This year, the lawmakers will spend most of their time trying to ease the pain of budget cuts and they’ll argue over ways to keep Georgia’s HOPE scholarship program, but familiar battles over redistricting and the state flag could bog things down.

Backers of the old flag with the confederate battle emblem will try to change the March referendum to include their banner. The choice is now between the 2001 blue flag and the new one.

Proponents of the emblem have what they call a deck of shame with Governor Perdue as a joker.

“A promise was made to allow them to have the vote and we are going to push to see that that promise is carried through,” said William Lathem of the Southern Heritage PAC.

Both Democratic and Republican leaders said they will stop any attempts to re-open the flag issue.

The governor, meanwhile, has moved on to another fight.

He and fellow Republicans want to change the political district maps, drawn by Democrats but now under legal challenge from Republicans.

“What I’m trying to do is to take the partisanship and the politics out of that as much as possible,” Perdue said.

“You can’t take politics out of politics,” Democratic Rep. Tyrone Brooks countered. “I’m satisfied that the courts at the federal level will uphold our plans.”

A Republican bill to redraw the state’s political lines is stuck in a House committee.

Other legislative issues include new ethics standards for elected officials, children endangerment – Georgia is the only state without a law for parents who put kids at risk, letting home schoolers join clubs and teams at local schools and allowing the sale of beer with a higher alcohol content.

One big pressure for all of the lawmakers is time. Bills that don't make it by the end of the session will be completely dead. Also many of the lawmakers want to get out of here quickly because it's an election year.

They either want to run for another term in their jobs, or in some cases, run for Congress.