The Georgia General Assembly will enter on Monday one of the session's most turbulent periods, a half-way point scramble by which all bills must have cleared their originating chamber if they are to be eligible for full passage this year.
The approach of Crossover Day, whose Feb. 28 threshold was inched up by two days from last year amid a desire from Senate leadership to expedite the legislative year, will trigger a marathon of activity by leadership in both chambers to keep on track the session's priority proposals.
Here's what we're watching before Wednesday hard stop:
Transit reform
The years-long effort to reshape transportation services throughout metropolitan Atlanta faces an important test Wednesday, as neither of the two GOP-led transit reform companion bills have passed their respective houses.
The House and Senate Transportation committees last week gave the green light to the bills, which provide for the financing of new transit projects through the creation of a handful of new taxes, including fees and goods sold at the airports in Atlanta and Savannah and another on taxi and ride-hailing fares. The proposals would also recast the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority as the Atlanta-region Transit Link, or ATL, and empower it govern transit planning in the 13 metro counties with the hope of inspiring greater regional cooperation.
Distracted driving
There's an effort underway in the House to make Georgia the 16th state in the nation to ban drivers from holding their phones while driving, eliminating alleged enforcement confusion because, while it's already illegal to text while driving, it remains legal to dial the phone.
The proposal passed out of a House committee last week and awaits debate on the full floor.
Criminal justice
The final pieces of outgoing Governor Nathan Deal's years-long initiative to reform the state's criminal justice system is bumping up against the Crossover Day barrier to adoption, but is expected to clear the hurdle just in time.
The governor's latest criminal justice reform package includes a proposal that would endow state judges with more power to forego cash bail for low-income, non-violent offenders and more options to impose community service instead. The bill is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate on Monday morning.
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