When a
seat in the state legislature opened up in 1996, some friends persuaded me to run for the office, and I won. I had been
warned, before taking office, that state politics lacks the glamour of its Washington counterpart; one labors largely in
obscurity, mostly on topics that mean a great deal to some but that the average man or woman on the street can safely
ignore (the regulation of mobile homes, say, or the tax consequences of farm equipment depreciation). Nonetheless, I
found the work satisfying, mostly because the scale of state politics allows for concrete results-an expansion of health
insurance for poor children, or a reform of laws that send innocent men to death row-within a meaningful time frame