Normally I run in the Boise foothills to clear my head. My dog runs ahead and we wind our was along the ridge tops for 40 minutes, no headphones, just the wind and sound of feet on the trail and the dog's collar jangling. While my feet pound, my mind plays and I think a lot of strategy. It seems to be one of the rare times I do one simple thing uninterrupted, no multi tasking or talking or typing for more than 40 minutes at a time. So yes, my mind just plays. I run through issue debate, letters to constituents, ways to use legislation to solve problems, how to fix electrical wiring in the house or the best way to have a conversation with a colleague.
Like a million other Idahoans, I can't easily run right now. The trails are alternating between treacherously icy, deep slushy and simply muddy. So I've tagged along with my partner Carol to the gym. There in the gym I've found the eliptical. I cover the lights and dials and control panel with a shirt or towel, put on fast dance music and run uphill for thirty minutes until I can't run more. I go no where. It feel though like I travel through the time of the songs, the lyrics or style or beat. But my mind doesn't play. I am stuck in place with my feet spinning, sweating and working hard, but I get no where.
The legislature convenes tomorrow morning. It will be my first day serving in the 35 member Senate with my new Republican and Democratic colleagues. I am struck this year by how many of the issues (aside from the over whelming issue of the economy) are the same issues we have struggled over the last four years I've served in the legislature.
The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry is trying again to get Idaho families to pay its taxes. Mike Moyle is again refusing to give local people to power to vote to tax themselves to fund better bus service, trolleys, light rail or other services to solve local problems. Republicans in the House are again lining up to oppose standards to ensure that day care centers around the state are safe and have solid educational content so kids are not just parked in front of a TV, left alone or confined to one crowded room all day, week after week.
The process and its two year election cycle doesn't seem to produce much thinking ahead. It doesn't produce much cooperative planning or strategy to solve problems, just a lot of gut reaction timed to play out in elections. It feels sometimes a little like, as a legislature, ours has turned into an extreme body that runs in place year after year, sweating but getting no where.