Under the Gold Dome

Join Judge Stephen Knights and Joseph Henning for a new episode of The Citizen's Playbook, the Henry County Chamber's civic education podcast presented by Georgia Power.

This week's episode, "Under the Gold Dome," explains the unique, fast-paced environment of the Georgia legislature and its key procedural deadlines.

This week's featured guest is Greg Bluestein, Chief Political reporter at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

Each episode in this series includes a specific call to action, or homework. Here's this week's assignment: When the legislature is in session, visit legis.ga.gov and watch the livestream for 15 minutes. Look for a daily calendar on the website to see which bills are scheduled for a vote.

Whether you're interested in federal, state, or local government, The Citizen's Playbook makes civics approachable, practical, and relevant to everyday life.

🎙️ Citizen's Playbook is produced by Henry Chamber Media, bringing you conversations that connect business, community, and leadership throughout Henry County.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the Gold Dome, where 236 lawmakers meet for just 40 days each year in a frantic sprint. Welcome back to the Citizens Podcast, and I'm Joe Henning.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

And I'm Judge Stephen Knights Jr. If Congress is a marathon, the Georgia General Assembly is a high-stakes sprint. There's no one better to guide us than our guest today, Mr. Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Greg, thanks for joining us today.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Well, thanks for having me. It's hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

It's uh Greg, I I've followed you on social media. I see you on uh on cable news and everything. So it's it's kind of uh I feel almost important that I get to have a conversation with you now.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Welcome to my uh my Hyundai as I'm sitting here in the parking lot waiting for my kids to do shopping.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yes, sir. Well, uh Greg, just want to touching on uh getting into this sprint here, let's talk about how the legislature is structured. For decades, Georgia politics was dominated by rural areas because of the system called the county unit system. Can you explain how that works?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Yeah, we're gonna go way back in time, but essentially it was kind of like an electoral college for counties, right? There's a lot of debate over the national electoral college system, um, you know, putting putting more precedence on states than like on population in some cases. And that was the case in Georgia. You had rural counties that didn't match the uh the the the voting clout of Metro Atlanta counties, but they almost did, right? A unit uh if if a candidate won a rural county, they'd get a vote. If they won, let's say to Cab County, they might get two, maybe even three votes. But but it definitely shifted the political clout towards folks winning more of these rural counties and really diluted the voting power in really vote-rich Metro Atlanta and other populist regions around the state, giving rural lawmakers a lot more clout, a lot more, a lot more influence under the Gold Dome.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Wow. Okay. So so that candidate, because they've won more of the popular vote in s especially around Metro Atlanta, might lose because they have fewer of these uh the county unit votes than thanks.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah, and it really encouraged the sort of a brand brand of populist, uh populist politicians, right? Who'd go in rural communities and get up on the actual tree stump, right, and campaign to rule voters based on all sorts of and these were, you know, back then these were Democrats, right? Um but making a very populist argument uh that really held sway and uh really affected politics under the Gold Dome for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

So so if and I'm sorry, I'm still wrapping my head around this. Um so if like maybe at that time, south of 20, if they were able to carry those the majority of those counties, and maybe somebody else was able to pull what was then Metro Atlanta, and even though they had more of the votes, the counties won.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Uh yeah, yeah. I mean, it really diluted the voting power of those really populous counties. And of course, the map, the battleground map was very different. Right now, if you're a candidate, even even you know, even Republicans who lose Metro Atlanta still have to focus a lot of their time and energy on Metro Atlanta counties because you can still get a lot of votes losing Cobb County. You can still get a lot of votes losing Gwinnett County. Um, whereas back then it was sort of like the Democrats held sway throughout the whole state, but liberal Republicans, you know, sort of did did a little bit better in Metro Atlanta counties than you'd expect. And so you'd have candidates, I mean, this was, you know, you can go back to Johnny Isaacson's early days, and you'd have candidates like Johnny Isaacson doing really well and and launching their campaigns from Cobb County, um, you know, long before Cobb County became the Democratic bastion it is now. And so you had you had some, you had these weird alliances emerge too between um more Metro Atlanta, urban African-American uh Democrats and rural Democrats. And that alliance held sway in Georgia for a long time as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Interesting. Very interesting. Uh quick follow-up question for you with the Gold Dome and that 40-day sprint and crossover day. Um, now that we have more representative uh legislatures, but one that operates on a very short timeline, how does the 40-day session define everything?

