Gov. Kemp Vetoes 12 Bills from 2024 Legislative Session

By State Rep. Alan Powell

Forty days have passed in which Governor Kemp had to sign or veto bills, and he has vetoed twelve bills.

This week, Kemp listed the first six bills he vetoed. Three of the most notable include:

House Bill 228 would expand the Georgia Tuition Equalization Grant Program, HOPE Scholarship, and Dual Enrollment Program eligibility for certain private for-profit institutions.

Despite each of these programs having finite resources, the General Assembly proposed many ad hoc pieces of legislation to expand institution eligibility without additional funding or fiscal analysis addressing the impact of such expansion on current appropriations.

House Bill 1019, as originally introduced, would have raised the state-wide homestead tax exemption from $2,000 to $4,000 upon voter approval through a referendum. After the Senate Finance Committee changed the exemption amount, the Senate adopted a floor amendment late on the final day of the legislative session to return the bill to its original form.

This amendment, however, did not change the language of the constitutionally required voter referendum, which references a $10,000 exemption.

Voters would have therefore been approving a different exemption which the legislature did not pass.

House Bill 1123 would have established an Adult Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation Multidisciplinary (“AANEM”) Coordinator Program within the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council (“PAC”) to provide a network of regional coordinators.

Had it passed, the district attorney of each judicial circuit would have been required to establish an AANEM Team, which would be overseen and managed by one of multiple regional coordinators employed by PAC.

This bill would also create an elder justice coalition for various purposes related to elder abuse response and prevention, including creating a law enforcement training for responding to instances of disabled adult and elder abuse to be implemented by the Georgia Public Safety and Training Center (“GPSTC”).

However, the General Assembly failed to fund both the AANEM Program and the elder justice coalition.

The Governor plans to release the information on the remaining six bills he has vetoed next week.