GA: Transit bill passed on session’s final day carries big consequences for Cobb

Georgia lawmakers have sent a bill to the governor’s desk which, if signed, will preclude Cobb County from holding another transit tax referendum until 2032.

The legislation was written by Republicans from Cobb and Gwinnett counties who argued voters have “SPLOST fatigue” after rejecting previous proposals to expand public transit. It passed the House on Tuesday and the Senate on Thursday, the last day of this year’s legislative session. Both votes were almost entirely along partisan lines, with Republicans in support and Democrats opposed.

The bill states that if voters of a metro Atlanta county reject a transit tax, it cannot be put on the ballot again for eight years. Both Cobb and Gwinnett held failed transit referendums in November 2024.

Cobb’s Mobility Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (M-SPLOST) would have collected $11 billion by raising the sales tax from 6% to 7%. It was defeated by a wide margin, with 62% voting “no.”

The M-SPLOST, which was put on the ballot by Cobb’s Democratic-controlled Board of Commissioners, included plans for more than 100 miles of rapid bus lines, six new transit centers and a countywide system of on-demand “microtransit.”

The transit legislation was authored by Rep. John Carson, R-northeast Cobb, and was originally a standalone bill, House Bill 1377, which advanced out of committee in early March.

That bill was never brought to the House floor, but its language was tacked onto and passed as part of House Bill 328, which expands the state’s private school scholarship program.

Debate

Republican lawmakers from Cobb and Gwinnett say their constituents are tired of being asked to fund transit expansion.

“I know that there (are) a number of people that want transit in Cobb County, but I got to tell you, I represent the taxpayers, and I have heard from them, and they have voted this down time and time again,” Carson said. “And I, for one, have listened and continue to listen.”

Prior to 2024, the last time Cobb voters considered transit expansion was a 2012 regional T-SPLOST.

But Gwinnett County voters, who voted down a proposed transit tax in 2024, also rejected transit expansion in 2019 and 2020.

“We just believe that counties that have a failed transit referendum, that was paid for with taxpayer funds, they need to take a pause, a reasonable amount of pause, before coming back to the voters and asking them to sign up for another 30-year tax,” Carson said.

The bill would not affect counties’ regular SPLOST referendums, which in Cobb’s case have been used to fund transportation capital projects.

“We’re not talking about roads, bridges, intersections, airports,” Carson previously said.

In the House, just one Democrat voted for the bill, Rep. Esther Panitch of Sandy Springs. In the Senate, a lone Republican voted “no” — Sen. Carden Summers of Cordele.

“Traffic is already bad enough and is probably going to get way worse in eight years if we keep doing this,” said Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Duluth Democrat, on the House floor.

Rep. Gabriel Sanchez, D- Smyrna, also spoke out against the bill.

“The country my family comes from, Colombia, has much better public transit than the state of Georgia, and we should be ashamed that we … have worse public transit than a third world country,” Sanchez said.

The vote came after Republicans voted to make most county offices in metro Atlanta counties nonpartisan.

Rep. Stacey Evans, an Atlanta Democrat, said Thursday was the “second legislative day in a row that this body has chosen to single out metro counties to apply restrictions that don’t apply to the rest of the state.”

The Cobb Taxpayers Association, a local anti-tax group, led the fight against the proposed transit tax in 2024. Lance Lamberton, the group’s chairman, said he was “very excited and gratified” to see the bill pass.

To reduce congestion, Lamberton supports the expansion of toll lanes and other measures that give users a choice, rather than raising taxes.

“I also think that there’s going to be such a huge amount of change in transportation technology between now and then, that the concept of doing an expansion of public transit along the lines of the Mobility SPLOST … will truly be obsolete,” Lamberton said. “... It’s very possible that self-driving cars will be predominant within the transportation marketplace. It’s already moving rapidly in that direction anyway.”

In February, Cobb Chairwoman Lisa Cupid told the MDJ she had no plans to bring the transit tax back in the near term, though she wouldn’t rule it out entirely.

“There’s so many significant things before us that are more pressing,” Cupid said.

The bill also contains a provision written by Rep. Houston Gaines, R- Athens, to prevent counties from using Transportation SPLOST revenues to fund free bus service, as Athens- Clarke County has done for several years.

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