And JOHN

THOMPSON

[email protected]

East Coweta

state Rep. Lynn Westmoreland's district will remain relatively unchanged

under a redistricting plan approved by the state House of Representatives

Wednesday.

Coweta also

didn't suffer the fate of many counties, being placed in huge districts

represented by two, three or four representatives.

State legislators

are meeting in special session to redraw district boundaries to account

for shifts in population, an exercise repeated every ten years following

the U.S. Census.

Republicans

have vowed to fight Democrats in court over both the House and Senate

redistricting plans. The Senate approved its plan last Friday, leaving

East Coweta Sen. Mitch Seabaugh's district also relatively untouched.

The House and

Senate must now approve each other's plans, and if there are any proposed

changes, those details will have to be ironed out in a conference committee

before final adoption.

Placing representatives

in multi-member districts is a practice that was common in Georgia politics

in the '70s and '80s, but dropped in 1991 in response to federal concerns

that it had been used in the past to dilute black voting strength.

Westmoreland,

who is the House minority leader, said he is happy with his new district,

but not happy with the overall plan.

For instance,

north Fayette County is tied into a two-member district that dips into

the Atlanta city limits and includes most of south Fulton County. Fayette's

interests are not compatible with those in Atlanta, and the new 49th district

makes no sense, Westmoreland said.

"We're

a suburban community," he said, adding that the whole process is

"a raw deal for Fayette and Coweta counties."

In the Senate

districts, Fayette is tied in with Riverdale.

"There's

nothing wrong with Riverdale, but every zoning meeting I've attended,

people have said they don't want to look like Riverdale," Westmoreland

said.

He also suggested

that Democrats may have intended to pit him against 105th District Rep.

Kathy Cox for reelection, but missed. His new district stops just across

the street from Cox's Peachtree City house.

"I guess

they gave me a great district to cause dissension within my caucus,"

he added.

Under the plan,

Cox would have to run for reelection in a new district that includes south

Fayette along with parts of three other counties: Henry, Spalding and

Butts. More importantly, she would be running for one of two seats in

a district that includes three sitting Republican representatives, herself,

John Yates (current 106th) and John Lunsford (current 109th).

Yates will

no longer represent Coweta under the plan. "It's unbelievable,"

Cox said Monday afternoon. "What they're doing is packing Republicans

into these multi-member districts and pitting us against each other."

The new 84th

District would be twice as large as current House districts, as large

as the average Senate district with about 95,000 people, Cox said, adding

that her biggest concern is the amount of money that would be required

to run for the multi-member seats. All candidates in a multi-member district

would run district-wide.

"This

would double and triple the cost of campaigning," she said. "Everybody

is upset already about the money in politics. Now you have a Democrat-controlled

Legislature making it hard for people to run for office. How are regular

people supposed to get in there and get involved in politics?

"It goes

against the grain of everything our form of government is supposed to

stand for," added Cox, who teaches government in high school.

Democrats defend

the plan, saying multi-member districts will give counties more voice

and more representation. When cities and counties approach the state for

funding for projects or help with issues, they'll have more than one representative

to plead their case, Democrats say.

Once the Legislature

finishes with the House and Senate districts and reapportions county commission

and board of education seats throughout the state, the next task will

be to draw new districts for U.S. Congress seats. Because Georgia's population

has increased, the state will have two additional congressional seats,

a total of 13.