CA #1 — Urging a NO vote
Creates the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Trust Fund  to protect water quality, wildlife habitat and parks

Constitutional Amendment: HR-238 * HR-238-AP (pdf)

Enabling Legislation: HB-332 * HB-332-AP (pdf)

Does the ballot question and measure name accurately and fully reflect the effect of passage without obfuscation?

No, an existing fund of the state, repealed by the enabling legislation, already provides a source of dedicated funds for these purposes. The effect of the adoption of this measure would be to divert certain sales taxes from the general fund to this purpose, denying the ability of the Georgia Assembly to allocate those funds in other ways to meet our shifting priorities.  While it took a two-third majority of both houses to put this question before the voters, with no change to the Constitution the Assembly already has the authority to allocate these funds and more for these purposes.

Who would benefit from the proposed change?

Members of the Outdoor Industry Association would benefit most by seeing the tax collected on their retail sales dedicated to public expenditures likely to increase demand for their products, rather than being allocated in the General Fund for other priorities of the state.

Who supports the passage of this measure?

Outdoor Industry Association — a trade organization including DuPont
and a wide number of outdoor outfitter manufacturers.

Russell M Currey, Boxwood Capital, LLC ($10,000)
Tall Timbers Research, Inc. ($10,000)
James Lews Glenn, Sea Island Company ($5,000)
James A Lanier, Jr., Retired ($5,000)
Scott Satterwhite, Retured ($5,000)

The Conservation Fund ($50,000)
The Nature Conservancy ($50,000)
The Trust for Public Lands Action Fund ($10,000)
The Georgia Conservancy
Georgia Wildlife Federation
Park Pride

Who supports the defeat of this measure?

What is the Georgia Green Party’s recommended position?

The Georgia Green Party urges a NO vote on Constitutional Amendment #1.

This change if ratified would provide a dedicated pot of public sales tax money which would be spent according to the priorities of a private trade association, and do so in a way which would bind the hands of future elected officials to prioritize expenditures outside the scope of those preferred by this industrial trade group.  The existence of this tax allocation would serve as cover for the Assembly to cap funds for this purpose to that generated by this tax dedication.  The effect of this change is non-lapsing and to revisit this allocation would again require a vote of the citizens in a General Election.