Friends,
We have officially passed the halfway point of our 40 day legislative session this week, and enjoyed it bringing so many friends and neighbors to the People’s House to help us celebrate our third annual Lunar New Year at the Capitol!
Meanwhile, our work continues as we are coming up fast on our first major milestone in the legislative session, Crossover Day. Especially since this is the second year in a two year term lawmakers are feeling the time pressure, because whatever legislation doesn’t cross over to the other chamber by March 6th may be dead for the year.
Ready to catch up with what we’ve been working on? Then let’s go!
SAFE STORAGE AND PROTECTING CHILDREN
(Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, click here to read full article)
This week a father in Sandy Springs has been charged with second-degree murder after his two year old son accessed his unsecured firearm and died. Per reporting from the AJC:
“Willis told detectives he took off his fanny pack where he had kept the 9mm pistol and tossed it onto the bed in the master bedroom.
The boy was placed in his own bed for a nap and handed a cellphone, the records state. But when the device lost power, the child went downstairs and asked his father ‘to please lay with him until he goes to sleep.’
The boy shot himself in the face, the records state.
The father knew the toddler ‘had direct knowledge’ of where the gun was kept and ‘did not secure it in a safe location.’
In an earlier news release, police said the investigation ‘revealed that the incident resulted from an improperly secured firearm.’”
(Via Fox 5 Atlanta, click here for full video with captions)
This was not, however, the only instance of a young child being injured by an unsecured gun in metro Atlanta this week. In an unrelated incident, officers have charged a Gwinnett County mother after officials say her 4-year-old son shot himself in the hand in a Burger King parking lot.
The mother reportedly told police officers that she had been in the parking lot eating breakfast with her son in the car. As she told officers, she had been on the phone and didn’t realize the 4-year-old had taken a handgun out of the glovebox until he fired it, hitting himself in the hand.
The mother is now facing a charge of reckless conduct.
(Via Fox 5 News, click here to read full article)
So this seems like a good time to talk about the status of our safe storage bills.
HB 1: The Pediatric Health Safe Storage Act
(Via the American Academy of Pediatrics, click here for more resources)
The most effective way to prevent a minor from accessing a gun without supervision is to store it securely. Period.
Our bill, HB 1, would simply require this safety standard, just as we have child safety laws regarding car seats, enclosures around swimming pools, speed limits in school zones, or childcare and adequate supervision of minors, among others.
At the heart of such laws is this: we recognize that children and teenagers are a class of people who require a little extra attention and care to keep them safe. And as gun violence remains the #1 cause of death in children and teenagers in this country, it stands to reason that common sense gun laws can and should be applied.
(Graphic via Everytown Research and Policy Data via CDC, WONDER, Provisional Mortality Statistics, Multiple Cause of Death, Injury Mechanism & All Other Leading Causes, 2024. Ages 1–19.)
This is, of course, not the first year we’ve run the Pediatric Health Safe Storage Act. We first filed this bill (HB 161) in 2023, when it received a hearing in a House Public Safety and Homeland Security subcommittee. It was, however, a hearing after Crossover Day that year, and the committee chair did not allow it to come to a vote, which basically meant that without substantive support from the majority party, the bill could not progress.
(Via the Georgia Recorder, click here to read full article)
Since that time we have worked tirelessly on trying to advance this issue, including asking the Speaker of the House to allow the bill to be recommitted to Public and Community Health where it could receive a fair hearing and a vote. We’re almost out of time this year, but it’s not too late for a final push.
Interested in helping HB 1 progress? We have a legislative toolkit, which includes background information, contacts, call and email scripts, and research citations. Please use and share freely!
HB 2: The Safe Storage Tax Credit Act
(Via WSBTV, click here to read full article)
HB 2, the Safe Storage Tax Credit Act, offers an up to $300 tax credit for purchase of safe storage equipment (e.g. a gun safe). Modeled after bipartisan legislation that passed in Virginia in 2023, I envisioned it as a companion piece to HB 1, though one that takes a slightly different tactic. HB 2 doesn’t require anything, it doesn’t ban anything, it doesn’t penalize or criminalize anything. It simply offers an incentive to partake in what we all recognize to be responsible gun-owning behavior–namely, securing your firearm so that unsupervised children cannot access it.
In its original iteration (2024’s HB 855) the Safe Storage Tax Credit Act was actually endorsed by Georgia 2A, a prominent pro-gun rights group. While it had previously been difficult for me to find Republican co-sponsors on this bill prior to their endorsement, most Republicans had cover to be quite enthusiastic about the bill afterwards, and a version of it has in fact passed nearly unanimously out of the House two years in a row.
(Via Georgia 2nd Amendment, click here to read full press release)
As is often the case, however, we ran into some trouble in the Senate.
Since its passage out of the House, the most recent iteration of the bill, HB 79, was hijacked and distorted in the Senate Finance Committee, where language was added to create a 4 day sales tax holiday every year for purchase of guns and gun paraphernalia.
That’s right, thanks to Senate Republicans, our original gun safety bill now creates a sales tax holiday for purchase of…more guns and ammunition.
(Via the Georgia Recorder, click here to read full article)
This is quite clearly a perversion of the original intent of the bill, which thankfully still has yet to pass out of the Senate itself. If and when it passes, it will need to come back to the House for what we call an Agree/Disagree vote, as the language of the bill has changed since we last passed it out nearly unanimously.
Here are the options at this point:
- The primary bill sponsor (in this case Rep. Mark Newton), can DISAGREE to the Senate substitute of HB 79. That is what I would do, as the bill now actually promotes the opposite of what it was intended to. The House would then vote on whether or not we support the bill sponsor’s motion to DISAGREE.
