ATLANTA – State Representative Houston Gaines (R-Athens) recently joined Fox News on the Fox & Friends First show to discuss House Bill 286, legislation which would stop local governments from defunding their police departments without demonstrated budgetary need.
“We are seeing calls across Georgia and the nation for defunding the police, and that is something that I believe will put our communities at risk,” said Rep. Gaines during his Fox News interview. “Our police are underfunded right now, we need more money for training, and we need to increase the pay for law enforcement officers. Homicides in Atlanta were up 58 percent in 2020, and in Minneapolis, where we saw the defunding of the police, violent crime went up significantly. We need to support our men and women in blue, not reduce funding. We need to increase the resources law enforcement officers have because those are the challenges we are facing in our communities.”
House Bill 286 would limit a county and municipality’s ability to reduce their police force budgetary appropriations by more than 5 percent. The bill includes exemptions for smaller jurisdictions and in cases of revenue reductions for a local government.
For more information on House Bill 286, please click here.
To watch a video clip of Rep. Gaines’ interview with Fox News, please click here.
Representative Houston Gaines represents the citizens of District 117, which includes portions of Barrow, Clarke, Jackson and Oconee counties. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 and currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education and Secretary of the Health & Human Services Committee. He also serves on the Special Committee on Access to the Civil Justice System, Special Committee on Election Integrity and the Code Revision, Insurance, Juvenile Justice and Ways & Means committees.
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