LEGISLATURE PREVIEW

Yes, it's the Sunday before the session starts, which means a good chunk of the New Mexican is devoted to previewing the Legislature.

My major contributions are a look at upcoming political drama and my annual "citizen's guide" to the Legislature, in which I talk about all the trouble regular people have trying to attend the session -- parking, weird schedules, tiny committee hearing rooms, etc. And did I mention parking?

You can find these stories and more on the session on The New Mexican's new 2009 Legislative Session page, which you should immediately bookmark. You'll find stories from our staff and the Associated Press on the session and New Mexico politics, videos from KOB TV, feeds from this blog, Kate Nash's Green Chile Chatter and our dynamic Twitter thing.

Plus, there's a video Kate put together, using me as "talent" (hey, quiet there in the Peanut Gallery!) doing a tour of the Roundhouse. We shot nearly all of it on the day after Thanksgiving and you'll notice that I point out the video cameras in the Senate gallery that were intended for Webcasting floor sessions. Those cameras, as loyal readers know, have since been taken down. Perhaps the Senate leaders who decided not to fund the Webcasting weren't as agreeable to appearing on camera as I was.

By the way, the music for our tour video was from a song written by myself and my brother Jack Clift called "God's Gold Ring." It was recorded about 10 years ago by a group we called The Grizzley Souvenirs, which included Jack and me plus Tom Adler on banjo and Al Faaet on percussion.