Victories

for state Rep. Greg Hecht in the 2001 session of the General Assembly

include the last-minute passage of an anticrime bill and approval of

his Natural Gas Bill of Rights.

"It

was a good session for Fayette," Hecht said this week.

Hecht's crime

bill, Senate Bill 34, requires pimps who pander to children under 18

to forfeit any vehicle used in the crime along with any profits they

make from children.

"I'm

happy that we were able to take the profits and the tools out of this

horrible crime," said Hecht.

Hecht also

saw his SB35 approved, increasing the penalties for child prostitution

to five to 20 years.

SB 217, his

natural gas bill, allows customers to switch gas providers once every

12 months at no cost and requires the companies to get your gas bill

out within 30 days after reading the meter.

It also provides

penalties for price fixing, requires universal information on all bills,

and creates a fund to pay the gas bills of elderly fixed income customers

in times of emergency.

Another measure

sponsored by Hecht, Senate Resolution 13, also passed, creating a study

committee to determine why gas prices shot so high this year and develop

long-term policies to prevent that from happening again.

"What

we're going to end up doing is partnering with the federal government

on a national energy policy," Hecht said, "to create reserves

of natural gas so that in times of heavy usage the prices don't go out

of reach for the average person."

Hecht's biggest

disappointment in 2001, he said, was failure of his bill that would

have outlawed importation of prison inmates from other states.

Georgia allows

private companies to provide prison services, and in some cases those

companies increase their profits by bringing prisoners from other states

into Georgia, he said.

"I just

don't think that's a legitimate business," he said. "We have

one of the highest inmate populations in the country and we don't need

to subject our people to [the dangers of transporting and housing more

prisoners]," he said.

Next on the

agenda for the state Legislature is redrawing the districts of legislators

and U.S. representatives in keeping with new population figures from

the 2000 U.S. Census.

A special

session will be scheduled in August, and committees in the House and

Senate will start meeting within a month or so to begin the task.

It's a process

Hecht is not looking forward to.

"It's

going to be a no-win situation," he said, adding that no matter

how hard legislators work to fairly draw the districts, they're likely

to be accused of gerrymandering drawing districts to favor incumbents

and the political party in power.