---
type: "Bill"
title: "Tracy Rainey Act; enact"
description: "A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Subpart 1 of Part 6 of Article 6 of Chapter 2 of Title 20 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to employment of certificated professional personnel in elementary and secondary education, so as to give a short title to a Code section relating to qualification for certain certificates for military spouses; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes."
jurisdiction: "us/states/ga"
legislature: "Georgia General Assembly"
session: "2017_18"
identifier: "HB 739"
citation: "Georgia HB 739 (2017_18)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Al Williams", "Bill Hitchens", "Dave Belton", "Ron Stephens"]
version_count: 0
action_count: 15
vote_count: 1
first_action: "2018-01-24"
last_action: "2018-07-01"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/89b77920-718e-4616-a2e0-e5c9a561c881"
source_url: "http://webservices.legis.ga.gov/GGAServices/Legislation/Service.svc?wsdl"
source_hash: "48f5f97cd63dcb9866431175411969ad0650c8383a800568d8e976c422992804"
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 739 (2017_18) — Tracy Rainey Act; enact

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Subpart 1 of Part 6 of Article 6 of Chapter 2 of Title 20 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to employment of certificated professional personnel in elementary and secondary education, so as to give a short title to a Code section relating to qualification for certain certificates for military spouses; 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.


## Votes

- PASSAGE — **162–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- Al Williams — primary (person)
- Bill Hitchens — primary (person)
- Dave Belton — primary (person)
- Ron Stephens — primary (person)

## Timeline

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

- **2018-01-24** House Hopper
- **2018-01-25** House First Readers `reading-1`
- **2018-01-29** House Second Readers `reading-2`
- **2018-02-06** House Committee Favorably Reported `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2018-02-12** House Third Readers `reading-3`
- **2018-02-12** House Passed/Adopted `passage`
- **2018-02-13** Senate Read and Referred `referral-committee`
- **2018-03-15** Senate Committee Favorably Reported `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2018-03-19** Senate Read Second Time `reading-2`
- **2018-03-21** Senate Third Read `reading-3`
- **2018-03-21** Senate Passed/Adopted `passage`
- **2018-04-03** House Sent to Governor `executive-receipt`
- **2018-05-07** House Date Signed by Governor `executive-signature`
- **2018-05-07** Act 426 `executive-signature`
- **2018-07-01** Effective Date

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/89b77920-718e-4616-a2e0-e5c9a561c881`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Georgia legislature records).