Rep Townsend speaks to the Exchange club of Brunswick

Pictured from left to right Vice Pres Kirk Loard, Leslie Manoukian, Rep Rick Townsend, and Pres. Steven Floyd

The Exchange club of Brunswick held their weekly lunch meeting, and our guest speaker was Georgia House of Representatives District 179 Rick Townsend.

Georgia House Republicans focused on protecting Georgians- protecting their pocketbooks from high costs and bad actors, protecting children while in school, and protecting families and their rights to live freely. Several pieces of conservative legislation that passed this session were more than a decade in the making-state income tax cuts, Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and tort reform, just to name a few.

 HB 235 which cleans up current law which allows state employees to receive paid time leave for donating an organ (30 days for an organ & 7 days for bone marrow). Teachers and other educators were left out inadvertently a few years ago. A N. GA teacher was docked pay for donating an organ to her daughter for donating it during the month of December. Then the school system docked additional pay for scheduling the surgery around the holidays even though this allowed her to miss fewer days in the classroom.

SB 245 carried by Senator Hodges regarding grandparents’ rights. Not to take anything away from the parental rights.

SB 1 The Riley Gaines Act which prevents biological men and boys from playing in women’s and girls’ sports.

HB 233 Brunswick Stew as the official state Stew. In this bill was added to close a loophole in a previous bill/law to prevent a declared adversary (China, N. Korea) by the US from a third-party vendor from bidding on state contracts (i.e computers, cables, connecting cables etc ).