Know the Issues

The YWCA's 2018 State Policy Agenda

During the 2018 state legislative session, working in collaboration with our partners and with YOU, we will work to advance the economic empowerment, and improve the health and safety, of all women and girls in our state through the following proactive initiatives. To receive real time alerts so that you can take action on these and other important issues join our email list and select "Action Alerts".

 To promote the health and safety, and the economic empowerment, of women and girls in Georgia, we will work to: 

• Pass House Bill 745 (Rep. Holcomb, 81^st), or House Bill 834 (Rep. Ballinger, 23rd), the Georgia Tenant Victim Protection Act, that will allow survivors of domestic violence to terminate a rental agreement when they need to relocate for safety reasons. Learn more with this Georgia Women's Policy Institute fact sheet. [UPDATE: HB 834 passed unanimously in the House on Crossover Day and is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee.]

• Enact family-friendly tax reform that can empower more women to move into the middle class, including the Georgia Work Credit, a state Earned Income Tax Credit that will help working women pay for costs like transportation and child care.

• Pass House Bill 660 (Rep. Hanson, 80^th) that will create enhanced punishments for crimes when the victim was targeted due to race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, mental disability, or physical disability; and that will provide for training in the identifying and reporting of hate crimes. [UPDATE: HB 660 received a hearing in the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee.]

• Pass House Bill 669 (Rep. Trammell, 132^nd) to increase the number of women in Georgia with health insurance, by expanding Medicaid eligibility to people in the coverage gap.

• Pass House Bill 541 that will reduce the high number of domestic violence fatalities in Georgia, by replicating in state law the federal law prohibiting those convicted of family violence misdemeanors and those subject to family violence protective orders from possessing firearms. [UPDATE: HB 541 received a hearing in the Public Safety Committee.]

• Expand access to quality, affordable early learning and child care for working mothers, by increasing state funding for child care assistance for low-income parents through Georgia’s Childcare and Parent Services Program.

• Protect the safety of patients in Georgia by ensuring that physicians must have a criminal background check for licensure or license renewal in Georgia, instead of relying on them to self-report prior convictions for crimes including sexual assault and abuse.

• Improve our state’s maternal mortality rate, by supporting policies that address the disparities and the underlying systemic causes of maternal mortality as identified in the Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee’s 2017 report.

• Promote women and girls’ entrance into high-paying, non-traditional careers through state programs such as the High Demand Career Initiative and HOPE Career Grants.