Why Georgia’s 2026 Legislative Activity Isn’t Over Quite Yet

While the early hours of April 3 marked the official adjournment of the 2026 legislative session, its true coda took place this week. On the governor’s final day to sign or veto legislation, the long wait for legislators and lobbyists finally ended. Just not in the way many would have hoped.

Then, before the ink was even dry on the session’s final documents, Gov. Brian Kemp announced a special legislative session to convene on June 17. 

The first reason cited was to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative districts for the 2028 election after the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais. The second was to “address issues created by” an election bill passed in 2024, namely its mandate that Georgia counties abandon QR code-based ballot tabulation in favor of human-readable text by July 1, 2026. The General Assembly debated legislation to provide a path forward on this but adjourned last month without passing any. 

But that’s not all. In his first action on Tuesday, Gov. Kemp directed state agencies to withhold more than $300 million in proposed new spending from the state budget for the upcoming fiscal year. His rationale was that the tax cuts passed by the General Assembly this year left the state over a billion dollars shy of the $38.5 billion in spending lawmakers approved for the budget year that begins July 1.

Some of the more significant reductions included state prison operations, mental health services and medical residency slots.

Later that day, Gov. Kemp vetoed 12 bills. His rationale for five of them was that the General Assembly prioritized broader tax relief and failed to account for the loss of revenue. Those bills included historic property tax credits, a railroad maintenance tax credit, fine arts and museum tax exemptions, a reforestation tax credit expansion and increasing the dedicated outdoor stewardship sales tax for the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Trust Fund. 

Also vetoed was legislation that would have established a Georgia Music Office to promote the state’s music industry after the General Assembly provided no funding for it in the state budget. Another bill which would have created a tax credit to mirror the federal work opportunity tax credit was vetoed because that federal tax credit does not yet exist. 

Included among the veto statements were signing statements for two bills, one of which was House Bill 1247. This bill became a “Christmas tree” of unrelated legislation by the end of the legislative session. 

The final version included language that addressed regulations; it eliminated judicial deference in legal cases to state agencies’ interpretations of laws and included a version of the Red Tape Rollback Act. There was a section addressing homelessness and it also included the much-publicized “Epstein amendment,” which removes the shield of judicial privilege for settled claims of sexual harassment, discrimination or retaliation involving Georgia state legislators and makes them subject to public records requests. 

Most notable within the signing statement for HB 1247 was a warning of sorts for legislators in the future regarding the Red Tape Rollback provisions. The bill, which requires state agencies to produce economic analyses of proposed regulations, also “revises the statutes relating to the General Assembly’s power to void executive branch agency rules by resolution” by lowering that threshold from requiring a two-thirds vote to just a simple majority. Gov. Kemp expressed his unease with the constitutionality of doing this through legislation, rather than constitutional amendment. 

Looking ahead to the special session, reaching an agreement on the conversion to human-readable ballots remains a hurdle, but it will likely be overshadowed by the redistricting debate. As typically happens in this process, new maps can result in districts that are significantly redrawn or eliminated and which often pit many incumbents against one another. 

The 2026 session may be officially over, but between the budget discrepancy and an upcoming mid-decade redistricting battle, any reprieve for lawmakers will be short-lived.