On Tuesday, the Senate endorsed the green tree frog as the official amphibian of Georgia.

Preston Smith of Rome, the Republican sponsor, gave a ribbeting speech in favor of the measure.

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The bill was necessary, Smith said, to mark the fact that Georgia has 85 separate amphibious species. That's more bio-diversity than can be found in any state except North Carolina — and a stirring testament to the clientele of Atlanta's singles bars.

But just because something's silly doesn't rob it of all significance.

Behind the playfulness was a real sense of relief among Republicans, that something dangerous had been overcome and left in the dust.

The green tree frog project was the brainchild of Ms. Pinson's 4th grade class of Armuchee Elementary School near Rome.

This was to be your typical good-government exercise, a chance to teach the kids how a bill becomes a law.

State Rep. Barbara Reece (D-Menlo) introduced the tree frog legislation in 2003, at the class' behest. H.B. 257 died in the House. She tried again in 2004. H.B. 365 passed the House, but died in the Senate.

Clearly, something had gone wrong. Perhaps, some suggested, Ms. Pinson's pollywogs hadn't hired the right lobbyist, or hadn't funneled enough campaign dimes and quarters to the right person.

But it was more serious than that. Ms. Pinson's class had been dealt a lesson in the Zen of Georgia politics. In our Legislature, all is connected, and the innocent walk hand-in-hand with the explosive.

The Georgia code section that addresses high honors for frogs governs the entire pantheon of state symbols: birds, trees, rocks, mammals, insects, wildflowers.

And the state flag.

Open the code section to add a frog, and risk an amendment that could revive the fight over the Confederate battle emblem.

For three years, legislators have stalled the tree frog bill out of concern that flaggers could use it to rise up and embarrass Gov. Sonny Perdue — who they say fell short of his promise to put the '56 flag to a vote.

As absurd as it seems, freeing the tree frog was a signal that Republicans no longer view Perdue to be vulnerable to any whiplash that Confederates can put together.

The only House bill requesting a new flag vote has been thrust into an attic, like some inconvenient — and disposable — relative.

This year, the tree frog legislation started in the Senate. Preston, sponsor of H.B. 41, is the chairman of the prestigious Senate judiciary committee.

Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour blocked the tree frog bill last year. But didn't this time. "I don't know if it says anything about our comfort level — but no one tried to do anything to it," he said afterwards.

The bill passed 50-0, unchanged. It now goes to the House, where Republicans in control have new restrictions on amendments that will prevent any tinkering with Ms. Pinson's 4th-grade class project.

The students who originally proposed the bill are now in the 6th grade, and two years' wiser about how the world really works.

Shades of LBJ: The domino theory of redistricting politics

In an article last week in Congressional Quarterly, U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg denied that the current effort to redraw Georgia's congressional districts is being done at the behest of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.

"No," Westmoreland was quoted as saying, "but I'm sure that leader DeLay would love to see a fair map that produced maybe another Republican member of the House, as he would in any state."

The article pointed out that redrawing Georgia's map could have repercussions nationally — not all to the GOP's advantage.

Democrats could retaliate by pushing redistricting in states where they've recently gained control — including Illinois, New Mexico and Louisiana.