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Voting ‘no’ is a legislative way of life for these two Georgia lawmakers
Sen. Colton Moore, left, and Rep. Charlice Byrd. (Credit: Georgia Senate/Jill Jordan Sieder)
ATLANTA — When it comes to voting "no," Rep. Charlice Byrd and Sen. Colton Moore are the top two naysayers in the Georgia General Assembly.
The two conservative, Republican lawmakers have been in lockstep on several key pieces of legislation throughout the session. Between them, they’ve voted no on nearly 200 bills, often casting the lone dissenting vote. Each was the only lawmaker in their chamber, for instance, to vote no on the state’s fiscal year 2025 budget.
In fact, the two legislators have voted in unison on a number of bills this session that will impact Georgians in substantial ways. They’ve voted no on bills that would:
- Ease restrictions on expanding hospitals.
- Double parental leave for state employees to six weeks from three weeks.
- Forgive the student loans of mental health workers and veterinarians.
- Let nurses and physician assistants prescribe painkillers to patients.
- Require employers to provide secret ballot votes if their workers choose to unionize. Companies that do so get state economic incentives.
- Create a new program to provide housing and services for the homeless.
- Require convenience stores to post information from the human trafficking hotline.
All of those bills passed despite Moore and Byrd’s votes.
They don’t always go against the grain of their party, which controls both the state House and Senate as well as the offices of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general — known as the Republican trifecta.
Moore and Byrd have given a nod to some key Republican initiatives this year, including bills to support private school vouchers, enforce the tracking and detention of undocumented immigrants, ban foreigners from donating to political campaigns, and to ensure that legislation takes into account the impact on small businesses. They’ve joined the GOP on election reform measures removing the secretary of state from the State Election Board and making changes to ballots and voting procedures designed to improve election security. And both agree that people who don’t have cosmetology licenses should be allowed to blow-dry hair and apply makeup.
The pair’s far-right views are heavily influenced by the Georgia Freedom Caucus, a three-year-old, uber-conservative group that is the outgrowth of the congressional House Freedom Caucus. The national State Freedom Caucus Network favors social conservatism and small government and opposes immigration reform. It helped oust U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last fall.
Byrd and Moore are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Georgia group. Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, the chief deputy majority whip in the Senate, is the third member of the Freedom Caucus in the General Assembly.
“I go by the four pillars of my Georgia Freedom Caucus,” which are, “Does it grow government? Does it raise taxes? Does it increase regulation? And does it go against personal liberties?” Byrd said on Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “Lawmakers” television show earlier this month when asked about her pattern of no votes. “I also throw in there for myself: Is it the proper role of government? … It was to protect, preserve and defend, and now we fund a whole lot of things that we really should not be funding.”
Byrd and Moore began the session in January promoting the Freedom Caucus proposal for a complete repeal of the state income tax by 2030, and belittling the gradual personal income tax drop of 0.1% per year to 4.99% from 5.49% by 2029 promoted by the governor and GOP leadership. “At that rate, it would take 54 years to get to zero,” said Moore.
Both Byrd and Moore are rabid supporters of former president Donald Trump. And both have caught flak for controversial moves in the Legislature.
Moore has burned up considerable political capital — and gained national attention doing so. He was kicked out of the Senate Republican caucus last September after attacking fellow Republicans for refusing to agree with him in calling for a special session to take action against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting Trump in an election interference trial. Earlier this month, Moore was banned indefinitely from the House for a scathing tirade he leveled against the late-Speaker of the House David Ralston.
The self-styled “RINO (Republican In Name Only) Wranglers” were featured in this video calling for a special session and lambasting their GOP colleagues:
Byrd introduced a bill early this year to impeach Willis, but it was ignored in the House. Later in the session, Republicans in both chambers went after Willis and others they deem as “rogue prosecutors” in their own way, by standing up a prosecutorial oversight commission (a bill which Byrd and Moore voted against). The Senate, led by Dolezal, also launched an investigative committee to probe Willis’ conduct, which Moore supported and claimed credit for spurring on.
The pair’s unconventional approach is “not the normal path that one follows when trying to build a successful career in the Legislature,” Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political science professor who is widely-regarded as a preeminent scholar on Southern politics, told State Affairs.
“The old advice that [former] U.S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn used to give new members is ‘you have to go along to get along,’ ” said Bullock. “Help out other members and when you need help, you could turn to your colleagues and they’ll remember when you were helpful to them and they’ll reciprocate. If you’re out there burning bridges though, it means you are going to be less effective in doing things for your constituents.”
Byrd against immigrant 'invasion and for the free market
Byrd, 72, is a former middle school teacher and political activist who lives in Woodstock and represents conservative, wealthy and mostly white Cherokee County. A self-described “pro-fair tax, pro-gun, pro-life Reagan conservative,” she has consistently voted for measures that return funds to taxpayers and against those that expand the budget.
