Representative Lim tells committee HB 43 will update tribal addresses, guarantee tribal seats; committee approves and refers bill to Rules

The State Planning & Community Affairs committee took HB 43 from the table and approved it by voice vote after Representative Lim described the bill as a bipartisan effort to ensure state-recognized tribes remain represented and reachable.

Representative Lim told the committee HB 43 (LC 442156) "both ensures that the membership from our Council on American Indian Concerns will always have representation by at least 1 member from each of our state recognized tribes" and updates the tribes' addresses so they can be properly reached. Lim said those tribes include the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, the Cherokee of Georgia and the Lower Muskogee Creek tribe. "We should not hamstring their desires," Lim said, urging the committee to respect the wishes of the currently recognized groups.

Lim acknowledged longstanding disputes over recognition and said the bill does not foreclose separate processes for other groups seeking recognition. He said materials and testimony from Donald Kirkland with the Department of Natural Resources were available to committee members and thanked Representative Will Wade for outreach to the groups.

After the presentation the chair entertained a motion; a motion and a second were recorded and the committee conducted a voice vote in which members said "aye." The chair then instructed Representative Lim to proceed to the Rules committee with the bill and provided paperwork.

The committee's actions were procedural: HB 43 was taken from the table, discussed with an overview from its sponsor, and approved by voice vote for referral to Rules. The transcript records a voice approval but does not include a roll-call tally or individual recorded votes. The transcript also refers to a representative named Campbell in connection with an initial motion to take the bill off the table; speaker labeling in the record is ambiguous on which numbered speaker corresponds to that name, so the official motion mover is not definitively identified in the transcript.

Next steps: HB 43 was referred to the Rules committee for further consideration.