The Georgia Public Policy Foundation’s goal for this Guide to the Issues is to provide a compilation of commonsense policies upon which Georgia’s elected officials can base laws, ordinances, rules and regulations without fear of partisan influence. The policies proposed are based on facts and the principles of limited government, individual responsibility and free enterprise. They support an approach that reinforces policy over politics.
Our motto is “Changing Georgia Policy, Changing Georgians Lives” – for the better. Since the Foundation was established in 1991, many Guide to the Issues proposals have been embraced and codified. You may not see the Georgia Public Policy Foundation’s “fingerprints,” but – as the saying goes –“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit.”
Each issue chapter includes the Georgia Public Policy Foundation’s principles for reform, facts on the issue, background information and, in most cases, specific recommendations that provide positive solutions to the state’s challenges
Why a guide to the issues?
Candidates for office are often motivated to run for election based on a single issue, such as dissatisfaction with their child’s education. But while a candidate who is a teacher, for example, may be familiar with education issues, he or she may need background information and sound policy proposals on tax, criminal justice and transportation reforms. The Guide to the Issues is intended to serve as a resource, informing candidates by providing an overview of major upcoming issues as well as offering informed decisions from a limited government perspective.
Likewise, this Guide to the Issues can help inform voters who wish to know facts about issues facing fellow Georgians and possible solutions to Georgia’s challenges.
Education
Overview
Georgia’s education system should be geared toward student achievement and the best education for each student’s diverse needs. This means providing the maximum amount of choice to find the best educational setting for each student. We believe that students should be held to high standards, and that their curriculum should be rigorous, clear and measurable. Teachers, likewise, should be held to a high standard, and their training and compensation should attract and retain the best. Funding for education should be on a per child basis, not a district basis, so that money supports students directly.
Recommendations
Implement a student-centered funding model.
Georgia’s current system of school finance, the Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula, achieves minimal transparency and flexibility.
Ideally, student-based budgeting would tie funding directly to students. The Education Reform Commission’s Funding Formula Committee proposed a formula to allocate funds based on student characteristics and recommended phasing out the top-down salary schedule for teachers.
The Committee’s recommendations could be strengthened by rolling funds still outside the student-based formula into the base per-pupil allotment, eliminating burdensome regulations, and pushing funds down from district to school level.
Fund charter schools equitably.
Unequal funding often hinders Georgia’s public charter schools, which receive less funding and have more trouble funding facilities than traditional district public schools receive to educate the same students.
Since charter schools can be closed at any time for failure to meet the requirements of their charter, taxpayers should use caution when building new facilities. Nevertheless, all schools would benefit from annual, per-student facility funding. For charter schools, the funds could be used for underwriting construction, rental of an existing facility or new classrooms for growing schools. If a school is closed, the funding would stop and taxpayers would not be on the hook for unnecessary facilities.
Allow schools to move toward competency-based learning.
Competency-based learning is a system of instruction where students advance to higher levels of learning as soon as they demonstrate mastery of concepts and skills regardless of time, place or pace.
Students should advance as they master the levels of learning. The pace and style will look different for different students, but the goal of allowing students the opportunity to “show what they know” in order to advance to more challenging material remains.
Shift away from top-down regulation and micro-management of schools to accountability based on choice and competition.
We should empower Georgia’s educators to manage their classrooms and empower parents to choose the school they believe is best for their child. Government should ensure competition and choice, ensure fair access to financial resources and facilities, inform parents with relevant information, and step in to close persistently failing schools.
In a reformed model, competition and choice would ensure accountability for cost and quality. Equitable funding models assure that students have access to high-quality public and private schools. High-performing schools would easily replicate and persistently failing schools would close.
Expand the cap on contributions to the tuition tax credit scholarship.
Georgia’s Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit Program raises student achievement and engagement and increases parental involvement and satisfaction. Demand for contributions is greater than the current number of students served, but the tax credits are restricted and it is typical for the entire amount to be claimed even when the cap is raised. Thousands of Georgia students could have an opportunity for a better educational opportunity if more money were available.
Maintain and expand Promise Scholarship Accounts.
In 2024, Georgia made a commitment to put students and families first with the passage of Promise Scholarship Accounts. They go into effect in 2025. Promise Scholarship Accounts encourage innovation and choice in education while creating incentives for better outcomes at lower costs. Promise Scholarship Accounts will be administered by a new organization called the Georgia Education Savings Authority, and the state will initially provide $6,500 per school year to each participating student. They can be used for tuition, tutoring, transportation and several other educational expenses.