She said the amended fiscal year 2024 budget signed by Gov. Brian Kemp this month “is full of crony subsidies, welfare and woke-ism while failing to deliver on conservative policies.”
Byrd said she took issue with spending $126 million on Kemp’s limited expansion of Medicaid through his Pathways program, despite its requirement for recipients to work or volunteer. And she’s opposed to “paying to grow the EV (electric vehicle) industry, train their workers, house their workers, subsidize them to the max. Free market should decide if EVs are our future, not the government.”
Byrd was also against returning $66 million to the University System of Georgia (USG) for teaching expenses, a line item in the 2024 budget vetoed by the governor last year. “Our universities are indoctrinating our kids … and USG is funding racism, sexism and radical gender ideology,” said Byrd.
Of Chinese and European descent, Byrd is a founding member of the Asian-American Pacific Islander Caucus in the General Assembly. Unlike other members of the mostly Democratic caucus, she regularly complains about “the invasion” of illegal immigrants in Georgia and at the southern U.S. border.
Last month she said, “Georgia is doling out our taxpayer dollars for everything that is not the proper role of government while doing nothing to address the invasion of our state or the root causes of sex trafficking or holding Fani Willis accountable. With the Republican trifecta, one would think we should be doing a lot better.”
Through March 21 of this session, Byrd has voted no 118 times out of 325 votes on legislation, or 36% of the time.
On Monday she posted this video on X to brag about being “the state representative who votes ‘no’ the most,” and to preview the last two legislative days of the session, which she said “will be dangerous for freedom”:
Among Byrd’s solo no votes this year was a vote against allowing people who make cottage foods such as baked goods, jams and trail mixes in their homes to sell them in local stores. She was also alone in rejecting a bill to create the Weeping Time Cultural Heritage Authority to preserve the memory of more than 400 African slaves sold in Savannah in 1859.
Byrd acknowledged it can be tough to vote against everyone in her party and sometimes against the entire House.
“You lose a lot of friends, and that is very unfortunate,” she said. “I have made a lot of other friends that appreciate and respect what I do,” including some colleagues who tell her they wish they could vote the way she does. “And I always tell them, ‘There is not one person on that floor that votes for you. It is your district that votes for you, and you should be voting your district.’ ”
Even when she’s voting with the majority, she finds moments to work in her far right agenda. During a long debate this week in the House over Senate Bill 354, a bill to allow blow-dry stylists and makeup artists to practice without a cosmetology license, which several Democrats warned would pose health risks, Byrd said, “we should be more concerned about a doctor mutilating our children than the licensing of cosmetology.”
Moore pushing for criminal justice reform
In his first month at work in the Legislature this year, Moore voted no on a dozen of the 45 or so bills that came up for a vote in the Senate.
The legislation Moore has voted against runs the gamut. He was the sole naysayer on a resolution that would create a Senate study committee to look at improving family caregiver services. He also was the single no vote on a resolution that designates May 1 as Purebred Dog Day. Both passed the Senate.
He was one of six lawmakers who voted no on a bill that defines antisemitism. That bill passed 44-6. And if he’d had his way, development authorities wouldn’t be allowed to hold their meetings by teleconference. His Senate peers disagreed with him, passing the bill 51-1.
While Moore and Byrd may appear to be legislative doppelgangers, they aren’t in sync on everything.
Moore voted against the Safe at Home Act, a bipartisan bill that would guarantee safe living conditions in rental properties. Byrd embraced it. Moore also voted no to create a Senate study committee on the preservation of Georgia’s farmland.
Bullock said he’s surprised that Moore, one of his former students, has aligned himself with extreme conservatives. During his senior year at UGA, Moore took Bullock’s legislative process class which dealt with “norms of behavior and getting along well with peers and mutual respect.”
Two years after graduating, Moore unseated State Rep. John Deffenbaugh, R-Lookout Mountain, the incumbent in his home county of Dade, becoming one of the youngest representatives to serve in the Georgia Legislature.
His voting pattern and behavior may mean the lawmaker is trying to create “an image that he thinks might be helpful to him in the future,” Bullock said. “But it does not position him well to secure things that he might want to get for his district.”
Moore’s ties with the Freedom Caucus, Bullock said, indicate he’s following a path set forth by the far-right group. “The Freedom Caucus like the [one in the] U.S. House is quite ideological and therefore not likely to engage in compromise or back down from its position when it thinks it’s right.”
Neither does Moore.
All told, Moore has voted no on 81` out of more than 250 pieces of legislation between Jan. 8 and March 21, including bills regarding the last two state budgets. That’s about a third of all bills.
A closer review of Moore’s Senate voting record this session shows he has cast the lone no vote in roughly 75% — 37 bills — of the more than 50 bills where a single no vote was cast.
The lawmaker, who is an auctioneer and works at his family’s trucking company, said he follows “a strict standard of principles.”
