House approves local calendar, adopts multiple bills and agrees to several Senate substitutes

The Georgia House of Representatives on Wednesday passed its local calendar and approved a series of bills and Senate substitutes affecting insurance procedures, court motion processing, school safety mapping, health-care workforce parity and other matters.

House members approved the local calendar (excluding three pulled bills) by voice and a recorded vote, with the clerk announcing 168 yeas, 0 nays. Earlier the House removed three local bills from the calendar and recommitted them to committee: Senate Bill 336, Senate Bill 355 and House Bill 825 (referred back to Intergovernmental Coordination).

Several measures received recorded roll-call votes on final passage: Senate Bill 5 (health-insurance private review agent/certification) passed 169-2; Senate Bill 173 (procedures for uncontested motions in superior and state courts) passed 168-0; Senate Bill 17 (school panic-alert and mapping provisions, known in the debate as Ricky’s and Alyssa’s Law) passed 171-0; and Senate Bill 131 (creation of the Georgia Healthcare Professional Status System and parity compliance measures) passed 166-3. The House also agreed to Senate substitutes on multiple House bills, including HB575 (authorizing electronic notice for certain Georgia Department of Transportation public hearings), HB94 (fertility preservation insurance coverage for private plans after the Senate removed state plans), and HB182 (Department of Insurance technical/cleanup provisions); those motions to agree passed on recorded votes.

Key procedural actions and outcomes - Local calendar passed with a recorded vote: 168 yeas, 0 nays. This vote…