The institutional shift of government from the official business of the Legislature to the campaign season occurred while I was away on family vacation. When I left three weeks ago, the exhaustion and discussion from the 2010 legislative sessions was still palpable and filled private conversations among legislators and lobbyists alike. Upon my return, campaign season is in full gear and the session is a distant memory.

As the Legislature struggled to complete the work of the 2010 regular and special sessions, lobbyists and advocates representing the full range of interest groups–left, right, business, labor, environment, banks, credit unions, oil companies, small business, realtors, cities, counties, restaurants, children, mental health, nurses, physicians, teachers, architects, landscape professionals, think tanks of all sorts–hovered outside the Chamber doors waiting for brief moments to chat with legislators about budgets, issues, ideas, proposals and policies. They were deeply appreciative of five minutes of our time in the hall to discuss a bill or to count votes on a controversial proposal. No one discussed or even implied discussing campaigns at all. Everyone was ‘all business’ about the public policies at hand.

Now, the cycle turns. Nearly every day interest groups release their “ratings” of legislators on their issues. The “ratings” vary widely but have the common theme of measuring how the 147 legislators voted on the agenda of the various interest groups. Questionnairs from nearly every group fill the email inbox and require incumbents and challengers alike to write down various policy positions. From those ratings and questionnairs, endorsements for re-election show up on Facebook, Twitter and press releases. And frequently those endorsements are attached to a check.

A month after the session, a vast majority of the 147 legislators–myself included–spend hours per week or more calling many of those same lobbyists, advocates and community organizers asking for financial contributions and endorsements for the 2010 campaign season.

We raise money from the advocates and lobbyists–and hopefully real people living real lives who believe in our positions and values–to campaign and to purchase campaign material from TV, radio, billboards, mailings, yard signs to political consultant insight.

While money is critical, knocking on 15,000 doors in a state House race is actually what pushes you over the edge, in my view. That’s the beauty of serving in the state rather than national level. When you speak personally and directly with a voter at a farmer’s market, or on a doorstep and discuss a policy priority while she holds her child’s hand, no amount of advertising or campaign material is going to change how she views you. That’s the beauty of a true democracy. That’s where your idealism shines and your values about good government and making a difference remain invigorated. That is where your belief that we can together build a more engaged government comes alive. It’s where you feel alive politically.

In terms of money, however, the state is but a tiny microcosm of how unreal Congress has become with respect to the cost of running for office. Imagine what it must be like to raise thousands of dollars per DAY in order to raise the funds necessary to withstand a tough race for Congress.

Money in politics is inevitable and part of our history and not inherently evil, of course. But surely the ideals of our democracy, the values of our founding fathers and mothers, the hope of a republican form of government, means that we can do so much better than we do today.

And it’s hard to imagine that this is the ideal form of how our democracy could work. Surely, at the least, we could shorten our campaign season in some fashion such as parliamentary systems model. Public financing of campaigns still seems like an untested and distant policy prospect and, even then, I wonder about the legitimate First Amendment rights of individuals (as opposed to corporations as individual entities–I’m with Obama on that one). Perhaps we could at least begin with judicial races in our state and determine the viability of the larger model. I truly don’t know and struggle with the policy implications on all sides.

We as legislators vote on legislation impacting interest groups and then days, weeks or months later rely upon those same interests for donations for campaigns. In Congress, the boundaries are even less elegant. I believe that for most elected officials and advocates alike, on a personal and political level, the cycle of political life is awkward at best.

Let’s have the courageous honesty to acknowledge that as a democracy we are so much more than what we’ve become.

Your partner in service,

Reuven.