The Georgia General Assembly's 1999 session drew mixed reviews from the Fayette County delegation following last week's closing gavel.

"There was a great atmosphere of cooperation in the House," said freshman state Rep. Kathy Cox after completing her first legislative session. "It was hard for it not to go well when Georgia itself is going so well."

The Peachtree City Republican said Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives worked together "to do what's good for Georgia and not worry about the party labels so much."

But in the Senate, "Being a conservative Republican and in the minority party didn't set too well this time," said Sen. Rick Price of Fayetteville.

Price said he was disappointed that his proposed income tax cut and another Republican proposal, Early Hope scholarships, were not addressed this session.

Early Hope would have provided state funding to allow poor students in under-performing schools to go to private schools or other public schools. If a school's Iowa Basic Skills Test scores were 40 percent or lower for three consecutive years, students whose family income does not exceed 200 percent of the poverty level would be eligible.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Tyrone said this year was a reversal of recent years, when harmony was strong in the Senate and political infighting was the hallmark of the House. "This year the House was pretty harmonious. Democrats were more than willing to work with us on some issues. In the Senate, it was brutal, bare-knuckled, raw politics.

"Most things over there were right down party lines," he added.

Sen. Greg Hecht of Jonesboro, the only Democrat in the Fayette delegation, was upbeat about his first term as a senator. "I passed a ton of bills," said Hecht, who was elected to the Senate this past year after serving several terms in the House.

"It was a very good session for Fayette County," he added. The fiscal year 2000 budget includes $95,000 for a teen revitalization project, Pathways for Youth, plus $40,000 for Redwine Park in Tyrone, $40,000 for sidewalks and $20,000 for library expansion, he said.

Hecht said the GOP's Early Hope program may yet pass, but it needs more study.

Newly elected Gov. Roy Barnes drew praise from all members of the delegation. "We had a new governor coming in with a lot of ideas," said Cox.

Price gave Barnes high marks for flexibility. "Most of Barnes' proposals went through a lot of changes," he said. "He's good at starting out at one point and ending at another."

Westmoreland last week praised Barnes for working well with Republicans, saying the governor was willing to accept ideas from both sides of the aisle.

During her first term, Cox also proposed her first piece of legislation, which would have treated obscene phone calls to children and solicitation of children over the phone the same as child molestation, a felony offense.

The bill didn't pass this year, but Cox said she is hopeful that after a subcommittee studies it over the summer, it will pass in 2000. "There were some real concerns with unintended consequences," she said.

Hecht passed his elder and disabled adult abuse prevention act, which allows social workers immediate access to elderly and disabled clients if they suspect that abuse or neglect is taking place. The bill also makes battery or sexual assault of elderly and disabled patients by employees of personal care homes a felony, and makes simple battery against anyone 75 or older a high and aggravated misdemeanor.

Another Hecht bill that passed both houses provides for criminal background checks of job applicants at day care centers, and for foster parent and adoption candidates.

Hecht said he also was happy that taxpayer notification bills passed both houses, requiring tax assessors to give property owners a reason if a property's assessment is raised by more than 15 percent, and providing for notification of any property tax increase.

Yet another bill, providing for special drug prosecutors throughout the state, was passed, but funding for only one-third of the program was approved. The bill will be fully funded over three years, said Hecht.

Price authored legislation that would slap a felony charge on suspects who lead police on high-speed chases, but the bill failed to pass. Price said he will continue to push for passage of the bill next year.

But Price said he has been working for years to provide the right to choose their physicians for Georgians who receive health care from health maintenance organizations, and that measure passed this year. "This is an issue I've always felt strongly about," he said.

Westmoreland's bills designed to speed up the inspection process for builders passed the House, but were bottled up in Senate committees, he said. "I had an 'R' after my name, and the lieutenant governor has been pretty adamant about the politics," he said.

Appointment of a study committee to look for ways to improve the quality of the Chattahoochee River in Coweta, Heard, Troop and Meriwether counties was a coup, Westmoreland said. "I was glad we were able to finally push that through," he said.

The biggest negative, Westmoreland said, was the legislature's passage of five mandates for insurance companies, including a requirement that insurers cover contraceptives. That's good for those who are using contraceptives, but the additional premium of more than $17 a month will be paid by all insurance clients, he said.

"And I think we're going to get fewer and fewer companies that want to write insurance in Georgia because everything is mandated to them," he added.

But all in all, he said, it was "a session when not a lot of bad things came out."