- The primary bill sponsor could AGREE to the Senate substitute of HB 79 and pass this new, adulterated version. Note that Agree/Disagree votes do not allow for any further amendments, debate, or opportunities to speak for or against the bill. I would hope we would not be put in this position, because again, I do not feel we should agree to the changes the Senate has made. If you feel the same you should let Rep. Newton know.
- At the discretion of the Speaker, we could simply not bring the bill back for an Agree/Disagree vote, in which case time would run out and the bill would fail for the year. This would require us to file the bill again next term if we would like to pass it again. (Third time’s the charm?)
- The House could hear, vote out of committee, and advance a clean version of the Safe Storage Tax Credit Act–in fact the original version–which is HB 2. This would be my preference, and one that still enables us to pass a safe storage tax credit bill and achieve its original intent this term.
(Via 11 Alive News, click here to watch full news clip)
As I noted in the floor debate for HB 79 last year, “nothing should haunt us more than a missed opportunity.” We have a chance now, this year, to pass substantive gun safe storage legislation. All we need to do is to convince our Republican colleagues to take that chance. Our voters demand better from us.
TEAM AU BILL TRACKER
The Sickle Cell Disease Protection Act
Delighted to hear HB 334, The Sickle Cell Disease Protection Act (sponsored by our friend Rep. Omari Crawford) in the Public and Community Health Committee this past week! This bill, of which I am a cosponsor, aims to formalize an annual review of therapies and treatments for sickle cell disease made available through the state Medicaid program. (Georgia has among the highest number of sickle cell patients in the United States.)
One of the issues with sickle cell disease is that it has historically been under-treated, under-studied, and under-resourced, largely because the demographic group it affects has been systemically overlooked by the medical establishment. For many years our treatments for sickle cell disease remained static, but there have recently developed new innovations that could revolutionize the way we treat, or even cure, this debilitating disease. While nothing in HB 334 requires coverage for any new therapeutics, it does encourage an annual review of the latest treatments available, so we can continue to assess whether or when we should be investing in these options for our patients.
I discuss my support for the bill here:
(Click here to watch full video clip)
Hopefully HB 334 will be heard again in House Public and Community Health this week, when it can come to a vote and move quickly to the House floor.
The Surprise Medical Billing Consumer Protection Act
(Click here for link to watch the committee livestream)
Thrilled to announce that HB 961, The Surprise Medical Billing Consumer Protection Act (sponsored by our friend Rep. Alan Powell), will be heard in the House Insurance Committee on the morning of Tuesday 2/24!
This bill aims to protect patients from surprise medical bills resulting from ground ambulance transfers their insurance companies determine to be “out of network.” Read more about our work on this bill in our newsletter from January 25th.
LUNAR NEW YEAR AT THE CAPITOL
Georgia’s Legislative Asian American Pacific Islander Caucus was excited to celebrate our third annual Lunar New Year Day at the Capitol this past week! Special thanks to all the community members who made this event a success, in particular the Chinese Business Association of Atlanta, the Chien Hong School of Kung Fu, and HD 50’s own YiFan Restaurant!
As per our tradition, we put red envelopes on lawmaker’s desks to wish them luck and prosperity as we work through the rest of this session! (Each red envelopes contained a gold coin, but in keeping with ethics rules, the coins were made of chocolate 😉.)
The Year of the Horse symbolizes speed, boldness, and change. It’s my hope that these are harbingers for the rest of the legislative session and the year ahead!
THE GEORGIA DIAGNOSIS
Available on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube
Team Au is in pre-production for Season 2 of our podcast THE GEORGIA DIAGNOSIS, and we want to hear from you!
Whose stories do you want to hear, and what fascinating voices would you love to have included? Fill out our podcast survey here. Thank you for listening to and sharing our first season, and for helping us make Season 2 even better!
Catch up on Season 1 of THE GEORGIA DIAGNOSIS on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
TEAM AU IN ACTION
GAFP Legislative Champion Award
It was truly my honor to be presented the Legislative Champion Award by the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians this week.
The Georgia Academy of Family Physicians were with the Patient Centered Physician Coalition for their Day at the Capitol. I so appreciate the work of these primary care providers, who do the hard work on the front lines of caring for our patients all over the state. It’s my honor to be your colleague and to work on behalf of all our patients under the Gold Dome.
Thank you to Dr. Ramalingam
Team Au is very lucky to have such high quality fellows helping us with our work, and one of our dedicated Health Policy Advisors this month was Dr. Nitya Ramalingam, who joined us through the Emory Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy (HEAP) track.
Having Dr. Ramalingam with us for the month was invaluable. She helped us on legislation and measures related to gun safety, surprise medical billing, tobacco risk mitigation, and working on our online Health Hub in partnership with Rep. Marvin Lim’s office. While she will be moving on, we know we will see her again soon, and wish her the best of luck as she graduates from her Pediatrics residency!
UPCOMING EVENTS
RSVP: bit.ly/Crossover26
Join me this Sunday at Arepita Cafe for a roundtable discussion on what has already occurred during session and what lies ahead with Crossover Day and the busiest part of session just around the corner!
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Arepita Cafe
4PM
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It has never been more important to pay attention to the work of state legislatures. Thank you as ever for your support so that we can keep doing this most important work together.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office should you need any assistance, or if you have any concerns you’d like me to address on your behalf.
It is my honor to be your voice in the Georgia House of Representatives.
In service,
