Thursday, January 15, 2009

Day 4 of the Legislative Session

The big news today was that the House finalized who sits on what committee. Representative David Ralston no longer chairs the House Non-Civil Judiciary Committee and is now the Vice-Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The Governor's floor leader, Rich Golick is now the Chair of the Non-Civil Judiciary Committee. Representative Mark Hatfield is the committee's Vice Chair.

New to the Judiciary Committee: Doug McKillip, Tom Weldon, Stephan Allison, Elly Dobbs and Jay Powell.

GTLA continues to speak to the press and to legislators about the Governor's "tort reform" proposals. Rather serendipitously, today the New York Times had an article reporting that the Government Accountability Office has criticized the FDA for failing to test medical devices before their approval. This research illustrates just another reason why Georgia should not count on a federal bureaucracy to keep its citizens safe.

Tomorrow should be a fairly short day, and then the legislature will not be in session until January 26th. Next week, Georgia's Senators and Representatives will be in appropriations committee meetings, attempting to solve the state's budget crisis. GTLA will continue to keep you posted.

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