ATLANTA - Georgia legislators head into the home stretch of this year's marathon legislative session in an unusual position: Most major pieces of their agenda are done.

A water conservation bill was approved weeks ago. A transportation deal is finally sealed. Ethics reform legislation has been OK'd. Gov. Sonny Perdue must still sign the bills, which have cleared both the House and the Senate.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean the session's final two days will be drama-free. Bills that deal with the divisive issue of guns, abortion and forcing adults to wear seat belts in pickup trucks could all come before legislators before they gavel the 40-day session to a close.

Lawmakers must also still hash out their differences on the $17.8 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. With tax collections plunging, the budget was an obstacle that kept legislators at the state Capitol weeks later than usual.

But the central budget disagreement over filling a huge shortfall was resolved when legislators signed off on a separate bill that hikes dozens of fees and slaps a new tax on hospitals while also cutting taxes for senior citizens and property owners.

The House and Senate have each passed a spending plan and are meeting in a conference committee to iron out discrepancies.

Most of Georgia's 236 lawmakers are anxious to return home and begin campaigning for re-election. And other state officials running for office are happy to finally kick their own campaigns into high gear.

Elected officials have been barred from raising money since the Legislature began meeting Jan. 11, so a mad scramble for cash is expected begin as soon as the confetti hits the floor Thursday night.

Unlike past years, where major items remained in gridlock as the clock ticked down on the frantic final days, legislators this year have crossed most of the big stuff off their to-do list.

Some credit new leadership in the House. David Ralston took over as a speaker in January after his predecessor, Glenn Richardson, resigned amid allegations of an affair with a utility lobbyist. While Richardson was always in the middle of a fight under the Capitol gold dome, Ralston has struck a more conciliatory tone and worked with Perdue and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. All three men are Republicans.

"This chamber can be proud of a good day's work," House Speaker David Ralston told state representatives Wednesday night as the chamber worked through an ethics bill and, after three years of trying, finally broke through a logjam on transportation funding.

Not everyone is pleased with the outcome. Some Democrats said the transportation deal shortchanges transit and won't deliver any real money to the state's cash-starved infrastructure projects for at least four years.

The ethics bill has been attacked as weak, lacking caps on lobbyist gifts that had been proposed in the session's early days. And critics say the tax cut for senior citizens - which would phase out the income tax on retirement income for those over age 65 - would benefit upper-income seniors while doing nothing to help the elderly who are still in the workforce.

Still, it gives the state's ruling Republicans policy accomplishments to return home and run on heading into a high-stakes election year.

The issues remaining for legislators to tackle could return them to some of the more divisive culture war issues.

An abortion measure that moved out of a House committee last week would jail doctors who perform abortions on women who have been coerced to have the procedures based on the race or sex of the fetus. The polarizing measure passed in the Senate after two hours of heated debate. An attempt to water down the bill in House committee was defeated.

Two gun bills that have already cleared the Senate could make it to the House floor for a vote. One would allow properly permitted gun owners to bring firearms onto college campuses and to churches and bars. Another would let them take their weapons when dropping off and picking up passengers at airports throughout the state.

The House could at long last pass a bill mandating that adults in pickup trucks wear seatbelts. Georgia is the last state in the nation to specifically exempt adults in pickups from buckling up.

There are still a pair of bills that would ban texting while driving.

And an often-mocked bill that would ban would prevent Georgians from being implanted with a microchip without their permission has passed in the Senate and could make it up for a House vote.