Politics

General Assembly Passes Legislative Leave Reform, Following Pressure on Speaker Ralston

April 3rd, 2019

House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, leaves the House chambers early Wednesday after ending the 2019 legislative session at the state Capitol.

John Bazemore / Associated Press

Following a joint Atlanta Journal-Constitution/WSB investigation that outlined how Speaker David Ralston may have abused a legislative rule, the General Assembly passed a reform of that rule late Tuesday.

Some lawmakers called for Ralston’s resignation after the investigation, and Ralston responded by appointing a commission to study the legislative leave rule. That’s a rule that allows lawyer-legislators to automatically request “leave” from judges during trials for cases they are working on.

“I did what I said I would do,” Ralston said. “I told [the group] to take a look at it. And if changes needed to be made, I told them I would stay out of the way, and I did.”

“I think there’s large consensus that we ought to take a look back at this provision that allows us the privilege of this,” said state Sen. John Kennedy, a lawyer and Republican who carried the proposal in the Senate. “And I think people that looked at it realized there’s a little too much discretion that we attorneys are given.”

The commission proposed giving judges explicit authority to approve or deny these requests and giving opposing counsel and, in criminal cases, victims themselves, the chance to object to the request.

“What, in essence, it says in the new provision is that if the attorney applies, it doesn’t automatically mean that that leave or protection is granted,” Kennedy said. “But first of all, they must request it. Second of all, opposing counsel, or the other party, or the court can object.”

The bill passed nearly unanimously in both houses, with barely any discussion in the House of Representatives, which powerful Republican Ralston controls.