Leaders: what matters now: state legislatures magazine gathered a group of legislative leaders to talk about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Here's what they had to say.

• Position: CONVERSATIONS

CHANGES AHEAD

SL: How do you see the role of the legislature--and the legislator--changing in 21st century America?

House Minority Leader Bob Ward: We are already spending a lot more time on legislative business in Connecticut. Running for the legislature is harder to do because it's still part-time pay and approaching full-time work. Businesses don't want to give the release time anymore. And so we're having trouble getting people to serve. Yet most of us think the idea of being part-time, being able to be at a youth ball game, working at another job, and getting that closeness to people is good. But it's a serious challenge for us. House Majority Leader Rick Berg: In

North Dakota we are trying to approach our role in the legislature as a board of directors--not to get into micro managing--but to act like a big company board of directors and ask, Where are we going? Where do we want to end up? And what are the results we want? And challenge our agencies to be in line with where we're going.

House Majority Leader Alice Madden: The legislative role in Colorado has changed quite a bit over the last several years and term limits have been a big part of that. I think we will see fewer legislators who serve long enough to develop any real expertise in more than one area. You may be in the House only two years or four years, because you might be running for Senate. We rely more and more on our Legislative Council for research. The lobby has also become a more important resource. We depend on others for lots of information. When advocates or special interests supply more and more information, it could easily increase their influence.

Speaker John Richardson: It's a more active legislature in Maine because we're seeing less funding, at least the small rural states are, from the federal government. The states have had to pick up the slack and we've had to he creative about how we do it.

LOOKING AT 2006

SL: What challenges and obstacles will your legislature face in the 2006 session?

Tennessee House Majority Leader Kim McMillan: The challenge for legislatures is to continue to work through a declining ability by the federal government to help the states. I think that has been most clearly demonstrated with Medicaid. We do not feel that we're getting the help from the federal government that we need. So we are addressing it ourselves.

Senate President Steve Morris: I'm convinced that Medicaid is the biggest challenge that we face. The increases we've seen the last few years are not sustainable. If we don't get a handle on that, Medicaid could eat up every dollar in the budget.

Berg: One issue facing all of our states is globalization--the number of companies that are operating in China or India. This is from a job standpoint as well as a workforce standpoint. Hopefully our solution will be in generating more revenue through higher incomes and more jobs in this country. To restore the integrity in the legislature, the public expects us to take on those tough decisions and not just form a committee and delay them and defer them, but to make those decisions.

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