ATLANTA — The Freedom of Speech and Belief Act proposed by Sen. Blake Tillery is intended to protect Georgians from viewpoint discrimination in financial and utility services.
On Thursday, the bill was back before a Georgia Senate committee for discussion.
According to the legislative text, the bill is aimed at preventing Georgians from not having access to essential services such as banking or utilities like gas or electricity or water over their political or religious beliefs, nor their opposition to certain types of ideologies.
As Channel 2 Action News has previously covered, the bill that Georgia citizens are “at risk of being deprived the ability to obtain financial and utility services due to such citizens’ lawful exercise of their constitutional rights. Depriving citizens of this state financial and utility services would put such citizens at an extreme disadvantage in carrying out the duties of daily life and would deprive such citizens of the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
When Channel 2 Action News reached out to lawmakers for examples of this activity happening in Georgia, none were provided.
The bill says it would count actions that “Discriminate in the provision of essential services’ means, directly or indirectly, refusing to provide essential services or restricting or terminating the provision of essential services to a person based on such person’s social credit score or such person’s exercise of any Constitutional right protected by the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, including, without limitation, such person’s speech, association, religious exercise, or ownership of firearms.”
TRENDING STORIES:
- Student brings gun to Harbins Elementary in Gwinnett; no injuries
- ‘RHOA’ star’s estranged husband’s citizenship request denied
- Georgia Senate unanimously backs pricey push for $250 child tax credit
For what types of businesses and institutions would be targeted by this bill for Georgians to be potentially protected from, the bill says it focuses on financial institutions with more than $1 billion in assets and their affiliates or subsidiaries, payment processors, payment networks, or payment providers and gateways that have processed more than $1 billion in transactions in the past year.
The bill defines such a score as a ranking assigned to someone based on their exercise of any constitutional rights or “a person’s failure or refusal to adopt any policy or make any disclosure relating to emissions of greenhouse gases, as defined in Code Section 12-6-221, beyond what is required by applicable state or federal law.”
It also says refusing to conduct “racial, diversity or gender audit or disclosure” or putting in place a quote based on race, diversity or gender may be considered part of how a social credit score may be determined as well, as well as a person’s failure or refusal to either facilitate or assist employees obtaining abortions or gender reassignment should also not be counted as a negative factor for these “social credit scores.”
The proposed legislation sets a new method for suing institutions or businesses that meet the requirements of the bill, and engage in this type of discrimination against Georgians, allowing lawsuits for financial damages they say they’ve taken, or up to $50,000, whichever is more.
If an action is intentionally in violation of the proposed bill, those suing can win up to three times the value, or up to $150,000 depending on which is higher.
Institutions and businesses sued, if the claim is successful, would also be responsible for attorneys’ fees and declaratory or injunctive relief.
Several individuals testified in favor of the bill, as well as against.
Firearms manufacturer Marty Daniel said he’d faced the type of discrimination from the bill several times, leading to millions of dollars of losses for his company.
According to Daniel, when BB&T merged with Truist Bank, at the time SunTrust, they were given a deadline to move their accounts to another bank, with no explanation. As they did, they lost more than $1 million for swap fees, legal fees and banking fees. Then, he said another bank merger at Cadence Bank, where they’d moved, had them move again, with similarly high fees. They again moved banks to Carolina Bank. Daniel said the account managers said they regretted that they had to do so and said that it was discrimination against his company for manufacturing firearms.
“I mentioned the BB&T transition. They did not give us a reason for the action,” Daniel said. “We ended up bringing that before the Attorney General here in Georgia, and because there was no reason given, he said that because there was no reason given, there was clear evidence in his perspective that we could sue. We feel like there was some corroborating evidence then we would’ve taken them to court.”
However, Daniel did say that speaking to a banker after the fact, and related to a final account still with what became Truist, a staffer told them simply “well you know how SunTrust hates the industry.”
Opposing the bill, Rhodes Mclanahan, CEO of First American Bank and Trust in Athens, said that while his bank did not currently fall under the proposed bill’s purview, he was speaking in opposition over three main concerns.
Mclanahan said the bill materially changes how banks make material risk decisions and decisions related to legal actions against the bank.
“There is no question in my mind that if there’s a law that allows someone to sue a bank, we will get sued, there’s no question,” Mclanahan said.
He also said that the idea of penalties and lawsuits would be horrible for banks to have to consider when making any risk-based decision and also said that he not only did not know what a social credit score was, but that banks don’t make decisions based on politics or religious beliefs.
Mclanahan said he was concerned with how it could conflict with some federal banking regulations.
Members of the committee voted to push the bill forward 7-to-5.
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
©2025 Cox Media Group
