Capitol Comments

CSG-WEST Discusses Constituent e-Relationships

By Mary Branham Dusenberry

State legislators can learn a thing or two about e-communication from the corporate world.

Julie Barko Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at George Washington University, brought some of that information to Western state lawmakers during The Council of State Governments-WEST Annual Legislative Training Assembly July 17 in Anchorage, Alaska.

But, Barko Germany said, much of what the corporate world is doing to build one-to-one relationships with customers comes from what elected officials have been doing for some time. Developing relationships with constituents has always been important for elected officials, she said.

“Whether in Tammany Hall or Congress today, a lot of what goes on and a lot of the success you have as elected officials depends upon how your constituents view you and the work you’re doing for their community and sometimes, on a local level, it depends very much on building those one to one relationships with people,” Barko Germany said.

Law Requires Virginia Jails to Report Foreign Inmates

In Virginia, jail officials are now required to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of all inmates not born in the U.S., regardless of their immigration status, according to The Washington Post.

The law became effective July 1 and aims to keep tabs on illegal immigrants charged with crimes, the newspaper reports.

According to ICE statistics given to the Virginia State Crime Commission, during the 2007 fiscal year, law enforcement agencies in the state made 12,073 reports to the federal agency—and those reports resulted in 694 detainers, according to The Washington Post. That’s nearly 6 percent of all the suspected illegal immigrants reported.

New report examines health reform strategies in Midwest

State strategies to contain health care costs and reform health systems are the focus of a new Midwestern Legislative Conference report, released last week in conjunction with the nonpartisan association’s four-day meeting in Rapid City, S.D.

Using case studies from each of the 11 Midwestern states, the report examines several key health care issues and highlights innovative efforts being implemented or explored in the region.

“Our nation’s health care system is ripe for transformation, innovation and reform, and as the case studies in this report show, this region and its policymakers can help lead the way,” said South Dakota Senate Assistant Majority Leader Tom Dempster, chair of the MLC.

California Helps First-Timers Buy Foreclosure Properties

California is helping first time homebuyers buy foreclosed properties—at a bargain.

The California Housing Finance Agency received $200 million to use for a program that offers below-market-rate loans for first time homebuyers in the state, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.  The special project is called the Community Stabilization Home Loan Program, and according to the newspaper, it will help an estimated 800 to 1,000 Californians purchase their first home.

The program was announced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Monday as an effort to help first time homebuyers in areas hit hardest by foreclosures.

“We have taken a number of actions to help prevent foreclosures, but we also want to address the many already-foreclosed-on homes that sit vacant in our neighborhoods today,” Schwarzenegger said in a press release on the program. “This program will not only make it easier for families to purchase their first home, but will also help stabilize neighborhoods that have homes sitting empty.  No one single effort can solve our nationwide housing crisis, but together these measures make an important difference in California's neighborhoods.”

Leadership Lessons from the Iditarod

By Mary Branham Dusenberry

Martin Buser brought a special lesson on leadership learned from participating in the Iditarod to Western state officials attending the CSG-WEST meeting in Anchorage Thursday morning: Every member of the team counts.

“Often I get asked, ‘who are your best dogs?’ Or ‘what’s your leader’s name,” Buser, a four-time Iditarod champion, said. “I say it really doesn’t matter. I don’t go as fast as my fastest dog. I simply go as fast as my slowest dog.”

Often, he said, a team can go faster if it drops the weakest members. But if you keep doing that, you eventually lose all the team members.

“One person is not going to win the race,” he said. “So from a leader’s perspective, it’s actually way more important for me to focus on what I call the bottom of the totem pole. The relative weakest member of the team determines the pace of the operation.”

Bluegrass State Wants to Go Green

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear might just be tired of the state’s bad energy wrap. In May, a report released by the Brookings Institution named the Lexington metropolitan area as having the nation’s worst carbon footprint among the top 100 largest metro areas in the country.