While the passage of PSAs is a tremendous win for Georgia families, policymakers must work to ensure that the program is consistently funded and work toward expanding it to help all Georgia students. It is also worth noting that other states, including neighboring Florida, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina have provided universal eligibility for their versions of savings accounts. Georgia should follow their example.
Healthcare
Overview
We believe that effective healthcare policy should be transparent, equitable, and patient-based.
Healthcare quality depends on an abundance of easily available information that consumers can easily understand. Transparency is as important to healthcare as medication and treatment, and it is necessary to achieve better outcomes at lower costs. We believe that economic purchasing power and decision-making should be patient-centered, minimizing third-party reimbursements.
We believe in security for the sickest and access for all. Reform should be designed to work for the healthy as well as those who are sick or chronically ill. Targeted solutions such as high-risk pools for those with pre-existing conditions and subsidies for low-income individuals are more efficient than top-down solutions. Furthermore, tax policy should be equitable, and should not favor certain methods of financing healthcare over others.
Finally, healthcare reform should combine personal responsibility with financial involvement to incentivize program participation, reward compliance and support better personal health management.
Recommendations
Repeal Certificate of Need.
Providers often control healthcare services offered to consumers and exclude competitors through state-issued, Certificates of Need (CON). These CONs discourage price transparency by facilitating market dominance for a handful of health systems, limiting competition through local market mergers, reinforcing service line limitations, and strengthening territorial advantages.
All players in the healthcare system – insurers, hospitals, doctors and other providers – need to support a competitive free market. Currently, their incentives are not aligned toward this action.
Expand scope of practice.
Allowing for a reasonable expansion of the scope of practice of advanced practice nurses, physician assistants and other medical personnel could help enhance critical access to care and address shortages of physicians and dentists in many areas of Georgia.
In its 2020 annual report, the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce found that nine Georgia counties did not have a single practicing physician, 65 counties lacked a pediatrician, and 82 did not have an OB/GYN. Increasing opportunities for advanced practice nurses to practice medicine to the full extent of their training will help address these shortages.
Incorporate reference-based pricing.
Reference-based pricing (RBP) is a cost-containment strategy that should be considered as it pays doctors, hospitals, labs and clinics a market-adjusted percentage of an established benchmark.
The reimbursement rate is typically 120-300% of Medicare pricing for a procedure, adjusted to account for the local market. Reference-based pricing has thus far helped employers mitigate the rising cost of providing health insurance to employees (in addition to reducing premiums and deductibles for plan beneficiaries) and should be considered to reduce costs within the State Health Benefit Plan.
Improve price transparency.
Recent polling reflected that 88% of Americans favor initiatives by the government to mandate insurers and hospitals disclose the charges of their services or negotiated rates. Hospitals, either by choice or inability, have notably struggled with providing price transparency. One study in 2023 analyzed the websites of 2,000 U.S. hospitals and found only 36% were fully compliant with all requirements of the rule.
Curb licensing restrictions that limit the use of alternative and ancillary medical professionals.
The generally stated purpose for licensing, and the primary justification, is to ensure quality in services offered to the public. Rarely considered by licensing agencies, however, are shortages of licensed personnel, underutilization of allied personnel and discrimination against minority-group members seeking licensure. The state should consider making permanent the Governor’s executive orders issued during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed for out-of-state physicians, nurses and other medical personnel in good standing from other states to practice in Georgia. Regulatory restrictions should also be consistent with improved technology, such as telemedicine services.
Housing
Overview
The cost of housing is a problem in both urban and rural Georgia. From onerous building regulations to counterproductive zoning laws, there are several obstacles, often compounding each other, that make access to housing difficult.
Simply put, the biggest issue is supply. We are not building enough homes. Housing supply has lagged behind demand for a number of years now, driving up prices and effectively restricting access to home ownership. One of the biggest reasons for this is government regulation.
Indeed, federal, state and, more importantly, local regulations pile onto building costs in a way that is not only burdensome, but is frequently unnecessary.
Recommendations
Encourage local zoning ordinances that do not hinder growth and access to housing.
Land ordinances like zoning often show inconsistency across districts, and are frequently arbitrary or outdated. Worse still, it is often discriminatory in a way that hurts vulnerable communities, and complying with zoning ordinances adds to the cost of housing. State and local leaders have a responsibility to ensure that zoning ordinances do not arbitrarily limit supply, affordability and access.