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Yeah, well, it is. It's it's I I loved how you guys set it up. It's a it's a spread. It also could feel like a marathon, because the 40 days isn't antiguous, right? They can spread out the 40 days and they do between January and sometimes sometimes um March, but uh often it dips into April. And I've had sessions where it's gotten even even longer. I've covered about 20 something of them. Um but um, you know, it it there are days, there are weeks that are just jam-packed, and there's weeks when there might be no legislative days go by, or one or two. Um there are days of the session where you're out by noon and nothing really gets done. You might need a new beauty queen, you might have a doctor of the day, but very little else gets done. And then there are days where they go literally well past midnight uh trying to get the business done. So um, you know, they're like the rest of us, they're procrastinators. So, you know, you see the most getting done right before two big deadlines. The first you just mentioned, crossover day, that usually happens um somewhere around the 30th day of the legislative session. That's changed over the years. Sometimes it's earlier, sometimes it's a little bit later. Um, but for the most part, it's around that 30th day. And that's the nominal deadline for one bill to make it past one chamber in order to get voted on the in the next chamber. Even that deadline's squishy because there's ways the lawmakers can get around it. Um and then there's the second big deadline, which is a lot harder to get around, and that is actual signy die. That's the 40th day of the session. We are used to that ending around midnight, but recently it's gone past midnight, and even more recently, it's ended before midnight in some sessions. So um, and if you don't get your act together by then, then we're a real trouble. Uh, then we might have a special session. And this year, 2026, we're we're we're headed towards a special session because lawmakers could not get their act together on a certain bill.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

So Yeah. Greg, let me let me ask you this just for clarification for our listeners, because I think there is often some confusion around this 40-day session. And and I think you teed it up very well that it starts usually late January, early February, and it sometimes it can go into uh March, April. Um we don't want it any later than that. But that's more than 40 calendar days. So can you explain how those 40 days of the session are different than those 40 calendar days that some people might be expecting? What else happens during sessions?

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Yeah, great question. I mean, so legislative leaders they get together, they huddle before the session for usually um and sort of set out a calendar. And this past session, it was great because they were able to set out the entire calendar of all 40 days before lawmakers even convened. It was election season, Greg.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

It was election season.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

But for those of us with kids and spring breaks and all that kind of thing, it was because I've had sessions where you don't even know when the, you know, you didn't know if signing die could happen um two weeks before if it would interrupt, you know, your kid's spring break or whatever. And so for lawmakers, it's also very helpful because they can plan out their their lives around that. Um but anyway, it's so session starts, and you usually have the first week, there's usually a big slew of big events. You've got the governor giving his state of the state speech, you've got the budget coming out, you've got, of course, the gavel opening the session, you've got something called eggs and issues, which is um the big Georgia Chamber of Commerce event where lawmakers and political leaders kind of help lay out their agendas. So you've got all that happening the first week. And then usually the second week, sometimes legislative session doesn't even uh convene. Um so it's up to lawmakers to decide how those 40 days could be spread out. Those could be spread out over months, those could be spread out over 40 days straight in a row. Rarely does that ever happen. But often there'll be delays. Lawmakers, for instance, will take weekends off. Lawmakers might take Mondays and Fridays off. Lawmakers might want a Wednesday for committee hearings, um, for a day of committee hearings just on the budget. So just because there's a day off doesn't mean um they're not working.