“When it comes to a piece of legislation, and in my opinion, any piece of legislation that misuses taxpayer money, it's not the proper role of government. I typically vote against that,” the 30-year-old northwest Georgia lawmaker told State Affairs. “Bills that subdue individuals' freedoms that shouldn't be subdued, legislation that I think grants government power that it shouldn't have, anything like that.”
Bucking their party, Moore and Byrd have come out strongly against House Bill 986, which would criminalize “deep fake” campaign ads relying on artificial intelligence to alter a candidate’s image, voice or likeness, which they argued infringes on free speech. Moore suggested the AI-generated image below of then-presidential candidate Nikki Haley could be subject to the measure:
In order to make their case for the bill, Republican lawmakers created an AI impersonation featuring Moore and Georgia Freedom Caucus state director Mallory Staples appearing to advocate for the legislation they oppose.
Moore isn’t rash about his decisions.
“In order to vote no as much as I do, I have to be pretty darn well prepared to defend those things throughout the course of the legislative session,” he said, noting that he spends hours, sometimes days, reviewing legislation coming up for votes.
He also has members of his staff go over “every single piece of legislation. And every piece of legislation, I get a report. There's highlights in it. Good parts of the bill. Bad parts of the bill.
“What I look at every single day when I go in to vote is probably three times more in-depth than what the majority leader has.”
“A single nay vote is not going to have any policy impact,” Bullock said. “So in that sense, the risk the person runs is the person becomes viewed as something of a crank. If everybody else is going along with, say, passing the budget or whatever else, then eyebrows get raised for the one person who is voting no [for something] which has near universal consensus. And so that probably undercuts the perceptions, perhaps, or the soundness of the judgment of the individual and their effectiveness.
“Then the individual may say, ‘Look, I'm being true to my principles. But that doesn't necessarily … win over anybody else,’” Bullock added.
While Moore’s approach may confound some political observers, he may have political ambitions beyond the Georgia Legislature, Bullock surmises.
“My best guess is that he has a longer, broader ambition, maybe to go to Congress,” Bullock said. “He's in the same district with Marjorie Taylor Greene. She has played something of that kind of role, not necessarily being the sole naysayer, but certainly an outspoken person who does not compromise, does not trim her sails or back down. And she has done very, very well. She, I think, has become something of a role model.”
Bullock noted that Taylor Greene, who is from the same northwest Georgia mountain area as Moore, was one of the top fundraisers in Congress when she was a freshman.
“My guess is a lot of other young members as well as individuals who would like to get to Congress, look at her behavior and say, ‘Okay, yes, she's clearly outside of the mainstream. Yes, she gets a lot of criticism but she also gets an awful lot of publicity. And she raises a lot of money. The person watching her might say, ‘You know, I could do the same thing.’”
But Moore insists he’s driven by injustices and a desire to reform the criminal justice system.
“What keeps me motivated in politics were the injustices that I experienced as a young child,” Moore said. “My father was charged with a crime that he didn't commit and was sentenced to 10 years in the penitentiary. Hundreds of people wrote letters and said that they think they got this case wrong. The case sentence was overturned and I had a chance to grow up with a dad.”
Both Moore and Byrd have voted against bills to increase mandatory minimum sentences for many crimes, and against Senate Bill 63, a bill that passed in both chambers that would require cash bail for nearly 20 new misdemeanor offenses.
Reelection prospects
The pair’s disruptive approach may not win them friends or influence in their respective chambers, Bullock noted, but it may sit well with their constituents.
“If it works with your constituents, that's all that matters,” he said.
Both lawmakers are running for reelection this year. Byrd has no opposition in District 20, and will coast to an easy victory this November. She joked that she’ll “enjoy a lot of golf” this summer and fall.
Moore has more of a fight on his hands. He’ll face Republican challenger Angela Pence in the primary this May, who told the Chattanoogan: "I'm running to be the voice for ordinary citizens who want real results, not never-ending partisan shouting matches."
A small business owner and resident of Chickamauga, Pence ran for Congress in 2022 as a Libertarian against Marjorie Taylor Greene. She said she decided to run for the state Senate “because I realized our district was not being represented. Our current senator’s actions have put us in a position where he can no longer do his job.”
Citing Moore’s banishment from the House and isolation in the Senate, Pence said, “he can no longer even attempt to represent us.
“While Senator Moore grandstands for retweets and shares, real crises in his district like toxic water contamination in our schools and skyrocketing property taxes — due to an outdated state education funding formula — have gone unaddressed,” she said. “The people don't need any more unhinged sideshows — they need someone who will roll up their sleeves, put in the real work, and score concrete wins that positively impact their daily lives. District 53 deserves a state senator who not only knows how to pick the right battles but how to win them.”
GEORGIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY'S TOP NAYSAYERS
Rep. Charlice Byrd
Age: 72
Birthplace: New Orleans, LA
Residence: Woodstock, GA
Occupation: Former teacher, campaign organizer
House District: 20, covering parts of Cherokee County
Years in Legislature: 2009 to 2013, and 2021 to present in House
“No” votes in 2024 session*: 118 of 325 total votes, or 36%
*Votes on passage of legislation from 1/08/24 to 3/21/24
Sen. Colton Moore
Age: 30
Birthplace: Trenton, GA
Residence: Trenton, GA
Occupation: Auctioneer, truck driver
Senate District: 53, which covers Dade, Walker, Catoosa, Chattooga and Floyd counties in northwest Georgia.
