ATHENS, Ga. - Late last month, with only two days left in the state legislative session, Ed Jackson, a University of Georgia expert on flag design, delivered some bad news to the Senate.
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He told the Republican-controlled body that the compromise flag under consideration, featuring the state coat of arms on a blue field in the top left corner and three red-and-white stripes, would be two feet longer than any other flag produced in the United States.
"On a flagpole, it sticks out two feet beyond the U.S. flag," said Mr. Jackson on Monday. "Nobody had ever drawn the flag. No company produces flags that long - it would have been very expensive."
Mr. Jackson said a six-hour debate ensued: Republicans were afraid to pass an amendment that would allow the dimensions of the flag to be altered by the secretary of state.
They worried that if the bill were altered by an amendment, and it went back to the House for approval, the House would let the bill die, Mr. Jackson said.
In the end, the Senate and then the House approved the amendment, and the state of Georgia was saved from having an awkward flag. Nearly two weeks later, Mr. Jackson has finished creating the specifications for the new state flag and is waiting for Gov. Sonny Perdue to sign the bill.
Mr. Jackson, a senior public service associate at UGA's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, focused on the history and design of the state flag while the rest of the population launched heated discussions about its meaning.
He was asked by state Sen. George Hooks, D-Americus, to be on hand for state politicians as they debated the state flag. Secretary of State Cathy Cox asked the Vinson Institute to prepare the official version of the flag - the last step before it is sent to the printing company.
Mr. Jackson described his weeks helping state politicians with various flag designs as "exciting," but admitted that the politics - the secret deals and inside quarreling - was a serious lesson in the way bills are passed.
"It confirms the old saying that if you ever see sausage being made, you never want to eat it again," Mr. Jackson said. "The same applies for the making of laws."
Mr. Jackson, a flag junkie whose office Monday had dozens of flag designs on the floor underneath the desk, faced numerous challenges while designing a flag that would be both historically accurate and aesthetically pleasing.
The state seal that comprises part of the new flag was one such challenge.
The official seal, kept in the secretary of state's office, was last updated in 1914 and has worn so much that the details - such as the soldier and the arch in the coat of arms that comprise part of the seal - are impossible to discern.
So Mr. Jackson did research and discovered that in various replications of the coat of arms over the last 200 years, sometimes the soldier faced left, and sometimes the soldier faced right. Some had a funny hat, some had none.
Mr. Jackson then perused books from the Revolutionary War and settled on a soldier wearing a hat, which seemed historically accurate.
