Cheyenne…back again. This is the 16^th year.

Everyone is nice the first few days of the session. There are lots of hugs, good words and hearty handshakes. There is a comradery about the legislature and it is at its best during the early days of a session. The work load is lighter and folks have not had the opportunity to get crossways on some issue. For the first few days, it seems like everyone in Cheyenne is your friend.

There are some enduring friendships here as well. My closest friends are left over from my House days. My first legislative session was in 1993 when I was part of the new class elected after redistricting. I believe that our class had 43 members. Today we have six. Jayne Mockler, Kathryn Sessions, and Wayne Johnson are in the Senate with me and Pete Anderson and Ross Diercks continue to serve in the House. Jayne and Ross are two of my closest friends, they are both democrats with a libertarian bent.

The emails have started up. I am running about a hundred a day. So far I have got the most email from the realtors at home. They are opposed to the introduction of SF 11. Subdivisions - Large Acre Parcels. This bill was amended in my Corporations Committee and now I am told that the realtors are supporting the bill. It is troublesome to have a group of folks back home mad at you. They have a pretty good email tree going on. Sometimes though they are a step behind what has happened here. I am still getting a few emails telling me to oppose introduction of the subdivision bill – that vote was two days ago.

I am predicting a relatively slow session. It has become the policy of the legislative Management Committee to try to discourage members from too many bills, especially in a budget session. This year we have about 150 house bills and less than 100 senate files. That is way down from previous years. I may be done with all the bills in the Senate Corporations Committee as early as tomorrow.