Years in Legislature: 2019 to 2020 in the House; 2022 to present in the Senate
“No” votes in 2024 session*: 81 of 257 total votes, or 32%
*Votes on passage of legislation from 1/08/24 to 3/21/24
Have questions or comments? Contact Jill Jordan Sieder on X @journalistajill or at [email protected] and Tammy Joyner on X @lvjoyner or at [email protected].
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Kemp signs bills on education, health care, taxes
Gov. Brian Kemp signed a slew of bills over the past week or so, including the private school voucher bill long sought by Republicans and a bill that will ease regulations over the construction and expansion of medical facilities in rural areas.
His bill-signing events were clustered into themes: education, health care, military members, human trafficking and Georgia’s coastal communities.
Education
Among the education-related bills Kemp signed was Senate Bill 233, also known as the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, which provides the families of Georgia students enrolled in underperforming school districts with $6,500 scholarships that can be used toward private school or homeschooling expenses, including tuition, fees, textbooks and tutoring.
“Georgia is affording greater choice to families as to how and where they receive their education, while also continuing our efforts to strengthen public schools, support teachers, and secure our classrooms,” Kemp said, and thanked leadership in the House and Senate for prioritizing passage of the bill, which had failed in a close vote in 2023.
Democrats and many public education advocates who opposed the bill argued it will drain resources from public schools and primarily benefit students from wealthy families.
Kemp also signed Senate Bill 351, sponsored by nine Republican senators, which will require social media companies, as of July 1, 2025, to verify their users are at least 16 years old unless they receive approval from a parent.
House Bill 409, sponsored by Rep. Lauren Daniel, R-Locust Grove, directs school systems to consider not having bus stops where a student would have to cross a roadway with a speed limit of 40 mph or greater. The bill also increases the penalty for passing a stopped school bus to $1,000 from $250.
Kemp noted that Ashley Pierce, the mother of Addy Pierce, an 8-year-old who was fatally struck by a motorist as she boarded her school bus, “passionately advocated for and was instrumental in the passage of this legislation.”
Senate Bill 395, sponsored by Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Gwinnett, states that no school visitor or personnel can be prohibited from possessing an opioid reversal drug such as Narcan and directs schools to maintain a supply. It also allows opioid antagonists to be sold in vending machines and directs certain government buildings to maintain a supply of at least three doses.
Senate Bill 464, also sponsored by Dixon, creates the School Supplies for Teachers Program to financially and technically support teachers purchasing school supplies online. It also creates an executive committee of five voting members within the Georgia Council on Literacy and limits the number of approved literacy screeners to five, one of whom must be available to schools for free.
Health care
The governor chose his hometown of Athens as the venue to sign several bills aimed at improving health care in rural and underserved communities.
Among them was House Bill 1339, sponsored by Rep. Butch Parrish, R-Swainsboro, which revises the Certificate of Need process by which the state determines if and how new medical facilities can be built or expanded. The bill provides for several new exemptions, including psychiatric or substance abuse inpatient programs, basic perinatal services in rural counties, birthing centers and new general acute hospitals in rural counties. It also raises the total limit on tax credits for donations to rural hospital organizations to $100 million from $75 million.
Senate Bill 480, sponsored by Sen. Mike Hodges, R-Brunswick, establishes student loan repayments for mental health and substance use professionals serving underserved youth in the state or in unserved geographic areas disproportionately impacted by social determinants of health.
House Bill 872, sponsored by Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville, chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, expands cancelable loans for certain health care professionals to dental students who agree to practice in rural areas.
Senate Bill 293, sponsored by Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, reorganizes county boards of public health and opens the qualifications for the CEO of each county board of health to include either licensed physicians or people with a master’s degree in public health or a related field.
Military members and veterans
Kemp on Wednesday focused on bills to improve military recruitment and provide more work opportunities for veterans and military family members.
House Bill 880, sponsored by Rep. Bethany Ballard, R-Warner Robins, allows spouses of military service members to work under a license they hold in good standing in another state while under the supervision of an existing Georgia medical facility or provider.
Senate Bill 449, sponsored by Sen. Larry Walker, allows military medical personnel to practice for 12 months while a license application is pending, including working as a certified nursing aide, certified emergency medical technician, paramedic or licensed practical nurse. The bill also creates a new advanced practice registered nurse license and makes it a misdemeanor to practice advanced nursing without a license.
Human trafficking
The governor on Wednesday was accompanied by first lady Marty Kemp and other members of the GRACE Commission for the signing of an anti-human trafficking package. It includes Senate Bill 370, which adds certain businesses to the list of organizations that must post human trafficking notices, including convenience stores, body art studios, businesses that employ licensed massage therapists and manufacturing facilities.
