By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

Victories for state Rep. Greg Hecht in the 2001 session of the General Assembly include the last-minute passage of an anticrime bill and approval of his Natural Gas Bill of Rights.

"It was a good session for Fayette," Hecht said this week.

Hecht's crime bill, Senate Bill 34, requires pimps who pander to children under 18 to forfeit any vehicle used in the crime along with any profits they make from children.

"I'm happy that we were able to take the profits and the tools out of this horrible crime," said Hecht.

Hecht also saw his SB35 approved, increasing the penalties for child prostitution to five to 20 years.

SB 217, his natural gas bill, allows customers to switch gas providers once every 12 months at no cost and requires the companies to get your gas bill out within 30 days after reading the meter.

It also provides penalties for price fixing, requires universal information on all bills, and creates a fund to pay the gas bills of elderly fixed income customers in times of emergency.

Another measure sponsored by Hecht, Senate Resolution 13, also passed, creating a study committee to determine why gas prices shot so high this year and develop long-term policies to prevent that from happening again.

"What we're going to end up doing is partnering with the federal government on a national energy policy," Hecht said, "to create reserves of natural gas so that in times of heavy usage the prices don't go out of reach for the average person."

Hecht's biggest disappointment in 2001, he said, was failure of his bill that would have outlawed importation of prison inmates from other states.

Georgia allows private companies to provide prison services, and in some cases those companies increase their profits by bringing prisoners from other states into Georgia, he said.

"I just don't think that's a legitimate business," he said. "We have one of the highest inmate populations in the country and we don't need to subject our people to [the dangers of transporting and housing more prisoners]," he said.

Next on the agenda for the state Legislature is redrawing the districts of legislators and U.S. representatives in keeping with new population figures from the 2000 U.S. Census.

A special session will be scheduled in August, and committees in the House and Senate will start meeting within a month or so to begin the task.

It's a process Hecht is not looking forward to.

"It's going to be a no-win situation," he said, adding that no matter how hard legislators work to fairly draw the districts, they're likely to be accused of gerrymandering drawing districts to favor incumbents and the political party in power.