Quotas, cuffs and cornbread, Georgia’s Legislature gets cooking

The Georgia General Assembly only recently gaveled into session, but it is already proving to be contentious. However, rules—rather than bills, executive orders or laws—are surprisingly the source of the controversy, although some of it is largely overblown.

Just like any legislative body, the Georgia Senate and House both impose rules to govern how their respective chambers operate. Most of these are boring rules defining parameters around debates, parliamentary procedures and so forth. If you’re suffering from a bout of insomnia, I recommend you give them a read. Otherwise, they are to be avoided in most cases, except recently.

Last year, the House formally forbade Sen. Colton Moore, R-Trenton, from entering its chamber for denigrating the late Speaker David Ralston. On January 16, Moore tried to force his way in, and discovered that House rules are serious. He found himself on the ground after a tussle, and state troopers surrounded, handcuffed and escorted him away.

This wasn’t the only big news. House members also learned that they are limited in the number of bills they can file. They are now only permitted 10 bills and committee chairmen 15. Some lobbyists and lawmakers are up in arms over this reform. Rep. Viola Davis, D-Stone Mountain, is one, and she denounced it and swore in a guest editorial to fight against “restrictive and unconstitutional rules.”

I am not sure where in the Constitution lawmakers are guaranteed the right to unlimited bills, but never mind that. Before this rule, lawmakers could introduce virtually as many pieces of legislation as they wanted, and it seemed that some strove to do just that.

In the 2023-2024 legislative session, there were over 1,500 House bills (over 4,700 if you include House and Senate bills and resolutions), but far fewer made it to the governor’s desk. Lawmakers introduce myriad bills simply as a matter of virtue signaling or to highlight them in their email updates, but they have no hope of receiving a hearing, let alone passage. This rule inhibits those activities and is particularly offensive to some, including Davis.

She hit the ground running on the first legislative day. “On January 13, 2025, I took an oath of office […] But almost immediately, I was presented with a rule that directly conflicted with the promise I had just made to serve my constituents without compromise,” Davis complained. “I introduced 22 bills on the very day I was sworn in, addressing these critical concerns. And that same day, I picked up an additional 10 bills.”

32 bills is a lot for one member, especially considering I cannot think of any lawmaker who has come close to passing that many bills in a single year. This is also quite the uptick for Davis who in the 2023-2024 legislative session introduced 18 bills, although none of them made it out of committee.

After perusing other recently filed bills, it seems that several legislators are already close to hitting their quota and two brave officials have made some curious decisions. Rep. Angela Moore, D-Decatur, introduced HB 65 to make collard greens the official state green, and Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton—filed HB 14, which seeks to make cornbread the official state bread. First, if I were limited to 10 bill introductions, collards and cornbread probably wouldn’t make my top 10, and second, I thought Georgia was more of a biscuit state.

Food debates aside, the reason House leadership pushed for the bill limit is obvious to capitol insiders and delves into the Legislature’s behind-the-scenes mechanics. Unlike what you may have learned in school, Georgia lawmakers generally do not draft the bills they introduce. Rather, they come up with a bill idea and present it to legal experts in the office of Legislative Counsel, and these lawyers then research the issues and draft the bill, relevant iterations and amendments. It’s a burdensome task.

With this change, the House hopper might not be as hectic as lawmakers eschew frivolous bill introductions and legislative drafters might be spared some writer’s cramp, which is great news. But will there be any negative repercussions from this rule?

That remains to be seen. 10 bills per representative seems reasonable to me. Other states limit bill introductions. The Florida House of Representatives has a seven-bill limit for instance. Nevertheless, with this new rule it is possible that bills simply become much larger. Some officials may decide to combine bills rather than filing them as separate pieces of legislation, while others might find other creative ways to circumvent this rule—like by proposing many more amendments to bills.

For those who fight for limited government, there’s also the hope that fewer bills will mean fewer burdensome laws. One way or another, from quotas, to cuffs, to cornbread, this legislative session is only starting to heat up.