Sponsored by Sen. Mike Hodges, R-Brunswick, the bill also allows the Georgia Board of Massage Therapy to initiate inspections of massage therapy businesses and educational programs without notice and requires massage therapy board members to complete yearly human trafficking awareness training.
House Bill 993, sponsored by Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, creates the felony offense of grooming of a minor and creates new penalties for offenses relating to visual mediums depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
House Bill 1201, sponsored by Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, allows human trafficking survivors who received first offender or conditional discharge status to vacate that status for certain crimes, as long as the crime was a direct result of being a victim of human trafficking.
Coastal communities
Earlier today in Brunswick, Kemp signed legislation impacting Georgia coastal communities, including House Bill 244, which amends the laws around how wild game can be hunted and how seafood dealers operate, and House Bill 1341, which designates white shrimp as the state’s official crustacean.
Taxes
Earlier this month Kemp signed several bills related to taxation, including House Bill 1015, sponsored by Rep. Lauren McDonald, R-Cumming, which lowers the state income tax for tax year 2024 to 5.39%, accelerating a multiyear drop in state income taxes that started at 5.75% in 2023 and will continue through 2029.
The Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget estimates the tax cut acceleration will save Georgia taxpayers approximately $1.1 billion in calendar year 2024 and about $3 billion over the next 10 years.
Kemp also signed House Bill 1021, sponsored by Rep. Lauren Daniel, R-Locust Grove, which increases the state’s income tax dependent exemption to $4,000 from $3,000.
House Bill 581, sponsored by Reps. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, and Clint Crowe, R-Jackson, enables a constitutional amendment (House Resolution 1022) to let voters decide whether counties can provide a statewide homestead valuation freeze, which limits the increase in property values to the inflation rate.
The governor has until May 7 to sign or veto bills passed during the legislative session that ended on March 28. Those he takes no action on will automatically become law.
Legislation signed by Kemp is posted on the governor’s website.
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Incumbent candidates for local, federal races likely to be no-shows at this weekend’s primary debates
ATLANTA — One of Georgia’s prominent media organizations is pleading with incumbent state and congressional candidates to participate in its primary election debates slated for Sunday.
For the first time in The Atlanta Press Club’s 30-year debate history, incumbents facing challengers in the May 21 primary have either declined or not yet committed to participating in the organization’s well-known debate series. The possible no-shows include candidates in four Congressional races as well as the Georgia Supreme Court, and the Fulton County District Attorney races.
“This is the first time that we’ve had so many [incumbents] not participate,” debate organizer Lauri Strauss told State Affairs. Strauss declined to speculate why candidates aren’t participating.
Hoping to encourage more participation, the organization issued the following statement:
“The Atlanta Press Club believes it is the responsibility of people running for public office to answer questions from their local media that will help inform voters before they cast their ballots. If a candidate is running for public office, the candidate should be willing to participate in the democratic process, which includes attending debates and fielding questions from journalists and opponents.”
Candidates have until Friday to RSVP.
Strauss said candidates who fail to appear will be represented on stage by an empty podium during the debate.
District Attorney Fani Willis has declined to participate and Democratic U.S. Reps. Lucy McBath and David Scott have yet to RSVP. Strauss said the organization is still in talks with Georgia Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson’s staff about his appearance in the debate.
Willis, declined earlier this week to participate, citing constraints around talking about sensitive cases like the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
McBath currently represents the 7th Congressional District and is now running in the newly drawn 6th Congressional District against two Democratic challengers, Jerica Richardson and Mandisha Thomas. McBath declined to participate in the press club’s general election debate in 2022, forcing her Republican challenger Mark Gonsalves to debate with an empty podium. McBath won with 61% of the vote.
The debates will air live on April 28 on GPB.org, on The Atlanta Press Club’s Facebook page (www.fb.com/TheAtlantaPressClub). It will be rebroadcast in early May on WABE.org.
| Race | Tape and Livestream Sun. April 28 |
GPB-TV Broadcast | WABE Broadcast |
| Congressional District 6 Democrats | 10:00 a.m. | April 29 at 7:00 p.m. | May 1 at 4:30 p.m. |
| Congressional District 13 Democrats | 11:15 a.m. | April 28 at 4:00 p.m. | May 1 at 5 p.m. |
| Congressional District 3 Republicans | 1:00 p.m. | April 28 at 5:00 p.m. | May 2 at 3:30 p.m. |
| Congressional District 2 Republicans | 3:00 p.m. | April 29 at 5:00 p.m. | |
| Georgia Supreme Court | 4:45 p.m. | May 2 at 4:30 p.m. | |
| DeKalb County CEO | 5:45 p.m. | May 2 at 5:15 p.m. | |
| Fulton County District Attorney | 6:45 p.m. | May 1 at 4 p.m. |
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‘It is nothing short of insane:’ Bill to criminalize squatting signed by governor
ATLANTA — Today Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation criminalizing squatting, the illegal practice of entering and residing on someone else’s property without their consent.
