Fayette County's ranking

state legislator, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Sharpsburg), believes the

upcoming legislative session will be a short one.

"With all these people

running for election, I really don't see this as a real long session,"

he said.

The 2004 edition of the General

Assembly gets underway Monday, with legislators facing several challenges.

The most pressing is the state's budget, which is looking at huge

deficits. But Westmoreland said, the choices to be made by Gov. Sonny

Perdue got a lot easier at the end of last year, with some help from Washington.

The state received just over

$400 million from the feds, which helped get the deficit more under control.

"We got $136 million back

in Medicare reimbursements and $279 million in federal flexible assistance,"

he said.

Still, the legislators are

going to sharpen their knives to make more cuts to the budget. Westmoreland

still believes teachers will get a raise this year, and he would like

to see the governor's education program move further.

Other issues he sees drawing

interest this year is tort reform and on a local level, golf carts. "I'm

going to propose legislation Monday that explains what a golf cart pathway

is, and what a roadway is," he said. "That will enable cities

like Peachtree City to set age and other requirements for who can travel

on the paths."

But there is one issue that

could throw the whole session into an uproar. A lawsuit got underway yesterday

in the courts brought by the state Republican Party, challenging the redistricting

after the 2000 Census. That gerrymandering is responsible for the awkward

legislative map that serves Fayette County today.

"If they decide our way,

we also might be doing some redrawing of lines," Westmoreland said.