some want to remain in their current legislative seats but move into leadership positions within their caucus or chamber as those leaders run for other offices.

There is a cascade of want for higher office occurring right now. And there are a lot of fellow legislators that understand how to deal with want as important pieces of legislation are considered over the next month.

Some people like horse racing as a sport, even though that’s a legalization bill that never got close to the finish line here in Georgia.  It’s disappointing that horse trading isn’t more visible to spectators, however.  The forecast calls for a banner month of that as we enter the home stretch on the way to Sine Die.