---
type: "Bill"
title: "Voluntary Veterans' Preference Employment Policy Act; enact"
description: "A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Chapter 1 of Title 34 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to general provisions regarding labor and industrial relations, so as to permit employers to create and use a policy that provides preferential hiring, promoting, or retention to veterans of the armed forces of the United States; to provide for definitions; to provide a short title; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes."
jurisdiction: "us/states/ga"
legislature: "Georgia General Assembly"
session: "2015_16"
identifier: "HB 443"
citation: "Georgia HB 443 (2015_16)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Alex Atwood", "Christian Coomer", "John Meadows", "John Yates", "Katie Dempsey", "Sandra Scott"]
version_count: 2
action_count: 15
vote_count: 1
first_action: "2015-02-23"
last_action: "2015-07-01"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/6cdc1e1d-2be3-4a24-a9f7-e0af2ac5836b"
source_url: "http://webservices.legis.ga.gov/GGAServices/Legislation/Service.svc?wsdl"
source_hash: "d937fec419c2ad6d89f5bf7bc0d1c36a8a590e33503729068b1eb8e1c221359d"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ga"]
---

# Georgia HB 443 (2015_16) — Voluntary Veterans' Preference Employment Policy Act; enact

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Chapter 1 of Title 34 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to general provisions regarding labor and industrial relations, so as to permit employers to create and use a policy that provides preferential hiring, promoting, or retention to veterans of the armed forces of the United States; to provide for definitions; to provide a short title; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **HB 443/AP*** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20152016/153413.pdf)
2. **LC 43 0085/a** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20152016/148916.pdf)

## Votes

- PASSAGE — **170–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- Alex Atwood — primary (person)
- Christian Coomer — primary (person)
- John Meadows — primary (person)
- John Yates — primary (person)
- Katie Dempsey — primary (person)
- Sandra Scott — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2015-02-23** House Hopper
- **2015-02-24** House First Readers `reading-1`
- **2015-02-25** House Second Readers `reading-2`
- **2015-03-09** House Committee Favorably Reported `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2015-03-13** House Third Readers `reading-3`
- **2015-03-13** House Passed/Adopted `passage`
- **2015-03-18** Senate Read and Referred `referral-committee`
- **2015-03-25** Senate Committee Favorably Reported `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2015-03-25** Senate Read Second Time `reading-2`
- **2015-03-27** Senate Third Read `reading-3`
- **2015-03-27** Senate Passed/Adopted `passage`
- **2015-04-06** House Sent to Governor `executive-receipt`
- **2015-05-05** House Date Signed by Governor `executive-signature`
- **2015-05-05** Act 92 `executive-signature`
- **2015-07-01** Effective Date

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/6cdc1e1d-2be3-4a24-a9f7-e0af2ac5836b`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Georgia legislature records).