Speaker of the House Terry Coleman, D-Eastman, gavels the special session of the Georgia House to order. Associated Press

Special session starts

ATLANTA - Lawmakers, lobbyists and staffers returned to the Gold Dome on Monday, beginning what many hope will be a brief special session of the General Assembly dealing with legal aid for poor people.

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The session began on a relatively slow note. Only housekeeping business took place in both the House and Senate chambers during the Legislature's morning meetings. The House Special Judiciary Committee held a meeting in the afternoon to begin work on the indigent defense bill that failed in the final hours of the regular legislative session, which concluded April 7.

Hopes are high that work on the bill can be wrapped up by the end of the week, the shortest a session can last because of the mechanics of passing a law.

The legal-defense bill originally failed to clear a House-Senate conference committee because of a dispute over which arm of state government will control the funding of Georgia's new public defense system for poor people accused of crimes.

Senate Republicans, backed by Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue, wanted the governor to have the final say on the budget for the new indigent defense fund. Negotiators for the Democrat-controlled House said that would have encroached on the separation of power by giving the governor control of a judiciary agency's budget.

The measure is key because it provides $57.7 million in new court fees to help pay for indigent defense lawyers. Mr. Perdue said April 8 that the budget for the coming fiscal year didn't balance without the new funds and he would call lawmakers back to work on it.

At the governor's request, lawmakers will deal only with the indigent defense issue this week.

As the House began work Monday, senators were left to wonder about the necessity of the special session and what effect it might have on the 2004 campaign.

"A lot of us have fund-raising scheduled," said Sen. Joey Brush, R-Martinez. "We need to be on the phone talking to people; we need to be back in our district visiting people."

--From the Tuesday, May 4, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle