PROVIDENCE — Civil-rights leaders and politicians made a last ditch effort yesterday to get the General Assembly to override Governor Carcieri’s veto and abolish the state’s minimum mandatory drug sentencing laws.

The big question remains: Will the issue be presented for an override at Tuesday’s special session of the General Assembly?

House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, said yesterday that the leadership had not committed to an agenda for the special session. Translation: It’s anyone’s guess whether the issue of minimum mandatory drug sentencing will be heard next week.

Rep. Joseph S. Almeida, the Providence Democrat who sponsored the House version of the bill, said that Carcieri was not listening to the wants of the people when he vetoed the lawmakers’ decision to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes.

“Why doesn’t he listen to the people,” Almeida said. “Isn’t this the house of the people?”

Almeida, Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, and other supporters of the override, including representatives from Direct Action for Rights and Equality, held a low-key rally on the Smith Street side of the State House late yesterday afternoon.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the nation’s war on drugs “a fiasco” and that Rhode Island should follow the lead of many other states that have repealed tough mandatory drug laws that were adopted in the 1980s.

Brown said that every public official, “but our governor,” has seen the light. He said the drug laws have led to overcrowding at the Adult Correctional Institutions and placed a strain on the state budget.

Since 1988, the state’s prison population has more than doubled from about 1,500 prisoners to more than 3,500.

Metts, the Providence senator, emphasized that Rhode Island residents need better schools and property tax relief instead of locking more teenagers up with Draconian drug sentences.

Metts, who is a minister and assistant principal at Central High School in Providence, said that teenagers make mistakes and should be given second chances — not long-term prison sentences.

“As a society, we have to give people a chance to redeem themselves,” he said. “Instead of more punishment, we need more love.”

bmalinow@projo.com