General disassembly

If Georgia's Republican-led General Assembly were a baseball team, they'd have started the season with high expectations of winning the pennant and ended the season in last place. Or perhaps next to last place - because, in fairness, there were at least some good things lawmakers accomplished.

Topping a very short "job-well-done" list is a bill to allow Georgians to freeze their credit reports for a $3 fee. This is one of the most effective tools consumers have to prevent identity theft. By notifying the nation's three main credit agencies to freeze your account, new loans or credit cards can't be approved in your name unless you personally request the agency to temporarily unfreeze the report for a specific loan or line of credit that you seek.

A couple of good crime-fighting bills were sent to the governor. One tries to fix parts of the state's sex offender law that was struck down by the courts. Another allows Georgia law enforcement agencies to release DNA evidence to other states, and to take DNA evidence from suspects who are arrested but never convicted of a crime. Had this law been in effect earlier this year, it might have prevented the murder of Meredith Emerson, the 24-year-old hiker who was kidnapped and murdered by drifter Gary Michael Hilton.

Another good measure lawmakers approved will allow persons authorized to carry concealed weapons into more public places. This should help balance gun rights with safety. Bad guys who already have guns might be deterred if they know some would-be victims might also be armed.

Finally, in the session's closing minutes and with no debate, legislators fulfilled their constitutional duty to OK an annual budget - $21.2 billion for the coming fiscal year.

This virtually exhausted their good works for the session, the rest of which was a disaster.

After spending months raising taxpayers' hopes of getting some kind of tax cuts and tax reform, the legislature delivered on neither. This is what infuriates the public about politicians: promises made but not kept. If Republicans lose seats in the General Assembly this election year, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

Other high-priority legislation that bombed out in this largely unproductive session include:

- a plan to direct the state's portion of property taxes to pay for more vitally needed trauma centers around the state;

- helpful legislation to permit local governments to levy a 1-cent sales tax for transportation projects to ease the state's congested roads;

- constructive and comprehensive changes to the education system that would have allowed more charter schools and parental options in choosing schools for their kids (hopefully, this is only a temporary setback in the march toward more school-choice programs);

- and drought-inspired measures to bolster Georgia's reservoir system.

The legislature's closing hours are always chaotic, but this year they were not only chaotic, but frivolous. Instead of resolving crucial issues such as those listed above, lawmakers quibbled with each other over such non-issues as marijuana-flavored lollipops and an anti-abortion amendment that, no matter how well-intended, had absolutely no chance of passing. It simply wasted time that should have been spent on items that did have a chance of passing.

And the pointless bickering was not, as you might expect, between Democrats and Republicans. Yes, there was some of that, but what really slammed the brakes on getting more significant work done was the feud between Republican House and Senate leaders. They proved that one-party rule does not guarantee political unity.

They also guaranteed that no matter what happens in November's elections, next year's legislative session will have a very low bar to clear to improve on this year's near-last-place finish.