unknown 8:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Well, r random follow-up for you here, Greg, too, to just to add in. And I know we've we've all been down to the Capitol lots of times, and there's days when um I've been there for different events, and there's about 30 or 40 groups there. So can you tie that in just briefly, just so folks are wondering? We see maybe the Boy Scout troop over here, we see a police organization over here, we see another group there. So just break that down and how that ties in as well.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, I mean, the state capitol is sort of the melting pot of Georgia, and especially in the session, it is just uh a stew of different people, of different groups. There's school groups, there's lobbyist groups, there's advocacy groups. It's really cool kind of wandering around. There's always a a day. Um, you know, it's it's Brunswick Day, it's Make In Day, it's it's Atlanta, you know, you name it. Um and also I kind of joked about this earlier, but the first hour or two of every legislative session, very little work gets done because that's when they have like the introductions. So, you know, you'll have a pastor of the day give an inspiring um opening blessing, and then you'll have a doctor of the day go up and talk about uh, you know, their jobs, and then you will have beauty queens from um Middle Georgia come up, or you know, Miss UGA, or you name it, you know, you have just special dignitaries come up. Sometimes there's sports stars and celebrities come up. Uh when Shipper Jones came, it was a huge deal. Folks like me, you know, were clamoring for a picture in Demetum, right? And we had to kind of take our journalism hats off and be fans for a day. So you have a lot of that happening. Um, you have some visiting politicians, sometimes former state senators or house members who are now in Congress or in other roles, they'll come back and they'll get to give a little speech. So anyway, there's a lot of like of that going on. And you'll also have um, you know, the the Walton County Realtor Group will want to get recognized.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Or the Henry County Chamber of Commerce.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Or the Henry County Chamber of Commerce. So your local delegation might go up and say something really nice about how great you guys are. And you'll get a nice little picture and a nice little video. Um so a lot of that happens as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Greg, you you you mentioned crossover day, and I appreciate that because I think a lot of people get confused. Um, you know, why is there a rush there at day 30? You know, there's still there's still 10 days left. We got time to get it passed. But if it doesn't pass one house to the other, um, it kind of dies. And and and tell us then how these vampire bills exist. How what what does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Yeah, kinda dies. Yeah, kinda dies is perfect because it doesn't necessarily mean the end of the legislation if it doesn't pass one chamber or the other by that day. Um, but it does make it harder. Let's say you have some big bill that um that that renames Henry County Hank County, okay? Let's just call it. Um and so Henry County bill is up and it and it doesn't pass. So that you there's a bill in the House and there's a bill in the Senate, and it just doesn't make it through crossover day. But there's some powerful politician that really wants to rename Henry County Hank County, and they've got some juice. What they could do is take that language from the bill that never passed and add it onto a bill, a separate bill that did pass. And that we call, sometimes we call that a zombie bill. It's a it's a bill that we thought was dead that's come back alive. Um sometimes we call that a different word, we call that a poison pill, because uh, you know, there might be some really powerful Henry County lawmakers that definitely do not want to re-rename the county Haig County. Uh so that might kill another bill that had a chance of passing. Um, but either way, lawmakers, politicians, lobbyists, advocates, voters, we all need to be on our toes even after that crossover day deadline. Because just because a bill didn't pass that doesn't mean it couldn't be revived, resuscitated, and packed onto another bill that is still alive.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

How often does that happen, bringing a bill back that didn't survive?

SPEAKER_02 12:24

All the time. Yeah, all the time. And often, often it happens in those final hours of a legislative session. So it can sneak back into a bill like at 9 p.m. on Sunny Die. And uh and it could be rewritten or it could be the exact same language. You could have slight modifications. And that's why, you know, the lawyers in the chamber are particularly busy because you know, you always hear unintended consequences. That's the sort of famous buzzword under the gold dome, especially during that time. But a lot of these bills, if they're so hastily written or so hastily added into legislation, there really could be some unintended consequences. And sometimes those get caught when the governor during his vetting session and he might veto a bill that he otherwise loves. Sometimes they don't get caught. And sometimes that's why judges are so busy during that period of time, because there's lots of lawsuits and and legal, legal matters that attend to.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

I think we saw that recently with um a Senate bill uh creating an ethics commission here in Henry County that wasn't as smooth as it was thought to be. And so the next year they had to go back and and and amend that that bill so that it made sense and and took out the staff. So yes, I I sometimes it gets cut. Sometimes it takes a whole year to find it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

And sometimes they don't catch it. And you're right. It's up to local officials to go deal with the ramifications of the confusing the confusing language and in laws.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Greg, we definitely want to thank you for your time. Uh thank you for this incredible look behind the curtain uh of Georgia's fast-paced process that demands constant vigilance. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Greg, thank you so much. Uh thank you.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

It's an honor joining you guys.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Oh, thank you. No. Uh this brings us to our call to action today. So the General uh the Georgia General Assembly's official website is Legis.ga.gov.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

And your assignment this week is the next time the legislature is in session, just take 15 minutes to watch the live stream. You don't need to understand the bill, just watch and get a feel for the pace and the procedure.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

And as a highlight, while you're on the website, look for their daily calendar. This will show you which bills are scheduled for a vote. It's a real-time roadmap of your government at work.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Thank you again, Greg. And next week, we'll look at the executive branch right here in Georgia. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Thank you for listening to the Citizens Playbook. We want to take a quick moment to extend a special thank you to Georgia Power for their generous support of this entire series. Georgia Power's commitment to our communities goes far beyond delivering reliable energy. They are actively investing in an informed, engaged, and empowered Georgia. Their partnership is what helps us bring these critical civic conversations right to your headphones. We are incredibly grateful for their support. The Citizens Playbook is hosted by Joseph Henning and Sted Knights Jr., produced by Trinity Archer. This has been a Henry Chamber Media Production, Copyright 2026.