Discourage unnecessarily low minimum lot and home sizes.
In 2023, the Foundation conducted a review of lot and home size minimums across Georgia, and found a wide range from county to county. Among other findings, the study showed 31 counties, eight cities in metro Atlanta and six county seats contained single-family residential districts with minimum lot requirements above the Department of Public Health’s standard. There were 50 counties, 60 cities in metro Atlanta and 87 county seats where the single-family residential districts with the highest minimum lot requirements fell below the DPH’s standard recommendation of 43,560 sq. ft. (one acre) for properties with septic tanks and 21,780 sq. ft. (one half-acre) for properties without.
While the differences in lot and home size minimums are sometimes due to immutable differences between jurisdictions, some local governments may soon need to review and revise their minimums. Highlighting housing trends, forecasting development and noting districts where the biggest obstacles exist should be useful in informing future practices. Allowing for greater density will soon become necessary, at a minimum to provide for adequate workforce housing.
Review and reduce development impact fees.
Development impact fees are levied to finance public works and services as populations grow. In Georgia, jurisdictions are constantly exploring whether to enact or change impact fees. In a climate of increasingly unaffordable housing costs, it is fair to ask whether these new costs toward building new housing make sense. This is an especially pertinent question in metro areas like Atlanta and Savannah. The gap in burdens between locations that are relatively close to each other, for example Cobb County versus cities in Fulton County, is quite large and could make the difference in a family being able to afford their first home. It also affects workforce housing, and the ability of service workers to live in the area where they work. Citizens, property developers and government officials should consider whether an impact fee is appropriate for their community and, if so, how much should be levied.
Explore alternative kinds of housing and repeal laws that restrict their construction.
As more Americans struggle to navigate the housing market, some potential homebuyers have begun to look into nontraditional homes. Some popular examples include tiny homes, shipping container homes, accessory dwelling units and cohousing communities. These types of homes are attractive because they are space-efficient, cheap and easy to build. They are perfect for people looking to downsize or reduce living costs. However, Georgia’s current regulatory environment makes alternative housing unnecessarily difficult. Spacial minimums, for example, make tiny homes nearly impossible to build in some communities, and container home construction is often stifled by zoning ordinances or aesthetic standards. State and local lawmakers should consider the economic benefits of nontraditional housing and limit barriers to building these types of homes.
Medicaid
Overview
In Georgia, Medicaid covers certain individuals at 100% of the federal poverty level (FPL) and below, and those with physical and intellectual disabilities. Expanding Medicaid to provide health coverage presents several concerns, including the growing inability of Medicaid recipients to see a healthcare provider, the impact of crowding out existing Medicaid recipients – including those with developmental disabilities – and the funding uncertainty and cost of the program. We believe the government should provide a healthcare safety net for the disadvantaged, but in a more rational manner, like the Georgia Pathways to Coverage program the state launched in 2023.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually in Georgia on uncompensated care for the uninsured. Uninsured Georgians do get sick; one way or another, we all pay for their care in a way that is terribly inefficient.
Money should follow people. While it is important to support the institutions and providers that make up Georgia’s safety net, solutions should be people-centered, not institution-centered. Innovation in the field of healthcare requires flexibility and choice. Micromanaging every detail is a recipe for the status quo.
Recommendations
Expand Medicaid recipient access to primary care.
One immediate way to help the uninsured (and save money) is to provide access to primary care that would replace expensive and unnecessary trips to emergency rooms. Direct Primary Care (DPC) practices generally do not accept health insurance, instead serving patients in exchange for a recurring monthly fee. Along with personalized healthcare, DPC practices offer longer hours and telehealth appointments (phone or video), important to low-income individuals who may be unwilling or unable to skip a work shift to visit a physician.
Encourage innovation.
Georgia benefited during the COVID-19 pandemic due to a strong legal and regulatory framework already in place for telehealth. Creating additional opportunities for the working poor to benefit from innovative options for convenient care such as telehealth, mobile health, direct pay options and DPC services echoes studies showing that for the working poor, a lack of time may be even more consequential than a lack of money. Telehealth companies are also making use of their equipment in schools to expand healthcare access to the parents of students and to teachers.
Long-term care (LTC) services should target Georgia’s most vulnerable populations.
With a rapidly increasing elderly population, higher numbers of LTC recipients with disabilities or dementia, and a Medicaid program already strained as the principal LTC payer, we should seek ways to ensure the neediest Georgians are the ones receiving publicly funded LTC.
