My Ramblings on the First Week

I thought that on the weekend that I might try to give my thoughts on the progress made during the past week.

The ceremonies surrounding the swearing in of the legislature went well and smoothly on the Senate end of the Capitol. I was very happy to have many of my family and friends in attendance to share the day with me. That was about all we did on Monday.

The Governor gave his "State of the State" address to the combined bodies in the House chambers Tuesday morning. As he always does he did a good job with his speech. It was the first time I had seem him use a teleprompter. We have talked in an earlier blog about the content of his speech so I won't rehash that. His tobacco tax proposal for health care has generated quite a bit of constituent emails and calls. I think many of them prompted by a proactive program from Phillip Morris. Wherever the calls and emails come from I am happy to hear the thoughts of my constituents and others in the state.

A few committees had organizational meetings so that they can get to work next week. Legislation should begin to work its way through the system and business should begin to pick up.

Interesting to me is that currently contacts by email are far outpacing the phone calls at this time. It will be interesting to watch how that progresses. I am tracking all constituent contacts so I should be able to get a good idea of which is the preferred method. From an efficiency point of view email is nice. There are no missed calls, no phone tag and if I need additional information I can forward the email to someone who can help me - but I truly do enjoy visiting with people who have needs or concerns.

That is it for today. Thanks for checking in.