The Georgia Squatter Reform Act makes squatting a misdemeanor criminal offense, punishable by up to a year in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both. It also speeds up the timeline to evict a squatter, giving landlords and law enforcement more tools to establish that someone is trespassing and to demand that they leave.
“It is nothing short of insane that there are some who are entering other people’s homes and claiming them as their own,” Kemp said in a post on X after signing the bill at the state Capitol. “Thanks to our legislative partners, I was proud to sign HB 1017 — once again making it clear that illegal squatters are criminals, not residents.”
Over the past few years, squatting has become more prevalent in Georgia, with trespassers breaking into vacant homes, claiming tenancy and refusing to leave.
A 2023 survey of institutional investors in single-family rental homes who are members of the National Rental Home Council found there were 1,200 illegally-occupied homes in and around Atlanta. Realtors told State Affairs they’ve encountered squatters in homes for sale and rent in Gainesville, Valdosta and Albany.
Until now, law enforcement in many jurisdictions treated the issue as a civil matter, telling property owners to file eviction actions in court, which could take months or even years to resolve.
The new law directs local law enforcement to issue citations and arrest people accused of squatting if they don’t provide a valid lease or proof of payment within three days. If they do produce such documents, it moves eviction proceedings to magistrate courts, and requires cases to be heard within seven business days after filing.
If the judge deems documents they present to be forged or fake, those accused of squatting could be charged with a felony. And judges can impose more fines based on the fair market value of rent that landlords lose.
On hand in the governor’s office for the signing was Rep. Devan Seabaugh, R-Marietta, the lead sponsor of the bill.
“Currently in Georgia law, we’re giving squatters tenant rights,” Seabaugh previously told State Affairs. “And my bill would take that away. It basically says, ‘You’re an intruder, you’re a criminal, and we’re going to treat you like a criminal.’ ”
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State troopers are stretched to fight drugs and curb highway deaths
ATLANTA — When Cpl. Anthony Munoz straps on his bullet-proof vest each day and pulls out of the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Atlanta, Munoz never knows how his shift will unfold. What is for certain is that the traffic — of cars, criminals and contraband — is constant.
And what is also true is that there are not nearly enough state troopers on the road to catch them all.
A 13-year veteran, trooper Munoz, 45, is part of the department’s Criminal Interdiction Unit, whose main focus is suppressing the robust illegal drug trade flowing through Georgia. Last year the eight-member team made 1,309 arrests, including 76 felony drug arrests, and helped other agencies seize $24 million worth of contraband.
In 2019, the unit had 25 members.
Capt. Greg Shackleford, the troop commander, said that in 2020 the unit was split up and half the team was sent to Georgia State Patrol posts around the state, which were hurting for staff, to conduct the Department of Public Safety’s core functions — traffic enforcement and responding to car crashes.
The split has translated into Munoz and the rest of his team now spending most of their time monitoring Interstate 20 just south of Atlanta, and Interstate 75/85 west of the city. He said they regularly support the investigations and busts of other local and federal agencies, and frequently join the governor’s crime suppression details, which have included taking down car thieves and street racers.
All this leaves his team with less time to develop intelligence on their own drug cases and to snare more traffickers. It also means the troopers no longer have time to monitor roads in rural areas in south Georgia where, Shackleford said, many drug traffickers driving trailers full of drugs and contraband enter the state on highways coming from Florida and Texas and now ride around unchecked for hundreds of miles.
Chronically understaffed
The Georgia State Patrol remains chronically understaffed. While the state’s population has grown, and with it the number of motorists, car crashes and criminal activity, the number of state troopers has hovered stubbornly between about 750 and 850 for over a decade, giving Georgia the unwanted distinction of having lowest number of troopers per capita in the country.
The average number of state troopers per capita in the U.S. is 21; for Georgia, it’s eight. And the outlook for changing that is not great, Col. William “Billy” Hitchens, the public safety commissioner, told legislators during hearings last fall — Unless the state makes bold moves in improving compensation. He said Georgia State Patrol has “aimed to reach 1,000 troopers for as long as I have been employed,” which is 30 years.
The state saw its trooper numbers plummet to 745 during the pandemic in 2021. The agency is now back to 845 troopers. The current trooper school started with 61 candidates, and if recent history is a guide, about 70% will graduate in September and put on the badge.
While “things are moving in the right direction” this year in terms of recruitment, said Hitchens, he said too many veteran officers are either resigning or retiring early.
Between 2018 and 2023, 48 troopers left the agency on a full-service retirement, meaning they had served for 30 years. During the same period, 341 troopers resigned, retired early or departed for other reasons. As it costs the department $153,397 to train a trooper, those who left early cost the state $52 million, said Lt. Col. Josh Lamb, director of administrative services for the Department of Public Safety.