LTC eligibility criteria should be tightened as much as possible so as to avoid “crowding out” private sources of financing and encourage a privately financed home- and community-based service infrastructure.
Furthermore, middle-class and affluent people should prepay for care or repay from their estates, and waivers should be sought to eliminate or severely reduce the home equity exemption to encourage the use of home equity conversion to privately fund home care, assisted living and nursing home care.
Finally, we should review lien and estate recovery programs under Medicaid, study other states that operate their programs more successfully and maximize non-tax revenues from this source.
Regulatory Reform
Overview
Part of maintaining Georgia’s status as the best state to do business is removing and preventing burdensome regulations that threaten to stifle a thriving economy. Despite the progress made in fostering a business-friendly environment, there are still barriers in Georgia’s regulatory code that slow growth and restrict opportunity.
In 2019, the Georgians First Commission was established by Gov. Kemp to address state regulation policies and remove inefficiencies. The following year, the Commission released a report that offered recommendations on how to make Georgia a better home for small businesses.
In 2024, the Georgia Senate introduced the “Small Business Protection Act,” which would empower the governor or any member of the legislature to ask the Office of Planning and Budget and the Department of Audits and Accounts to provide small business impact analysis on any bill. The General Assembly’s chambers did not agree on a version of the bill, and it failed to pass.
Georgia should revisit this effort and continue looking for ways to eliminate barriers to growth and prosperity.
Recommendations
Reduce Georgia’s regulatory code.
The Georgians First Commission estimated that a prescribed program to reduce the state’s regulatory code by 20% over just a 12-month period through executive action and legislative reform will make for a stronger private sector with a clearer understanding of relevant rules and regulations. Passing a bill like the Small Business Protection Act would ensure that future regulations face appropriate scrutiny. Regulations already in Georgia’s codes should also be reviewed to reduce waste and unnecessary barriers.
Eliminate barriers to small businesses.
Small businesses face several disadvantages that hinder growth and prosperity. Their competitiveness is limited when competing for statewide contracts, which is reflected in a lower rate of total state spending on small businesses. In order to improve competition and save taxpayer money, the Commission recommends that the Department of Administrative Services reduce barriers and streamline processes for small businesses to procure contracts. Simplifying Georgia’s antiquated tax structure and complicated tax credit system is also a path to creating a more attractive state for small business.
Address low success rates for start-ups.
Georgia has a low success rate for start-up survivability, and the Commission points to a lack of access to risk capital, low personal credit scores, debt and financial education as reasons why. Tax incentives and a renewed investment in rural Georgia are needed to foster a more amenable environment for startups. In addition, regulatory sandboxes are encouraged wherever relevant to demonstrate the economic and material potential of new technologies and ideas. Finally, business, finance and entrepreneurship should be included in the K-12 curriculum in order to better prepare the labor market and potential job creators.
Tax Reform
Overview
We believe in minimizing the impact that taxes have on economic growth. Taxes are necessary to fund core government services, but every additional dollar of taxes is a discretionary dollar taken away from a family. Taxes should consume as small a portion of income as possible, should not interfere with economic growth and investment, and should not place the state at a competitive disadvantage.
Exemptions should be limited to encourage the broadest possible tax base and lowest rates since they shift the tax burden onto others. Tax policy should avoid picking winners and losers by not singling out individuals, products, businesses or particular groups for preferential treatment.
Taxes should be designed to raise revenue to fund necessary government programs, not to micromanage economic decisions in a complex economy. High tax rates also distort economic decision-making. Everyone who is financially able should pay some tax to support the necessary services they receive from the government. Voting to grow government spending is easy if you don’t have to pay for it.
Taxation should focus on consumption rather than income, savings and investment. Economists generally agree that faster economic growth occurs in a system that taxes consumption rather than income. Finally, tax reform should ensure fairness and encourage simplicity and stability.
Recommendations
Continue to reduce the state income tax rate.
Fewer deductions and exemptions would simplify administration and improve compliance. A reduction of taxes on work, savings and investment results in job growth and higher disposable income for families. Lower tax rates give Georgia a competitive advantage, and a broader tax base will be more stable during recessions, reduce the need for emergency spending cuts and grow more quickly.
Low-income families will face better job opportunities in a growing economy and with all products taxed at the same low rate. Standard deductions and earned income tax credits are policy tools to offset any additional burden for low-income families.
Restrict excessive increases on property taxes.
