On Friday, tort reform, Gov. Brian Kemp's priority this session, finally made its way to the Senate floor.

Senate Bill 68 will revise the amount of money that could be awarded in civil litigation.

The three-pronged bill would cap the amount of damages rewarded in pain and suffering cases, as well as limit liability for injuries that occur on an owner's property.

It would also limit damages in medical malpractice suits to actual medical costs and split the civil trial into separate "liability" and "damages" phases.

"Despite what you may have heard from the AJC's opinion page, this legislation is not about protecting corporate profits," President Pro Tempore Sen. John F. Kennedy said. "It's not about caving to the demands of the insurance companies or denying Georgians their ability to be fully and fairly compensated when they need to go to court. Instead, it is about stabilizing costs and putting all Georgians, no matter where your ZIP code is, first."

Democrats disagreed.

"What we're seeing here isn't about fixing a broken system," Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-Duluth) said. "It's about creating a manufactured crisis to justify stripping away consumer protections and handing even more power to billion-dollar insurance corporations."

Despite opposition from Democrats, the bill passed 33 to 21.

In the House, two bills were passed that would respectively limit where and when UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones) can be flown and ban drones manufactured in certain countries from being purchased by state agencies.

Lawmakers return Feb. 24, when the Senate is expected to vote on the Red Tape Rollback Act, a bill championed by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.

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