With the legislative session ongoing, Republican State Senator for district 49 Drew Echols gave an update to AccessWDUN on Monday.
Echols said he and Republican State Senator for District 50 Bo Hatchett were selected to carry Governor Brian Kemp’s legislation.
One of the governor’s legislation was Senate Bill 96, which will amend and modernize provisions for boards and committees across the state.
“There’s several boards and committees across the state that kind of defunct,” Echols said. “It was just a good government bill, it just cleaned up government.”
To get acclimated into the role, Echols was given Senate Bill 76, which sets up a fund for veterans through license plates.
“She [Senator Kay Kirkpatrick] felt like it would be a good bill for me to get my feet wet and kind of learn the process, so I very much appreciate that, and it passed unanimously,” Echols said. “There was quite a bit of hazing that went on during the process, but I was told that was because they love me.”
Tort reform was also a major talking point during the first part of the legislative session.
“There were things in the bill that were fair, there were things in there that weren’t fair,” Echols said. “It went out of committee unanimously and then there were still a lot of negotiations.”
The tort reform will look to strike a balance between rising insurance costs due to civil suits and allowing people to still retain damages when harm is done to them.
Echols said that the House of Representatives will look at it when crossover day comes on March 6. Other issues during the crossover will be hurricane relief.
“We talked a lot about hurricane relief,” Echols said. “So we’ll look forward to seeing that after crossover.”
Another bill passed by the senate was the red tape rollback bill, which will look to create an efficiency department for Georgia.
The legislative session for 2025 adjourns on April 4.
