As they see it.

"While I'm out here working my ass off, he's pontificating from Hawaii?"

--California Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, in the Los Angeles Times, reacting to vacationing Governor Schwarzenegger's comment that the Legislature should be part-time because it "doesn't have enough to do."

"Federal financial arrogance is likely to get worse as deficits increase and the demand for the passage of politically popular programs increases."

--Editorial in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Intelligencer Journal on federal unfunded mandates.

"The battle for party control in state legislatures, say experts, is more intense than at any point in recent political history."

--Editorial in the Christian Science Monitor.

"The court understands that the legislature is not just a bunch of potted plants. We have a role."

--Colorado Representative Andrew Romanoff, to the Associated Press, after the state Supreme Court ruled that the governor did not have the right to appropriate the money the state received from last year's federal relief bill.

"I said he should give me the ticket, and I would pay the fine."

--South Dakota Representative Tom Van Norman, in the Rapid City Journal, on being pulled over for having an eagle feather hanging from his inside car mirror. State law prohibits dangling objects.

"Let's just say I wouldn't go looking for it again."

--Jim Ramey, Ohio's agricultural statistician, in the Cincinnati Enquirer, about pawpaw jam. Competing bills in the legislature are pitting the pawpaw against the apple as a state symbol.

"The kids are entitled to their music. They just have to turn it down. The rest of us might not like it and don't want to have to listen to it."

--Delaware Senator John C. Still III, in the Delaware State News, on his bill to fine drivers with music blaring up to $1,000.

"I don't want to show up tomorrow and be the only guy with a tie on."

--Kentucky Senator Dan Kelly, in the Kentucky Post, asking a budget conference committee panel if there was a dress code during negotiations.

Want the latest online news about federal and state public policy issues? Go to www.ncsl.org and look for the "Grasscatcher," a collection of the day's top news clippings.