Homeowners and small business owners have endured exorbitant increases in recent years on their property taxes. They are the result of exponential increases on their property value assessments by unelected assessors and by local governments raising millage rates to offset growing and often unnecessary expenditures. The state should institute a cap that would restrict the ability of assessors to raise property values beyond a certain threshold annually.
Tech
Overview
Atlanta is emerging as one of the country’s preeminent tech hubs, and tech policy is likely to be a pervasive issue for lawmakers in coming years.
Tech policy impacts several different industries, so it naturally overlaps with other policy areas such as healthcare and education. It has wide parameters, but promoting sensible policy comes down to familiar ideas of growth and freedom.
Recent technological advances have made artificial intelligence an attention-grabbing legislative topic. It is important to differentiate two kinds of AI: generative artificial intelligence and artificial general intelligence (AGI). Familiar functions ranging from ChatGPT to the predictive text feature used on iOS devices use generative AI. Artificial general intelligence is still theoretical, but its concept would more closely mimic human behavior in appropriate contexts.
Today, legislators at both the state and federal level are taking action on AI, and the conversation on whether and how to legislate it is becoming ubiquitous.
Another issue that is sure to impact the tech industry is a series of antitrust lawsuits that target large tech companies such as Apple and Google. While most efforts up to this point originated at the federal level, Georgia has joined some high-profile lawsuits. This is especially concerning given Atlanta’s emergence as one of America’s top tech hubs, and business-unfriendly stances like these threaten industrial growth.
Tech policy is new and changing rapidly. When discussing how to legislate, regulate or otherwise influence tech, we should keep that in mind. Pundits and lawmakers might be susceptible to overreaction when dealing with a field that is less understood due to its novelty. However, holding to principles of growth is as important as ever.
We have an opportunity to create the lens through which we view tech policy. Technologies will change, sometimes at breakneck speed, but that doesn’t mean our principles have to follow suit.
Recommendations
Ensure the constitutionality of tech legislation.
Several bills across the country have aimed at consumer protection such as ensuring data privacy and childrens’ safety. Unfortunately, a great number of them are counterproductive, and even more are unconstitutional. We should take care to avoid costly and time-consuming lawsuits that further complicate the internet landscape and violate constitutional rights.
Provide an optimistic, market-minded approach to artificial intelligence.
Fears abound about AI, whether they be of job losses or sci-fi apocalypses. While there are certainly concerns about AI’s capabilities, and we will likely see it replace some jobs in the future, we have far more to gain from AI than we have to lose. When legislating AI, we should maintain forward-thinking optimism, first considering its benefits in the job market. We should emphasize that jobs will not be replaced by AI so much as by people who are skilled at using AI.
Promote the same business-friendly policies for tech companies as in other fields of industry.
Georgia has cultivated a business-friendly environment across several industries, making it a fast-growing and attractive state. This is notably true for tech, as Atlanta is rising through the ranks of American tech hubs. This is due to a number of economic and policy factors, such as a welcoming market for startups, a deep talent pool and an efficient educational pipeline. Georgia should continue to foster this environment and keep Atlanta in the mix. On a larger scale, however, Georgia does not have a consistently constructive stance toward the tech industry. Its joining of federal lawsuits, along with both the Trump and Biden administrations, illustrates the fact that both sides of the political aisle have the tendency to take anti-growth, anti-market stances when it comes to tech. These lawsuits have little to do with consumer protection and more to do with companies like Google and Apple being “too big.” This is not only poor practice as antitrust litigation, it is antithetical to the attitude we should adopt with tech policy. We should frame the issue optimistically and use growth and market principles to press the advantages that tech innovations offer us.
Tort Reform
Overview
Georgia has earned a dubious reputation as a haven for lawsuit abuse and excessive tort costs. Tort reform, which entails reducing either plaintiffs’ ability to bring forth certain lawsuits or the amount of damages they receive, is sorely needed.
The costs of excessive tort are passed down to consumers, which raises the prices of goods and services. In addition, tort costs were calculated to amount to 2.1% of U.S. GDP, and 47% of the tort system covers litigation costs and expenses, as opposed to actual compensation
Georgia in particular is a troubling case. The state has become infamous for awarding exorbitant damages in its handing down of “nuclear verdicts.” The American Tort Reform Association estimated that Georgia could increase its gross product by $13.1 billion by reforming lawsuit abuse.
For the past two years, Gov. Brian Kemp has echoed the need for tort reform. Few reforms have been enacted, while many others failed to pass in the legislature.
