As they see it.

• Position: Quotations by state legislators - Quotation

"I have no illusions. It's a big job. I intend to take it one day at a time."

--North Carolina House Speaker Joe Hackney to the Associated Press on being named speaker.

"I think there's an unfunded mandate here."

--Utah Representative Glenn Donnelson to the Deseret Morning News on why he is calling for Congress to suspend the May 2008 implementation of the REAL ID Act and repeal it.

"I've already learned in the Legislature that what you spend a lot of time doing is fixing what you did the year before."

--Kansas Senator Marci Francisco to the Lawrence Journal-World at the beginning of the new session.

"I don't think achievement is contagious. But I do think that kids are very smart and when they recognize that the kids next to them know how to read, they'll learn how to do that. Peer pressure."

--David Holdzkom, assistant superintendent of evaluation and research for the Wake County, N.C., school system to USA Today about school districts using a child's socioeconomic status, rather than race, to help determine what school they attend.

"I never saw a blackberry in my life that I didn't eat."

--Maine Representative Stan Gerzofsky to the Portland Press Herald about the use of computers by lobbyists to...