Happy New Year and welcome to my blog.
Whether we’re ready or not, the 2009 General Assembly convenes Monday. So, brace yourself for the customary 2500 bills the new cast of characters will introduce during these 40 days of law-making. 26 new members and 210 returning incumbents take the oath of office Monday morning to officially begin this two-year term.
Five of the new legislators are in the Senate, but the balance of power remains the same, 34 Republicans and 22 Democrats. The 21 new House members include two Democrats that replaced two Republicans. That increased the number of House Democrats to 75 and reduced the Republican majority to 105. That means, if they stick together, Republicans can pass or defeat any bill at any time because they control all committees and all leadership positions.
However, the new members will be astonished at the work load. The sheer volume of a legislator’s work is staggering. There’s no limit to the number of bills they can introduce and a bill can be as short as one page or hundreds of pages long. In fact, the governor presents his voluminous budget in a bound book of hundreds of pages and the appropriations bill is a half-inch thick.
They have their job, but we have a job, too. Legislators don’t have time to study or even read all those bills and they won’t, necessarily, know what’s in the ones we’re colncerned about, unless we tell them. So, I’ll browse through the bills and pull out those we need to help pass or kill. Then, I’ll pass the word so you can contact your legislators at just the right time. But, remember this. As a conservative volunteer at the Capitol, I’m tremendously outnumbered every day by professional lobbyists pushing their liberal agenda and by government employees that are paid with our tax money to lobby for even bigger government, whether we like it or not. So, put me on your prayer list and, please, contact your legislators when I tell you about an important bill to work on. Together, we can make a difference in the kind of bills that pass.
Sue Ella Deadwyler