ATLANTA — Restrictions on where convicted sex offenders can live — struck down by the Georgia Supreme Court last year as unconstitutional — overwhelmingly passed the House on Tuesday with changes supporters said will make the new proposal palatable.

House Bill 908, which passed on a 141-29 vote, would bar sex offenders listed on the state registry from living or working within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, daycare facilities or other places where children gather.

“Libraries were also added to the bill,” said state Rep. Barbara Massey Reece, D-Menlo. “That was because they did catch a child predator at a library using the Internet there.”

The bill allows offenders who have established their residency and own that property to continue to live there if one of the operations that would otherwise trigger the residency restriction moved in afterward.

The measure now moves to the Senate.

The debate reprised a small portion of the battle about a 2006 law intended to crack down on sex offenders. That law, by House Majority Leader Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons Island, toughened residency restrictions already in state law.

Supporters stressed that, without action, the state will be without a provision intended to shield children from sex offenders who might repeat their crime.

“The bill just corrected the problems the Supreme Court had from the last bill,” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville.

“I voted in favor of the bill,” said Reece. “But I realize that all sexual offenders are locked in the same basket.”

Reece said the GBI mentioned in Georgia there were only 40 people out of all registered sex offenders that they classified as child predators.

She also said legislation is being drafted to create different classifications in the future. “Meanwhile, I think there needs to be some close accounting for whereabouts,” said Reece.

Opponents questioned whether the measure did any good, pointing to studies indicating that whether sex offenders live close to children has little to do with whether they strike again.

“While the legislation makes good press, it doesn’t make good sense,” said Rep. Roberta Abdul-Salaam, D-Riverdale.

Others said it would also be struck down because it didn’t recognize the property rights of renters, which the Georgia Supreme Court has upheld in previous rulings.

“Now that we’re coming back even after the court has struck down the residency portion of this, we still continue to pass laws that are going to have us back in court spending taxpayers dollars,” said Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, D-Austell.