As they see it.

"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 reach members during floor debates.

"We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today, but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion."

--Michigan Court of Appeals Judge William Murphy to the Detroit Free Press about a ruling that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

"When you get married, the state doesn't make you profess your love. It shouldn't make you profess your hate in order to get a divorce."

--New Jersey Lawyer David Perry Davis to the Star Ledger about a new law there that allows couples to get a much quicker divorce if they declare they have "irreconcilable differences."