Fewer troopers means more highway deaths
Fewer troopers on the state’s roads impact everyone, say law enforcement officials. .
“As our trooper strength decreases, traffic fatalities increase,” said Hitchens.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data shows a direct inverse relationship between trooper staffing and the number of fatalities in Georgia. At its low ebb in 2021, with 769 troopers, 1,925 people died on Georgia roads. More recently, in 2023, with 820 troopers, Georgia saw 1,647 fatalities, an 8% decrease over 2022.
“We are concerned with traffic patterns, the way people drive, and we enforce the law out there,” Hitchens told State Affairs. “When you start losing personnel, whether it’s the state, or cities and counties, one of the first things that may be taken away is traffic enforcement. Because they’re responding to other calls — robberies, domestics, you name it. And when troopers stop doing it, there are just fewer people out there reminding you, ‘Hey, that’s dangerous. Slow down.’ ”
The state patrol wrote 408,574 citations to motorists last year, but issued even more warnings — 510,265. Hitchens noted that mere trooper presence on the highway is a strong deterrent.
“It doesn’t have to be you that gets stopped,” he said. “Those 50 cars that ride by during that time and see that patrol car, go ‘Ooh, I don’t have my seatbelt on … I’m playing with my phone,’ and it just impacts that behavior. But the less officers you see on the road, the less you have people changing their driving behavior.”
Along with encouraging safer driving, DUI enforcement has become a higher priority for the department. A “Nighthawks” squad of 22 officers patrols after midnight in areas of the state where data analysis shows high incidences of alcohol and drug-induced crashes and violations. The state patrol made 16,409 arrests for driving under the influence in 2023.
Hitchens said the work of such special units is compromised when they’re pulled into other duties due to statewide manpower shortages. The three Nighthawks units, for example, are often pulled into other traffic stops and crime suppression details in Atlanta, Macon and Columbus. And drug interdiction officers have had to cover vehicle crashes and multiple public protests over the Atlanta Public Training Center (dubbed “Cop City”) and, more recently, conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza.
Besides securing troopers, Hitchens said the department is struggling to recruit dispatchers, who are the lifeline for troopers and officers who patrol alone and depend on dispatchers to provide critical information quickly. Today, the department has 129 dispatchers who work at nine regional call centers. They need 169 to be fully staffed.
A tough sell in the ‘Cop City’ era
Hitchens told lawmakers that heightened public criticism of law enforcement over the past few years has played a role in the department’s ongoing challenges to recruit and retain officers.
“People without understanding of what it’s like to be involved in a rapidly evolving life and death situation started scrutinizing officers, cities started defunding their police departments while demanding greater accountability and more training, both of which cost money,” he said. “Following the George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks and Breonna Taylor instances, the media and some leaders in our community nationwide began to demonize the police.”
Hitchens said that since the death of Manuel Teran, a protester against the planned Atlanta Police Training Center who was allegedly shot by a Georgia trooper during a firefight on the forested property in 2023, and the sometimes violent public demonstrations that ensued, “that dynamic just got worse. For a long time with ‘Cop City,’ it was constant protest, and you know, that weighs on you.”
Munoz, who was patrolling with other local law enforcement on the perimeter of the training center site the day Teran died, said the public’s jaundiced view of that episode and other recent struggles between police and citizens that have gone viral on social media can be frustrating.
“I know that a lot of the narrative out there is not true at all,” he said. “There are millions and millions of police encounters every day. And those [violent] ones are fractions of a percent of incidents, and whether a trooper or officer responds the right way, it all boils down to compliance. If you just comply, you’re presumed innocent, you’ll have your chance to make your case, and the facts will come out. Don’t argue, don’t fight, don’t resist. We don’t want to fight you.”
Noting that he has a wife and four children he wants to come home to, Munoz said, “We’ve been pounded with de-escalation in training, and that’s what we practice. I’m sure there are officers out there now that freeze and that say, ‘Do I do my job? Or am I going to be put in prison, because I reacted in a certain way?’ So we do carry that, and it’s a heavy, heavy burden.”
Last year three House Democrats introduced House Bill 107, the Police Accountability Act, which proposes an end to qualified immunity for law enforcement officers and would have required body-worn cameras for all peace officers. The bill did not advance out of committee, but Hitchens said taken together with the public unrest and anti-police sentiment since 2020, it all had a demoralizing effect on his officers.
“All of these factors are forcing officers to become fatigued with our profession,” he said. “They feel that support is ending and the job is not worth the risk.”
According to the Georgia Peace Officers Training and Standards (POST) Council, the number of officers with basic council certifications in Georgia dropped to 5,956 in 2023 from 6,666 in 2017.
“I don’t think there’s a single law enforcement agency in Georgia that is fully staffed,” said Chris Harvey, deputy executive director of Georgia POST. “And they have a very hard time getting qualified people on board. … There just aren’t enough quality people that are interested in doing this job.”
