Now that the Aughts, Preteens or whatever you want to call the previous decade is over, we can finally move on to the 2010 Legislative Session. As I stated in my previous column, the session starts early this year due to elections.

Actually, it began Jan. 12.

For the Shelby County Delegation, preparations are complete, at least from a pre-filing standpoint, and we are set to go. As of right now, there is no pressing local legislation to speak of. Although, that is always subject to change as the session wears on. New challenges and new bills always come up during the session.

However, each legislator has their own legislation that they are either sponsoring or co-sponsoring. A few of those that you may want to keep an eye out for are:

Both Sen. Steve French and Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin are working on the forefront of legislation to create charter schools in Alabama.

Rep. Cam Ward will once again be fighting to give the Ethics Commission subpoena power, as well as introducing legislation on economic development and campaign finance reform.

As in previous years, Rep. Jim McClendon will be pushing to ban texting and handheld GPS while driving a motor vehicle.

Rep. Greg Canfield hopes that we can adopt his Rolling Reserve Budget Act, which will be bought up again this year.

He is also introducing a bill to provide for the establishment and tax relief of medical savings accounts.

Among other bills, Sen. Hank Erwin will be introducing the Tim Tebow Act, which allows for home or church schooled children to participate in public K-12 extracurricular activities.

Granted, this only begins to skim the surface, as there are sure to be hundreds of bills filed over the next few months.

We invite you to keep up with all of the action through our weekly blog each Friday afternoon starting Jan. 15. The blog can be accessed through our Web site at Shelbycolo.com.