As part of my job as Texas Press Association president I appoint a slate of chairmen to steer our committees. Earlier this summer we asked you to volunteer for a committee, and now those committees have been filled, the chairmen are in place and the really serious part of the remaining association year is ahead of us.

This year we retooled some of the committees and more clearly defined their charges, and I believe this is going to go a long way in establishing a method that will better serve our association membership.

But, obviously, it is going to be successful only to the extent the chairmen and committee people participate, share ideas and volley back and forth with each other.

It will not work if we just show up flat-footed at the midwinter conference in January for our first round of committee meetings. It takes an open dialog before the meeting to get a handle on what issues are most pressing.

So to help the committees start that dialog we have created individual committee list servers to give everyone on the committee a long distance connection with each member. Their interaction will be immediate and allow for the exchange of ideas.

While all the committees will address specific issues facing our organization and each is very important, the Legislative Grassroots Action Committee, which also works very closely with the Texas Daily Newspaper Association/TPA Legislative Advisory Committee, is one of the most important.

The grassroots action committee was the brainchild of TPA past president Willis Webb. Willis came to me in my first year on the board as treasurer. It was at the summer West Texas Press Association convention in Lubbock and he laid out his plan for the committee and its function.

His intention was to have the treasurer serve as the chairman of that committee each year and after four years, from that point on, all officers would have been through that committee as chairman. That would ensure that whenever the Legislature met, whether in a regular session or a special one, that the president of our association will have had experience in the inner workings of the officials in Austin.

Somewhere along the line we got off that schedule, but things worked well anyway. Richard Stone did a good job of heading up that committee for the past several years and in working with the joint LAC gathering.

TPA treasurer Terry Collier of the Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post is chairing this year’s grassroots action team and will be joined by committee members representing all geographic areas of the state. Terry will alert the committee members and they, in turn, will fan out across their particular regions calling other members to arms to contact legislators and other newspaper folks to press a point with the Legislature.

One of the most important things we will face this session will be the school finance bill that was passed last summer that will, if left as is, negatively impact newspapers. The coming regular session will give us a chance to present our case in a last chance to get the measure changed before it takes effect in 2008.

The LAC will be meeting about every other week beginning in January and the members will set a course of action and prioritize key bills. TPA will send a periodic bill watch to all members to keep you informed of what’s going on in Austin. Or you can take a proactive approach and check the online bill watch on the TPA home page regularly for legislative alerts and updates.

I encourage every member to get involved in this session. Your idea may be the one that saves the day for us. Let the members know what you think and make contact with your legislators when you are called upon to do so.