Local members of state legislature unsure when session will resume

Published 2:00 pm Sunday, April 12, 2020

The Georgia legislature still has 11 days left in its session, and members definitely have to reconvene to approve the state budget for fiscal year 2021, which starts July 1.

But two local members of the legislature say that with Gov. Brian Kemp’s decisions last week to extend a shelter-at-home order to April 30 and extend a state of emergency through May 13 because of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, they don’t know when that will be.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do, just on the budget,” said Rep. Jason Ridley, R-Chatsworth. “Obviously, the budget we were talking about isn’t the budget we’ll be adopting. The last numbers (on state revenue) we had were pretty good but those came in before all this really hit.”

Lawmakers haven’t met since a March 16 session to ratify Kemp’s original declaration of a state of emergency. Two days later, lawmakers who attended that session — including Ridley and Sen. Chuck Payne, R-Dalton — found they’d been exposed to the coronavirus. Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, had tested positive for the virus after participating in the vote.

The lawmakers at that session were asked to self-quarantine until the end of March.

Both Payne and Ridley said they have had no symptoms of the virus. Payne quarantined at his home in Dalton. Ridley said that because his wife has a health issue he decided to quarantine at a cabin owned by a friend.

“We got out of quarantine and a day and a half later got the shelter-in-place order,” Ridley noted.

“I haven’t had the chance yet to see my mother or my grandson,” said Payne.

Payne was supposed to celebrate the first birthday of his first grandchild last month.

Ridley said that after he got out of quarantine he started using his time to get caught up on his “honey do” list.

“It hasn’t been too bad,” he said. “I have a farm, so I’m able to get out and walk around.”

Payne said he’s been eager to get on his motorcycle and go places.

Both men said they stayed busy focusing on their work as legislators.

“After the governor made his announcement (of the emergency declaration and shelter in place), I was getting so many inquiries from people wanting to know what it would mean and how it would affect them,” Payne said. “The Senate has a conference call every Thursday regarding COVID-19.”

The big questions on the minds of lawmakers concern the budget.

“We have to do that,” said Payne. “We are constitutionally mandated to do that. There have been some discussions that maybe the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee will go back and put the budget together and then call the rest of us back just to vote on it. But I haven’t heard anything final on that.”

The death last Monday of Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Hill, R-Reidsville, further complicates efforts to put the budget together. The Senate leadership will have to appoint a new chairman.

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