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By Clint Thompson
One of the pivotal points in the Georgia legislative calendar happens this week with Crossover Day scheduled for Friday, March 6. It’s an important date for every legislative session where proposed bills must be passed out of their respective chambers, explains Georgia Agribusiness Council (GAC) President Will Bentley.
“Crossover day is a date set by the legislature where bills have to be passed out of the House or the Senate in order to “cross over” to the other side. Bills that don’t make it prior to crossover day, then they’re not eligible for debate, the last 12 days of session before signing day on day 40,” Bentley said. “That’s in theory. In reality, bills that don’t cross over, that’s when you start seeing the games played where they’re looking for a vehicle to hitch a ride on, and they’ll show back up with new life on different bills that did cross over.
“That’s where we have to stay vigilant all the time, make sure we’re watching every single bill, because senators and representatives get desperate if their bills don’t make it cleanly across crossover day and they start looking for funny places to put them. That’s typically where bad legislation happens.”
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Bentley added that agriculture is in a good spot right now with this legislative session scheduled to end on April 2.
“We did see the House and Senate pass a joint resolution to create a study committee for them as well as the Department of Agriculture to study some of the issues that we’re facing in agriculture and see if they can’t come up with some study committee proposals to bring to the legislature next year, dealing with long-term sustainability and profitability of agriculture,” Bentley noted.
“That’s a good thing for us, and then the rest of the stuff we’re just watching to make sure we don’t get hurt by accident.”