ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives voted largely along party lines Monday to create an oversight board for Georgia’s district attorneys and solicitors general.
The Republican-backed Senate Bill 92 passed in the House 97-77 over the objections of House Democrats that the measure both isn’t needed and is being driven by politics.
The legislation would create the Prosecuting Attorneys Oversight Commission, an eight-member board that would investigate complaints lodged against prosecutors and hold hearings.
The panel would have the power to discipline or remove prosecutors on a variety of grounds including mental or physical incapacity, willful misconduct or failure to perform the duties of the office, conviction of a crime of moral turpitude, or conduct that brings the office into disrepute.
Republicans have complained during the last several years about prosecutors in Democratic-led cities in Georgia who have been reluctant to prosecute certain crimes, notably during the civil unrest that occurred following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis by a white police officer in 2020.
“This bill was brought because we have district attorneys who are not doing their jobs,” said state Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens.
Republican lawmakers also argued that – unlike judges, who are subject to Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission – there is no oversight board for prosecutors.
But Democrats countered that there are existing remedies for removing…
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