This week is our first in the Capitol with time spent getting offices organized, testing phone lines, updating data bases, addresses, and generally shifting into the mode of being away from home for the next 90 days. I will come back on the weekends usually arriving Friday evening and leaving early on Monday morning.
The legislative website has a wealth of information about the issues, personnel, and current events. You can access this at; www.legislature.org/legsrv-legisportal/index.do, This path will allow you to track bills, even listen in on debate. You may also use my website, www.johngrange.net, I post all of my weekly updates and have links for other sites of interest. Isn’t technology wonderful?
I have three dates assigned for legislative pages and they are; Monday January 22d two (2) Tuesday, February 13th four (4), and Thursday March 1st, (4). This is an opportunity for our students to come to Topeka and witness the process in which they will tour the building, meet the governor, and I will treat them to lunch and they get a chance to visit with me and ask any question they want. Call me if you are interested.
I really enjoy having pages and to make it meaningful for the students I ask they be interested in the political process, old enough and mature enough to absorb what is going on. My only other requirement is that each student write me a note about the experience and describe what they learned, what they liked, or did not like, and share their experience with others. In effect I ask for you to critique the process and me. I think a letter to the school newspaper would be excellent.
If you are in the building please stop by and say hello, please give me a little notice that you are coming I will do what I can to arrange time to see you. Last year I tried to do a shadow program where you can come and spend the day with me and see how things work. Hopefully this year I will be able to do a better job getting schedules and people coordinated to make the effort meaningful.
The shadow program gives you the opportunity to sit in on committee meetings, meet other legislators, and understand why the process is sometimes tedious and painful. I have been told there are two things you do not want to watch, making sausage and the legislature in session. The end product is usually better than the process would indicate.
Next week I intend to send out a list of legislative issues and agenda items that we expect to be high priority and will receive the most attention. If you have an issue that is of interest to you let me know and I will keep you posted on progress.
My new office location is 411-S which is just above the old supreme court room. My phone number is 296-785-7655, grange@house.state.ks.us. Let me know what you think. Rep. Grange
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