Sports betting and several other high -level invoices did not progress at the General Assembly of Georgia before the deadline of the cross day, leaving the key problems not resolved for another year.
Sports betting has again struck this year at the General Assembly.
The House of State Representatives adopted 75 bills on Thursday in the burst of an activity of a day known as crossover day, the annual deadline for legislation aimed at erasing the Chamber or the Senate to stay alive for the year. But sports betting were not among them.
ALSO LEFT by the Wayside When Lawmakers Gaveled Out Crossover Day Shortly Beforely 11 PM WAS A SENATE BID TO DENY STATE FUNDING TO Georgia K-12 Public Schools, Colleges and Universities that promotion diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei), legislation in the house overhauling the To compensate the Wrongfully Convicted, and a Senate Bill Exposing Banking Institutions to Lawsuits If they deny services to Customers because the way they exercised their rights under the first 10 amendments to the American Constitution.
Legislation aimed at prohibiting exploitation through the national Okefenokee fauna refuge and requires that Georgia power will transmit the costs of electricity centers to operators from these facilities rather than residential customers and small businesses have never left the chamber committees to reach the soil of the chamber.
This year’s thrust for online sports betting has taken the form of a proposed constitutional amendment placing the problem on the state -of -the -state ballot next year and a separate bill containing details on the operation of the industry in Georgia. The two succeeded in the House Rules Committee Thursday evening, but President Jon Burns, R-Newington, did not put them on the ground for a vote before the end of the day of the crossroads.
“I am disappointed”, rep. Marcus WiedowerR-Watkinsville, chief sponsor of the two measures, said after the fall of the hammer. “Lots of work was devoted to this. I thought it was a good measure.”
Supporters of the legalization of sports betting tried to obtain a referendum across the State via the General Assembly each year since a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 2018, legalized in sports in states other than New Jersey and Nevada. The adversaries – led by religious groups – argued that sports betting would lead to an increase in crime and problematic game.
The Senate has spent much of winter focusing on controversial subjects, including firearms and breed. DEI policies – A hot button for President Donald Trump – were also a vehicle for republican indignation in Georgia, where the Republican leaders of the Senate had pushed a ban in schools and colleges.
Bill 120 of the Senate, which has been the subject of bitter audiences and press conferences in recent weeks, would have punished public education establishments which had implemented the DEI policies by retaining the funding of the State.
The chief sponsor of the bill, Sen. Marty HarbinR- Tyrone, described such policies as “the erosion of meritocracy”. But criticisms of the measure said that Dei helps black students and other historically marginalized people to integrate and succeed.
“People have died, people were lynched, all kinds of things happened in this country who made people who were descendants of slaves do not have an equal opportunity,” said Roger Bruce, a former representative of the Democratic State who came to the Capitol for a demonstration.
The SB 120 was planned as the last bill for debate in the Senate on Thursday evening, but management ended the legislative day just before calling it.
Another bill on controversial culture war has also not succeeded in the Senate, although it has obtained a hearing and a vote on the prosecution.
The Senate 57 bill would have punished the banks that decide not to do business with companies due to disagreement on social issues, a custom that criticism calls for “playback”.
An example offered during a legislative hearing last month was Daniel Defense. The manufacturer of firearms based in Georgia has become a target of criticism after one of his rifles was used in the mass school shooting in 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. The founder and president, Marty Daniel, testified that two banks had abandoned his business in rapid succession, costing him $ 1 million each on lawyers and costs.
The bill sparked a heated debate on the Senate soil on Thursday. The Democrats were opposed, as is a critical mass of Republicans who were concerned about the potential impact on local banks. The bill only obtained 13 votes in favor, all the Republicans, with a bipartite opposition of 43 votes.
The house adopted resolutions Thursday evening to compensate for five Georgians who spent years behind bars after being convicted wrongly for crimes. However, the Chamber did not take a separate invoice to withdraw the general assembly from the compensation process for the Georgians wrongly sentenced. Instead, compensation complaints would be heard by the judges of administrative law, who would make a recommendation to the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the State.
Sports betting was not the only cause that supporters pushed for years to the General Assembly which again failed in 2025. Two invoices which asked to place a five -year moratorium on mining near the Okefenokee Swamp or the prohibition of mining did not leave the Natural Resources and Environment Committee.
Twin Pines Minerals, based in Alabama, is looking for state permits to open a titanium dioxide mine along Trail Ridge on the southeast edge of the Okefenokee. Supporters say that the mining would cause water levels in the swamp, threatening the largest black marsh in North America and the tourist dollars it brings to the region.
“When you lose the peat of the dried terrain, we are going to have terrible fires as they have done in southern California,” Representative. Darlene TaylorR-Thomasville, the chief sponsor of the Bills, said in an audience last week.
Opponents said that the mine would provide essential jobs and strengthen local tax digestion in an economically in distress in the state.
Like sports betting and the protection of Okefenokee, the Data Centers bill was also left by last year.
Although the rapid growth of data centers in Georgia undoubtedly represents a boost for the state economy, state defense groups and consumption have warned the large quantities of electricity that they consume threatened to increase electric rates. They have cited a series of georgia power rate increases over the past two years to cover the increase in fuel costs and the completion of two additional nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle.
Government. Brian Kemp Opposed to a bill that the General Assembly adopted last year which would have temporarily suspended an exemption from the sales tax aimed at attracting data centers in Georgia after commercial interests have opposed the measure. Opponents of this year’s version of this year of the bill in the senatorial committee of regulated industries argued that the State Public Service Commission (PSC) should supervise data centers rather than the legislator.
The PSC voted in January to prohibit the Utility based in Atlanta from transmitting the service costs of new high -charge customers, including data centers to residential customers. But supporters of the Data Center bill qualified the new commission rule without value because it is full of escape.
Although the Data Centers bill has never left the committee, the regulated industry committee approved a second energy measure by bringing Georgia Consumer Utility Counsel, a surveillance agency that was dissolved in 2008 in the midst of the budget cuts caused by the great recession. However, the complete Senate did not take the measure on the day of the crossing.