Recommendations
Prevent and limit “Nuclear Verdicts.”
A nuclear verdict is a court decision that awards a plaintiff $10 million or more. According to the American Tort Reform Association, Georgia is one of the biggest producers of those verdicts in the country. One of the most infamous of these was a Gwinnett County lawsuit that awarded a plaintiff $1.7 billion in damages in a product liability case. ATRA notes that Gwinnett, Fulton and DeKalb counties have been home to 41% of Georgia’s nuclear verdicts in recent years.
Nuclear verdicts have been particularly harmful to auto industries, and manufacturers have taken notice.
Limit premises liability.
Premises liability holds businesses accountable for crimes committed on their property, even when the business and its employees had nothing to do with the crime itself. An example of this can be found in a 2023 ruling which ruled CVS Pharmacy 95% liable for a shooting that took place on its premises. This case spurred a bill in the 2023 legislative session that did not pass the Senate. Premises liability is repellent to Georgia businesses, is unfair to business owners and is especially harmful to residents of high-crime areas, where businesses might be forced to offset costs with higher prices, if not move away altogether.
Stop the awarding of phantom damages.
Georgia is also notorious for its awarding of “phantom damages” to plaintiffs. This is when courts give awards based on what a patient was billed for medical treatment instead of what the patient’s insurer actually paid. ATRA claims that Georgia courts have misinterpreted the collateral source rule, “by holding that it applies to the discounted price of the plaintiff’s medical treatment – so plaintiffs can recover expenses based on chargemaster rates that no party actually pays and juries cannot hear evidence of the amount accepted by a healthcare provider instead as full payment.” Juries are not informed of the actual amounts paid, which results in higher damage awards based on inaccurate information.
There are plenty of troubling indicators of Georgia’s dubious litigation environment. It is attractive for “litigation tourism,” or the filing of lawsuits in friendly courts that have no direct tie to a claim. Spending on attorney advertising is also very high in Georgia, reflecting that trial lawyers understand their environment well. Some good news over the past year is that revisions to Georgia statutes will limit “direct action” lawsuits, or the simultaneous suing of a defendant and its liability insurer, although exceptions to this rule remain.
Workforce Freedom
Overview
We believe that among our inalienable rights as Americans and Georgians is the freedom to work. This means freedom from overly restrictive licensing practices, union demands and regulatory infringements on individual prosperity.
Recommendations
Reduce, convert and repeal occupational licenses.
An “occupational license” is, put simply, government permission to work in a particular field. To earn the license, an aspiring worker must clear various hurdles, such as earning a certain amount of education or training or passing an exam. Research to date – on occupations as diverse as school teachers, interior designers, mortgage brokers, dentists, physicians and others – provides little evidence that government licenses protect public health and safety or improve the quality of products or services.
Citizens have a right to pursue a legal occupation, and the burden should fall on the government to justify any restrictions to that right.
We should examine existing occupational license requirements for opportunities to reduce qualifications for licensure such as the hours of training and “continuing education” required to obtain and retain certain licenses; convert license requirements to a less restrictive form of regulations such as inspections, bonding or voluntary certification; or repeal regulatory requirements.
Efficiency can be further improved with the consolidation of like-kind occupational boards, or boards that perform similar functions. In its 2020 report, the Georgians First Commission uses the Used Motor Vehicle Dealers and Used Motor Vehicle Parts boards as an example. This would drive efficiency and streamline funds.
The Georgians First Commission also recommends the creation of a Uniform Occupational Licensing Law Commission to review current statutes.
Create protections for economic opportunity.
Protect economic opportunity by creating a statutory right to an occupation; requiring proof of a clear, likely and well-established danger to the public; and ensuring that less restrictive means have been tried before resorting to professional licensing.
Ensure that Georgia workers and companies are not forced or coerced into union participation.
Georgia is a “Right to Work” state, meaning that workers may not be required to join a union or pay union dues. It also means employees cannot be fired, or not hired, for refusal to join a union. We believe that these kinds of protections should be upheld, and that all Georgia workers should be allowed to pursue the employment of their choice without union interference or fear of coercion.
In 2024, the Georgia General Assembly strengthened worker protections with the passage of SB 362. This bill protects workers’ rights to a private vote on union participation for companies that receive taxpayer incentives. The bill also protects Georgia taxpayers from subsidizing companies that refuse to protect their employees from unnecessary and unjust forms of union intimidation in their workplaces.