Atlanta – This is how Georgia’s legislative session is supposed to end:
After a last -minute negotiation career, legislators are going through the final agreements on some more bills as the clock goes beyond midnight.
Legislative personnel are crowded in the cameras, since leaders thank employees against a paper soundtrack that is being made pieces.
Finally, the president recognizes the climatic motion to postpone “Sine Die”, a Latin phrase that means leaving without a day to return.
Then everyone throws grated paper in the air and cheers.
On Friday, however, Georgia’s State Senate left.
The motion to postpone by the leader of the republican Senate Steve Gooch of Dahlonega came shortly after 9 pm without any of the usual accumulations. There was no thanks to staff. The senators had not even destroyed a lot of paper.
Georgia legislators can collect invoices in 2026, where they left on Friday, the second year of a two -year session, but left a lot on the table.
Among the elements that were not approved were proposed to force Georgia to Leave a multi -state groupA thrust from Jones to establish more legislative control on the rules promulgated by state agencies, an effort to Diversity programs for prohibition in public schools and universities and an invoice for Let people demand local governments for not cooperating with federal immigration officials.
The sudden departure occurred after it was increasingly clear that some measures of the Senate languished in the Chamber and that the Senate leaders had lost the appetite of negotiating. It was possible to leave early because the legislators had already agreed with a budget and other higher priority legislation including tax cutsto SCHOOL SECURITY INVOICEnew Demand limits and Prohibit transgender girls and women to participate in women’s sports.
The collision remembered the 2023 Legislative sessionThe first year Burns and Jones led their cameras. There were not many important problems after the chambers faced the budget and license rules for hospitals. Then, it seemed that Jones was trying to force his will in the house, an investment of traditional dynamics in Georgia, where the house has often left with his.
Ultimately, many problems derailed in 2023 ended up passing in 2024, including Loosing Hospital Permissions requirementsimposing basic protections for tenants and Creation of a coupon program To pay private school and home education.
While the senators cheered their departure on Friday, veteran state representative Alan Powell was in the microphone in the Chamber proposing changes in a law of law very discussed to regulate automated speed detection cameras In school zones.
Suddenly, there was no reason for Hartwell’s Republican to continue, since there were no senators to accept amendments.
The Republican President of the House of Representatives, Jon Burns de Newington, and his staff exchanged bewildered glances while the legislators of the House of Representatives murmured.
“It seems that the Senate has reviewed all his priorities, all his political priorities, and decided to finish his early night instead of finishing his work on behalf of the people we represent,” Burns told the Chamber. “Of course, they are free to do whatever they want, but this camera puts politics about politics.”
Many legislators have long been bewildered. The president of the Rules Committee of the Chamber of Rules, Butch Parrish, a Swainsboro Republican who has served since the 1980s, said the senators “opened new paths.”
Representatives approved some other bills that did not need more actions from the Senate, and then they also went home early.
Jones minimized any conflict.
“What do you mean with what happened?” Jones said later. “We finish the session.”
Jones said the senators had achieved their goals and that he had been exhausting for early postponement all day.
“We did many things,” he said. “And there was no need to stay here until midnight.”
Some minority democrats were ecstatic because the bills that opposed did not become law. “Victory!” The Atlanta Roberts democrat shouted when he left the Capitol.
“The reality is that much of this session was dedicated to political messaging bills and politics instead of focusing on Georgian families,” said state senator Jason Esteves, an Atlanta Democrat considering a career for governor in 2026.
Both Jones and Burns said there are no resentments on how things ended on Friday, although Burns said he would have liked to ensure an agreement on the speed cameras of the school zone.
The majority of the House of Representatives, James Burchett, a Republican of Valdosta, said that although the members of the House of Representatives may have remained in the proposals of approval of the Senate to “fully examine them”, the cameras have no choice but to work together.
“The Senate needs the camera and the camera needs the Senate,” Burchett said. “It would not be good if someone maintained some kind of resentment for this.”
