A weekly roundup from the georgia general assembly

Getting down to business the second week, the General Assembly kicked out their pretty young legislative aides and replaced them with somber bureaucrats and accountants. Cluttering the joint budget committee hearings, state managers responded to questions about line items, staff increases, or anything else lawmakers demanded as they mulled over the proposed $13.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2000.

Education dominated capitol discussions early in the week. First up was University System of Georgia Chancellor Stephen Portch, who had to answer for the Medical College of Georgia's proposal to close a pharmacy program popular with poor people in the state. "It shouldn't have happened," said the apologetic Englishman. He promised the decision "will not stand," but some unimpressed lawmakers threatened to place MCG under tighter legislative scrutiny.

Next on the appropriations hot seat, Linda Schrenko seemed at times like she represented the corrections department more than public schools. The state superintendent proposed two kinds of alternative schools: minimum and maximum security. That way minor problem students wouldn't have to mingle with violent lawbreakers, she said compa

Two health activists that work with Fonda's group pointed out some troubling facts the state ranks among the highest in teen sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies out of wedlock; and some encouraging ones pregnancy rates have gone down in part through teen education.

Ms. Glover cited her own sexual ethics expert. U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (R-Georgia) is "overly concerned about this program" and "came to a morality matters rally in Rome recently," said Ms. Glover, who apparently did not catch Larry Flynt's press conference detailing the representative's high personal morality standards.

Legislators and little old ladies engaged in a hot discussion in Rep. Roger Byrd's (D-Hazlehurst) committee hearing on teen sex. Clutching Bibles and their daughters, concerned mothers from rural Georgia railed against Department of Human Resource-funded Teen Plus clinics, which they contend should teach abstinence only, not abstinence first. A shaken Monroe County girl testified after one visit she came home loaded with condoms and rebellious ideas.

Meanwhile... Rep. Warren Massey (R-Winder) joined a bipartisan tidal wave this week against a state law that requires fingerprints on state drivers licenses because of concerns about one-world conspiracies. The 1996 fingerprinting legislation was "a gift" from former Gov. Zell Miller to President Clinton "for his national ID system," Massey reportedly said. "I believe the president is in favor of a one-world order; he has ambitions beyond the presidency," he added.

Other opponents railed against the clinics, having discovered that a complete physical includes an e

Some topics in this essay:
Roy Barnes, Assembly Getting, Linda Schrenko, Monroe County, Rural Georgians, Atlanta Macon, Pregnancy Prevention, College Georgia's, Walker D-Augusta, Chamber Commerce, alternative schools, ms glover, public schools, schools students,