The Kentucky governor instead wants the state to be “the energy capital of the world” and announced his plans to make that happen Wednesday.

Kentucky ranks sixth in the nation for per capita energy usage and seventh for per capita carbon dioxide emissions, according to Business First in Louisville.

“We are all tired of seeing our hard-earned dollars going overseas to countries that, for the most part, despise us, because we need their foreign oil to run our cars and trucks and heat our homes,” Beshear said in a news release. “If ever there was a time for this country to become energy independent, that time is now. Kentucky is sitting on top of all of the resources it will take to aggressively pursue that goal.”

Southern States Reconsider ‘Tough on Crime’ Approach

By Mikel Chavers

Although the state of Oklahoma makes good use of corrections resources, Oklahoma  state Sen. Kenneth Corn believes the costs of staffing and running state corrections facilities and programs are still eating a bigger and bigger piece of the pie.

In 1991, the state was spending roughly $156 million on corrections. This year, the state will spend an estimated $506 million on corrections—an increase nobody is excited about.

Part of the increase in spending was a result of the state’s tough on crime approach, Corn said at the Southern Legislative Conference in Oklahoma City July 13. “We can lock everybody up—let’s be tough and crime; let’s put everybody in jail,” Corn said of those days.

“We’ve been passing these laws with little regard to what the financial implications are,” Corn said. And so far, no legislator is really stepping forward to change the state’s tough on  crime approach, Corn said. “We spend all of our time trying doing the political gotcha game—everybody wants to be tough on crime,” he said. “Sometimes I think it’s better for us to take a step back as lawmakers.”

Commodity Markets in Turmoil

By Mikel Chavers

Prices of grains have been rising in recent years and that could spell trouble for the South’s farmers and policymakers alike.

“Commodity markets have been on a rollercoaster for the last year to two years,” Louisiana Rep. Noble Ellington told Sunday’s audience at the Southern Legislative Conference’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee meeting.

The commodity markets are volatile, experts at the meeting agreed.

Jack Kelly, a representative from Perdue Farms said, “We in the poultry business are in a serious crisis.”

Costs for the poultry business have skyrocketed nearly $5 billion. Chicken cost 80 cents per pound in the late 1980s and early 1990s—but chicken today costs $1.20 per pound. Perdue forecasts chicken will hit $1.40 a pound by year’s end.

“We can’t have a country that’s using food to pay for our fuel,” Kelly said.

Economy Not Good, But Not Quite as Bad Either

By Mikel Chavers

Economist Todd Buchholz thinks things aren’t quite as bad as we think when it comes to the economy. No cause for celebration, for sure, but not as doom and gloom as some of the media headlines scream.

As a former director of economic policy for the White House from 1989 to 1992, he says today’s recession just isn’t as bad as some the U.S. has experienced in the past.

“Things are stagnant but we are certainly not falling off a cliff like in the ’82 recession and certainly not like the Great Depression,” Buchholz told an audience of Southern legislators Saturday at the Southern Legislative Conference’s Annual Meeting in Oklahoma City. “As long as the paychecks go out, we won’t fall off a cliff.”

In the last recession of 2000 and 2001, the Federal Reserve hiked rates too much, OPEC tightened the noose and the value of the Euro fell too far, Buchholz said.

Southern Legislators Discuss Better Ag Education Programs, Community Colleges

By Mikel Chavers

In 10th grade, James Woodard was heading down the wrong path fast.

"But I had a dynamic teacher in our ag program that year," he said. As a young man without a plan, he was inspired by the teacher .

Then in 1987, he became an agriculture teacher in a Georgia high  school. But Georgia's agriculture program was in trouble -- and perhaps heading down the wrong path fast -- just like Woodard back in high school. As a young, ambitious teacher, Woodard was anxious to jumpstart Georgia's program.

"As I began looking around to other states I was very jealous of what they were doing," Woodard told an Agriculture and Rural Development Committee session at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Legislative Conference in Oklahoma City July 12.