Eye on HOPE from behind government lines

If there is anyone who ought to know the ins and outs of this year's Georgia legislature, it's the International Affairs and Public Policy majors interning at the Capitol downtown.

This semester's members of the Georgia Legislative Intern Program are at the Capitol daily, watching events unfold on closed-circuit television.

"I think there's a lot of misconception about where most of the debate goes on with legislation," said Douglas Gladden, a third-year Public Policy major and a legislative intern this semester. "Most of what the public sees on TV and in the newspaper [are] speeches from the floor...but a lot of the debate really does go on behind closed doors."

The busy session means the interns get to work more closely with the representatives themselves. Both Gladden and Jessica Golding, a third-year Public Policy major, have spent time on the Congressional floor, though they're usually performing office work for the representatives' secretaries.

"You're actually there, and you hear other people talking [about] all these bills...What does the secretary think about it? You know, that kind of thing," Golding said. "You get other people's reactions as it's going on right then, and then you're more interested."

This year's session features a number of significant bills that could have potential ramifications for college students statewide.

Gladden and Golding sat down with the Technique to give an insider's look at the hottest issues of the moment.

The HOPE Hours Cap

Bill 299, a proposal to cap the allowable number of HOPE-funded course hours to 127, led the news when it passed the House last week. The issue caused alarm at Tech, where many engineering degrees require more than 127 hours for completion.

Gladden, however, said that everything has been accounted for.

"When I first came across [the bill]...I thought, 'Well, they haven't thought this out because of engineering degrees,'" he said. "[But] the more I looked at it, the more I realized they had thought it through, taking into account these certain procedures and the fact that schools are...using HOPE for something it wasn't intended."

Specifically, many universities in Georgia offer joint programs that allow student to earn both a bachelor's and a masters degree while remaining under HOPE, but such programs often require well over 127 hours. This year's assembly agreed that HOPE was not designed to pay for graduate degrees, since it was unfair to other students who would receive HOPE funds only for their bachelor's program.

The potential detriment to engineering students was one of the primary points in the debate over the bill, but Gladden pointed out that students will still receive HOPE for an additional semester if they fall just short of the requisite hours.

"You're given a one-semester grace period that is paid for," he said. "So if the student...finished a semester with 126 hours, they can still reach their 135 hours under the HOPE scholarship tuition degree. That's not in the bill, but it is standard practice."

Minimum Wage Reduction

Another bill going through the legislature proposes to reduce the minimum wage to $4.25 an hour. According to Golding and Gladden, there's a solid logic behind it: the legislature wants to prevent businesses from losing money on unskilled teenage labor.

The reduced wage, which only applies to employees 20 years old or under and only for the first 90 days of employment, is designed to be a "training wage" while new employees are still learning the ropes of the job.

"A lot of kids will just start working, decide they don't like the job and then leave after the employer spent all that time...and all that money to train them," Golding said. "So it's to save the employers money and maybe give them incentive for kids to actually stay there and work."

Once the 90-day training period is over, teenage workers are considered regular employees with a full wage.

In addition, businesses who do employ teenage workers cannot reduce the benefits or hours of other employees.

Nevertheless, Golding and Gladden admitted the bill may have some potential downfalls.

"I know one argument is a lot of teenagers have to rely on after school jobs as their only means of financial support due to family issues or other things," Gladden said.

"Teenagers already have restrictions on how much they can work, like...you can't work more than so many hours a week," Golding said. "So this is adding more restriction to their earning capability. But I guess the thought is that their parents should be taking care of them and providing for them."

"Whether its good or bad I guess will be best seen when its put into practice if it passes," Gladden said.

The bill is currently under discussion in the House.

Curbing Underage Drinking

Every college student knows that preventing customers under 21 from purchasing alcohol doesn't stop them from consuming it, but a new bill introduced into the legislature aims to fix that.

The idea is simple: anyone under 21 caught drinking gets a suspended driver's license, with similar penalties falling on the alcohol's supplier.

"I think this is specifically targeted for college campuses. So that's probably something that...if it's actually enforced, will be a big deal here on campus," Gladden said.

In addition, the bill has been pushed by alcohol companies that fear liability issues.

"In other states, I know some companies have been responsible when a teenager who [was] drinking got in an accident and died," Golding said.

Golding said she expects the bill to pass.

"I think it is a good idea," she said. "I mean, it's already along the same lines as you can't try to purchase alcohol [if you're under 21]."

The wealth of new bills introduced into the legislature this semester is partly reflective of the new Republican majority.

With both the Senate and the House operating under the same party, the legislature has been able to push issues important to the Republican party through the houses with less dissension.

"Most bills in the session have been passing pretty overwhelmingly, even with a lot of Democrats supporting these measures," Gladden said.

According to Gladden, representative Glenn Richardson (R-Dallas) established that each piece of legislation should meet one of four criteria: reducing the tax burden on the citizens, reducing the scope of the government, reinforcing the traditional family structure, and increasing personal accountability.

In addition, the legislature hopes to use the opportunity to prove that they can govern effectively.

"Their real goal is to show...for the past 150 years [under a Democratic majority], they've had to call special sessions to balance the budget. All sorts of terrible laws have been passed," Gladden said. "Their goal is to come in and say we can do this right, we can do it quick, and we can do it in less than 40 days."