Thoughts on Blogging the Legislature and the Gov's Bill on Bail

There are a lot of unfinished posts backing up.  As I go into my last three weeks here I have lots of thoughts about the legislature, about how it works (and doesn't), about particular legislators, and what ways make sense to report on these things.  I'm reluctant to write "gotcha" articles because you could 'get' anyone over something.  I'm more interested in the larger context of why people behave the way they do.  And I'm more interested in getting more regular people taking advantage of all the information that actually is available through BASIS (the legislative website), through Gavel to Gavel, and through various news media. 

A key issue is how to take the huge amount of available information and make it useful to people who have full time jobs, families, and simply not enough time to keep up with everything. (Actually, full time viewers like I am this session don't have time to keep up with even a fraction.) 


With that said, I'm just going to throw a out context-less letter from the Attorney General to House Judiciary Chair Jay Ramras to take up the Governor's bill on changing conditions of bail, HB 324.  Many Republicans are supportive of Ralph Samuels in the Republican primary against Gov. Parnell.  This is apparently one of the reasons for Republican foot dragging and sniping over Gov. Parnell's agenda.   Rep. Ramras is running for Lt. Gov in November and if he won, he'd be the running mate of the Republican gubernatorial candidate. (Current Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell will be Ramras' opponent in the primary.) 

The letter came from Atty-General designee (if he did finally get confirmed, I missed it) Daniel Sullivan whom Ramras bathed in compliments when the confirmation vote came up in the Judiciary committee.  The letter is dated Feb. 3 and HB 324 was referred to Judiciary then.  It was first on the agenda on Friday, March 19.  I'll try to get to the meeting today to see what's going on.  If you are interested you can listen on Gavel to Gavel.  Here's the letter.  (You can double click the image to enlarge it.)