Georgia Trend Daily – March 27, 2025
March 27, 2025 WSB Radio
Georgia’s famous Vidalia onions are headed to store shelves near you
Sabrina Cupit reports that those famous Vidalia onions are headed to store shelves just before the Easter holiday on April 15. The Georgia Agriculture commissioner and the Vidalia Onion Committee has just officially announced the 2025 pack date.
March 27, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Macon | Bibb County: The Macon Moment
LeeAnn Dance reports that Macon-Bibb County is on the cusp of reaping the reward of years of hard work – the state’s first, and the nation’s 64th, national park. The imminent national park designation will be an achievement 90 years in the making – one that promises to turbocharge Macon’s renaissance and spill over to a large swath of Georgia.
March 27, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bill to limit lawsuits against crop chemical makers heads to Gov. Kemp
Meris Lutz reports, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will have the final say over a proposal to shield manufacturers of crop chemicals from liability for failing to warn consumers of health risks, after the bill passed both chambers of the state Legislature. Kemp weighs his decision amid mounting financial pressure on companies like Monsanto parent Bayer, maker of the weed killer Roundup, which was recently slapped with a $2.1 billion verdict by a Georgia jury in a suit brought by a man who said the product caused his cancer. Monsanto issued a statement denouncing the verdict and vowing to appeal.
March 27, 2025 Rome News-Tribune
Greene calls for ‘complete and total’ defunding of NPR, PBS
Jim Saksa reports, in a hearing that hit on “Sesame Street” and Hunter Biden’s laptop, Republicans grilled the heads of PBS and NPR on Wednesday, accusing them of media bias. “NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy, white, urban liberals and progressives who generally look down on and judge rural America,” said U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee.
March 27, 2025 The Brunswick News
Center for Effective Lawmaking recognizes Rep. Carter
Staff reports that U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-1, was recognized by the Center for Effective Lawmaking for “exceeding expectations” in the 118th Congress, the organization that grades and scores the effectiveness of members of Congress announced Monday. For Carter, it is a continuation of a career-long streak and ranking among the top 10 most consistently effective members of Congress.
March 27, 2025 Macon Telegraph
Georgia legislators make 2nd effort to turn Ocmulgee Mounds into a national park, preserve
Margaret Walker reports that a bipartisan bill to make the Ocmulgee Mounds Georgia’s first and only national park and preserve was reintroduced Wednesday after an effort in 2024 didn’t ultimately make it through Congress. Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, and Reps. Sanford Bishop (D, GA-02) and Austin Scott (R, GA-08) introduced the legislation.
March 27, 2025 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
‘Dead wrong.’ Columbus area representatives react to Vance Smith’s controversial firing
Jordyn Paul-Slater reports that State Rep. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) has received bipartisan support from colleagues in the Georgia House of Representatives reacting to his controversial firing as the president and CEO of the Harris County Chamber of Commerce. The chamber’s executive committee told him in a Zoom meeting Friday he was fired after voting against Gov. Brian Kemp’s tort reform bill, Senate Bill 68, which limits civil lawsuit payouts.
March 27, 2025 Savannah Morning News
Plurality vs. Majority: Tybee held public meetings to discuss voting changes
Destini Ambus reports, plurality voting is when a candidate or issue that receives the most votes wins. Majority voting requires a candidate or issue to get more votes than all others combined. Tybee Mayor Brian West explained at the top of each meeting that the community meetings sprung from conversations he’d had with state legislators when he visited the Capitol earlier in the month.
March 27, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Bill to end gender-affirming care insurance for state workers clears Georgia House panel
Ross Williams reports that a bill aimed at removing gender-affirming care for transgender state workers covered by the state health insurance plan moved forward in the Georgia House Health Committee after committee Chair Lee Hawkins, a Gainesville Republican, broke a tie vote. The bill’s author, Vidalia Republican Sen. Blake Tillery, said treatments like hormone therapy or mastectomies will still be available, but not for gender-affirming purposes.
March 27, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Puberty blocker bill moving through Georgia House after some changes
Ty Tagami reports that parents of children who are questioning their gender would still have access in Georgia to medicine that prevents the onset of puberty under a new version of state legislation that had sought to ban all access. The version of Senate Bill 30 that passed the Georgia Senate in early March would have threatened the medical licenses of doctors and hospitals administering puberty blockers.
March 27, 2025 State Affairs
House lawmakers advance ‘religious freedom’ bill, setting up final vote
Beau Evans reports that a nearly decade-long push to add divisive freedom-of-religion protections in Georgia law advanced to a final vote Wednesday after stalling earlier this month. Senate Bill 36, sponsored by Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, declares that state and local governments cannot “substantially burden” someone’s practice of religion unless there is a “compelling governmental interest.”
March 27, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Big overhaul planned for Georgia elections: Bills aired in state Legislature’s waning days
Stanley Dunlap reports that sweeping changes to election rules intended to increase paper ballot options, expand the powers of the State Election Board and remove the state from a voter registration sharing database are up for debate as the 2025 Georgia Legislature nears a close. The Senate Ethics Committee held a two hour hearing on the latest version of House Bill 397, which could mandate big changes to Georgia election procedures if signed into law.
March 27, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Near-total abortion ban draws strong emotions at legislative hearing
Dave Williams reports that a hearing in the General Assembly Wednesday on a proposed near-total ban on abortion in Georgia pitted preachers against physicians. House Bill 441 calls for extending the state’s current law prohibiting abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected – typically after about six weeks of pregnancy – to ban abortions at every stage of an embryo’s development from fertilization to birth.
March 27, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia bill gives power to State Election Board and enacts its rules
Mark Niesse reports that Georgia Republican state legislators unveiled an elections overhaul bill Wednesday that would empower the State Election Board after its conservative majority tried and failed to change several rules weeks before Election Day last year. The rewritten bill would mandate the kind of hand ballot counts proposed by the board last fall, give the board authority over voter eligibility appeals and withdraw Georgia from a multistate voter accuracy organization.