While some agencies have raised salaries and added signing bonuses, he said, “I can tell you that it’s not a solved problem. Because I don’t think it’s primarily a money issue. I think it has a lot to do with the difficulty of doing this job these days. I’m not sure it’s ever been harder to work in law enforcement. The amount of scrutiny along with the amount of violence that police officers encounter on a regular basis, they generally feel like they’re out there alone. If they make one mistake, they’re gonna pay dearly for it. … It’s a tough sell.”
Father and son patrol leaders fight for trooper compensation
For Hitchens, his push to recruit potential state troopers and convince state leaders to increase pay and benefits for troopers is supported by an unlikely suspect — his dad.
House Appropriations public safety subcommittee chair Rep. Bill Hitchens, R- Rincon is a former trooper who served in the Georgia State Patrol for 28 years, and was later appointed by former Gov. Sonny Perdue to serve as public safety commissioner from 2004 to 2011. The elder Hitchens has served in the House since 2013.
At the House Working Group on Public Safety meeting last fall, Rep. Hitchens noted that the state patrol has maintained around 700 troopers since he joined in 1969, when the state population was about 4 million. “Now it’s 11 million people … and we have a lot more murders, stolen cars and merchandise,” the elder Hitchens said. “Where we fell down, I don’t know. It’s just we’ve never grown. … And now we’re at a breaking point.”
The younger Hitchens was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp as deputy commissioner for public safety in 2020, and then as commissioner in 2023. As commissioner he oversees the Georgia State Patrol, the Motor Carrier Compliance Division, the Capitol Police Division, and other special law enforcement units, including the crime suppression, SWAT and canine teams.
The son and father team have successfully fought for substantial pay raises for troopers, whose salaries have increased over the past three legislative cycles by nearly $17,000. That includes a 4% cost of living increase and a $3,000 bonus for law enforcement officers approved by the General Assembly in the fiscal year 2025 budget. The starting salary for a new trooper will be $63,684 as of July 1, if the governor approves it in the budget, as expected.
Dispatchers will also get a boost in next year’s budget, with new pay step increases that can take them from a starting salary of $39,000 to up to $56,000 as they earn promotions.
Col. Hitchens said those pay bumps seem to be turning the tide on recruitment. The number of applicants and graduates rose for the last few trooper schools held over the past year. Other changes the department made to trooper school requirements have also helped, including allowing people to go home more often during training, permitting access to mobile phones at night, and allowing people with arm tattoos to train and serve, if they cover them with long sleeves.
“We tried to make changes in training that we felt like really didn’t help people stay,” said Hitchens. “And we didn’t make it kinder or gentler. I mean, in this job that you sign up for, there’s got to be a certain level of discipline, there’s got to be a certain level of respect, with high physical training standards, that’s still there. But the things that we could change, we decided to do.”
Both men remain concerned about how to stem the trend of early retirement, and agree that sweetening the retirement package is the key way to combat it.
Currently most troopers qualify for a pension equal to 1% of their final pay for every year of service, and can also participate in a 401(K) savings plan while they serve, which the state matches up to 9%, depending on their number of years on the force. But Col. Hitchens is pushing for a more generous “defined benefit” retirement plan, with a 3% pension, which he said would double what most troopers get when they retire. Instead of earning about $25,000 a year on average, they would receive about $52,000.
Presently, the average tenure of a state trooper is 10 years, nowhere close to the 30-year careers Hitchens and other leaders want his officers to pursue.
And he knows it matters to them, as retirement benefits emerged as the number one retention issue on a recent agency-wide, anonymous survey.
“Every other agency is increasing their hiring packages, raising pay and offering better benefits, from retirement to free health care,” Hitchens said, noting that the Atlanta and Sandy Springs police departments offer substantially higher pay and 3% defined benefit plans.
“We’re in a competitive bidding process, and we have to offer a reward that’s worth the risk our people are taking with their lives and liberty.”
The tenure of senior officers also matters because of the crucial role they play in mentoring new recruits.
“When we have our young troopers, the men and women that come into the field, they’re excited,” said Shackleford, the troop commander, who spent much of his 36-year public safety career in SWAT before taking over Troop K, which includes the crime suppression, criminal interdiction, K-9, SWAT and dive units. “They see the fast cars, they want to get into something. And the problem is, it’s just like a puppy. A puppy’s gonna get into something and make a mess. So we need the older ones to kind of calm them down and guide them a bit, show them how to see and assess a situation.”
Such role modeling of behavior, said Hitchens, “is very important, especially with de-escalation. A senior officer, having dealt with so much of that, has that confidence and the competence to carry out [their] job in a way that I think a lot of younger, less experienced officers don’t have yet. And that’s how you learn and morph over a career,” said Hitchens, adding that that transfer of knowledge and practice from veterans to recruits “benefits the public as well.”
Rep. Hitchens co-sponsored two bills related to bolstering retirement plans for law enforcement that passed out of the retirement committee during the last session. One passed in the House, but did not get a vote in the Senate. Other lawmakers balked at the cost.
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